It is vital to preface that gaslighters customarily gaslight their victims due to; the insatiable craving to appear right and impose their views on others, a tiny tolerance for differences in a relationship, the desire to pacify conflict, shunning or lessening responsibility for wrongdoing and the longing to manipulate others. At times gaslighters gaslight out of the juice of human genuineness without any inkling that their behaviour could be emotionally bruising their loved ones; in such instances gaslighting may be an upshot of defective problem solving patterns inherited from one’s family of origin.
Gaslighting is like a deadly cancer that spreads to all the parts of your body i.e. once a gaslighter starts perpetually gaslighting you in one area of the relationship, it will eventually flow to all the other spheres of the relationship as well. Whether gaslighting is done from a noble or toxic place in our hearts, it kills connection in a relationship and hinders the gaslighter from getting to know the aunthentic self of their partners. It also instills doubt in the gaslightee. Ironically as the gaslightee gets more gaslighted she doubts herself further and clings more to the gaslighter as the better lens she uses to view the world. And as she cleaves to the gaslighter the gaslighter may feel resentful and smothered by her clinginess and gaslight her even further in an attempt to make her less clingy. The parties in a gaslighting relationship therefore end up ‘attached’ yet ‘disconnected’ from each other. In our and emotional abuse and gaslighting two series I, gave examples of gaslighting obtained from Dr Robert Stern’s book on gaslighting. I will use one of the examples and quote Dr Robin Stern’s recommended solution to such.
