Gaslighting is a term commonly used in the context of narcissists and narcissist abuse. Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse that is meant to control a person by creating doubt in their thoughts and beliefs. The person starts to be uncertain about what is real and what they are imagining, leading to them feeling as if they are going crazy. Gaslighting is even easier to fall victim to when the person being gaslighted has only the narcissist in their life as their source of “reality”. This means the person doing the gaslighting is the person the victim fact checks information against. The narcissist then can further enact their control and manipulation by making statements to the victim to have them further believe that they are losing touch with reality. As the gaslighting from the narcissist continues over months or even years, the victim starts to lose their ability to form independent thoughts and relies heavily on the narcissist to give them direction. At the same time, the person being gaslit loses confidence in themselves and questions their own actions. The person being gaslit starts to gaslight themselves. Why would someone start to gaslight themselves when they already feel crazy and confused by the gaslighting from the narcissist?
When you are in a relationship with a narcissist, you become the source of all their insults and insecurities. If you react to their statements and try to stand up for yourself, you are called “too sensitive” by the narcissist and told it was “just a joke”. Because you have empathy, you question your actions and whether you really are too sensitive and should just let the statements from the narcissist roll off you. However, after prolonged gaslighting from the narcissist, this questioning of your actions doesn’t happen just when interacting with the narcissist. You find that with most anyone you encounter, you start to question yourself. Someone says something, your feelings are hurt, and then you instantly tell yourself that maybe you were being too sensitive and shouldn’t have been hurt.
What you have just done to yourself is what the narcissist has been doing to you. You invalidate your own emotional experiences. You start to speak to yourself as the narcissist speaks to you. You have a certain thought or emotion and you quickly shut yourself down and consider how you were in the wrong and this thought is not worthy of your attention.
This means the negative thought or emotion is never addressed because you have considered it wrong. This is exactly how the narcissist shut you down. If you defended yourself in response to their belittling statements, or stood up for negative emotions you had in response to their abusive behavior, you were told by the narcissist you were wrong and shouldn’t think that way. This is what you do to yourself when you self-gaslight.
When you gaslight yourself, you are engaging in self-sabotage. You lower your self-confidence, blame yourself for everything, you doubt yourself, and question your own memories. Life becomes lived through the lens of doubt and invalidation. Self-confidence goes down because you think you are at fault for everything.
So now that you know what self-gaslighting is, how can you know if you are doing it to yourself? Here are 3 things to look for to see if you are gaslighting yourself.
1. You minimize your own experiences. This one is a hallmark of gaslighting, but also hard to notice because it becomes a part of who you are. If you have a thought or emotion and then quickly shut it down, you are likely minimizing your own experiences. You are lying to yourself and telling yourself that you shouldn’t think or feel that way. You may also compare your experiences to someone else and say you shouldn’t be upset because the other person has it worse. All of this acts to invalidate yourself and teaches you that you should not have any negative thoughts or emotions.
2. You lack self-confidence. This statement is broad and there is much that falls under this category. When you lack self-confidence, you don’t believe that you can do something or that you are worthy of certain experiences. Because you are always over-critical to yourself, you no longer believe in yourself. This wears on you and you don’t think you deserve anything positive in your life. Or, if something positive happens you dismiss it as something that happened by accident.
3. You question what is real and what is not. When you gaslight yourself, you start to lose touch with reality because you no longer believe that things are actually happening, leading you to question everything. You can have the proof right in front of you, but due to the self-gaslighting and the invalidating of your own experiences, you find ways to doubt what you see. This is worsened if you were gaslit by a narcissist who lied to your face even as you stared at the evidence. If you find you are questioning reality, then you might be self-gaslighting.
If you have found you are gaslighting yourself, you want to increase your awareness of this action and work to change how you talk to yourself. If you learned this behavior after being gaslighted by someone else, it is best to cut them out of your life if you can. However, even if you can’t cut the gaslighter out of your life, take control of your life back. The only person looking out for you, is you. Be kind to yourself and work to recognize you are worthy and own your emotions and thoughts.
At Mindset Therapy we provide mental health services in Texas and Washington from trained professionals, via telepsychology, which allows you to attend the appointment from the location most convenient for you. Visit Mindset Therapy at https://www.mindsettherapyonline.com/ to learn more about the services offered and make an appointment. Also visit our YouTube page, Mindset Therapy, PLLC, for the Mental Health Minute series that provides quick pieces of information for common mental health issues.
