Speaker 1: Hey, Navigators, you ask for it. Now here it is
Speaker 1: on this episode of Navigating Narcissism. I'm answering all of
Speaker 1: your burning questions about twenty twenty two's word of the
Speaker 1: Year gaslighting. Now, hundreds of you send us emails, comments,
Speaker 1: and even slid into our dms, and we have a
Speaker 1: lot to get through as a result, So let's get
Speaker 1: right to it. This podcast should not be used as
Speaker 1: a substitute for medical or mental health advice. Individuals are
Speaker 1: advised to seek independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy
Speaker 1: from a healthcare professional with respect to any medical condition,
Speaker 1: mental health issue, or health inquiry, including matters discussed on
Speaker 1: this podcast. The views and opinions expressed are solely those
Speaker 1: of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast,
Speaker 1: and do not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk productions, iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: or their employees. So first up, Christine asks, why is
Speaker 1: it so destabilizing to be gaslighted by a narcissist? I
Speaker 1: find myself feeling grounded and steady, and then one interaction
Speaker 1: with my narcissistic wife can leave me so lost. Do
Speaker 1: you have any tips for staying grounded? It's a great question,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to go backwards on this question a
Speaker 1: little bit just to sort of set some groundwork here.
Speaker 1: Let's start by talking about what gaslighting is, because there's
Speaker 1: so much misunderstanding about what it is. Gaslighting is a process, right,
Speaker 1: It's not one thing that a person does. Gaslighting first
Speaker 1: of all, requires some form of relationship or trust between
Speaker 1: you and the gaslighter. You don't really know someone, or
Speaker 1: you don't really believe they have any expertise, they're less
Speaker 1: likely to be able to shift your reality. So in
Speaker 1: that first step, you've got in some form of relationship,
Speaker 1: someone you're getting to know, someone you want to know,
Speaker 1: someone you already know, like a family member, and obviously,
Speaker 1: very commonly it's a spouse or partner, someone you want
Speaker 1: to believe in, someone you in theory trust. The next
Speaker 1: step is that they deny your reality, perceptions, experiences, things
Speaker 1: that literally happened reality in general. So it's a denial
Speaker 1: of reality and that can often look like lying. And
Speaker 1: I'll talk more about that in a moment. Could be
Speaker 1: anything from you hung the keys on the hook and
Speaker 1: then they moved them and said no, you didn't. It
Speaker 1: could be them moving the remote and them saying it
Speaker 1: is a place that it's not. It could be them
Speaker 1: saying you can't be hungry, you just ate, but you
Speaker 1: are hungry. So it could be a denial of anything,
Speaker 1: not just the reality of the environment, but how you feel.
Speaker 1: Even something you may remember. They might say that never happened,
Speaker 1: and that thing did happen. If it's stopped there, that's
Speaker 1: not gaslighting, because gaslighting has one more step to it,
Speaker 1: which is that they dismantle you. They leave you feeling
Speaker 1: like there's something wrong with you. So it's things like
Speaker 1: you're really paranoid, always thinking I'm texting someone else on
Speaker 1: my phone, or you're seeming more and more mentally unstable.
Speaker 1: Are you okay, It doesn't seem like you're remembering anything
Speaker 1: right anymore. They may suggest that you have dementia or paranoia,
Speaker 1: or that you need therapy. But no matter what they're suggesting,
Speaker 1: there's something not quite right with you. They've just denied
Speaker 1: reality or perception. They're doubling down by telling you there's
Speaker 1: something wrong with you. And the final piece of gaslighting
Speaker 1: to remember is that it doesn't just happen once. The
Speaker 1: reason gaslighting works is because it happens repeatedly. It's not
Speaker 1: one time that they lie about where the remote is
Speaker 1: or accuse you of not being hungry. It's over and
Speaker 1: over and over again every day, sometimes multiple times a day.
Speaker 1: So that's gaslighting. And a lot of people say, well,
Speaker 1: isn't gaslighting narcissism? Is that the same thing. No, Narcissism's
Speaker 1: a personality style. Though we talk about on navigating narcissism.
Speaker 1: The usual laundry lists are people who have at best
Speaker 1: variable or inconsistent empathy, or very little empathy. They're entitled, grandiose,
Speaker 1: really superficial, chronically validation seeking, need to have a lot
Speaker 1: of control, They're really insecure. That's the narcissism piece. A
Speaker 1: great way to remember this is that all narcissists gaslight,
Speaker 1: but not all gaslighters are narcissistic. You might be wondering,
Speaker 1: what does it do to us? Oh, my goodness, not good.
Speaker 1: It leaves you feeling like there is something wrong with you.
Speaker 1: You do blame yourself, You doubt yourself. You actually may
Speaker 1: literally feel like you're losing your mind, and if it
Speaker 1: happens again consistently and for a long enough time, you
Speaker 1: completely lose any belief in your decision making abilities. You'll say,
Speaker 1: don't trust me with that. I don't know what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: even though you're an incredibly competent person. So that is
Speaker 1: why gaslighting is often considered to be a form of
Speaker 1: emotional abuse, because it is done so inconsistently, and it
Speaker 1: really really does tremendous psychological and mental harm to the
Speaker 1: person who is being gaslight at. Christine is asking here,
Speaker 1: why is it so destabilizing to be gaslighted by a narcissist?
Speaker 1: For all of these reasons, because you're going through life
Speaker 1: and you know what's right, you know what you know,
Speaker 1: you know what you don't know, you know where you
Speaker 1: left the keys, you know what you ate for breakfast,
Speaker 1: you know you're not hungry or hungry or cold or whatever.
Speaker 1: And now someone's coming along and saying no, you're not,
Speaker 1: or that's not when the appointment is. And like I said,
Speaker 1: it's the repeated nature of gaslighting that it happens so
Speaker 1: often that when it happens again, even once, even if
Speaker 1: you're having a good day, the minute you're hit with gaslighting,
Speaker 1: you again feel like you're walking on really unsteady ground.
Speaker 1: The final part of her question is is that do
Speaker 1: you have any tips for staying grounded. A big part
Speaker 1: of staying grounded in the face of gaslighting is to
Speaker 1: know that you are being gaslighted, so to even just
Speaker 1: simply understand the phenomenon saying I know where I put
Speaker 1: the keys. I put the keys in the same place
Speaker 1: every day. If they got moved, they were moved by someone.
Speaker 1: But I know where the keys are, and this person
Speaker 1: is messing with me. I'm not disorganized. I know that
Speaker 1: about myself. It does require, like all forms of healing
Speaker 1: from narcissistic abuse, that you understand you. You know what
Speaker 1: you're about, if you know that you're an organized person,
Speaker 1: if you know that you're not a paranoid person. These
Speaker 1: are things you should know about yourself and can give
Speaker 1: yourself permission to know about yourself. Gaslighting and narcissistic relationships
Speaker 1: pull us away from knowing about ourself. So part of
Speaker 1: the work you can do on your own is how
Speaker 1: do I get reacquainted with what I know to be
Speaker 1: true about me, about the world, about my environment, so
Speaker 1: that when you are being gaslighted, you can be a
Speaker 1: little bit more steadfast. I'm going to give you an example,
Speaker 1: because watching an encounter between two people, the person had
Speaker 1: a doctor's appointment at eleven o'clock in the morning. The
Speaker 1: gas slighter kept saying, no, it's not your appointments at noon.
Speaker 1: The person whose appointment was at eleven was really really
Speaker 1: careful about these doctor's appointments because they were difficult to
Speaker 1: get and she knew she was going to be late.
Speaker 1: She was going to lose the appointment. The gas lighter
Speaker 1: doubled and tripled down. The person whose appointment it was,
Speaker 1: who was being gaslighted, knew what gaslighting was. Instead of
Speaker 1: getting into an argument, which would have been destabilizing, she
Speaker 1: had the little card, the appointment card, and on top
Speaker 1: of that, she called the doctor's office on speaker, got
Speaker 1: through to the receptionist and said, Hi, it's such and such.
Speaker 1: I'm just confirming my appointment time today. Through the speaker
Speaker 1: came the receptionist's voice saying, your appointment's at eleven. Now
Speaker 1: you can see the multiple problems here. If this person,
Speaker 1: if she succumbed to the gas lighter, she would have
Speaker 1: missed the appointment, which was an important appointment. When the
Speaker 1: gas lighter heard that, said to the person, so do
Speaker 1: you feel better because you love making people feel small,
Speaker 1: don't you? Oh? You're so pompous. You're such a pompous lady,
Speaker 1: always walking around thinking you're so smart. And I just
Speaker 1: want you to know, now you've thrown off my whole day.
Speaker 1: All I do is for you, and now I have
Speaker 1: thrown off my day having to take you to this
Speaker 1: appointment when it works for you. What's the person supposed
Speaker 1: to do with that? The person who was gaslighted, though,
Speaker 1: told me later on. She said, as frustrating as it
Speaker 1: was to deal with him, there was a solidity I
Speaker 1: felt that I knew when that appointment was and that
Speaker 1: I knew he would never believe me. So the receptionist's
Speaker 1: voice coming through, she said, for me, the prize was
Speaker 1: getting to the appointment on time. Those kinds of things,
Speaker 1: remembering those things you're in never going to make them
Speaker 1: stop gaslighting you, but figuring out the things you can
Speaker 1: do that will allow your life to run in a
Speaker 1: through pathway, to be straight and clear, be clear on
Speaker 1: who you are in this situation, and then not misimportant
Speaker 1: things to you, like this woman in her doctor's appointment.
Speaker 1: It still doesn't feel good, but at least it may
Speaker 1: not throw you off. This next question so good. Next
Speaker 1: Sarah wants to know. My friends are always saying that
Speaker 1: they're being gaslighted. How do we know if they are?
Speaker 1: Isn't gaslighting just a fancy name for lying. So there's
Speaker 1: a lot there. Let's start from the top, which is
Speaker 1: everybody became the word of the year, right, so of
Speaker 1: course everyone's going to be talking about it. One of
Speaker 1: the struggles is a lot of people aren't using it
Speaker 1: the right way. Let me tell you what gaslighting is not.
Speaker 1: Gaslighting is not a difference of opinion. Gaslighting is not
Speaker 1: challenging someone's beliefs. Gaslighting is not Lyinglight is that multi
Speaker 1: step process I was talking about where a person's reality, experience,
Speaker 1: or perception is denied, then told there's something wrong with them,
Speaker 1: rince lather, repeat. It just keeps going and going and going.
Speaker 1: So it's a process. It's not a one off. So
Speaker 1: you having a different opinion I love that band, that
Speaker 1: band is terrible. That's not gaslighting. That's just the two
Speaker 1: of you not liking the same band. Now, for example,
Speaker 1: somebody saying you were late, No I wasn't you were late, No,
Speaker 1: I wasn't believe it or not. That sequence is also
Speaker 1: not gaslighting. A lot of people think that that sequence
Speaker 1: is gaslighting because that person saying they're not late, like, well,
Speaker 1: we were supposed to start at eight and you came
Speaker 1: at nine. That makes you late. That other person said,
Speaker 1: is a party. I thought coming at nine would be fine.
Speaker 1: What that person's not doing is saying there's something wrong
Speaker 1: with you. You're too rigid thinking eight o'clock was on time.
Speaker 1: If they just keep going back and forth, you were late,
Speaker 1: No I'm not. You were late, No, I'm not. That's
Speaker 1: not gaslighting. It's annoying, it's frustrating. But it is two
Speaker 1: people again having a difference of opinion, even when it's
Speaker 1: something as clear cut as a schedule. Another issue that
Speaker 1: comes up with this idea of what is gaslighting what
Speaker 1: isn't it is this dynamic of misremembering things from the past, right,
Speaker 1: And if two people have been witnessed or experienced something,
Speaker 1: If you had an experience of something, especially when it's
Speaker 1: very psychologically significant, an experience of abuse so or a
Speaker 1: really negative experience within a family, or feeling neglected, and
Speaker 1: the family members say that wasn't true, you were totally
Speaker 1: well taken care of. To me, that's in gaslight territory.
Speaker 1: Because the person saying I had this recollection that X, Y,
Speaker 1: and Z bad things were happening, the person saying that's
Speaker 1: not true, and they're over correcting, like you actually had
Speaker 1: a really great childhood when there's two, if you will,
Speaker 1: versions of history that are being put out there. The
Speaker 1: way for it to not be gaslighting is if that
Speaker 1: both people in the conversation can hold space for the
Speaker 1: idea that we may actually have had very different experiences
Speaker 1: of this, but not negating the experience of the other person. Hey,
Speaker 1: I remember childhood being this hostile, terrible, neglectful experience, and
Speaker 1: the parent can say, I am so sorry. That is
Speaker 1: so hard to recall your childhood to be that way.
Speaker 1: It's hard for me. I'm remembering it a different way.
Speaker 1: But I hear that you had an experience. That's not gaslighting.
Speaker 1: But for a person to say, what's wrong with you?
Speaker 1: You had a perfectly fine childhood. Stop complaining everyone on
Speaker 1: the block was living the way we did, that's gaslighting
Speaker 1: that difference in recall. The only way to push back
Speaker 1: to not have a gaslighted interaction about that is to
Speaker 1: be able to simultaneously be aware that maybe we did
Speaker 1: have different experiences and remembrances, but just because you had
Speaker 1: a different recollection that you never invalidate the experience of
Speaker 1: another person. Let me tell you, folks, this is a
Speaker 1: really hard line to toe because our only frame of
Speaker 1: reference is our own. But in the healthiest human relationships
Speaker 1: is they happen when both people feel that their experience
Speaker 1: can be witnessed by the other person and not questioned,
Speaker 1: even if the other person didn't have the same experience.
Speaker 1: And it's tricky, and in families it's where it is trickiest.
Speaker 1: But even at a societal level, the way people will
Speaker 1: look back at periods of our history when things happened,
Speaker 1: things that relate to race and ethnicity, things that relate
Speaker 1: to gender, things that relate to sexual orientation, groups of
Speaker 1: people who have experiences that were absolutely traumatic and that
Speaker 1: would be minimized by people who didn't have those experiences. Oh,
Speaker 1: come on, now, get over it. That period of history
Speaker 1: is over. That's gaslighting, because those periods of history shape
Speaker 1: the identity of people who have those shared identities going forward.
Speaker 1: So this is bigger than just two people misremembering something
Speaker 1: in a family. This has to do literally with how
Speaker 1: we hold history within ourselves and how we talk about it.
Speaker 1: Now we have a question from Grant who asks, how
Speaker 1: do you call out a gaslighter? This is tricky? So
Speaker 1: calling people out is always tricky business, Okay, especially when
Speaker 1: it's about something as we're learning, is so heated as gaslighting.
Speaker 1: But I still think actually it's a useful thing to do.
Speaker 1: People will say, what am I supposed to do if
Speaker 1: I see someone being gaslighted? Do I get it in
Speaker 1: there and do I help them? And to which I'd say,
Speaker 1: absolutely yes if it's safe for you, and like, well,
Speaker 1: one would it be unsafe? Oftentimes at work it can
Speaker 1: be unsafe, But how do you get in there? And
Speaker 1: it's sort of ungaslight someone in real time? If they're
Speaker 1: being gaslighted by someone, you can really step in and say, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not what I heard her say. She had said this,
Speaker 1: that's how I heard it. And so what happens is
Speaker 1: now you've validated the reality of the person being gaslighted,
Speaker 1: who believe it or not, just with that little bit
Speaker 1: of validation, will feel a lot stronger and might even
Speaker 1: be able to take it from there, because what happens
Speaker 1: is when we're gaslighted, anybody who has empathy and compassion
Speaker 1: is very gaslighted. Bule because they're willing to hold plausibly
Speaker 1: like maybe I'm wrong, maybe I didn't remember that right
Speaker 1: right as we're open to that, and the gaslighter runs
Speaker 1: with that. But if someone else says you didn't remember
Speaker 1: that wrong, I was there, That's what happened. Boom. It's
Speaker 1: like putting water on the wicked witch, like you melt it.
Speaker 1: What if you are in a situation though, where you
Speaker 1: can't speak tek out. Where this comes up most commonly
Speaker 1: is in the workplace, you might see someone more senior
Speaker 1: gaslighting someone who's more subordinate, and you yourself may be
Speaker 1: in that same level. You're not as senior as the
Speaker 1: person doing the gaslighting. Something that can be really useful
Speaker 1: is if after the meeting you take a side the
Speaker 1: person who's gaslighted as soon as you can after the
Speaker 1: meeting and say, hey, I want you to know I
Speaker 1: heard that and what they did to you was gaslighting.
Speaker 1: I was there when we had that meeting. I was
Speaker 1: there and I read that memo. You were right. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry that happened to you. I hope you're okay, but
Speaker 1: I saw that I have actually had that happen in
Speaker 1: professional settings, and it was a literal game changer for
Speaker 1: me because I would leave the meeting feeling terrible, and
Speaker 1: someone once did that. They cut me off of the pass.
Speaker 1: So I was going to the restroom after the meeting
Speaker 1: and they said I heard that, and I saw that,
Speaker 1: and that wasn't cool, and I'm sorry. The workplace remained toxic,
Speaker 1: but I went home that day feeling sane, which, let
Speaker 1: me tell you, there was no gift in the world
Speaker 1: great than that. So that's the piece about calling out gaslighting. Now,
Speaker 1: gaslighters gaslight, and they may not want to be stopped
Speaker 1: in that even if you did it in trying to
Speaker 1: protect someone, they don't like that. They do not like
Speaker 1: their process being thwarted, because remember, gaslighting is not just
Speaker 1: about saying my reality is better than yours. It's about power,
Speaker 1: control and dominance. The gaslighter wants things the way they
Speaker 1: want them. They want to be big and they want
Speaker 1: everyone else to be small. That's what they're trying to create.
Speaker 1: So you walking in there with your Google moment and
Speaker 1: trying to educate them on gaslighting is probably not going
Speaker 1: to be well met. If you want to take the argument,
Speaker 1: then by all means you do you, but keep in
Speaker 1: mind that they're probably if they really are a hardcore
Speaker 1: gas lighter, and especially if they're narcissistic, are going to
Speaker 1: sort of minimize you and say you don't know what
Speaker 1: you're talking about, and then they might actually start gaslighting you.
Speaker 1: I think that the more useful play in all of
Speaker 1: this is to talk with the people who are being
Speaker 1: gaslighted or who think they're being gaslighted, and helped show
Speaker 1: them what's happening, what's what, and what's not what. That
Speaker 1: might be the best way to approach this. But trying
Speaker 1: to call out a gaslight er is like trying to
Speaker 1: call out a narcissist. By and large, it gets you nowhere.
Speaker 1: It might get you in a big argument. But I
Speaker 1: have to say, and this came up in a conversation
Speaker 1: with a friend of mine. She said, you know what,
Speaker 1: if I'm being gaslighted, I don't like that. I don't
Speaker 1: want to put up with it. I said, then don't
Speaker 1: take the fight, and she said, I think I'd feel
Speaker 1: sick if I couldn't take the fight. What we're trying
Speaker 1: to do is keep you from feeling sick. So if
Speaker 1: you feel ready to take on the gaslight fight, then
Speaker 1: take it. But understand that it's going to get very
Speaker 1: distorted and shape shifted and uncomfortable. But if you want
Speaker 1: to take the argument, take the argument, recognize it's going
Speaker 1: to get really confusing. But if you're someone who doesn't
Speaker 1: like conflict, have really been harmed by long term manipulation,
Speaker 1: and find these situations to be really unsettling, I would
Speaker 1: say calling them out is probably not doing you any favors,
Speaker 1: and trying to educate them on gaslighting is like trying
Speaker 1: to educate a pickpocket on ethics. You're probably not going
Speaker 1: to get very far. So choose your battles, and you
Speaker 1: may do more in being a real supporter and an
Speaker 1: ally to somebody who's being gaslighted and letting them know,
Speaker 1: either in private or in real time, that you see
Speaker 1: what's happening and that it's not okay. So this is
Speaker 1: an interesting one. Gino asks, I was in a coffee
Speaker 1: shop recently and I saw someone who got really upset
Speaker 1: when their coffee order came up, but they put the
Speaker 1: wrong name on the coffee cup, which meant they had
Speaker 1: to wait a minute before they got their coffee even
Speaker 1: though it was ready. And then that person got really
Speaker 1: mad at the barista and said you're gaslighting me. Now,
Speaker 1: that's not gaslighting. Now, if the Starbucks barista had pointed
Speaker 1: to the cup and said you must have a reading problem,
Speaker 1: that is your name gaslighting. But this person just being
Speaker 1: the barista making a mistake or something like that, that
Speaker 1: kind of issue not gaslighting. So if a waiter were
Speaker 1: to bring someone the wrong meal. Okay, you're in a restaurant,
Speaker 1: the waiter brings you the salmon and that's not what
Speaker 1: you ordered and they walk away, that's not gaslighting. That's
Speaker 1: a mistake. And the overuse of this term in all
Speaker 1: of these kinds of situations being given the wrong thing.
Speaker 1: I saw this actually happen on a flight once when
Speaker 1: somebody thought they were in a certain seat and the
Speaker 1: flight attendant said, no, you're one row back, and the
Speaker 1: person told the flight attendant, you're gaslighting me. The flight
Speaker 1: attendant actually wasn't gaslighting them. They sat in the wrong
Speaker 1: seat and they were one row back. I think it
Speaker 1: was thirteen C fourteen C kind of a thing. That's
Speaker 1: not someone gaslighting them, it's that someone saying this is
Speaker 1: what your boarding pass says. There's a real issue here
Speaker 1: because a lot of people are using gaslighting as a
Speaker 1: term for when they're inconvenienced, and being inconvenienced is not
Speaker 1: being gaslighted. It's being inconvenienced. Always remember denial of reality, perception, experience,
Speaker 1: and then dismantling. There's something wrong with you. You have memory problems,
Speaker 1: you're obsessive, you're controlling, you're narcissistic, whatever they're accusing you of.
Speaker 1: It's that combination that makes gaslighting. Someone getting your coffee
Speaker 1: name wrong, while maybe quite upsetting, perhaps it even hurts
Speaker 1: your feelings, but it's not gaslighting. My conversation will continue
Speaker 1: after this break. So Michelle wants to know are certain
Speaker 1: personality types more susceptible to gaslighting? This is such a
Speaker 1: great question because that's always the issue. Are there some
Speaker 1: people out there that are gaslight proof? And the answer
Speaker 1: to that is no. So let's start with some brass
Speaker 1: tacks here. The more privileged somebody has the less gaslight
Speaker 1: of all they are because they've almost been given societal
Speaker 1: permission for a really long time. That what you're saying
Speaker 1: is right, and people who have less societal power they're wrong.
Speaker 1: When we think about the original movie Gaslight, it was
Speaker 1: an older husband who was gaslighting a younger wife. So
Speaker 1: there was a gender dynamic, there was an age dynamic
Speaker 1: because of the era it happened, there was a powered
Speaker 1: dynamic difference. So all of those things were happening making
Speaker 1: him more gaslighty of her, her ability to gaslight him
Speaker 1: was going to be a lot more limited. Because he
Speaker 1: did have more societal power, more people were more likely
Speaker 1: to go along with what he says, which is why
Speaker 1: many times people who do have more societal privilege and
Speaker 1: power will often look sideways when somebody says I'm being
Speaker 1: gaslight and they are actually being gaslighted, because it tends
Speaker 1: not to happen up, it tends to happen down in
Speaker 1: terms of power. So keep that peace in mind. So
Speaker 1: anyone who holds less power in a situation for any reason,
Speaker 1: because they literally do because it's work, because of age,
Speaker 1: because of dynamics in a family, because of money, because
Speaker 1: of race, because of ethnicity, gender, any of those issues,
Speaker 1: that more empowered person is going to be more likely
Speaker 1: to be able to pull off gaslighting someone less powerful.
Speaker 1: That's one thing. Second piece, when people have more empathy
Speaker 1: and compassion, I had to say this, they're more likely
Speaker 1: to be gaslightable because they're willing to be open to
Speaker 1: the idea that, well, to be empathic, maybe I am responsible,
Speaker 1: maybe I did put the keys in the wrong place.
Speaker 1: Maybe this person has my best interest at heart. There
Speaker 1: is an idea that empathy. When you're an empathic person,
Speaker 1: the baseline assumption, especially when you're agreeable, is that this
Speaker 1: other person has empathy too, so you're not thinking that
Speaker 1: they're going to be trying to harm you. And as
Speaker 1: a result, empathic, compassionate, and open people hold a lot
Speaker 1: more space for the idea that the other person is
Speaker 1: not trying to pull one over on them, so they'll
Speaker 1: be open to their point of view and subsequently will
Speaker 1: be more gas light of bull What gets interesting is
Speaker 1: even empathic, sweet, kind, gregarious, agreeable people early on, when
Speaker 1: something is patently no, no, no, like no way, I
Speaker 1: know I didn't put that there, or absolutely not I
Speaker 1: have the text here. Gaslighting breaks us down over time.
Speaker 1: So even the most empathic person out there might take
Speaker 1: the fight initially, but enough times, after fifty one hundred
Speaker 1: times of being told you're foolish, you're silly, you're dim,
Speaker 1: you're dull, you don't know what you're doing, it becomes
Speaker 1: baked into a person's identity and then couple that with
Speaker 1: the empathy, and they really aren't likely to take the
Speaker 1: gaslighter on. Another personality style that would be associated with
Speaker 1: a greater vulnerability to gaslighting would be something we call neuroticism. Now,
Speaker 1: neuroticism is a personality style that's associated with a greater
Speaker 1: likelihood of things like negative emotions, worry, anxiety, fear, sort
Speaker 1: of social discomfort. The higher that gets, the more struggle
Speaker 1: there may be in a social situation, and people higher
Speaker 1: in neuroticism may be more willing and likely to blame themselves.
Speaker 1: So if a person higher in this neuroticism style, and
Speaker 1: I don't mean my neurotic I don't mean old school
Speaker 1: like neurotically like you see in the movies. I mean
Speaker 1: this specific personality style that is more of this negative
Speaker 1: emotional style, they're more vulnerable to gaslighting because people higher
Speaker 1: in neuroticism are just simply more likely to doubt themselves
Speaker 1: with or without gaslighting being around. But the thing that
Speaker 1: we need to be clear on is any time there
Speaker 1: is that power differential, all these personality styles I'm talking
Speaker 1: about certainly are going to play into that. We're going
Speaker 1: to see gaslighting so one more place to think about
Speaker 1: other groups that could be more vulnerable to gaslighting. People
Speaker 1: have had histories of trauma. What trauma does is it
Speaker 1: undercuts a sense of trust, not only in the world,
Speaker 1: but a sense of trust in oneself. So even you
Speaker 1: must say, well, the traumatized person doesn't trust the world,
Speaker 1: wouldn't they stop trusting the people in it. It's really
Speaker 1: that sense of self doubt that pervades a traumatized person.
Speaker 1: So there can be a sense of because many traumatized
Speaker 1: people believe they are at some level responsible for their trauma,
Speaker 1: especially when it's interpersonal trauma. That's the nature of what
Speaker 1: trauma does to our brains. So if a person has
Speaker 1: experienced interpersonal trauma, family violence, relational violence, child abuse, those
Speaker 1: sorts of experiences, as they get older and go into
Speaker 1: an adulthood and they encounter a gaslighted experience, it is
Speaker 1: much more likely reflexively for a trauma a person with
Speaker 1: the history of trauma to think, maybe this is my fault,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm blame, making them quite gaslightable. People with past
Speaker 1: histories of gaslighting, who have been gaslighted are more likely
Speaker 1: to be gaslightable in the future until they learn what
Speaker 1: it is. So if you're gaslighted as a kid by
Speaker 1: your parents, you're going to be more vulnerable to that
Speaker 1: as an adult as well. And then we also have
Speaker 1: to account for other mental health issues that could be
Speaker 1: at play. Depression, other anxiety adjacent patterns like obsessive compulsive disorder,
Speaker 1: will those kinds of patterns create a person who may
Speaker 1: also be more gaslightable. The self doubt, the self devaluation,
Speaker 1: the social anxiety, the lack of belief in oneself that
Speaker 1: cut through those kinds of patterns means that when somebody
Speaker 1: is gaslighted, the first thing that that person is going
Speaker 1: to do is to doubt themselves. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: give you sort of a doctor Romeny personal moment here.
Speaker 1: As hard as it is, I'm a really gaslightable person
Speaker 1: in many ways just because of my own life histories,
Speaker 1: stuff that's happened to me in terms of trauma and
Speaker 1: other stuff, and so I always doubt myself. So when
Speaker 1: somebody says you didn't put the book back, I'm always
Speaker 1: going to assume they're right, and I will rifle through
Speaker 1: my bag endlessly and then able to turn out the
Speaker 1: book was in the right place all along, and it's
Speaker 1: sort of an interest real doctor interesting doctor rominism. It's
Speaker 1: gotten to the point where anytime I go on a trip,
Speaker 1: I am convinced I have forgotten one or two. There's
Speaker 1: specific things I always worry I'm going to forget. The
Speaker 1: number of Uber drivers I have made pull over four
Speaker 1: blocks out from my house. Can you pull over? It
Speaker 1: got so embarrassing that I couldn't evembar it anymore. But
Speaker 1: you know, to my partner's credit, sometimes we'll get a
Speaker 1: block out and I'll say can we pull over? And
Speaker 1: to his credit, he doesn't get mad at me. And
Speaker 1: it was years I was in relationships with people who
Speaker 1: would get really angry at me for doing that. That's
Speaker 1: what a lifetime of gaslighting has done to me. I
Speaker 1: no longer trust myself, so that susceptibility. I have a
Speaker 1: lot of the things we talked about. It has created
Speaker 1: something in me where I actually have to be almost
Speaker 1: obsessively organized to feel like, no, I think I put
Speaker 1: the book away, but if someone say, no, you didn't,
Speaker 1: I'd be the first one to unpack her bag. So
Speaker 1: it's a process, and sometimes these patterns really die hard.
Speaker 1: So Lee asks. I've had a few situations where I've
Speaker 1: experienced gas slighting at work where I just need to
Speaker 1: have peace to do my job. How can I best
Speaker 1: manage conversations with the gas lighter without first aggravating the
Speaker 1: situation or second seeming to agree and accept the lies
Speaker 1: at my own expense. I feel bad for Lee because
Speaker 1: I don't think there's really a good path forward for
Speaker 1: Lee here. And let's talk a little bit about gaslighting
Speaker 1: at work. Gaslighting is gaslighting. It's emotional abuse wherever it happens.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it feels a little bit different at work because
Speaker 1: work may not feel as personal depends on how indo
Speaker 1: your work you are, but whereas what happens in the
Speaker 1: family or in an intimate relationship, you might be more
Speaker 1: like ah. But when it comes to a workplace relationship,
Speaker 1: it might even take you a minute to recognize the
Speaker 1: dynamic because we often view it more as a sort
Speaker 1: of an intimate kind of a dynamic. But it can
Speaker 1: make work a very upsetting place because the devil is
Speaker 1: often in the details at work and gas slightings where
Speaker 1: people can really catch you and say you didn't do that,
Speaker 1: and you're saying, I know I did, didn't I save that?
Speaker 1: And it can really make people run back to their
Speaker 1: computer and say, there is the document. And so what
Speaker 1: Lee is asking is I need to have peace to
Speaker 1: do my job. How do I manage this without either
Speaker 1: aggravating them or giving in. Lee's best approach here is
Speaker 1: actually trying to figure out how to do the job.
Speaker 1: That's the most important thing here. So, because I don't
Speaker 1: know what Lee's job is, maybe it's something where you
Speaker 1: clock in and clock out. Maybe it's how many things
Speaker 1: get put away in a warehouse. Maybe it's certain documents
Speaker 1: getting written at a workplace. It's really really crucial that
Speaker 1: Lee has some sort of objective place where this work
Speaker 1: is getting logged in, whether that's a manager, whether that's
Speaker 1: something that Lee keeps on Lee's phone that Lee is
Speaker 1: tracking what's getting done. So at the end of that day,
Speaker 1: Lee has a record. Especially if Lee reports to someone,
Speaker 1: Lee can say here's the documents, this, here's that. It's
Speaker 1: difficult when the person who's the gas lighter is the
Speaker 1: one who's saying, no, you didn't. Sadly, when you work
Speaker 1: with a gas lighter, you actually have to do more
Speaker 1: work because you have to sometimes create an additional record
Speaker 1: of everything you've done. Documentation is everything when you're being
Speaker 1: gaslighted in the workplace, the more you have this written
Speaker 1: proof if you do need to take a complaint to
Speaker 1: a different level, if it's a large enough workplace where
Speaker 1: you can do that at least, then you do have
Speaker 1: that proof. So those of you who might say, okay, now,
Speaker 1: I have to sort of over communicate sometimes that's what
Speaker 1: you've got to do to sort of have that kind
Speaker 1: of a record of what you've done. But what Lee
Speaker 1: is trying to do. The more concerning part, if you will,
Speaker 1: about Lee's question is Lee is trying to manage the
Speaker 1: piece without either aggravating the gas lighter or not having
Speaker 1: to go along with the gas lighter. And that's of
Speaker 1: the impossible catch twenty two here, you kind of sadly
Speaker 1: to keep the peace in the workplace other than quitting
Speaker 1: the job, you're sort of stuck doing one or the other,
Speaker 1: and then it becomes a choice. There may be times
Speaker 1: you do have to aggravate the gas lighter if your
Speaker 1: job is in jeopardy, if workplace finances are at jeopardy,
Speaker 1: if people you're working with, or consumers or something aren't jeopardy,
Speaker 1: you may just have to step up and say here's
Speaker 1: the documentation, Here are the records, this is what it
Speaker 1: looks like that is going to aggravate the gas lighter.
Speaker 1: If you don't need to do that, If those aren't
Speaker 1: the stakes, then there are times where you're just going
Speaker 1: to have to just shut up and put up and
Speaker 1: just keep moving on, because just like you can't call
Speaker 1: out a narcissist and they're not going to change, you're
Speaker 1: also not going to be able to find this meaningful
Speaker 1: way to interact with someone who gaslights with a gas lighter.
Speaker 1: Evidence often isn't your friend. You know, you can come
Speaker 1: up with a wheelbarrow of evidence, like, here's all the
Speaker 1: texts you wrote late at night. Don't tell me you
Speaker 1: don't late night texts. And you know what they're gonna
Speaker 1: do is they're going to upside down your wheelbarrow and
Speaker 1: say only a deranged person would save all my texts,
Speaker 1: And now you're the deranged person who saves texts. There's
Speaker 1: no winning at this. So you've got to have a
Speaker 1: bigger goal in mind, which is I want to move
Speaker 1: to the next level. I want to be transferred to
Speaker 1: a different division. I got to keep this job until
Speaker 1: I can find another job, whatever that may be. To
Speaker 1: keep the so called peace until you can figure out
Speaker 1: a way out, because as long as you are working
Speaker 1: under that condition, there's really no path forward. You either
Speaker 1: are alternating between aggravating and giving into them. And I
Speaker 1: think a hard part of all of this is that
Speaker 1: people are often trying to find isn't there some middle
Speaker 1: road we can take? And in healthy relationships there's always
Speaker 1: a middle road, But in gaslighted relationships, in narcissistic relationships,
Speaker 1: it's the absence of the middle road that makes it
Speaker 1: so difficult. The next question is from Keenan, who is
Speaker 1: wondering when you ignore more a narcissistic person's attempt to
Speaker 1: gaslight you, what usually happens next. So this is a
Speaker 1: really really good question because ignoring gaslighting is half the battle, right.
Speaker 1: So as I get into this answer, I want to
Speaker 1: lay one thing out first, because I want to normalize
Speaker 1: your experience in these relationships. For most of us, in
Speaker 1: the early days of gaslighting in a relationship, we might
Speaker 1: even fight back a little bit, say absolutely not, the
Speaker 1: remote was right here unless there's a ghost in the house,
Speaker 1: there's no way, or I absolutely know here's the text
Speaker 1: you sent me the text, or I'm going to go
Speaker 1: find the picture to show that you were at that part.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is, you're going to take the fight because
Speaker 1: someone's denying reality. We are going to take that fight
Speaker 1: right over time when they come back twice as hard.
Speaker 1: If you have any of those personality styles I was
Speaker 1: talking about, any of those things that make you more
Speaker 1: vulnerable and somebody telling you you're wrong, there's something wrong
Speaker 1: with you over and over again, that's going to pull
Speaker 1: you back. So it goes through phases, and in the
Speaker 1: first phase there's some clapback, we push back, and then
Speaker 1: slowly we don't. Over time, in the worst gaslighted situations,
Speaker 1: you go from fighting back to giving in to phase three,
Speaker 1: which mercifully not everyone always gets to. But in that
Speaker 1: last phase, it's almost like we might see in somebody
Speaker 1: who's in a cultic community. You look like you're agreeing
Speaker 1: with the gaslighter. Like to the world, you look like
Speaker 1: a united front. We might see that in really severely
Speaker 1: abusive relationships, like I said, cultic systems, it feels like
Speaker 1: everyone is on the same page. A gas lighter at
Speaker 1: that point has achieved full dominance, but before that final
Speaker 1: really problematic stage because it's really hard to bring people
Speaker 1: out of that. After people learn what gaslighting is, they
Speaker 1: learn most cases the best thing to do is not engage.
Speaker 1: But it's not that simple. It never is. So what
Speaker 1: happens when you do that, You can expect a series
Speaker 1: of reactions. In some cases you might see anger or
Speaker 1: rage where you might say okay, and it's as though
Speaker 1: you're not going to get into it with them. Well,
Speaker 1: they've kind of lost their ability to dominate, and that
Speaker 1: might get them really angry and they may actually lash
Speaker 1: out at you. But the way that lashing out can look,
Speaker 1: it can look like contempt, it can look like mockery.
Speaker 1: A common thing you might see is a narcissistic person saying, oh,
Speaker 1: is someone in therapy is your therapist teaching you to
Speaker 1: say new things? And it's really really sort of cruel
Speaker 1: again and contemptuous and just interpersonally unpleasant. But they'll do that.
Speaker 1: So it becomes almost this experience of baiting, which is
Speaker 1: very common in narcissistic relationships, where they set you up
Speaker 1: to get you to bite at some time and have
Speaker 1: a really strong emotional reaction, and when you have that
Speaker 1: strong emotional reaction, they'll pull back and say, ooh, somebody's
Speaker 1: really emotional, aren't they, And that whole sequence sets it
Speaker 1: up so that you look like you're unhinged and they
Speaker 1: look like they're calm, cool and collected. So you're not
Speaker 1: coming out of this quietly over time by not engaging
Speaker 1: with the gas lighting. So if they say I never
Speaker 1: moved to the remote, instead of the getting into the
Speaker 1: oh yes you did, yes, you did, you quietly go
Speaker 1: and look for it, and then you find the TV
Speaker 1: remote and you put it where it belongs, and they'll say, well,
Speaker 1: this is what we get for you being so disorganized,
Speaker 1: and then you don't engage in that Initially, they're going
Speaker 1: to bait you. What a narcissistic person doesn't like is
Speaker 1: that idea of disengagement. So gaslighter narcissist. But if you disengage,
Speaker 1: you don't engage in the gas lighting, you don't engage
Speaker 1: in the baiting. They experience that as a little bit
Speaker 1: of an abandonment, and they are not sitting quietly for that,
Speaker 1: and they're going to come for you again. They're going
Speaker 1: to try to get you to react by sometimes even
Speaker 1: escalating the sorts of baiting things they say, which can
Speaker 1: get more and more cruel and may start hitting things
Speaker 1: that matter to you, like I don't know, like your
Speaker 1: kids or your family, or say something that's so echaly disparaging,
Speaker 1: like cat, I can't just be quiet in the face
Speaker 1: of this. Again, then you have the strong emotional reaction.
Speaker 1: They paint you out as being someone who is completely dysregulated.
Speaker 1: So when you don't go with the gaslight, there's going
Speaker 1: to be a lot of escalation and frenzy initially over time,
Speaker 1: and you gotta be patient with this. It could take months.
Speaker 1: In extreme cases, it could take years. You're not an
Speaker 1: interesting target anymore. One of the things we tell people
Speaker 1: to do when they're being gaslighted is to not engage,
Speaker 1: and in fact, don't engage is probably one of the
Speaker 1: most primary pieces of guidance given to anyone surviving a
Speaker 1: narcissistic or gaslighting relationship. It's really good advice under one circumstance.
Speaker 1: Think for a minute, what's the one time you cannot
Speaker 1: escape from a gaslighter or a narcissist. Got the answer, Yep,
Speaker 1: it's in a car. I actually believe cars are every
Speaker 1: bit as intimate as beds. It is a very private,
Speaker 1: closed in place. Assuming you're the only people in the car. Obviously,
Speaker 1: but unlike a bus or a train or a plane,
Speaker 1: it's only the two of you, no one else to
Speaker 1: hear what's happening. And what that means is a car
Speaker 1: can be a place you have some of the most
Speaker 1: intense private conversations of your life, but it's also a
Speaker 1: place where somebody can brutally verbally abuse you or gaslight
Speaker 1: you and sort of like you know how in space,
Speaker 1: there's no one there to hear you scream, it's kind
Speaker 1: of the same thing in a car. So when people
Speaker 1: are going through a really gaslighted experience in a car,
Speaker 1: or even just about of narcissistic rage. I had a
Speaker 1: client say this to me. You know, I had put
Speaker 1: out a YouTube video on this issue, and you know,
Speaker 1: she said, your advice about disengaging was great, but what
Speaker 1: about when we're going seventy five miles an hour down
Speaker 1: the four h five freeway. I didn't know what to do,
Speaker 1: she said. It was just all this psychological abuse raining
Speaker 1: down on me. But I couldn't go to another room
Speaker 1: because I was in a car. It was nighttime. Even
Speaker 1: if the car stopped, it couldn't safely get out of
Speaker 1: the car. The car is a really tricky place It's
Speaker 1: almost like a lot of the rules about narcissistic abuse
Speaker 1: and gas lighting and disengagement kind of go out the window.
Speaker 1: So understand that the car is a unique space, and
Speaker 1: at that time the guidance I'll often give to people
Speaker 1: is find a way to almost do like a mini dissociate,
Speaker 1: like turn away in and disengage from what's happening. Here's
Speaker 1: the doctor Rominy hack for the car. I devised this
Speaker 1: when I was being narcissistically abused in the car years ago.
Speaker 1: It's still something I do now because I think I
Speaker 1: can't break the habit, but it actually kind of works.
Speaker 1: It goes back to a game you might have played
Speaker 1: on long ca our rides as a kid, but it's
Speaker 1: a little riff on it to make it easier. Look
Speaker 1: for letters in street signs A, B, C, D, so
Speaker 1: as it's like gaslight, gaslight, gaslight abuse abuse abuse, gaslight gaslight,
Speaker 1: you're like EF. The best thing about exit signs is
Speaker 1: you're always going to get your ax. You kind of
Speaker 1: get worked up oo if I my cueue. But meanwhile
Speaker 1: this person's like ma, mam, ma mam, and you're focusing
Speaker 1: on this thing outside of you. It's sometimes enough of
Speaker 1: a focus outside of you to regulate to get to
Speaker 1: the other end of that drive. And when you get
Speaker 1: to the other end of that drive, you've got to
Speaker 1: understand that your nervous system has just been through something.
Speaker 1: If you can get some time and space to yourself,
Speaker 1: whether that's take a shower, find a room to sit
Speaker 1: by yourself, something, take a walk if it's safe to
Speaker 1: do so, but something to help you kind of get
Speaker 1: out of that sympathetic nervous system arousal and come back down.
Speaker 1: We will be right back with this conversation. In this question,
Speaker 1: Kara asks do narcissists believe their own gas slighting? My
Speaker 1: husband fell in love with a coworker, and when I
Speaker 1: found out that he maintained that he wanted to stay
Speaker 1: close friends with her, the gas slighting was subtle. This
Speaker 1: is not a problem. You are so sensitive, You are
Speaker 1: so conservative and closed minded. It is totally normal to
Speaker 1: be sexually attracted to friends and discuss that openly with them,
Speaker 1: he said, and he continued with you are so insecurely attached,
Speaker 1: you are anxious. You have so little empathy. When you
Speaker 1: ask me to drop this friend who means the world
Speaker 1: to me. A year later, it still seems he holds
Speaker 1: these same opinions. Is there a chance he really believes
Speaker 1: it or is it conscious manipulation? Woo, that's a doozy, okay, Kara.
Speaker 1: I hope Kara finds her love story one day because
Speaker 1: this is really painful. This is terrible on multiple fronts.
Speaker 1: But let's get to the core of her question. Do
Speaker 1: they believe their own gas lighting? Narcissism is really about
Speaker 1: what we could call delusional grandiosity. They kind of believe
Speaker 1: their own hype. They have to. Have you ever watched
Speaker 1: a six year old kid tie a little cape around
Speaker 1: their neck and say I'm Superman, or a kid put
Speaker 1: a giant crown on their head and say I'm the
Speaker 1: Wizard of All Time. It's super cute and a six
Speaker 1: year old does it, right, Forty six year olds do
Speaker 1: that too, when they walk around and have those delusions
Speaker 1: of their own grandiosity and their own gas lighting. Remember
Speaker 1: what narcissism is. Why is it Let's go back to
Speaker 1: that little six year old kid. Why is the little
Speaker 1: six year old kid running around saying that they're the
Speaker 1: grand magic, magician, superhero. Why do they do that? Because
Speaker 1: in their own way, kids feel unsafe in the world,
Speaker 1: So in that moment, they're creating these grandiose defenses so
Speaker 1: they can feel safe. A child who grows up in
Speaker 1: a healthy, safe, consistent environment no longer needs those infantile
Speaker 1: grandiose defenses, grows into their sense of self and recognizes
Speaker 1: that they have the skills they need to make their
Speaker 1: way into the adult world. What about the children, though,
Speaker 1: who never feel safe enough to give up those grandiose
Speaker 1: crowns and costumes and superhero capes. Well, they do the
Speaker 1: equivalent of that in adulthood, maybe not as obvious as
Speaker 1: a superhero cape, but they don't feel safe. So when
Speaker 1: they get into adulthood, they have to walk around believing
Speaker 1: I'm the best, I'm the greatest, no one's better than me,
Speaker 1: no one has better ideas than me. It's no different
Speaker 1: than the superhero cape. They believe their hype to be
Speaker 1: an offset to their sense of insecurity, which is the
Speaker 1: core issue for a narcissistic person and frankly for most
Speaker 1: gaslighting people. This goes to a bigger question of is
Speaker 1: gaslighting conscious? Is the gas lighter rubbing their hands in
Speaker 1: the corner saying I'm gonna gaslight you and make you
Speaker 1: feel like you're completely out of your mind, so I
Speaker 1: can contry all. You know, They're not that sort of
Speaker 1: doctor evil sadistic stuff. That's not what's happening for gaslighting
Speaker 1: and narcissistic people. What they're trying to do is maintain
Speaker 1: their power, dominance, and control in a situation to offset
Speaker 1: their insecurity. All of that is happening at an unconscious level,
Speaker 1: but every play that they engage in at a defensive,
Speaker 1: unconscious level is to maintain that power. And if anything
Speaker 1: cracks through so they don't feel powerful, doesn't feel good.
Speaker 1: That's not helping Cara, right, So one thing we can
Speaker 1: tell Kara is that is this conscious manipulation. Probably not.
Speaker 1: There is a subset of gas lighters who may be
Speaker 1: frankly sadistic, but sadism is actually not a normal pattern
Speaker 1: in human beings. It's relatively rare. So it's not like
Speaker 1: he is setting out to mess with Kara's head. Instead,
Speaker 1: he simply wants what he wants like a spoiled child,
Speaker 1: and he wants to maintain his flirty friendship with the
Speaker 1: with the co worker that he says he's fallen in
Speaker 1: love with. This is where it's so clearly gaslighting and
Speaker 1: This is where Kara's given us such a great example
Speaker 1: of how this can look and how sort of complicated
Speaker 1: it is. She's married to this man. You're not supposed
Speaker 1: to fall in love with a coworker when you're married
Speaker 1: to someone. And then when she found out, because I'm
Speaker 1: sure he didn't tell her, what does he do? He
Speaker 1: gaslights her and says, you're conservative, you're close minded, it's
Speaker 1: normal to be sexually attracted to friends, you're insecurely attached,
Speaker 1: you're anxious, you have so little empathy. That's the gaslight.
Speaker 1: So what he's doing is he's messing with her head
Speaker 1: so that she'll sign off on what he wants. But
Speaker 1: he's not doing this in a linear way. It's more
Speaker 1: of a I'm going to say whatever I need to
Speaker 1: do to keep things the way that I want them.
Speaker 1: And over time, what he has found is that he
Speaker 1: could do this because the fact of the matter is
Speaker 1: simply by how he's conducting himself in the work place
Speaker 1: is showing us a lot about how this guy goes
Speaker 1: through the world. So does he believe his own gaslighting?
Speaker 1: He doesn't think he's gaslighting. He actually has to believe
Speaker 1: it's okay for him to have this relationship with the coworker.
Speaker 1: He believes that's okay. What he's not in touch with
Speaker 1: is he needs the validation. So there's always this thing
Speaker 1: they believe on the surface, which is already bizarre enough.
Speaker 1: It's okay for me and be in love with a
Speaker 1: co worker. Underneath that is I need the validation. The
Speaker 1: hypocrisy of it is he wouldn't be okay if Kara
Speaker 1: fell in love with the coworker. So it gets to
Speaker 1: be this sort of really jagged edged kind of thing
Speaker 1: because they have one set of rules for them, one
Speaker 1: set of rules for you. And even though what they're
Speaker 1: doing is hurting you, him being in love with this
Speaker 1: coworker is hurting you. No empathy, so there's no care there,
Speaker 1: but the gas slighting becomes away for him to push
Speaker 1: away his shame and be the one who still looks
Speaker 1: good in this relationship. It's normal for people be in
Speaker 1: love with their co workers, paint himself out as the
Speaker 1: normal one and her as the abnormal one. But believe
Speaker 1: it or not, folks, this is not a conscious process.
Speaker 1: So this question was sent in by Susannah dr Rominey.
Speaker 1: I've heard you talk about people around the narcissist who
Speaker 1: enable their behavior. Why don't those people see the gas lighting?
Speaker 1: I am so glad someone asked this because this is
Speaker 1: going to give me a chance to talk about something
Speaker 1: called flying monkeys. Many of you may have heard about
Speaker 1: flying monkeys. Lots of people talk about this phenomenon, but
Speaker 1: it relates to this idea of enabling. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about the flying monkeys are, so there's no misunderstandings there,
Speaker 1: and then we'll go into this idea of enablers and
Speaker 1: why they don't see the gas lighting. So flying monkeys,
Speaker 1: anyone who hasn't seen Wizard of Oz do your homework.
Speaker 1: You gotta go see Wizard of Oz. But if you haven't,
Speaker 1: the flying monkeys were these flying monkeys, winged monkeys who
Speaker 1: did the wicked witches bidding and would do it by
Speaker 1: kind of almost like overwhelming them and scaring them, and
Speaker 1: so people kind of wouldn't engage with the wicked witch.
Speaker 1: Flying monkeys in the narcissistic relationship, realm are the people
Speaker 1: whom the narcissistic person is able to get to and
Speaker 1: sort of mobilize and turn against other people. So, for example,
Speaker 1: let's say you were married to someone and they're narcissistic,
Speaker 1: and then you're gonna end your marriage. The flying monkeys
Speaker 1: are the people that the narcissists told you. Can't believe
Speaker 1: the terrible things that this person did to me in
Speaker 1: our marriage. Can you believe they did this. They might
Speaker 1: even tell untruths that you might have been unfaithful, all
Speaker 1: kinds of things that aren't true. But then all those
Speaker 1: people hearing these terrible things you do are going to
Speaker 1: come for you. They may come for you in person,
Speaker 1: they may come for you online. It'll feel like a
Speaker 1: smear campaign. This can happen in the workplace, this can
Speaker 1: happen with friend groups. But these are people that basically
Speaker 1: the narcissistic person gets to almost always tells them untrue
Speaker 1: things or exaggerations of things that happen, or things they
Speaker 1: should not have been telling other people, and then that
Speaker 1: sort of turns this angry group of people against you.
Speaker 1: And for many people have said to me, the flying
Speaker 1: monkeys that came for me during my divorce or during
Speaker 1: this thing that happened at work or even within my
Speaker 1: family was in a way more devastating than what I
Speaker 1: was living through in the narcissistic relationship, because I could
Speaker 1: see that the narcissistic person was just mean to me.
Speaker 1: But these were people I loved and now I had
Speaker 1: lost them too, so it can magnify the grief. What
Speaker 1: Suzanne is asking, though, is why don't the enabler see
Speaker 1: the gaslighting? So it means we have to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about enabling. Enabling is a word that actually
Speaker 1: originally came from the alcoholism literature and the substance use
Speaker 1: literature about people who would often inadvertently and sometimes directly,
Speaker 1: but often inadvertently enable a person to keep using drugs
Speaker 1: or alcohol through sort of giving tacit permission, not calling
Speaker 1: them out, giving them money to get drugs, knuckle, whatever
Speaker 1: it might have been. But these were the people who
Speaker 1: kind of kept that person in that place. And some
Speaker 1: people would argue that the enablers were getting some secondary
Speaker 1: gain by keeping someone sort of stuck in that position,
Speaker 1: that they then could have almost a role in this,
Speaker 1: and it became a really toxic dance. All of this
Speaker 1: became the forerunner to what would ultimately be called codependency.
Speaker 1: But this concept of enablers is a really important one
Speaker 1: in understanding gaslighting and narcissism and all of these dynamics
Speaker 1: These are the people who may not be narcissistic themselves.
Speaker 1: These may be people who are sort of toxically positive.
Speaker 1: Everyone has good in them, Let's find everyone's light inside.
Speaker 1: Everyone is a hero, not a zero. And you read
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff on social media, you're like, what, No, Actually,
Speaker 1: some people really kind of are mean all the way through,
Speaker 1: but they love everyone's got good. I can't listen to
Speaker 1: people who say negative things that sort of thing. Those
Speaker 1: folks are often enablers. People who are pollyannas like I
Speaker 1: just think everything's going to turn out great. They can
Speaker 1: often be enablers. People who are mildly narcissistic but not
Speaker 1: full on might be enablers. People who want to maintain
Speaker 1: the status quo. They're like, I don't want this tension.
Speaker 1: I want us all to just have nice holidays and
Speaker 1: nice Sunday dinners, Like why can't we just figure it
Speaker 1: out and don't let him bother you? Like he doesn't
Speaker 1: mean it, and so we can all just keep things going.
Speaker 1: Those folks are often enablers, but by and large, enablers
Speaker 1: don't want their worldview threatened by the ugliness. That is,
Speaker 1: things like dynamics such as gas lighting or even narcissism,
Speaker 1: so they will turn away from that not recognize it,
Speaker 1: so that by not calling out the gas lighter, in
Speaker 1: most circumstances, things can kind of stay like they always were.
Speaker 1: So in a way, the enabler is invested in something
Speaker 1: we call homeostasis, just keeping everything. Even. The pain of
Speaker 1: enablers is that they themselves may not be toxic people.
Speaker 1: They may actually un may be people you're fond of.
Speaker 1: You know, I've had a few very very dear friends
Speaker 1: over the years who've really been enabling, and I love, love,
Speaker 1: love them, and they are gentle, good souls. The test
Speaker 1: of the friendship was that when I said, stop, no way,
Speaker 1: you hear my story, and if my story makes you
Speaker 1: that uncomfortable, we're gonna have to rethink this friendship because
Speaker 1: this is my paint. And you know what, to these
Speaker 1: friends credit, they leveled up and they were able to
Speaker 1: stay on the wild ride and they said, this broke
Speaker 1: my heart. I didn't want this to be true of
Speaker 1: the world, but I love you. That was a real
Speaker 1: test of a friendship. Other enably friends they left my
Speaker 1: life long ago because they couldn't stand to think that
Speaker 1: some of the things I was telling them were true,
Speaker 1: we're true. And so again, these are often people in
Speaker 1: our lives we adore. So when we feel like they're
Speaker 1: propping up the narcissist, or they're simply not seeing the
Speaker 1: gas lighting, ay, they may not know what it is,
Speaker 1: but when you explain what it is, you're threatening their worldview,
Speaker 1: which is often one of a little bit, a little
Speaker 1: bit rainbows and you know, corny, you know from my tastes,
Speaker 1: but in this case, they really do have this very
Speaker 1: almost childlike innocence about them, or they just want things
Speaker 1: the way they want them to be. Not all of
Speaker 1: them are innocent. Some enablers are benefiting, and that's the
Speaker 1: other more difficult side of enabling. There's some people who
Speaker 1: are benefiting from this relationship. So the person who's enabling
Speaker 1: your toxic boss maybe getting paid a lot more money
Speaker 1: than you think. The person who's enabling a toxic parent
Speaker 1: maybe the sibling that's getting money every month from that parent,
Speaker 1: or being allowed to use the family cabin more than
Speaker 1: you even knew that they were. Many times enabling relationships
Speaker 1: are transactional. They're benefiting from the narcissist, so they don't
Speaker 1: want to see what it is because it takes them
Speaker 1: into a thing we call cognitive dissonance that we've talked
Speaker 1: about in navigating narcissism, that real discomfort we feel when
Speaker 1: the pieces don't fit. We don't want to see someone
Speaker 1: like we're getting money from or a cabin from, as
Speaker 1: being a rotten person, because what does that say about us?
Speaker 1: So the enablers just don't want to be with that.
Speaker 1: They may be sweet, they may be innocent, they may
Speaker 1: be manipulative, they may be toxically positive, but more than anything,
Speaker 1: they do not want to see your pain. And that
Speaker 1: can be a really painful wake up call because what
Speaker 1: can happen is if you're surrounded by enablers and you're
Speaker 1: being gaslighted. What that means is that you feel quadruple
Speaker 1: or multiplicatively gaslighted, because not only are you being gaslighted
Speaker 1: and feel like you've lost grip with reality, the other
Speaker 1: people around you aren't noticing anything. And that's when you
Speaker 1: really really feel like you've completely lost grip with reality
Speaker 1: because you're thinking, nobody is seeing this. This has got
Speaker 1: to be me. It's like the Emperor not wearing any clothes.
Speaker 1: To heal from gaslighting is to be the little kid
Speaker 1: who calls the emperor out for being naked, and that
Speaker 1: means you have to ignore the choir of voices, all
Speaker 1: of those enablers that think that the narcissist or the
Speaker 1: gas lighter just looks fabulous in their new clothing. And lastly,
Speaker 1: this question was sent from Patrick. How do you heal
Speaker 1: and gain your confidence back after years or even decades
Speaker 1: of gaslighting? This is a fantastic question, and this is
Speaker 1: the question for the ages. How do you heal? Healing
Speaker 1: from gaslighting looks a lot like healing from narcissistic abuse.
Speaker 1: The key, key, key element to healing from gaslighting is
Speaker 1: actually something that's really difficult to do, which is to
Speaker 1: be fully in touch with yourself. What do you like,
Speaker 1: what don't you like? What are your preferences, what are
Speaker 1: your beliefs, what are your opinions? Who are you? What
Speaker 1: are you about? What do you stand for? And to
Speaker 1: give yourself permission to articulate that in safe places and
Speaker 1: to yourself. If you've been gaslighted for long enough, or
Speaker 1: in a narcissistic relationship long enough, you're not going to
Speaker 1: give yourself the permission to do that. Your true self
Speaker 1: was negated and invalidated. A long time ago, and every
Speaker 1: time you bring your true self out in a gaslighted situation,
Speaker 1: you're shut down. It's hard to do that. Who are you?
Speaker 1: What do you stand for? How many times have you
Speaker 1: asked yourself that question? So start small a few times
Speaker 1: a day. You can set a little alarm on a phone,
Speaker 1: or if you have an app that does sort of
Speaker 1: a mindfulness check or something something that notifies you, and
Speaker 1: you stop and ask yourself, how do I feel right now?
Speaker 1: Am I warm? Am I hungry? These sound like really
Speaker 1: basic questions if someone else has been telling you for
Speaker 1: thirty years you're not hungry right now? The thermostat's just fine.
Speaker 1: You've actually lost sight of even your most basic bodily feelings,
Speaker 1: and then level up from there. How do I feel
Speaker 1: about this interaction? Give you doctor Romney. Example, yesterday I
Speaker 1: had a phone call with someone and it was really
Speaker 1: uncomfortable and it was meant to be for some work
Speaker 1: I need to do. And in the past I would
Speaker 1: have said, you're just being insecure, you're just self sabotaging.
Speaker 1: It was really uncomfortable. In the past, I would have
Speaker 1: pushed hard. It's something I still need to do, but
Speaker 1: I'm going to really do it carefully. And what it
Speaker 1: allowed me to adjust to is it's quite possible that
Speaker 1: the thing may not work out. And whereas in the
Speaker 1: past I might have viewed that as a failure on
Speaker 1: my part, the sort of anti gaslighting work I'm doing
Speaker 1: within myself is to say that didn't feel good and
Speaker 1: to trust that feeling. Those moments when you meet a
Speaker 1: new person, ask yourself how you feel. A lot of
Speaker 1: us stop ourselves. Back in the day, I would have said, oh, Rameny,
Speaker 1: you're being so judgmental. Maybe you just didn't like her voice.
Speaker 1: I didn't like her tone, and that was honest within myself.
Speaker 1: Maybe other people like her tone. I'm not making an
Speaker 1: assessment for the rest of the world. I'm saying what
Speaker 1: my experience was. It's about you. Is that selfish? Absolutely not,
Speaker 1: Because the more you get in touch with this internal
Speaker 1: sense of you, the more you're able to actually hold
Speaker 1: space for other people's senses of them. You don't need
Speaker 1: to bring them over to your side of thinking. I
Speaker 1: think too many people think being a human being is
Speaker 1: running around and chronically proselytizing your sense of self. You
Speaker 1: got to do things the way I do them. No,
Speaker 1: they don't if you're good within you, you can sit
Speaker 1: aside someone who's doing things that work for them and
Speaker 1: you can have that middle ground between the two of you.
Speaker 1: That is a healthy human relationship, and that is what
Speaker 1: recovery and healing look like. Another really important thing to
Speaker 1: do as you evolve past and heal past gaslighting is
Speaker 1: to have support, support from people who see you. A good,
Speaker 1: loving person in your life will not gaslight you. If
Speaker 1: you have a healthy relationship, the two of you can
Speaker 1: disagree in a healthy manner. You can have a difference
Speaker 1: of opinion on really big ticket stuff in a healthy manner.
Speaker 1: You need those places where you are seen, where you
Speaker 1: are not gaslighted, so you can slowly again do that
Speaker 1: internal building of your sense of self. But you have
Speaker 1: to have those communities, those experiences, and that hard work
Speaker 1: of looking within you. This is where meditation becomes a
Speaker 1: very useful practice too. No, you do not have to
Speaker 1: sit for two hours in silence. All of us are
Speaker 1: too busy for that. You know what you can do
Speaker 1: when you get to work, whether it's on the bus
Speaker 1: ride to work or whether you sit in the parking lot,
Speaker 1: give yourself five take the minutes, focus in get connected
Speaker 1: to yourself and then go into your day, how do
Speaker 1: I feel, who am I, what do I stand for?
Speaker 1: What am I about? Touch base with yourself on that
Speaker 1: regularly and frequently. And then as you do that and
Speaker 1: you become aware when you're being gaslighted, when you feel uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: and you give voice to that, this is where therapy
Speaker 1: becomes all important. Therapy, when done right, is one of
Speaker 1: the most turn off the gas line spaces you could
Speaker 1: ever imagine, because I cannot tell you what the hundreds
Speaker 1: and hundred n I guess thousands of clinical hours I've done
Speaker 1: over the years where somebody will tell me something and
Speaker 1: I'll say, whew, what was your experience of that? And
Speaker 1: they'll say, what do you want my experience? I'm like yeah,
Speaker 1: and they'll tell me. And sometimes if I know them
Speaker 1: well enough, when we've been working together long and I'll say, ooh,
Speaker 1: they just gas slighted you, and they'll say what. Just
Speaker 1: a few of those encounters I've noticed with clients are
Speaker 1: enough for them to say, are you telling me there's
Speaker 1: not something wrong with me? I mean, there's absolutely nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with you. The number of clients it actually makes
Speaker 1: me really sad. These are really good people. Who are loving, empathic,
Speaker 1: compassionate kind people who have come in week over week
Speaker 1: having lived through being gaslighted for years since they were kids,
Speaker 1: and their entire identity is caught up and there's something
Speaker 1: wrong with me. I think we often think we get
Speaker 1: into therapy because there's something wrong with us. Maybe the
Speaker 1: most miraculous thing that comes out of therapy is that
Speaker 1: you learn that there actually isn't and that is how
Speaker 1: you heal from gaslighting. Thank you so much for your questions,
Speaker 1: your emails, your DMS, everything you sent in. These were incredible, thoughtful,
Speaker 1: and actually very vulnerable questions about gaslighting. I think if
Speaker 1: you can understand gaslighting, you can understand sort of one
Speaker 1: of the core dynamics not only of narcissistic relationships, but
Speaker 1: of all unhealthy relationships. And also, if you can find
Speaker 1: it pushes you to sort of do that work of
Speaker 1: drilling down into yourself that not only benefits you to
Speaker 1: be able to manage gaslighting in your life, but will
Speaker 1: take you into a healthier space. But here we have
Speaker 1: this word, the twenty twenty two word of the year.
Speaker 1: Let's make sure we all know what it means. Thanks again,