You missed a great opportunity to explain that not everyone who's been a victim of gaslighting is necessarily unintelligent or unaware. Many people who have experienced gaslighting were victims as children, leaving them no alternative but to believe their abusive caregiver at a very young age.
bump. This is me. what are common effects of having this happen to you at young age? btw, you can gaslight anyone, the farther you take them away from the truth, the more you have to garner their trust though...
True- and many others experience this from a significant other/someone they love and really want to trust, hence the emphasis on relationships in both psych literature and this video. Not necessarily just a stupid person.
Do you think it might start with parents not reacting appropriately to various situations, like abuse is normal, or like my mom told me that if we were better kids my dad wouldn't drink so much when he was an alcoholic before we were born?
@Catherine That's certainly part of it. For example, I grew up in an abusive household where any protest against how they treated us was met with insistence that what they did was either normal, our fault, or simply made up. It wouldn't just be "I do this because of you," it would be things designed to make us feel guilty for just being there, like "I wouldn't have such high blood pressure if it wasn't for you," or "I gave up my career for you," making us more likely to just accept whatever they did. My parents would often say I deserved what happened, no matter how much it hurt or how spontaneous the abuse was, or that I had no right to complain because they fed and clothed me (things every parent should be doing by default -- IMHO, you don't deserve a trophy for simply not being a trash human). Another thing my parents would do is say things like, "If you think this is abuse, go talk to (friend/relative from an even worse household)," or "I don't abuse you, because I've never put you in the hospital or raped you." Alternatively, they would just flip the allegation: "The way you talk to me is abuse." "Fix your tone, that's assault." Another way to flip the guilt was to say things like, "You're out of control," or "What is wrong with you?", basically insinuating whoever they were addressing was making things up or couldn't tell fantasy from reality... and yeah, they'd really use the word "fantasy". They would often change their story, too, making it harder to tell reality from fiction. For a long time, I genuinely questioned my own memories and motivations for feeling what I felt and remembering what I did because they did such a consistent job of making me doubt myself. There are times even today when I hear my siblings basically rehearsing excuses to themselves so they can believe anything, from a simple disagreement to an act of outright abuse, was entirely their fault, and some of them are already adults! It wasn't until I started going to friends' houses more often and listening to stories about their own childhoods that I realized how wrongly my parents had behaved.
@@StargazerSkyscraper wow! I am sorry that happened to you. Many times I wished they would beat me so people could see the pain I was in. I think emotional abuse is evil. I had the good old Catholic guilt on me. I begged my mom to divorce my dad, i begged her to let me go live on my aunt and uncles farm but she would not consider it because they would think her a failure and judge her. I begged her to sign a peice of paper saying she threw my sister and I could go on welfare and I could focus on high school. I was so afraid to run away or confide in a grown up. I did have friends whose parents loved me and valued my presence. That is what saved me. I remember sending them a picture of my daughter and I when she was born, thanking them for saving my life, basically. My parents are dead now and I got all the money my mom saved because she worked her ass off as a phychiatric nurse( no joke) while my dad sat on his ass. I do have a lot of respect for her in many ways. She was depressed, overworked and majorly stressed but she should have sought help. I could go on and on. It feels good to vent this crap though.
I always hate the “look at the movement of someone’s eyes to tell they’re lying” schtick. As a person with nystagmus, my eyes aren’t displaying certain movements because I am lying, it’s because of undeveloped eye muscles that I was born with.
If you're talking about the ocular motor control thing that he mentioned, then you're misunderstanding. That is a highly sensitive method of analyzing eye movements. It has nothing to do with "he looked up and to the left so that means he's accessing a memory" or "he looked up and to the right so he's accessing the creative side of the brain" or anything like that.
I think for Eastern cultures they look at the movements of muscles around the eyes that show a subconscious expression, rather than what direction you're looking in.
Great video overall, but I've got to call you out on one thing. Most victims are not at all unintelligent or even unaware. In fact I would argue that most of them are not. There are a cocktail of factors that may leave someone highly susceptible to gaslighting and unintelligence is only one of them. Insecurity, low self-esteem, a lack of confidence, and, ironically, pride are far more potent conteibutors to someone's vulnerability to being bamboozled.
Thank you for this...that really bothered me. That's not even a matter of debate or opinion, it is genuinely, factually incorrect. Intelligence has nothing to do with being a victim of gaslighting the same way it has nothing to do with depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, ADHD or literally anything else. No one is so smart or you have to dumb enough to "fall for this." It just requires being a human being with emotions, feelings, and an investment in the person gaslighting them, whether a significant other, boss/colleague (that's a big one by the way), a friend, or a parent (another major, overlooked and common gaslighter). No one no matter how intelligent wants to believe their dad or their husband are actually treating them this way or manipulating them. This our dad. He loves us. He wouldn't...I'm sure there's an explanation. I know my husband and I'm not stupid, and I know you think he is manipulating me but I know he loves me, and our kids, and you don't. You're overreacting and I know this person. That's the thought process and all of the emotions and high stakes and investment involved with people we love or know or have known our whole lives, so even the most intelligent of us will dismiss it, allow it, work around it, because not only is the alternative too painful and has any number of consequences, none of us want to believe that someone we trust would really do that. And no human on this planet with normal emotional responses, feelings, empathy, love etc in them wouldn't be potentially or even likely a victim of this no matter how intelligent they are in any definition of the term. That's incredibly important for people to know. Thanks for bringing this up, it really took away from what this video has to offer people.
Thank you, that also bothered me; I know it's an old video and hopefully KB doesn't still stand by that statement, but it still sucks to hear. I'd suffered abuse as a child and I had super low self-esteem at the time I met my abuser. Still do, but that's beside the point. I consider myself to be a fairly intelligent and analytical person, and I wasn't unaware of anything. I was also diagnosed with several mental disorders when I was 10, so I'm always looking at my behavior under a microscope. My therapist can tell you that throughout the duration of the relationship I was trying to reconcile what I know was true with my abuser's version of events. Vulnerable does not equal unaware in the slightest, and insinuating that the victims of abuse unintelligent and unaware is victim-blaming, and makes it even harder for us to speak out.
I think a lot of these comments are missing the second part--'unaware.' You have to fail to recognize that you are being gaslit in order to be gaslit, otherwise you're questioning the alternative version the abuser is using.
Not just spouses bud. Any abuser. My mother gaslit me constantly. To the point of trying to convince me that since I had PTSD and an anxiety disorder, I "couldn't trust [my] perception of reality". Like she actually said that. But previously had been more subtle, just countering every one of my memories, no matter how mundane. Trying to get me to believe that I couldn't trust my own memory. In general tho she fit all the shit you mentioned. I still have issues around this, even after therapy. I am constantly recording everything (even if it's just journaling), and any time I misremember something (happens to the best of us), I get _super_ anxious. I'll even start dissociating sometimes. (I managed to wise up to her bullshit as I got older, but yea.)
It's funny -- that type of abuse can actually cause PTSD. Following my mother's constant gaslighting growing up, I was at one point fully convinced I was schizofrenic or at least suffered from paranoid delusions. Look up C-PTSD, I think you'll find it an interesting read.
Do you know why she was trying to convince you that you had PTSD? Was it Munchausens by proxy? This is a bizarre thing to try and gaslight somebody about.
I used to never lie. Now my personal rule for lying is: If it's none of the person's business, I allow myself to lie to them so they will drop the subject.
I found out that you don't need to actually lie for that. Just say something slightly related but kinda random and they for some reason will stop talking about it without being upset.
My comment is the highest rated comment in the history of the Knowing Better channel PERIOD. Other comments and youtube algorithms have been framed in a way to make my comment look diminished. NO ONE had the correct numbers because the Knowing Better channel doesn't put any top comment data out.
Bobby There was no period after the word period, that's just the way media reports it. Than217 does have some comments coming up soon though that will also have periods in the correct place as well, not only that but exclamation points as well. They will actually be the best exclamation points this comment section has seen, some people were saying, maybe the best that ever were, we'll see, but don't count on fake news like Bobby to report on it.
I despise lie detectors because it relies on data that has way too many variables and should NEVER be used for interrogation. 1. False readings on simple questions like, "Are you wearing clothes?" 2. Dysautonomias. I live with a genetic disorder called Neurocardiogenic Syncope. The symptoms are excessive sweating, tachycardia, sudden adrenaline spikes, sudden blood pressure and heart rate spikes, and sudden bp and hr drops--resulting in fainting--which, as he stated in the video, is EVERYTHING it monitors, at least in the standard versions. 3. DYSAUTONOMIA IS NOW KNOWN TO BE COMMON AND MISDIAGNOSED. All caps for those who faint AND because this is terrible for lie detectors. *Side note: Fainting is bad! Don't accept it for the rest of your life! See a doctor! My caps are for you to see it, not because I'm angry at anyone. I never want anyone to go through the hell I had to trailblaze. 4. It's easy to fail or "cheat" a detector because the situation makes you nervous, you're worried it'll say you're lying about an obvious truth, or you know how to sweat it up and make yourself anxious to purposefully fail every question. I could go on about biological factors and medical disorders (especially dysautonomias), but this post is too long anyway. Happy to answer questions!
@@Josep_Hernandez_LujanI'm coming at this from the angle of a pharmacy student and not a doctor or anyone with any formal medical training or knowledge about lie detectors. That said, I would imagine from my point of view anything that lowered the physiological response that the body has towards any of those factors could be enough to cheat it or make it inconclusive. This is yet another reason why these are bad factors to use to measure whether someone is lying or not.
I thought about this while I was watching. I thought, "But I sweat a lot anyway..." at least in hands and feet. I have POTS among many less specific dysautonomia symptoms. Skin temperature is highly variable both in degree and the reason to trigger. Sweating issues can be a part of diabetes. High heart rate is normal for any stress. I'm not confident authorities would account for natural variation in how people respond to stress. Dysautonomia is generic enough that even without a dysautonomia-specific condition you can still have mild to moderate dysautonomic symptoms in response to the stress of an unrelated condition--your autonomic system CONTROLS your stress responses, period. It's crazy to dismiss something as a lie using such unreliable markers.
My high school girlfriend had me convinced that her parents were dead and that she had been adopted by her aunt and uncle. It was complete bs. I still don’t understand why she came up with that
The standard cultural reference these days is "There are only four lights!" - but there's also a particularly well-written and astutely-perceived account of how gaslighting works from the early 1600s. Shakespeare covers it very well in Taming of the Shrew.
It really sucks when you're telling the truth, but everyone calls you a liar anyway. I was friends with a huge celebrity before she was famous. There's even photos of us from before. But when I tell people now, they call me a liar. When I show them the photos they say its PhotoShop. I'll show them screenshots of Facebook messages and they say it's obviously a fake account. As if celebrities aren't real people and therefore didn't exist before they were famous. Now I don't even tell anyone I know her and just say that I'm a huge fan of hers.
@James Passmore I'm not saying who, but I will say that she's trended on Twitter twice in the past week for two different reasons. Also, we haven't talked since 2014, when her career really took off. So it's not like I'm saying I'm bestfriends with a huge star. We were never "bestfriends". I just happened to have been friends with someone who became a celebrity.
My best friend eventually was promoted into a powerful position in the administration of an important university. He gave me tips on improving my resume, and gave me a personal letter of recommendation for positions in other institutions. I never asked and he never offered help to get a position in his university [which he probably could have done easily]. We were both into professional ethics, I didn't try to use the relationship then or since; the letter was a factual and fairly bland evaluation of a project that I had done.
i went to the same elementary school as eminem (yes, at the same time that he would have been there. no, i have no idea if i was ever even in the same room with him). i feel your pain.
@@FoggyBadger lmao "I'm friends with a celebrity who trends on twitter but I don't want to say their name on a youtube comment" we can see why no one believes you
Anyone else grew up in a gaslighting house? What effect did it have on u? It made me very motivated to be independent from my parents. And I write stuff down and save it (usually on my phone) all the time. Like if something slightly noteable happened in my life, I would write it down. As, to preserve the truth. Also, school was an escape from home. Additionally, I have essentially become a "stone". As in, almost Nothing bothers me at all. Plus, there are many other things, but its tough to tell if its a symptom of gaslighting.
I was in a relationship with a gaslighter. It motivated me to protect myself from manipulative people in the future. It also made me very adept at spotting other gaslighters.
It made me unsure of who I am and convinced me that my memory must be so terrible that I must just be stupid overall. I'm in college now and I self-sabotage myself so I don't get that good of grades in my classes because deep down I still believe that I'm stupid. I don't try to preserve the truth, or what happened through pictures and other recordings. It's less painful when someone else doesn't believe it if it never existed in the first place. It's less painful to bend my narrative to my mom's when she gaslights me and doubts me if I never developed a narrative in the first place.
Telling everyone that you can't be gaslit unless you're somewhat unintelligent or unaware is like effectively telling your whole audience they're immune to gaslighting because almost no one would consider themselves stupid and unaware.
Trump couldn't gaslight an entire country of well-informed individuals. That he succeeded in '16, and nearly did it again only last year, speaks volumes of how the "information age" is a deceptive term to describe the world we live in. Between flat Earth, antivax, coronavirus denialism, red scare, there are plenty of arguments to say that yes, there is a relevant degree of stupidity that contributes to being able to gaslight the masses. Regardless of how each person feels about their own intellect
the term "gas-lighting" comes from a 1938 British psychological thriller "Gas Light" by Patrick Hamilton in which a sadistic husband tries to convince his wife that she is crazy by various tricks. So, "gaslighting" is not simply lying, it is lies told to get you to doubt your own convictions.
In any case, all versions show an abusive husband convincing his astute but timid wife that she is insane. That's a little different than the description here, which is basically just a systematic campaign of lies. Gaslighting in the original, strictest usage would only apply to a systematic campaign of lies designed to make you doubt your sanity, not just designed to change your mind.
@JNP Films : You still could argue that Plog and Edgerton got the phrase from the movie they saw in their earlier years. So either the 1941 or 44 version. It would make sense as in - from what source should they come up with this phrase otherwise? (On the other hand - many people believe that HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubriks Space Oddysse is a play on the IBM-coorporation - as HAL is one letter back in the alphabet. But later - Arthur C.Clark the author of the book - explained that it was an acronym for "Heuristic ALgorithm") So it might have other reasons.
worth mentioning:doesnt Need to be straight up lies. a sociopath may wont deny the 100 times he or she called you Beautiful in the lovebombing Phase, but then will declare he meant it on a purely aesthetic Level, not that you are attractive or anything. Any more or less bogus Explanation on why what you think you heard wasnt what was meant. purposefully missleading.
I had a sort of encounter with this as I am said to have a Traumatic Brain Injury from a late Oct.1999. I was a bit manipulated by family & "Friends". Maybe some of this was gaslighting. I was a bit slow in the year(s) after, but I finally grad college in '09. Aloha from Waianae.
Necroing this to say that it's often following a very similar structure, which even while you believe you're being honest, you might be coming off as deceitful. E.g. Someone gets mad at you for not putting something in the sink. You didn't do it because the sink was full and you wanted to make sure the other person didn't end up knocking an unwieldy stack on the floor. Them: I'm mad you can't put your dishes in the sink. You: It's not what you think. Them: it is. You: You're making a big deal out of something meaningless. Them: I just wish you'd make my job easier. You: That's exactly what I was trying to do, I didn't put it in there because the sink was already full. Them: That's not what I asked you to do. You: I was just trying to think ahead for your sake. Them: (Silence) You: Look would you rather have had to clean a massive pile of dishes? And now you can see that this more or less looks extremely like gaslighting based on what was in the video, but you didn't lie, you genuinely tried to help by thinking ahead. A better question is how to approach the situation of miscommunication and not appear to gaslight others. I don't see a good answer to this question myself. You could ask others to be more trusting, but that invites those who would abuse them, you could ask them to be more mature, but that's never helped anyone before just look at toxic masculinity... Or perhaps you just have to communicate more on your own. I think at some point it's more than a little excessive to need to ask, for example, is it okay to put this dish next to the sink because the sink is too full EVERY time you're trying to make a value decision. Although, to fix the issue, you could just do the dishes in this case, but sometimes you can't be expected to do it all.
I don't really see it, you must be misreading comments or projecting what you expect onto them. I've seen your comments before and you have a tenancy to do this, which I'm telling you because I care about you and want to see you improve.
This is spot on! Thank you for making it possible for people who haven't experienced gas lighting to understand. The one thing I would add is that the victim of gas lighting, over a long period of time, loses their emotional and mental stability.
My favorite is when people try to lie about how past events or say remember you were looking for something like this you thought it would be a good fit or whatever.
Lies for attention or sympathy such as big fish tales may actually be an honest remembrance. Human memory for fine detail is not the good typically. Especially not over long period of time and many a recounting. Someone can be not lying while also not telling the truth simply because of our tendency to unconsciously distort truth over time to make for a better story. It's the one thing we do that other animals don't do in some capacity after all (tell each other stories). It's always good to remember that someone may believe they are being both entirely truthful and factual.
5 лет назад
He made a video about this very thing before, but it doesn't matter much, because when people talk about attention lies, it's usually a whole made-up event.
The thing about the “alternative facts” line is that people often use that to falsely accuse YOU of gaslighting them. It’s because articles about gaslighting often use the phrase “deny your reality”, which implies that each of us has our own reality (ie alternative facts) that is equally valid and which no one is entitled to question
9:00 _"So the main goal of gaslighting is to get the person to question their own perception of reality and accept yours, thus giving you more power."_ Does this remind anyone else organized religion or is it just me?
Forgive them for they know not what they do....knock and the door will be opened. Seek and you will find. If you truly read the bible, and study it you can figure it out for yourself. Organized religion isnt a good example of reality. How many people do you trust?
almost all types of drug withdrawal causes excessive sweating and several drugs withdrawal symptoms cause tachycardia and blood pressure changes, so if someone is in prison because of some drugs related offence, which is a significant portion of the people in prison, and they're keeping off the drugs, wouldn't they be more likely to fail the lie detector test than if they actually kept taking their drugs ... I'm a little surprised that you say they actually use this to determine parole or probation in some places
Slight topic shift, but I had a teacher once threaten to out me for plagiarism because my essay was 'too good for you to have written,' then when I proved I hadn't plagiarized it, give me a failing grade on the assignment because it 'was terrible and didn't even cover the basics.'
I didn’t even realize that it wasn’t a well known term until recently or that people were misusing it. I had always thought that it was a commonly used term for the systematic lies in abusive relationships.
As someone who's been the victim of gaslighting...I'm not sold that that is what Trump is doing specifically. I don't like the man, and I don't agree with him, but if holding this specific behavior up as gaslighting is acceptable then we should hold up Obama as well, he did the exact same things. But then, I didn't like him or agree with him either. That said...gaslighting does not require the victim to be unintelligent. I kinda feel that comment was more politically motivated. "Oh...only dumb people can get gaslighted that's why they voted for Trump. You're not dumb so you're okay." Most gaslighting takes place over a long period of time, slowly wearing down the victim's sanity and grasp of reality. It can take years before the effects really set in and you end up doubting your own memory even 10 seconds after an event. It was so bad for me that I started recording conversations just to prove to myself they happened. Victims of gaslighting often also show signs of depression as the gaslighting progresses, becoming withdrawn, scared to speak or emote at all because if they do anything it will be twisted against them, or they will be told they are "overreacting" being "overemotional" or "acting crazy". I also just want to add one more thing. If you know anyone in a relationship who has become more irritable or withdrawn while thier SO has become more happy and outgoing....this could be a sign. Gaslighters feed on their control, they get a high off of it. They will actively work to charm and manipulate others into agreeing with them that their SO is the bad one, the abusive one, the crazy one. Just...keep an eye out. You could really save someone someday.
TRUMP FOREVER judging by your name, I’d say you had major political shift in the last 5 days or you’re a troll who was too lazy to make a second account haha
Fellinux No, you said “What kind of lies did Obama tell?” And then I pointed out some of the verifiably recorded lies he told. Any more questions, children?
"Thanks for the sweater grandma." and "yes, this taste delicious" right next to each other implies you not only don't like the sweater, but that you don't like having your grandmother force you to eat it. You should be ashamed, she spent all year knitting you that meal!
I once lied to my mum and told her i loved some desert she cooked once. I over sold it and she thought it was my favorite. So roughly five years later after having this desert at regular intervals i finally couldn't stomach and told the truth. You right it absolutely blew up in my face.
I like that you say that their goal is to make people not believe their own eyes and ears, but the Trump administration at this point is literally saying "Don't believe what you see and hear" They skipped all of the intricate steps.
CNN is infotainment, while the FOX-GOP-TEA-NRA Channel is purely political propaganda. At one point I tried triangulating for the truth. I watched both CNN and FOX thinking that "the truth is out there," but in vain. That's like watching different versions/reboots of Star Trek [or any other print or movie story line] to determine which fiction is real, what futility!
Omg I remember him saying “no my crowd was the biggest” but I never realized (cuz I didn’t follow his nasty ass) how badly he gaslit everyone!!! Having his cronies go on tv saying “TRYING TO MAKE IT SEEM LIKE THERES LESS ENTHUSIASM FOR THE INAUGURATION IS WRONG AND DISGUSTING!!!!!!!!
Well now I know what my ex was. She was always a victim in all of her previous relations, at work, at school, etc. Also kept talking about her famous great aunt. When she started cheating on me, she'd just deny it by saying she was just with a friend and she "[found] him sooo disgusting" romantically and that nothing would ever happen between them. After she overtly left me for him a few months later, the new guy started taunting me. That's when I realized she had been telling him the exact same things she had told me about her previous exs but with me as the bad guy instead.
Listening to some old episodes of Dragnet at the moment (an old 40/50s True Crime Police Procedural Radio Show that you almost certainly know the theme music to even if you don't recognize the name). In one episode they get someone to take a lie detector test and the polygraph says he lied for about 20% of the session. When they confront the culprit about this he smiles and tells them they need to get a better machine as he was lying his entire ass off about 100% of everything throughout the test.
Yes, but think about it really deeply and that quote can have more than one meaning, the most obvious being the exact opposite of the other. I could also use it about some people on YT videos who seem to have been using weed heavily beforehand.
My moms Pitbull tore up my math book a day before a big check I brought in the book and since we were cool she was totally fine with it I didint even have to do any of the work
I knew about the term growing up; it's also been used by artists and philosophy enthusiasts. If you've never seen the original stage production, check out the old film version. It's pretty terrifying for it's time!
I got gaslighted by a team leader in the Army pretty hard, just so he wouldn’t look bad to the squad leader. It caused some severe depression and self harm that got explained away as just the stress of being in Iraq. It’s only been in the last few years, due to resources such as this one, that I’ve begun to be able to put the pieces together of what actually happened to me.
You forgot “Simplying”. When your parents believe all complicated explanations are lies, you as a child will learn to automatically redact your reporting so that you can render an answer simple enough for your parents to accept it as the truth. They themselves have been brought up to believe that “Simplicity is the measure of veracity”, a complete fallacy first propagated in elementary schools by Catholic teaching orders in late 19th century Europe, and … still going strong in science-averse religious communities all over the world.
@@GenesisTheKitty it explains the election as POTUS, of Donald J. Trump, for starters, and the fact that millions of Americans would rather deny the existence of Americans that are not straight, not white, not Christian, not cis, not with English as first language, not able to use certain limbs, and not morons.
During the "Assure" part the Cheater was followed by an ad for how a seminar can make me a successful businessman... P. S. 13:31 - damn, I LOVE your attention to detail!
I think that intelligence can give you a bit more (or, perhaps, a considerable degree of) resilience toward gas lighting, but a persistent enough application can wear down even the quite bright. As well can people who would want to believe the untruth more than the truth. I have a rather bright friend coerced into believing all kinds of bad things in a relationship. He didn't believe the first lie he was told, or the second, or the third. He believed the thirty third, though, and the fifty fifth, etc., and so on.
Depends on how you define intelligence, one study found that more education did not make people less susceptible to anti-scientific propaganda, concluding that extra cognitive functions may end up justifying reality that a person believes in. Intelligence combined with curiosity may work better though.
I know for a fact that I'd never be able to pass a lie detector because of anxiety. I'm diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). GAD increases my heart rate, as well as making me generally more sweaty. ADHD (which is very real and very serious despite being common) makes me prone to mood swings and emotional outbursts.
If that's true than I offer my sincerest congratulations! I've had the misfortune to befriend a few pathological liars and as a generally trusting person, I learned to despise them. One of them grew out of it too though, and he turned out to be a very decent human being. The other...is pretty much worthless at his very best moments
My friend told me how he beat a lie detector - by lying to himself during the control questions. Like when they asked him is your name William Smith (not his name), he'd say yes, while thinking to himself "no, it's William Michael Smith".
12:50 This particular comment bothers me a bit, I know “You have to be unintelligent or unaware to be a victim of gaslighting” is probably not what you meant but it’s a little bit dodgy to imply victims of abusers are stupid for falling for constant psychological manipulation.
Once during my last year of middle school we were given icecreams during a lesson. When the box got to me I took one and sneakily hid another in a folder. The guy next to me, who I didn't usually sit next to me started complaining loudly and telling people around me what I did. I went into full gaslight mode and started acting upset at the accusations, assuring everyone that I didn't. I loudly told him that I didn't and everyone started getting confused. They asked me and I told them I don't understand why he's lying to everyone turning all the focus to questioning why he's complaining. It was very successful, until he tried to prove that there in fact was an icecream in my folder. To my credit, for some reason he didn't find it since it has slipped deep between some papers.(It was a very large A3 folder.) So he resorted to start smacking my folder, flattening the icecream, popping the package and smearing icecream on my works of art. I acted like it was nothing to keep my cover, but it was his victory. Still no one believed him though, so maybe we both were defeated.
I subscribed because you put in genuine work, alot of thought and alot of research out of what I'm pretty sure is a true hope to contribute to our common learning. Even though sometimes some videos come off a bit sanctimonious. But I'm a fan.
I always assumed that "gaslighting" involved a scheme like the one in the movie GASLIGHT. Of course, I have very narrow definitions for Fascism and hypocrisy.
I thought your intro was things that will end badly if you do them. You can totally light the top of a propane tank on fire with no problems. They dont store oxygen in the tanks and they never reach a negative pressure unless theyre left with only gaseous propane and then go through a large temperature change. So the fire would be hard to even maintain if you opened the pin on the top and lit it. The pressure and innefficient mixing of gas and oxygen as it leaves would result in very little happening as far as decent flames go.
When I first learnt what gaslighting was and that it had happened to me, I didn't believe it. I was sure my memories were fabricated, and that I had made up every terrible thing that had happened at the hands of my abuser. But to hear gaslighting used so abstractly and often. It feels so,,,, minimising. Like I was stupid for believing what happened to me.
Referring back to the movie “Gaslight” (actually, there are two) the villain did far more than just tell lies, but also stole or moved objects and arranged awkward social situations which he could exploit by his lies.
Being in a cult would , to me, seem like an extreme form of being gaslit. But I'm told, cults only attract intelligent people. So, was I told wrong about cults? Teach me Oh Guru! Oh psychology major!
Just pointing out (and at this point have not read the comments so I'm not aiming this at anyone) that a gaslighter is just as likely to accuse their victim of gaslighting now that the term is so ubiquitous. Also it's hard to disentangle the term in the light of the usual toxicity of marriage breakups etc. Not saying it doesn't happen but nowadays everybody's ex is a narcissist and gaslights. Makes it tough if it has genuinely happened to you.
So far as I know, the FMRI method has the same problems as the old galvanic skin response method - it just measures magnitude of response, and can't distinguish between any intent/guilt source of that magnitude. Robert Sapolsky -> pyschology, physiology, and (epi)genetics of behaviour.
I was so pissed by this scene in one of the recent Mission Impossible films: Simon Pegg’s character was being interrogated with a polygraph, and they made it look like if he were to say anything besides the absolute truth, then it would show up on the screen. WTF? Somebody needs their Writers’ Guild cards taken away...
Most of these examples ASSUME that the accused is guilty and everything the accused says is true. Shouldn't you have pointed out that assumption? Otherwise isn't it a misuse of the term again?
Platypus Paws Very true. As he walked through the five steps, I can think of fights with my sister. In many situations I easily (or she) fit into the gaslighting-tactics territory because I (or she, respectively) was actually right. Perhaps then it's not gaslighting per se since the lying is on the part of the "victim".
Yes, and that makes perfect sense. How could gaslighting work? By making someone believe you are innocent, even though they know you are guilty. So to "gaslight"... means to act in accordance with innocence.
@@6ThreeSided9 But wouldn't it still look like gaslighting to all other parties? How would anyone tell if someone is intently lying or if they genuine believed they are telling the truth?
@@lunamaster123 I mean… yes? That’s how lying works. You try to make it seem like you’re not lying so people can’t tell the difference. Not sure what your point is.
The best use of a lie detector test that I know of is for security clearances in the US government. This is what I've heard, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong: The test is just a setup, and after the test they say they detected some deception on a certain question, then they say something like, "OK this is your last chance to admit to it", repeating the accusation angrily over several minutes of denial by the examinee. Most people who lied about the question cave in at this point, admit it, and are denied their security clearance.
im glad you said psychopath and not sociopath, too many people think they are the same thing. im a diagnosed sociopath and i can say for fact im no different than anyone else, i don't feel certain emotions, but that in no way means i don't know right from wrong and don't have empathy or sympathy, i still feel and have the same troubles in life as everyone else.
I don't know if I'd classify myself as unintelligent and unaware, but growing up in an abusive household, even as an adult, my mum's gaslighting techniques still work on me. Thanks to therapy I am starting to accept that what I went through was wrong, but all it takes is one phone call from my mum and all those feelings of guilt and self-doubt come flooding back. My partner has spent 20 years deprogramming my mum's lies about me.
He was just wrong about that. Everyone can fall to gaslighting, cons, etc. The only "immunity" to them is to be skeptical of everyone which comes at a significant cost. I just finished an audiobook by Maria Konnikova about Confidence Artists (con artists) its a running theme that there isnt a particular demographic more susceptible to cons. Socially, it costs us a lot to be skeptical. If you think how many times people tell you things, if you doubted everything everyone told you, you would get absolutely no where in life.
@@Jaigarful that's actually rather comforting. It's reassuring to know falling for manipulation isn't a moral failing of the person who was manipulated.
When you cant disprove someome so you break down their dialogue structure like that somehow makes them guilty of something bad. This is gaslighting. TRUMP IS BAD SEE
Good video, but one correction: the term didn't come to public attention with Trump, but with Hillary's use of it on her own party starting in the primary. Sure, saying Trump does it more is true (and so obvious it shouldn't need said), but it's also a checkmark on the list.
DynamicWorlds Nyehh, it really depends on your definition of public. In a less conservative country (New Zealand,) gaslighting was a publicly well-known term in 2015, long before the election cycle.
While you are correct, Hillary used the term mostly to point out actual fabricated news while Trump uses it as a general term of disagreement to smack on anything he feels protrays him "unfairly".
+RushyG, Hard to say at the moment. I haven'T followed that shitshow in detail and time will tell. But trying to derail the discussion by using whataboutism doesn't change the fact that Trump uses the term "fake news" as a blanket label to discredit any cirticism and to smack down any reality he doesn't like. See "alternate facts".
He is not lying to anyone more than most politicians. He got into office mostly because he was the lesser of evils. But there are a lot of people who simply hate Trump. They hate the fact that he is even allowed to exist. And they will believe any lie as long as it makes Trump look bad. Trump is more skilled at using rhetoric than his opponents. So when his opponents created the term "fake news" in an effort to demonize him, he was able to turn it around. But really, he is just like most politicians except that he is not in the pockets of the corporations that own most politicians. This allows him to serve his own interests rather than theirs. (I hold no delusions that he cares what is best for the citizens.)
You should have stuck with the law enforcement example and how they very actively try to gaslight people into confessions. They only care about convictions, not truth or rights or privacy.
2016-2020: Trump was the abusive husband, my country was the battered wife. With sincere respect for the Jewish people and individuals in those real-life situations, I say NEVER AGAIN!!
I've been accused of gaslighting a time or two. When asked how I was gaslighting them, they refused to answer. This is basically how it went: Crazy Christian Woman: "You're gaslighting me!" Me: "How am I gaslighting you?" Crazy Christian Woman: "¯\_(ツ)_/¯" Me: "Would you just answer the question?!" Crazy Christian Woman: "......" That's a comedic dramatization of how it occurred, but that's roughly how it happened. I'm not calling her crazy because of her beliefs, I'm calling her crazy because of her behavior. She was all over the place. Making non sequiturs, word salad, and changing topics like a new parent changes diapers. Her tirade was as disorganized as they come. It was just sad to witness.
People in the Criminal "Justice", system, from rookie jail guards to career District Attorneys, can be some of the most sociopathic dishonest dirtbags on the Planet.
When he said not everyone can be gaslit I felt bad because I don't think of myself as dumb, even though sometimes I knew they were lies, my ex husband was physically abusive and gaslighting was one of the many ploys he used to make me feel trapped. Hard truth to accept but I guess I was kinda dumb.
It's not just 'being dumb,' it's being unaware--being trusting, in many cases. After all, why wouldn't you trust the person who you love and who supposedly loves you? And if you start questioning yourself instead of questioning the story, that's where they get the opening.
You missed a great opportunity to explain that not everyone who's been a victim of gaslighting is necessarily unintelligent or unaware. Many people who have experienced gaslighting were victims as children, leaving them no alternative but to believe their abusive caregiver at a very young age.
bump. This is me. what are common effects of having this happen to you at young age?
btw, you can gaslight anyone, the farther you take them away from the truth, the more you have to garner their trust though...
True- and many others experience this from a significant other/someone they love and really want to trust, hence the emphasis on relationships in both psych literature and this video. Not necessarily just a stupid person.
Do you think it might start with parents not reacting appropriately to various situations, like abuse is normal, or like my mom told me that if we were better kids my dad wouldn't drink so much when he was an alcoholic before we were born?
@Catherine That's certainly part of it. For example, I grew up in an abusive household where any protest against how they treated us was met with insistence that what they did was either normal, our fault, or simply made up. It wouldn't just be "I do this because of you," it would be things designed to make us feel guilty for just being there, like "I wouldn't have such high blood pressure if it wasn't for you," or "I gave up my career for you," making us more likely to just accept whatever they did. My parents would often say I deserved what happened, no matter how much it hurt or how spontaneous the abuse was, or that I had no right to complain because they fed and clothed me (things every parent should be doing by default -- IMHO, you don't deserve a trophy for simply not being a trash human).
Another thing my parents would do is say things like, "If you think this is abuse, go talk to (friend/relative from an even worse household)," or "I don't abuse you, because I've never put you in the hospital or raped you." Alternatively, they would just flip the allegation: "The way you talk to me is abuse." "Fix your tone, that's assault." Another way to flip the guilt was to say things like, "You're out of control," or "What is wrong with you?", basically insinuating whoever they were addressing was making things up or couldn't tell fantasy from reality... and yeah, they'd really use the word "fantasy".
They would often change their story, too, making it harder to tell reality from fiction. For a long time, I genuinely questioned my own memories and motivations for feeling what I felt and remembering what I did because they did such a consistent job of making me doubt myself. There are times even today when I hear my siblings basically rehearsing excuses to themselves so they can believe anything, from a simple disagreement to an act of outright abuse, was entirely their fault, and some of them are already adults!
It wasn't until I started going to friends' houses more often and listening to stories about their own childhoods that I realized how wrongly my parents had behaved.
@@StargazerSkyscraper wow! I am sorry that happened to you. Many times I wished they would beat me so people could see the pain I was in. I think emotional abuse is evil. I had the good old Catholic guilt on me. I begged my mom to divorce my dad, i begged her to let me go live on my aunt and uncles farm but she would not consider it because they would think her a failure and judge her. I begged her to sign a peice of paper saying she threw my sister and I could go on welfare and I could focus on high school. I was so afraid to run away or confide in a grown up. I did have friends whose parents loved me and valued my presence. That is what saved me. I remember sending them a picture of my daughter and I when she was born, thanking them for saving my life, basically. My parents are dead now and I got all the money my mom saved because she worked her ass off as a phychiatric nurse( no joke) while my dad sat on his ass. I do have a lot of respect for her in many ways. She was depressed, overworked and majorly stressed but she should have sought help. I could go on and on. It feels good to vent this crap though.
I always hate the “look at the movement of someone’s eyes to tell they’re lying” schtick. As a person with nystagmus, my eyes aren’t displaying certain movements because I am lying, it’s because of undeveloped eye muscles that I was born with.
If you're talking about the ocular motor control thing that he mentioned, then you're misunderstanding. That is a highly sensitive method of analyzing eye movements. It has nothing to do with "he looked up and to the left so that means he's accessing a memory" or "he looked up and to the right so he's accessing the creative side of the brain" or anything like that.
I think for Eastern cultures they look at the movements of muscles around the eyes that show a subconscious expression, rather than what direction you're looking in.
Sounds like something a liar would come up with....
shifty eyed
Nice try, I just analyzed your eye movement and have determined you are lying.
But the sweater WAS delicious.
but you shouldn't have
Hi goat person.
Nice profile pic.
Lol
Mmm
Great video overall, but I've got to call you out on one thing. Most victims are not at all unintelligent or even unaware. In fact I would argue that most of them are not. There are a cocktail of factors that may leave someone highly susceptible to gaslighting and unintelligence is only one of them. Insecurity, low self-esteem, a lack of confidence, and, ironically, pride are far more potent conteibutors to someone's vulnerability to being bamboozled.
Thank you for this...that really bothered me. That's not even a matter of debate or opinion, it is genuinely, factually incorrect. Intelligence has nothing to do with being a victim of gaslighting the same way it has nothing to do with depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, ADHD or literally anything else. No one is so smart or you have to dumb enough to "fall for this." It just requires being a human being with emotions, feelings, and an investment in the person gaslighting them, whether a significant other, boss/colleague (that's a big one by the way), a friend, or a parent (another major, overlooked and common gaslighter). No one no matter how intelligent wants to believe their dad or their husband are actually treating them this way or manipulating them. This our dad. He loves us. He wouldn't...I'm sure there's an explanation. I know my husband and I'm not stupid, and I know you think he is manipulating me but I know he loves me, and our kids, and you don't. You're overreacting and I know this person. That's the thought process and all of the emotions and high stakes and investment involved with people we love or know or have known our whole lives, so even the most intelligent of us will dismiss it, allow it, work around it, because not only is the alternative too painful and has any number of consequences, none of us want to believe that someone we trust would really do that. And no human on this planet with normal emotional responses, feelings, empathy, love etc in them wouldn't be potentially or even likely a victim of this no matter how intelligent they are in any definition of the term. That's incredibly important for people to know. Thanks for bringing this up, it really took away from what this video has to offer people.
@@wubbleofbubbles Your welcome. I'm glad it helped. I think your explanation was far more complete than mine though.
Thank you, that also bothered me; I know it's an old video and hopefully KB doesn't still stand by that statement, but it still sucks to hear. I'd suffered abuse as a child and I had super low self-esteem at the time I met my abuser. Still do, but that's beside the point. I consider myself to be a fairly intelligent and analytical person, and I wasn't unaware of anything. I was also diagnosed with several mental disorders when I was 10, so I'm always looking at my behavior under a microscope. My therapist can tell you that throughout the duration of the relationship I was trying to reconcile what I know was true with my abuser's version of events. Vulnerable does not equal unaware in the slightest, and insinuating that the victims of abuse unintelligent and unaware is victim-blaming, and makes it even harder for us to speak out.
Let's not forget absolutely trusting someone makes it easier to gaslight them
I think a lot of these comments are missing the second part--'unaware.' You have to fail to recognize that you are being gaslit in order to be gaslit, otherwise you're questioning the alternative version the abuser is using.
You’re quickly becoming one of my favorite channels. I love your level headed demeanor and super dry sense of humor. Stay gold
Um being a brunette he was never gold, but he is turning silver... 😂
@@d00m0racl3 lmao what
Not just spouses bud. Any abuser. My mother gaslit me constantly. To the point of trying to convince me that since I had PTSD and an anxiety disorder, I "couldn't trust [my] perception of reality". Like she actually said that. But previously had been more subtle, just countering every one of my memories, no matter how mundane. Trying to get me to believe that I couldn't trust my own memory. In general tho she fit all the shit you mentioned.
I still have issues around this, even after therapy. I am constantly recording everything (even if it's just journaling), and any time I misremember something (happens to the best of us), I get _super_ anxious. I'll even start dissociating sometimes.
(I managed to wise up to her bullshit as I got older, but yea.)
It's funny -- that type of abuse can actually cause PTSD. Following my mother's constant gaslighting growing up, I was at one point fully convinced I was schizofrenic or at least suffered from paranoid delusions. Look up C-PTSD, I think you'll find it an interesting read.
I don't think he was saying it is only spouses, he was using spouses as an example.
"i know you better than you know yourself, so i know you're too weak to leave" hm proved that wrong 😂
Do you know why she was trying to convince you that you had PTSD? Was it Munchausens by proxy? This is a bizarre thing to try and gaslight somebody about.
@@bogwitch2792 I called it PTFD, post traumatic family disorder
I used to never lie. Now my personal rule for lying is: If it's none of the person's business, I allow myself to lie to them so they will drop the subject.
I found out that you don't need to actually lie for that. Just say something slightly related but kinda random and they for some reason will stop talking about it without being upset.
My comment is the highest rated comment in the history of the Knowing Better channel PERIOD. Other comments and youtube algorithms have been framed in a way to make my comment look diminished. NO ONE had the correct numbers because the Knowing Better channel doesn't put any top comment data out.
you don't put a period after period.
Bobby There was no period after the word period, that's just the way media reports it. Than217 does have some comments coming up soon though that will also have periods in the correct place as well, not only that but exclamation points as well. They will actually be the best exclamation points this comment section has seen, some people were saying, maybe the best that ever were, we'll see, but don't count on fake news like Bobby to report on it.
than217 i used that trick to get ppl to kill themselves so i dont have too
@@HiveSci God how hilarious your comment; caught me off guard like Brock Turner's fingering of "Jane Doe's" unconscious body. Kudos, mate!
This is such upbeat music for such a serious topic.
Sammitch61 that's just how he rolls
GASLIGHTING MUSIC
I despise lie detectors because it relies on data that has way too many variables and should NEVER be used for interrogation.
1. False readings on simple questions like, "Are you wearing clothes?"
2. Dysautonomias. I live with a genetic disorder called Neurocardiogenic Syncope. The symptoms are excessive sweating, tachycardia, sudden adrenaline spikes, sudden blood pressure and heart rate spikes, and sudden bp and hr drops--resulting in fainting--which, as he stated in the video, is EVERYTHING it monitors, at least in the standard versions.
3. DYSAUTONOMIA IS NOW KNOWN TO BE COMMON AND MISDIAGNOSED. All caps for those who faint AND because this is terrible for lie detectors.
*Side note: Fainting is bad! Don't accept it for the rest of your life! See a doctor! My caps are for you to see it, not because I'm angry at anyone. I never want anyone to go through the hell I had to trailblaze.
4. It's easy to fail or "cheat" a detector because the situation makes you nervous, you're worried it'll say you're lying about an obvious truth, or you know how to sweat it up and make yourself anxious to purposefully fail every question.
I could go on about biological factors and medical disorders (especially dysautonomias), but this post is too long anyway. Happy to answer questions!
@@Josep_Hernandez_LujanI'm coming at this from the angle of a pharmacy student and not a doctor or anyone with any formal medical training or knowledge about lie detectors. That said, I would imagine from my point of view anything that lowered the physiological response that the body has towards any of those factors could be enough to cheat it or make it inconclusive. This is yet another reason why these are bad factors to use to measure whether someone is lying or not.
I thought about this while I was watching. I thought, "But I sweat a lot anyway..." at least in hands and feet. I have POTS among many less specific dysautonomia symptoms. Skin temperature is highly variable both in degree and the reason to trigger. Sweating issues can be a part of diabetes. High heart rate is normal for any stress. I'm not confident authorities would account for natural variation in how people respond to stress. Dysautonomia is generic enough that even without a dysautonomia-specific condition you can still have mild to moderate dysautonomic symptoms in response to the stress of an unrelated condition--your autonomic system CONTROLS your stress responses, period. It's crazy to dismiss something as a lie using such unreliable markers.
@@Josep_Hernandez_Lujan if you want the operator to say "whoa your readings are really weird. Are you taking some medications?"
Jesus this guy is isane
My high school girlfriend had me convinced that her parents were dead and that she had been adopted by her aunt and uncle. It was complete bs. I still don’t understand why she came up with that
They were in high-school.
As elaborate as that is, it's not gaslighting
Sounds like the hallmark of pathological lying. Sometimes these people lie even when there seems to be no apparent motive.
Was she spiderman?
It might be to make you pity her more so you give her more attention and what not.
The standard cultural reference these days is "There are only four lights!" - but there's also a particularly well-written and astutely-perceived account of how gaslighting works from the early 1600s. Shakespeare covers it very well in Taming of the Shrew.
Man, I used to date a girl who's mother would do this on everything, hell, that woman tried to gaslight me at one point.
Let's gather round the gaslight and sing our gaslight song.
Our G-a-s-l-i-g-h-t s-o-n-g song!
And if you don't think that we can sing it faster, your perception of reality is all wrong, so why don't you just sing along!
Just sang this whole thing to make sure it was in rhythm, and I'm happy to report that it is!
to bad for law enforcement, im always almost having a panic attack if im around another human.
Well that's why you shouldn't commit a crime because you'll get convicted hard
@@spongebobsquarepants8403 doesn’t matter if they commit a crime or not. We talking about cops lmao
@@kingofgrim4761don’t talk to cops if you don’t need to
It really sucks when you're telling the truth, but everyone calls you a liar anyway. I was friends with a huge celebrity before she was famous. There's even photos of us from before. But when I tell people now, they call me a liar. When I show them the photos they say its PhotoShop. I'll show them screenshots of Facebook messages and they say it's obviously a fake account. As if celebrities aren't real people and therefore didn't exist before they were famous. Now I don't even tell anyone I know her and just say that I'm a huge fan of hers.
@James Passmore I'm not saying who, but I will say that she's trended on Twitter twice in the past week for two different reasons.
Also, we haven't talked since 2014, when her career really took off. So it's not like I'm saying I'm bestfriends with a huge star. We were never "bestfriends". I just happened to have been friends with someone who became a celebrity.
My best friend eventually was promoted into a powerful position in the administration of an important university. He gave me tips on improving my resume, and gave me a personal letter of recommendation for positions in other institutions. I never asked and he never offered help to get a position in his university [which he probably could have done easily]. We were both into professional ethics, I didn't try to use the relationship then or since; the letter was a factual and fairly bland evaluation of a project that I had done.
i went to the same elementary school as eminem (yes, at the same time that he would have been there. no, i have no idea if i was ever even in the same room with him). i feel your pain.
@@FoggyBadger Sounds like BS
@@FoggyBadger lmao "I'm friends with a celebrity who trends on twitter but I don't want to say their name on a youtube comment" we can see why no one believes you
Anyone else grew up in a gaslighting house?
What effect did it have on u?
It made me very motivated to be independent from my parents.
And I write stuff down and save it (usually on my phone) all the time.
Like if something slightly noteable happened in my life, I would write it down.
As, to preserve the truth.
Also, school was an escape from home.
Additionally, I have essentially become a "stone".
As in, almost Nothing bothers me at all.
Plus, there are many other things, but its tough to tell if its a symptom of gaslighting.
I was in a relationship with a gaslighter. It motivated me to protect myself from manipulative people in the future. It also made me very adept at spotting other gaslighters.
It made me unsure of who I am and convinced me that my memory must be so terrible that I must just be stupid overall. I'm in college now and I self-sabotage myself so I don't get that good of grades in my classes because deep down I still believe that I'm stupid. I don't try to preserve the truth, or what happened through pictures and other recordings. It's less painful when someone else doesn't believe it if it never existed in the first place. It's less painful to bend my narrative to my mom's when she gaslights me and doubts me if I never developed a narrative in the first place.
Telling everyone that you can't be gaslit unless you're somewhat unintelligent or unaware is like effectively telling your whole audience they're immune to gaslighting because almost no one would consider themselves stupid and unaware.
Trump couldn't gaslight an entire country of well-informed individuals. That he succeeded in '16, and nearly did it again only last year, speaks volumes of how the "information age" is a deceptive term to describe the world we live in. Between flat Earth, antivax, coronavirus denialism, red scare, there are plenty of arguments to say that yes, there is a relevant degree of stupidity that contributes to being able to gaslight the masses. Regardless of how each person feels about their own intellect
@@moscanaveia paradoxically you could call it the Information Age purely due to the spread of opposing sometimes wrong information is widespread
the term "gas-lighting" comes from a 1938 British psychological thriller "Gas Light" by Patrick Hamilton in which a sadistic husband tries to convince his wife that she is crazy by various tricks. So, "gaslighting" is not simply lying, it is lies told to get you to doubt your own convictions.
paulbwill64 yes, he went over that point at length.
In any case, all versions show an abusive husband convincing his astute but timid wife that she is insane. That's a little different than the description here, which is basically just a systematic campaign of lies. Gaslighting in the original, strictest usage would only apply to a systematic campaign of lies designed to make you doubt your sanity, not just designed to change your mind.
@JNP Films : You still could argue that Plog and Edgerton got the phrase from the movie they saw in their earlier years. So either the 1941 or 44 version.
It would make sense as in - from what source should they come up with this phrase otherwise?
(On the other hand - many people believe that HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubriks Space Oddysse is a play on the IBM-coorporation - as HAL is one letter back in the alphabet. But later - Arthur C.Clark the author of the book - explained that it was an acronym for "Heuristic ALgorithm")
So it might have other reasons.
worth mentioning:doesnt Need to be straight up lies. a sociopath may wont deny the 100 times he or she called you Beautiful in the lovebombing Phase, but then will declare he meant it on a purely aesthetic Level, not that you are attractive or anything. Any more or less bogus Explanation on why what you think you heard wasnt what was meant. purposefully missleading.
I had a sort of encounter with this as I am said to have a Traumatic Brain Injury from a late Oct.1999. I was a bit manipulated by family & "Friends". Maybe some of this was gaslighting. I was a bit slow in the year(s) after, but I finally grad college in '09. Aloha from Waianae.
It's gotten to the point where telling someone they misinterpreted or overreacted to a thing, gets you accused of gaslighting and it's ridiculous.
Necroing this to say that it's often following a very similar structure, which even while you believe you're being honest, you might be coming off as deceitful.
E.g. Someone gets mad at you for not putting something in the sink.
You didn't do it because the sink was full and you wanted to make sure the other person didn't end up knocking an unwieldy stack on the floor.
Them: I'm mad you can't put your dishes in the sink.
You: It's not what you think.
Them: it is.
You: You're making a big deal out of something meaningless.
Them: I just wish you'd make my job easier.
You: That's exactly what I was trying to do, I didn't put it in there because the sink was already full.
Them: That's not what I asked you to do.
You: I was just trying to think ahead for your sake.
Them: (Silence)
You: Look would you rather have had to clean a massive pile of dishes?
And now you can see that this more or less looks extremely like gaslighting based on what was in the video, but you didn't lie, you genuinely tried to help by thinking ahead.
A better question is how to approach the situation of miscommunication and not appear to gaslight others. I don't see a good answer to this question myself. You could ask others to be more trusting, but that invites those who would abuse them, you could ask them to be more mature, but that's never helped anyone before just look at toxic masculinity... Or perhaps you just have to communicate more on your own. I think at some point it's more than a little excessive to need to ask, for example, is it okay to put this dish next to the sink because the sink is too full EVERY time you're trying to make a value decision. Although, to fix the issue, you could just do the dishes in this case, but sometimes you can't be expected to do it all.
It seems like a lot of people in the comments have decided this was an instructional video and are using the comments as a sandbox for practice..
Markle2k Practice make perfect.
This is the thing I worry about as I see at the end I am wondering what I am learning and would I rather not... Thanks!
I don't really see it, you must be misreading comments or projecting what you expect onto them. I've seen your comments before and you have a tenancy to do this, which I'm telling you because I care about you and want to see you improve.
Come on, baby, you know I would never gaslight people in the comments.
Exactly what I'm doing
This is spot on! Thank you for making it possible for people who haven't experienced gas lighting to understand. The one thing I would add is that the victim of gas lighting, over a long period of time, loses their emotional and mental stability.
My favorite is when people try to lie about how past events or say remember you were looking for something like this you thought it would be a good fit or whatever.
Lies for attention or sympathy such as big fish tales may actually be an honest remembrance. Human memory for fine detail is not the good typically. Especially not over long period of time and many a recounting. Someone can be not lying while also not telling the truth simply because of our tendency to unconsciously distort truth over time to make for a better story. It's the one thing we do that other animals don't do in some capacity after all (tell each other stories). It's always good to remember that someone may believe they are being both entirely truthful and factual.
He made a video about this very thing before, but it doesn't matter much, because when people talk about attention lies, it's usually a whole made-up event.
"Many people are saying this, someone told me this" Love Trumps constant completely nonspecific sources.
Wikipedia would be (source?)-ing all over him
The thing about the “alternative facts” line is that people often use that to falsely accuse YOU of gaslighting them. It’s because articles about gaslighting often use the phrase “deny your reality”, which implies that each of us has our own reality (ie alternative facts) that is equally valid and which no one is entitled to question
9:00 _"So the main goal of gaslighting is to get the person to question their own perception of reality and accept yours, thus giving you more power."_
Does this remind anyone else organized religion or is it just me?
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him will believeth in anything. - Hitchens 3:16
Forgive them for they know not what they do....knock and the door will be opened. Seek and you will find. If you truly read the bible, and study it you can figure it out for yourself. Organized religion isnt a good example of reality. How many people do you trust?
Joe c you’re literally proving their point
almost all types of drug withdrawal causes excessive sweating and several drugs withdrawal symptoms cause tachycardia and blood pressure changes, so if someone is in prison because of some drugs related offence, which is a significant portion of the people in prison, and they're keeping off the drugs, wouldn't they be more likely to fail the lie detector test than if they actually kept taking their drugs ...
I'm a little surprised that you say they actually use this to determine parole or probation in some places
Unremarkable cunts
OMG, my dog actually ate my homework once too and I brought in the shredded remains of it as proof. The teacher still gave me an F...
Slight topic shift, but I had a teacher once threaten to out me for plagiarism because my essay was 'too good for you to have written,' then when I proved I hadn't plagiarized it, give me a failing grade on the assignment because it 'was terrible and didn't even cover the basics.'
I'm glad you started animating that intro sequence, that gave me anxiety
I didn’t even realize that it wasn’t a well known term until recently or that people were misusing it. I had always thought that it was a commonly used term for the systematic lies in abusive relationships.
As someone who's been the victim of gaslighting...I'm not sold that that is what Trump is doing specifically. I don't like the man, and I don't agree with him, but if holding this specific behavior up as gaslighting is acceptable then we should hold up Obama as well, he did the exact same things. But then, I didn't like him or agree with him either.
That said...gaslighting does not require the victim to be unintelligent. I kinda feel that comment was more politically motivated. "Oh...only dumb people can get gaslighted that's why they voted for Trump. You're not dumb so you're okay."
Most gaslighting takes place over a long period of time, slowly wearing down the victim's sanity and grasp of reality. It can take years before the effects really set in and you end up doubting your own memory even 10 seconds after an event. It was so bad for me that I started recording conversations just to prove to myself they happened. Victims of gaslighting often also show signs of depression as the gaslighting progresses, becoming withdrawn, scared to speak or emote at all because if they do anything it will be twisted against them, or they will be told they are "overreacting" being "overemotional" or "acting crazy".
I also just want to add one more thing. If you know anyone in a relationship who has become more irritable or withdrawn while thier SO has become more happy and outgoing....this could be a sign. Gaslighters feed on their control, they get a high off of it. They will actively work to charm and manipulate others into agreeing with them that their SO is the bad one, the abusive one, the crazy one. Just...keep an eye out. You could really save someone someday.
Exact same things? I can't recall any conspiracy theories Obama knowingly promoted. Trump built his election on doing just that.
Fellinux “The ACA won’t raise your health insurance rates”
TRUMP FOREVER judging by your name, I’d say you had major political shift in the last 5 days or you’re a troll who was too lazy to make a second account haha
@@Trundle_TheGreat Okay, is that gaslighting?
Fellinux No, you said “What kind of lies did Obama tell?” And then I pointed out some of the verifiably recorded lies he told. Any more questions, children?
"Thanks for the sweater grandma." and "yes, this taste delicious" right next to each other implies you not only don't like the sweater, but that you don't like having your grandmother force you to eat it. You should be ashamed, she spent all year knitting you that meal!
Thank you for this clear and accessible explanation of gaslighting, it is of great value to me.
I once lied to my mum and told her i loved some desert she cooked once. I over sold it and she thought it was my favorite. So roughly five years later after having this desert at regular intervals i finally couldn't stomach and told the truth. You right it absolutely blew up in my face.
I like that you say that their goal is to make people not believe their own eyes and ears, but the Trump administration at this point is literally saying "Don't believe what you see and hear" They skipped all of the intricate steps.
I mean if you read and look at fake news all day, then you probably shouldn't believe what you see and hear.
I don't even watch Fox News but CNN and BBC are clearly biased, if you refuse that then you're biased yourself lol.
CNN is infotainment, while the FOX-GOP-TEA-NRA Channel is purely political propaganda. At one point I tried triangulating for the truth. I watched both CNN and FOX thinking that "the truth is out there," but in vain. That's like watching different versions/reboots of Star Trek [or any other print or movie story line] to determine which fiction is real, what futility!
@@bobby8012
Reality has a well known bias.
@@JMM33RanMA You don't compare 2 fake news channels to find the truth, lol.
Omg I remember him saying “no my crowd was the biggest” but I never realized (cuz I didn’t follow his nasty ass) how badly he gaslit everyone!!! Having his cronies go on tv saying “TRYING TO MAKE IT SEEM LIKE THERES LESS ENTHUSIASM FOR THE INAUGURATION IS WRONG AND DISGUSTING!!!!!!!!
Well now I know what my ex was. She was always a victim in all of her previous relations, at work, at school, etc. Also kept talking about her famous great aunt.
When she started cheating on me, she'd just deny it by saying she was just with a friend and she "[found] him sooo disgusting" romantically and that nothing would ever happen between them.
After she overtly left me for him a few months later, the new guy started taunting me. That's when I realized she had been telling him the exact same things she had told me about her previous exs but with me as the bad guy instead.
Listening to some old episodes of Dragnet at the moment (an old 40/50s True Crime Police Procedural Radio Show that you almost certainly know the theme music to even if you don't recognize the name). In one episode they get someone to take a lie detector test and the polygraph says he lied for about 20% of the session. When they confront the culprit about this he smiles and tells them they need to get a better machine as he was lying his entire ass off about 100% of everything throughout the test.
let's gather 'round the gaslight and sing our gaslight song
our G-A-S-L-I-G-H-T S-O-N-G song
I work in a TS/SCI environment. I had to take a poly for work.
It proved something I learned a long time ago; I can't lie for shit.
Very topical subject! I really respect how you will take on subjects that may cost you some popularity. Keep on keeping on!
Well done. Ironically, the video being suggested by RUclips to me along with this one is your own "Your Completely Untrustworthy Memory."
“You cannot gaslight someone who’s already a little lit” that can’t be a real quote
Yes, but think about it really deeply and that quote can have more than one meaning, the most obvious being the exact opposite of the other. I could also use it about some people on YT videos who seem to have been using weed heavily beforehand.
Thank you for this video. It’s really relevant to somethings that have happened in my life. I appreciate you and your channel.
My moms Pitbull tore up my math book a day before a big check I brought in the book and since we were cool she was totally fine with it I didint even have to do any of the work
You meant quiz or test, right?
I knew about the term growing up; it's also been used by artists and philosophy enthusiasts. If you've never seen the original stage production, check out the old film version. It's pretty terrifying for it's time!
That little clip of the Donald made me laugh so much 😂
I got gaslighted by a team leader in the Army pretty hard, just so he wouldn’t look bad to the squad leader. It caused some severe depression and self harm that got explained away as just the stress of being in Iraq. It’s only been in the last few years, due to resources such as this one, that I’ve begun to be able to put the pieces together of what actually happened to me.
You forgot “Simplying”. When your parents believe all complicated explanations are lies, you as a child will learn to automatically redact your reporting so that you can render an answer simple enough for your parents to accept it as the truth. They themselves have been brought up to believe that “Simplicity is the measure of veracity”, a complete fallacy first propagated in elementary schools by Catholic teaching orders in late 19th century Europe, and … still going strong in science-averse religious communities all over the world.
Ahhhhh, this explains a lot
@@GenesisTheKitty it explains the election as POTUS, of Donald J. Trump, for starters, and the fact that millions of Americans would rather deny the existence of Americans that are not straight, not white, not Christian, not cis, not with English as first language, not able to use certain limbs, and not morons.
During the "Assure" part the Cheater was followed by an ad for how a seminar can make me a successful businessman...
P. S. 13:31 - damn, I LOVE your attention to detail!
I think that intelligence can give you a bit more (or, perhaps, a considerable degree of) resilience toward gas lighting, but a persistent enough application can wear down even the quite bright. As well can people who would want to believe the untruth more than the truth. I have a rather bright friend coerced into believing all kinds of bad things in a relationship. He didn't believe the first lie he was told, or the second, or the third. He believed the thirty third, though, and the fifty fifth, etc., and so on.
Depends on how you define intelligence, one study found that more education did not make people less susceptible to anti-scientific propaganda, concluding that extra cognitive functions may end up justifying reality that a person believes in. Intelligence combined with curiosity may work better though.
Exactly; intelligence doesn't prevent people from falling for scams or cults either.
I know for a fact that I'd never be able to pass a lie detector because of anxiety. I'm diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). GAD increases my heart rate, as well as making me generally more sweaty. ADHD (which is very real and very serious despite being common) makes me prone to mood swings and emotional outbursts.
My dog also ate my homework. It was for art class so I just redid it.
Gotta applaud you for just straight up teaching me how to gaslight and manipulate people
wow reddit edgelord here
I used to be a Pathological liar in my younger days but I eventually grew out of it in my adult years!
Palpatinr: IRONIC
If that's true than I offer my sincerest congratulations! I've had the misfortune to befriend a few pathological liars and as a generally trusting person, I learned to despise them. One of them grew out of it too though, and he turned out to be a very decent human being. The other...is pretty much worthless at his very best moments
I once knew a pathological liar. Later I learned he had a nervous breakdown and now he's an empty shell of a human being.
The lie detector says that's a lie!!!
My friend told me how he beat a lie detector - by lying to himself during the control questions. Like when they asked him is your name William Smith (not his name), he'd say yes, while thinking to himself "no, it's William Michael Smith".
12:50 This particular comment bothers me a bit, I know “You have to be unintelligent or unaware to be a victim of gaslighting” is probably not what you meant but it’s a little bit dodgy to imply victims of abusers are stupid for falling for constant psychological manipulation.
Once during my last year of middle school we were given icecreams during a lesson. When the box got to me I took one and sneakily hid another in a folder. The guy next to me, who I didn't usually sit next to me started complaining loudly and telling people around me what I did. I went into full gaslight mode and started acting upset at the accusations, assuring everyone that I didn't. I loudly told him that I didn't and everyone started getting confused. They asked me and I told them I don't understand why he's lying to everyone turning all the focus to questioning why he's complaining.
It was very successful, until he tried to prove that there in fact was an icecream in my folder. To my credit, for some reason he didn't find it since it has slipped deep between some papers.(It was a very large A3 folder.) So he resorted to start smacking my folder, flattening the icecream, popping the package and smearing icecream on my works of art. I acted like it was nothing to keep my cover, but it was his victory. Still no one believed him though, so maybe we both were defeated.
Alternative Facts: an example of Orwellian double-speak. Next they'll try to say that 2+2=5
2+2=5 is possible in higher algebra but not how you would think
The Sean Spicer Show every day was the best show in town and I still miss it.
I subscribed because you put in genuine work, alot of thought and alot of research out of what I'm pretty sure is a true hope to contribute to our common learning. Even though sometimes some videos come off a bit sanctimonious. But I'm a fan.
I always assumed that "gaslighting" involved a scheme like the one in the movie GASLIGHT. Of course, I have very narrow definitions for Fascism and hypocrisy.
I thought your intro was things that will end badly if you do them. You can totally light the top of a propane tank on fire with no problems. They dont store oxygen in the tanks and they never reach a negative pressure unless theyre left with only gaseous propane and then go through a large temperature change. So the fire would be hard to even maintain if you opened the pin on the top and lit it. The pressure and innefficient mixing of gas and oxygen as it leaves would result in very little happening as far as decent flames go.
*So he's lighting gas*
*Hmm*
When I first learnt what gaslighting was and that it had happened to me, I didn't believe it. I was sure my memories were fabricated, and that I had made up every terrible thing that had happened at the hands of my abuser. But to hear gaslighting used so abstractly and often. It feels so,,,, minimising. Like I was stupid for believing what happened to me.
As a psychopath, I am offended.
Nah, that's a lie
Referring back to the movie “Gaslight” (actually, there are two) the villain did far more than just tell lies, but also stole or moved objects and arranged awkward social situations which he could exploit by his lies.
"OOOOOOHHHH GATHER ROUND THE GAS LIGHT AND SING THE GAS LIGHT SONG G-A-S L-I-G-H-T SONG"
Being in a cult would , to me, seem like an extreme form of being gaslit. But I'm told, cults only attract intelligent people. So, was I told wrong about cults? Teach me Oh Guru! Oh psychology major!
What about "Cherry-picking"? Is that Gaslighting?
Vincent Werts no.
No it's a logical fallacy called formally the fallacy of incomplete evidence.
People who lie do cherry pick though.
With psychology, many tactics/effects/etc. overlap. For quite a few areas its as he says- seems like splitting hairs.
The studio that made the move I, Robot gaslit millions of people into believing it bore some relationship to the Isaac Asimov book by the same name.
Ive literally seen with my own eyes the pictures of the inaugeration that show that the place was totally packed
Just pointing out (and at this point have not read the comments so I'm not aiming this at anyone) that a gaslighter is just as likely to accuse their victim of gaslighting now that the term is so ubiquitous. Also it's hard to disentangle the term in the light of the usual toxicity of marriage breakups etc. Not saying it doesn't happen but nowadays everybody's ex is a narcissist and gaslights. Makes it tough if it has genuinely happened to you.
the best part is tRUMP going to barf.. .....
wayne montgomery OMG yes yes yes!
Where did that come from? When he found out he accidentally won the presidency?
So far as I know, the FMRI method has the same problems as the old galvanic skin response method - it just measures magnitude of response, and can't distinguish between any intent/guilt source of that magnitude. Robert Sapolsky -> pyschology, physiology, and (epi)genetics of behaviour.
2:16 *I GUESS THEY NEVER MISS HUH?*
I was so pissed by this scene in one of the recent Mission Impossible films: Simon Pegg’s character was being interrogated with a polygraph, and they made it look like if he were to say anything besides the absolute truth, then it would show up on the screen. WTF? Somebody needs their Writers’ Guild cards taken away...
Most of these examples ASSUME that the accused is guilty and everything the accused says is true.
Shouldn't you have pointed out that assumption?
Otherwise isn't it a misuse of the term again?
Platypus Paws Very true. As he walked through the five steps, I can think of fights with my sister. In many situations I easily (or she) fit into the gaslighting-tactics territory because I (or she, respectively) was actually right. Perhaps then it's not gaslighting per se since the lying is on the part of the "victim".
Yes, and that makes perfect sense. How could gaslighting work? By making someone believe you are innocent, even though they know you are guilty. So to "gaslight"... means to act in accordance with innocence.
As he said in the video, it has to involve the intent to deceive. You are not gaslighting if you believe what you are trying to convince others of.
@@6ThreeSided9 But wouldn't it still look like gaslighting to all other parties? How would anyone tell if someone is intently lying or if they genuine believed they are telling the truth?
@@lunamaster123 I mean… yes? That’s how lying works. You try to make it seem like you’re not lying so people can’t tell the difference. Not sure what your point is.
The best use of a lie detector test that I know of is for security clearances in the US government. This is what I've heard, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong: The test is just a setup, and after the test they say they detected some deception on a certain question, then they say something like, "OK this is your last chance to admit to it", repeating the accusation angrily over several minutes of denial by the examinee. Most people who lied about the question cave in at this point, admit it, and are denied their security clearance.
Yeah, basically this--the point is really to make you nervous and doubt how well your 'story' is holding up.
6:00 you never tell any lies, oh that is why you are a single,
Fantastic! This is a much needed explanation of a very dangerous affliction facing the US these days. Keep up the good work.
11:27
Handjive World Competition Finals 🤪🧤
im glad you said psychopath and not sociopath, too many people think they are the same thing. im a diagnosed sociopath and i can say for fact im no different than anyone else, i don't feel certain emotions, but that in no way means i don't know right from wrong and don't have empathy or sympathy, i still feel and have the same troubles in life as everyone else.
Chia Pet Donald Trump, Decorative Pottery Planter ... the pottery that grows as he lies
I don't know if I'd classify myself as unintelligent and unaware, but growing up in an abusive household, even as an adult, my mum's gaslighting techniques still work on me. Thanks to therapy I am starting to accept that what I went through was wrong, but all it takes is one phone call from my mum and all those feelings of guilt and self-doubt come flooding back. My partner has spent 20 years deprogramming my mum's lies about me.
He was just wrong about that. Everyone can fall to gaslighting, cons, etc. The only "immunity" to them is to be skeptical of everyone which comes at a significant cost. I just finished an audiobook by Maria Konnikova about Confidence Artists (con artists) its a running theme that there isnt a particular demographic more susceptible to cons.
Socially, it costs us a lot to be skeptical. If you think how many times people tell you things, if you doubted everything everyone told you, you would get absolutely no where in life.
@@Jaigarful that's actually rather comforting. It's reassuring to know falling for manipulation isn't a moral failing of the person who was manipulated.
@@jdprettynails Truth Default Theory I believe its called. Malcom Gladwell discusses it a bit in Talking to Strangers.
@@Jaigarful Thank you, I'll have to look into that.
Good video, I found out it was being overused by being accused of it for disagreeimg with someone :p
As some one whose abuser was female, who left physical and mental scars, erasing female abusers is very, very disingenuous. Women cheat as well.
When you cant disprove someome so you break down their dialogue structure like that somehow makes them guilty of something bad. This is gaslighting. TRUMP IS BAD SEE
Damn, it’s weird going back to videos and having them mention the election-Hillary Trump Election.
Good video, but one correction: the term didn't come to public attention with Trump, but with Hillary's use of it on her own party starting in the primary.
Sure, saying Trump does it more is true (and so obvious it shouldn't need said), but it's also a checkmark on the list.
DynamicWorlds Nyehh, it really depends on your definition of public. In a less conservative country (New Zealand,) gaslighting was a publicly well-known term in 2015, long before the election cycle.
The Squished was referring to the US political discussion, yes.
Either way, still before it became used in reference to Trump.
While you are correct, Hillary used the term mostly to point out actual fabricated news while Trump uses it as a general term of disagreement to smack on anything he feels protrays him "unfairly".
sertaki so CNN and it's whole Russia shit wasn't actual fake news?
+RushyG, Hard to say at the moment. I haven'T followed that shitshow in detail and time will tell.
But trying to derail the discussion by using whataboutism doesn't change the fact that Trump uses the term "fake news" as a blanket label to discredit any cirticism and to smack down any reality he doesn't like.
See "alternate facts".
I heard this word last week for the first time, and now I can’t get away from it
If you don't want to dilute the term "gaslighting" I suggest you not claim the president is "gaslighting."
He never says he is. He says others make that claim, and leaves it up to the viewer to decide.
He is pushing the president as an example. And many people do. The plausible deniability is not so plausible.
He is not lying to anyone more than most politicians. He got into office mostly because he was the lesser of evils. But there are a lot of people who simply hate Trump. They hate the fact that he is even allowed to exist. And they will believe any lie as long as it makes Trump look bad.
Trump is more skilled at using rhetoric than his opponents. So when his opponents created the term "fake news" in an effort to demonize him, he was able to turn it around. But really, he is just like most politicians except that he is not in the pockets of the corporations that own most politicians. This allows him to serve his own interests rather than theirs. (I hold no delusions that he cares what is best for the citizens.)
No, I mean what I say "skilled at using rhetoric." Turn off the blind hate.
And given that your position is deceitful, you call your spewing of hate "obvious truth."
You should have stuck with the law enforcement example and how they very actively try to gaslight people into confessions. They only care about convictions, not truth or rights or privacy.
2016-2020: Trump was the abusive husband, my country was the battered wife. With sincere respect for the Jewish people and individuals in those real-life situations, I say NEVER AGAIN!!
I've been accused of gaslighting a time or two. When asked how I was gaslighting them, they refused to answer. This is basically how it went:
Crazy Christian Woman: "You're gaslighting me!"
Me: "How am I gaslighting you?"
Crazy Christian Woman: "¯\_(ツ)_/¯"
Me: "Would you just answer the question?!"
Crazy Christian Woman: "......"
That's a comedic dramatization of how it occurred, but that's roughly how it happened. I'm not calling her crazy because of her beliefs, I'm calling her crazy because of her behavior. She was all over the place. Making non sequiturs, word salad, and changing topics like a new parent changes diapers. Her tirade was as disorganized as they come. It was just sad to witness.
When I was in fourth grade a DARE officer told my class that lie detectors were infallible. Shame he wasn't hooked up to one at the time.
People in the Criminal "Justice", system, from rookie jail guards to career District Attorneys, can be some of the most sociopathic dishonest dirtbags on the Planet.
Cops aren’t exactly known for being the brightest bulbs in the box
As a natively non-English, I've heard the term for the first time a year ago in a very weird video of people talking about cartoons
I fail polygraphs even when i tell the truth. I hate blood pressure cuffs and they cause me an anxiety that makes everything go up.
Perhaps a good way to think about it is that lying is an act, gaslighting is a method?
How could I forget that I had given her an extra key? All the time she was standing there she never took her eyes off me
When he said not everyone can be gaslit I felt bad because I don't think of myself as dumb, even though sometimes I knew they were lies, my ex husband was physically abusive and gaslighting was one of the many ploys he used to make me feel trapped.
Hard truth to accept but I guess I was kinda dumb.
It's not just 'being dumb,' it's being unaware--being trusting, in many cases. After all, why wouldn't you trust the person who you love and who supposedly loves you? And if you start questioning yourself instead of questioning the story, that's where they get the opening.