This! I was once in an abusive relationship where I was first introduced to the concept of gaslighting. One day he came home and asked why the toilet seat was up. When I said “it’s not”, he continued to claim it was, convincing me I had been entertaining company while he was gone. I remember thinking “well, DID someone come over?” Wow… that’s quite impressive manipulation to convince me that an actual FACT was being questioned.
I’m just starting this episode, but I already want to thank you for this one. Online these days, everybody’s a gaslighter, everybody’s a narcissist; it’s so annoying how overused and overdiagnosed by amateurs these things are becoming!
I grew up being gaslit constantly by my step mother and father. Here is an actual example of gaslighting: Went to school for the day (high school). Had an unopened can of soda on my dresser when I left. Came home and the can of soda had been poured out in my dresser drawer and the empty can left in the drawer.. Confronted them about it and was told verbatim: “You did this. You poured this out in the drawer. And forgot. And now you’re blaming us.” 🙄🙄🙄… sure, Jan. The can of soda was left over from my lunch the previous day and I had forgotten to put it back in the fridge after taking it out of my backpack. Pouring it out in my drawer was unspoken punishment for having food/drink in my room. My things constantly went missing or were mysteriously damaged. They “never had a clue” about it… I was just “spacey and forgetful.” I literally thought I was losing my mind until one day I found a hidden duffel bag full of my things…. As you can imagine, they left me with some wicked CPTSD, but it was the gaslighting that did the most damage. I’m 38 now and still constantly doubt my own reality. Don’t gaslight your kids, people lol.
I blame the Internet era for coopting and warping the definition of literally to become its opposite. I suppose I'm just being stodgy though. For instance, bad has colloquially meant its opposite for decades after all.
The breaking their spirit part of gaslighting is so often skipped. I have a friend that left an incredibly abusive marriage after almost 10 years. When she came to live with me the first several months we had so many long conversations around what was “normal” or “common” or how you could even interact with a person. Her spirit was so truly broken she could not trust anything she saw or thought. It took nearly a year for her to believe in her perception of the world and begin to trust her feelings, thoughts or choices.
I am very happy you made this video. I think more than anything, the overuse of the word makes me feel like people use it as a way to point the finger, thus putting themselves in the victim stance, making the other person a villain. It stops the communication process. I don’t know why it annoys me so much, but I’m working on it. Thanks Dr Honda
I hate when people use psychological terms outside of a clinical setting. It is often incorrect and unsettling that people spend years in school/training for their education to be underminded by armchair psychologist
I love the episode, and I really appreciate all the work you put into them. Listening to you breaking down these concepts and really getting into details really calms me down in all the internet chaos.
This reminds me a lot of the new narcissism discourse and how this one study looked at the behaviour of 'narcissistic abusers' as described by their ex partners and found they didn't meet the NPD criteria. Now it is likely that the study you cited about sociopathic parents actually involves parents that engaged in ASPD/NPD behaviour. But I do wonder whether the parents were diagnosed or not. Because it does bother me a lot that it does feel like certain constructs are turning into 2 different things when it hits public discourse. Like narcissism/narcissistic abuse and NPD. It feels to me like 2 distinct concepts despite how they seem to be used interchangeably. And particularly when it comes to the 'narcissistic abuse' concept, it seems to be one born out of misunderstanding both abuse and narcissism. Like a lot of people defend the concept based on the assumption that domestic abuse is always both mental and physical and narcissistic abuse is only mental. But I think they forget how broad a term DV really is. Like it can also apply to financial abuse (usually victims of this abuse are elderly or disabled folks and their perpetrators are family or carers), verbal abuse, emotional abuse, etc. And I'm a little perturbed that the people who claim to be reading up so much on abuse due to their 'narcissistic abuse' are so unaware of this.
I agree that certain psychology terms have been split into a clinical definition and a lay-person definition, yet there is no way to know which one of them is being referred to. That leads to confusion and ambiguity on the definitions. People use these terms to seek validation, the fact that they resort to clinical terms suggests that they feel it's necessary to be taken seriously. That points to a culture which perhaps invalidates experiences if they aren't worthy of clinical intervention, and a clinical world which medicalises suffering through diagnoses. Perhaps thereforem the solution is not to take away medicalised terms from the layperson, but from the clinican. That's a whole other arguement which has its pros and cons.
I comment on Reddit quite a bit (communities I like where being mean is NOT customary ) and nobody has come close to trying to convince me I must be crazy or have perceptual deficiencies. Disagreement is a bit abrupt in a very few instances. On a second subject that’s a little or a lot tangential to your main theme: I wait eagerly for someone to invent a new word that means what “literally” used to mean. Like I’m literally waiting.
In your example you perfectly described my stepfather. To think that I have spent around 20 years in the presence of this person seems almost like my entire teenage years and young adulthood have been a movie. Almost too unrealistic to be true, how full of such manipulation it was. And yet it was the reality in our family. Sheesh.
In terms of alternatives for gaslighting, there's also just differences in perception and invalidation. Even just being color blind or facing a slightly different direction can change your perception of something. Doesn't mean you're trying to gaslight someone by saying 'that dress looks red to me' when it's pink to them. I've genuinely noticed people insist someone is gaslighting them for what is essentially a misunderstanding or a difference in perception. I've had very confusing comment exchanges myself that can kind of feel like gaslighting but are just a miscommunication. Like I once had a super lengthy argument with someone where it turned out they had just misunderstood my initial comment and so they were actually in agreement. It was particularly confusing because they were like 'I have a degree in animal biology' as evidence for why they knew better and didn't realise until after I sent articles reiterating what I said they were like 'oh I seem to have misunderstood' 😂 I believe it was something about how proteins get stored in your body but because they thought I meant that they are stored in protein form (rather than as carbs) they argued with me the whole time 😂 especially on the Internet, discussions can look like gaslighting purely because people will misunderstand or be arguing from a different/broader standpoint or sometimes use fallacies or denial/reframing their original words. We can easily feel invalidated or deceived by those actions. Especially when it also involves ad hominem attacks. But that's all it is: invalidation and deception or personal attacks to avoid having to engage with our arguments.
My ex husband was like this. He always said I did really good and then he would follow it up with how much better he was. Then he would want to be intimate and I was like "What is going on here?" I was always in a mental battle with him. I couldn't just relax.
Are you planning to watch & film the latest 90 day fiance season? There are some interesting new couples and apparently tell all is a mess so would love to see your videos on that!
Example 3 is a possible gaslight however more context is needed. I don't think its appropriate to necessarily just write it off as someone 'lying' or 'misleading', because we should be assessing the impact its having and the intention behind it. If the outcome of the lying or being misled leads the individual to falsely question what they knew to be true and start to doubt what they otherwise knew to be true, then that is gaslighting. As soon as we have any form of cognitive dissonance occurring, we are in the gaslighting territory because now the victim's mind is battling to reconcile between the information they had previously which is now inconsistent with the information they are receiving from the same source. If the individual is also of the belief that their boss had the intention of deliberately misleading them in an attempt to make the individual start questioning and doubting themselves, then I would also agree that that is gaslighting, regardless of whether the victim was actually gaslighted.
As you said, lie detectors do not exist. So we can never truly know somebody's intentions. As the same harm is done I am unclear what value there is to the distinction. As to people misunderstanding and misusing clinical terminology. I fear this is an unintended consequence of well meaning attempts to normalise mental health.
Let’s say this guy in your story fits the whole narrative you built. He doesn’t gaslight the wife though. Instead he finds ways to one up himself. So she gets a car, now he gets a new one. She gets an expensive gift from a relative, now he goes and buys himself one. No matter what she gets he needs it too. Is that a covert type of narcissism or something different?
Probably not because I don't think the mind games were meant to make Dwight permanently question his mental sanity nor were a result of cognitive distortions, but more to make him look temporarily foolish for Jim (and sometimes Pam's) own amusement.
I think with a lot of younger people offended by words that are normal to older people like oriental, I can't help but feel it's not entirely natural. Like it's more people telling each other, especially online that they should be offended by it, even though they weren't before, and once it goes around the internet a couple of times, people forgot that they weren't offended by it in the past. Also, because people think inventing new words for words that have gotten negative connotations, makes the negative connotations go away. Like replacing retarded with mentally impaired. People will just start using the new word as insult, and new word will become just as negatively viewed. Or for example n-word to negro to black person. Negro is just Spanish for black, but people start using it in a certain way, and now that word is bad too. And it would not be strange to me if the word black becomes bad eventually. There is already examples of organizations discouraging the word black in other contexts when an alternative is available. And the N-word has now such legendary insult status that I don't even dare type it here in an informational sense, and I'm black myself... And in reality, I'm not at all offended if someone called me that, if it's not intended to be offensive. But I feel I have to be, and pretend I am due to social pressure. My point being that I can't help but feel it's not just natural words changing over time here, but (personal) political sentiment or online virality driving it.
This! I was once in an abusive relationship where I was first introduced to the concept of gaslighting. One day he came home and asked why the toilet seat was up. When I said “it’s not”, he continued to claim it was, convincing me I had been entertaining company while he was gone. I remember thinking “well, DID someone come over?” Wow… that’s quite impressive manipulation to convince me that an actual FACT was being questioned.
I’m just starting this episode, but I already want to thank you for this one. Online these days, everybody’s a gaslighter, everybody’s a narcissist; it’s so annoying how overused and overdiagnosed by amateurs these things are becoming!
YES
I grew up being gaslit constantly by my step mother and father. Here is an actual example of gaslighting:
Went to school for the day (high school). Had an unopened can of soda on my dresser when I left. Came home and the can of soda had been poured out in my dresser drawer and the empty can left in the drawer.. Confronted them about it and was told verbatim: “You did this. You poured this out in the drawer. And forgot. And now you’re blaming us.” 🙄🙄🙄… sure, Jan.
The can of soda was left over from my lunch the previous day and I had forgotten to put it back in the fridge after taking it out of my backpack. Pouring it out in my drawer was unspoken punishment for having food/drink in my room. My things constantly went missing or were mysteriously damaged. They “never had a clue” about it… I was just “spacey and forgetful.” I literally thought I was losing my mind until one day I found a hidden duffel bag full of my things….
As you can imagine, they left me with some wicked CPTSD, but it was the gaslighting that did the most damage. I’m 38 now and still constantly doubt my own reality.
Don’t gaslight your kids, people lol.
I’m sorry you went through that.
Thank you it’s been driving me crazy when people misuse and overuse this term!
When reading the title, my first thought, oh damn he's gaslighting me isn't he....
😂😂
😂
Dyin 😂😂😂
I blame the Internet era for coopting and warping the definition of literally to become its opposite. I suppose I'm just being stodgy though. For instance, bad has colloquially meant its opposite for decades after all.
The breaking their spirit part of gaslighting is so often skipped. I have a friend that left an incredibly abusive marriage after almost 10 years. When she came to live with me the first several months we had so many long conversations around what was “normal” or “common” or how you could even interact with a person. Her spirit was so truly broken she could not trust anything she saw or thought. It took nearly a year for her to believe in her perception of the world and begin to trust her feelings, thoughts or choices.
Now I can link this video when people use gaslighting wrong lol
I am very happy you made this video. I think more than anything, the overuse of the word makes me feel like people use it as a way to point the finger, thus putting themselves in the victim stance, making the other person a villain. It stops the communication process. I don’t know why it annoys me so much, but I’m working on it.
Thanks Dr Honda
I hate when people use psychological terms outside of a clinical setting. It is often incorrect and unsettling that people spend years in school/training for their education to be underminded by armchair psychologist
This was nicely explained! Thank you for educating me and everyone listening ! Thank you!
30:04 I love that you do this! I cannot have a real conversation with someone unless I define the terms. It shows respect to everyone’s experience
I love the episode, and I really appreciate all the work you put into them. Listening to you breaking down these concepts and really getting into details really calms me down in all the internet chaos.
This reminds me a lot of the new narcissism discourse and how this one study looked at the behaviour of 'narcissistic abusers' as described by their ex partners and found they didn't meet the NPD criteria. Now it is likely that the study you cited about sociopathic parents actually involves parents that engaged in ASPD/NPD behaviour. But I do wonder whether the parents were diagnosed or not. Because it does bother me a lot that it does feel like certain constructs are turning into 2 different things when it hits public discourse. Like narcissism/narcissistic abuse and NPD. It feels to me like 2 distinct concepts despite how they seem to be used interchangeably. And particularly when it comes to the 'narcissistic abuse' concept, it seems to be one born out of misunderstanding both abuse and narcissism. Like a lot of people defend the concept based on the assumption that domestic abuse is always both mental and physical and narcissistic abuse is only mental. But I think they forget how broad a term DV really is. Like it can also apply to financial abuse (usually victims of this abuse are elderly or disabled folks and their perpetrators are family or carers), verbal abuse, emotional abuse, etc. And I'm a little perturbed that the people who claim to be reading up so much on abuse due to their 'narcissistic abuse' are so unaware of this.
I agree that certain psychology terms have been split into a clinical definition and a lay-person definition, yet there is no way to know which one of them is being referred to. That leads to confusion and ambiguity on the definitions. People use these terms to seek validation, the fact that they resort to clinical terms suggests that they feel it's necessary to be taken seriously.
That points to a culture which perhaps invalidates experiences if they aren't worthy of clinical intervention, and a clinical world which medicalises suffering through diagnoses. Perhaps thereforem the solution is not to take away medicalised terms from the layperson, but from the clinican. That's a whole other arguement which has its pros and cons.
Good morning from Sweden :-)
I comment on Reddit quite a bit (communities I like where being mean is NOT customary ) and nobody has come close to trying to convince me I must be crazy or have perceptual deficiencies. Disagreement is a bit abrupt in a very few instances.
On a second subject that’s a little or a lot tangential to your main theme: I wait eagerly for someone to invent a new word that means what “literally” used to mean. Like I’m literally waiting.
In your example you perfectly described my stepfather. To think that I have spent around 20 years in the presence of this person seems almost like my entire teenage years and young adulthood have been a movie. Almost too unrealistic to be true, how full of such manipulation it was. And yet it was the reality in our family. Sheesh.
Thank you for this
Watch the movie for definition
Dr Honda what are your thoughts on Hanlon's Razor? In the context of both accused gaslighters and the accusers?
In terms of alternatives for gaslighting, there's also just differences in perception and invalidation. Even just being color blind or facing a slightly different direction can change your perception of something. Doesn't mean you're trying to gaslight someone by saying 'that dress looks red to me' when it's pink to them. I've genuinely noticed people insist someone is gaslighting them for what is essentially a misunderstanding or a difference in perception. I've had very confusing comment exchanges myself that can kind of feel like gaslighting but are just a miscommunication. Like I once had a super lengthy argument with someone where it turned out they had just misunderstood my initial comment and so they were actually in agreement. It was particularly confusing because they were like 'I have a degree in animal biology' as evidence for why they knew better and didn't realise until after I sent articles reiterating what I said they were like 'oh I seem to have misunderstood' 😂 I believe it was something about how proteins get stored in your body but because they thought I meant that they are stored in protein form (rather than as carbs) they argued with me the whole time 😂 especially on the Internet, discussions can look like gaslighting purely because people will misunderstand or be arguing from a different/broader standpoint or sometimes use fallacies or denial/reframing their original words. We can easily feel invalidated or deceived by those actions. Especially when it also involves ad hominem attacks. But that's all it is: invalidation and deception or personal attacks to avoid having to engage with our arguments.
My ex husband was like this. He always said I did really good and then he would follow it up with how much better he was. Then he would want to be intimate and I was like "What is going on here?" I was always in a mental battle with him. I couldn't just relax.
Are you planning to watch & film the latest 90 day fiance season? There are some interesting new couples and apparently tell all is a mess so would love to see your videos on that!
53:09 I would argue that depending on the group, systemic gaslighting is intentional and history and social structures support this
1:13:22 This sounds like the plot of every horror movie where the wife is right 😂
Since he's just begging for feedback, I'll add (grudgingly) GREAT EPISODE! LUL
Example 3 is a possible gaslight however more context is needed. I don't think its appropriate to necessarily just write it off as someone 'lying' or 'misleading', because we should be assessing the impact its having and the intention behind it. If the outcome of the lying or being misled leads the individual to falsely question what they knew to be true and start to doubt what they otherwise knew to be true, then that is gaslighting. As soon as we have any form of cognitive dissonance occurring, we are in the gaslighting territory because now the victim's mind is battling to reconcile between the information they had previously which is now inconsistent with the information they are receiving from the same source. If the individual is also of the belief that their boss had the intention of deliberately misleading them in an attempt to make the individual start questioning and doubting themselves, then I would also agree that that is gaslighting, regardless of whether the victim was actually gaslighted.
Dr Honda please watch and review the 90 day fiance tell all!!! I'm begging you.
I’m just here to say PLEASE review 90 day tell all on TLC go it’s just blatant abuse PLEASE I’m so confused by everyone’s behavior lol
As you said, lie detectors do not exist. So we can never truly know somebody's intentions. As the same harm is done I am unclear what value there is to the distinction.
As to people misunderstanding and misusing clinical terminology. I fear this is an unintended consequence of well meaning attempts to normalise mental health.
51:59 beautiful and clear definition that validates how a lot of people feel.
The guy that's gaslighting her should be proud of her and glad she was bringing extra money into the household.
Dr Honda, would you please react to Gypsy Rose Life After Lockup?
Let’s say this guy in your story fits the whole narrative you built. He doesn’t gaslight the wife though. Instead he finds ways to one up himself. So she gets a car, now he gets a new one. She gets an expensive gift from a relative, now he goes and buys himself one. No matter what she gets he needs it too. Is that a covert type of narcissism or something different?
Has anyone seen The Office and wondered if the mind tricks they play on Dwight could be considered gaslighting?
Probably not because I don't think the mind games were meant to make Dwight permanently question his mental sanity nor were a result of cognitive distortions, but more to make him look temporarily foolish for Jim (and sometimes Pam's) own amusement.
I think with a lot of younger people offended by words that are normal to older people like oriental, I can't help but feel it's not entirely natural.
Like it's more people telling each other, especially online that they should be offended by it, even though they weren't before, and once it goes around the internet a couple of times, people forgot that they weren't offended by it in the past.
Also, because people think inventing new words for words that have gotten negative connotations, makes the negative connotations go away. Like replacing retarded with mentally impaired. People will just start using the new word as insult, and new word will become just as negatively viewed.
Or for example n-word to negro to black person. Negro is just Spanish for black, but people start using it in a certain way, and now that word is bad too. And it would not be strange to me if the word black becomes bad eventually. There is already examples of organizations discouraging the word black in other contexts when an alternative is available.
And the N-word has now such legendary insult status that I don't even dare type it here in an informational sense, and I'm black myself... And in reality, I'm not at all offended if someone called me that, if it's not intended to be offensive. But I feel I have to be, and pretend I am due to social pressure.
My point being that I can't help but feel it's not just natural words changing over time here, but (personal) political sentiment or online virality driving it.
1:05:12 LOL, yes, Dr. Honda, you are not a skilled liar. Don't quit your day job to become a con man. 🤣