No, You're Not Being Gaslit

Or maybe you are. I don't know you personally.

But my issue is the way that gaslighting has recently been taken up and used in our general culture. Gaslighting specifically refers to deliberate efforts to make you doubt your own experience. It's a form of psychological/relational abuse. However, in pop-culture, it has come to be levied at anyone who disagrees or holds a different perspective, or just remembers things differently. Ironically, the accusation of gaslighting is most frequently employed by narcissists who themselves are gaslighting you (and eventually convince you to gaslight yourself, if you believe them). At the heart of it, there's this unjustifiable self-righteousness - "my reality is realer than yours" - which makes it difficult to modify their own position or understanding of an issue to accommodate new information or perspectives. Instead, they hold firm to the expectation that everyone else should conform to their particular worldview, and anything to the contrary is an intentional attempt to deceive them and undermine their sanity. That is not what is happening in most cases.

So here's some things to keep in mind:

1) It's normal for people to have differences of opinion, or even disagreements on memories and 'facts' of an issue. That's not gaslighting because it is only a difference, not a deliberate effort to deceive.

2) Diversity of thought is healthy. The more ideas there are floating around, the more building blocks we have at our disposal to examine, explore, and experience our lives and the world around us.

3) Conflict, argument, and debate are all natural and can be managed in healthy ways. Progress in society is generally built on the exchange, interaction, and modification of ideas. Assuming anyone who disagrees with you is gaslighting you limits opportunities for growth and leads to stagnation (both personally, and in society at large).

4) You are not God. Neither am I (I don't even believe in one). None of us has a perfect understanding of the world or life or the universe. Have a little humility, and accept that there are things you don't know, and that some percentage of the things you do know are probably wrong (but you may not know exactly which ones). You don't have to blindly accept points of view that contradict your own, but you should at least stay open to them and consider their merits for what they are.

5) You're not the only one in an argument, and if your opponent (why do we have to be so oppositional all the time?) took the same perspective - i.e. you are gaslighting them - we come to a situation where one has to completely dominate the other's thoughts in order to 'win' or a kind of cognitive entrenchment and paralysis, in other words a tensely polarized stalemate, in which no conclusion can possibly be reached.

Anyway, that's my big thought for this morning. Apply it to your personal life, or political discourse in general, or ignore it entirely as you like.

Stop gaslighting me.

I agree, the term is becoming widely misused by people who don’t really understand it, or being abused as a therapy-speak weapon.

By the way, I highly recommend the movie Gaslight, from which it originated. Includes an early performance by none other than Angela Lansbury.

Quote by joe71
By the way, I highly recommend the movie Gaslight, from which it originated. Includes an early performance by none other than Angela Lansbury.

I agree. Fun movie!

I do think "deliberate efforts to make you doubt your own experience," as JAGYK defines gaslighting, is a common strategy in media and politics these days. But yeah, it's overused, particularly in therapy-speak.

An over used words used by "victims"

I only ever hear this word when I'm around people I have nothing in common w/

To have freedom and democracy, we all have to allow people to speak their mind, have different political and religious views than our own, etc. and etc.

Gaslighting always reminds me of the college party craze of lighting a fart at parties. Yes, turn off all the lights, someone pulls off their pants, pulls their legs back, girls could put 'em behind their head, then rip a big fart while holding a burning cigarette lighter in front of their asshole. That would shoot out a flame several inches long. It also synged some people's buttholes. But entertaining to a drunk raucous crowd.

Catfishing, ghosting, gaslighting… where have all these words come from? It’s weird. 🤔X

Quote by NishasWorld

Catfishing, ghosting, gaslighting… where have all these words come from? It’s weird. 🤔X

I don’t really live a sheltered life but I am unfamiliar with these words. I assume they are pejorative.

Why doesn't someone bring up 'noodling'?

It's catfishing without a pole, hook & line. Just using your arm and hand.

Quote by Icarus4

I don’t really live a sheltered life but I am unfamiliar with these words. I assume they are pejorative.

I’m not sure what they all mean, but I hear them all the time! X

Quote by Buz

Why doesn't someone bring up 'noodling'?

It's catfishing without a pole, hook & line. Just using your arm and hand.

That can be a lot of fun. Right up until it isn't. Huge catfish aren't the only critters residing in some of those riverbank holes.

Quote by Icarus4

I don’t really live a sheltered life but I am unfamiliar with these words. I assume they are pejorative.

Catfishing: Engaging in a relationship with someone online by pretending to be someone you're not. It happens in varying degrees, from simply withholding photos/videos to impersonating someone else entirely, including celebrities. It's still pretty rampant even in 2023.

Ghosting: When you're dating someone (casually or seriously) and you abruptly stop all communication with them without a heads up or providing a reason.

Gaslighting: A form of emotional/psychological/relational abuse as described in the original post. It's fairly common in abusive relationships (platonic or romantic), and people in positions of power may also engage in gaslighting. The goal of gaslighting is to make you question your own sanity/credibility, and this can happen by outright denying things happened when you know they did, or shifting blame to you for something that was done to you.

Quote by Dani

Catfishing: Engaging in a relationship with someone online by pretending to be someone you're not. It happens in varying degrees, from simply withholding photos/videos to impersonating someone else entirely, including celebrities. It's still pretty rampant even in 2023.

Ghosting: When you're dating someone (casually or seriously) and you abruptly stop all communication with them without a heads up or providing a reason.

Gaslighting: A form of emotional/psychological/relational abuse as described in the original post. It's fairly common in abusive relationships (platonic or romantic), and people in positions of power may also engage in gaslighting. The goal of gaslighting is to make you question your own sanity/credibility, and this can happen by outright denying things happened when you know they did, or shifting blame to you for something that was done to you.

I suspect that Lush is littered with people assuming a persona other than themselves for a myriad of reasons. Each of those items above to a greater or lesser degree exists in Lush exchanges…the nature of the beast. The ether provides everyone the opportunity to be more beautiful, handsome, younger, sexually powerful…the list goes on. If you dominate someone or enjoy BDSM is that bad? Apparently, to many people on Lush it is not. If someone wants to portray themselves as someone other than themselves it doesn't bother me if they are creative and interesting.

Quote by Icarus4

I suspect that Lush is littered with people assuming a persona other than themselves for a myriad of reasons. Each of those items above to a greater or lesser degree exists in Lush exchanges…the nature of the beast. The ether provides everyone the opportunity to be more beautiful, handsome, younger, sexually powerful…the list goes on. If you dominate someone or enjoy BDSM is that bad? Apparently, to many people on Lush it is not. If someone wants to portray themselves as someone other than themselves it doesn't bother me if they are creative and interesting.

With a thing like LS, you've got to assume you've gone to a masquerade ball, and everyone is wearing a mask of one kind or another. But as Wilde wrote (and I'll badly misquote): "Man is least himself in his own person, but give him a mask and he'll reveal his true self." (Or something along those lines). On the surface, I'm liar: My real name is not "Just_a_guy_you_know," and my profile pic isn't actually me (surprise, surprise!). But beneath the disguise of the avatar, you do get my real thoughts, fantasies, etc. - many of which I might not reveal to the real people in my real life. I assume most others on here are the same to one degree or another. I don't think that's the same as catfishing, unless you've come to LS specifically looking to attract a partner under false pretenses (i.e. claiming that I really am an old cartoon hippie wanderer whose parents named him Just_a_guy_you_know -underscores and all), rather than socialize anonymously with a bunch of perverts, sex fiends, and and dirty-minded freaks over shared interests.

Quote by Icarus4

I suspect that Lush is littered with people assuming a persona other than themselves for a myriad of reasons. Each of those items above to a greater or lesser degree exists in Lush exchanges…the nature of the beast. The ether provides everyone the opportunity to be more beautiful, handsome, younger, sexually powerful…the list goes on. If you dominate someone or enjoy BDSM is that bad? Apparently, to many people on Lush it is not. If someone wants to portray themselves as someone other than themselves it doesn't bother me if they are creative and interesting.

Well yes, people tend to be more inflated versions of themselves online, or they typically present as who they'd like to be. On a place like Lush, it gives you the freedom to experiment and explore.

Catfishing doesn't really speak to this, but more so intentionally deceiving someone by literally claiming to be someone you're not. Some people do this maliciously for revenge. Some do it to scam people. Some start out as doing it for innocent fun, not expecting anything to come of it, but it gets too far gone, so they keep it going.

Some people create fake account/personal to agree with themselves on political blogs, or in our own Lustories' Think Tank.

What? Did I miss something?

😳 I am with Descartes on this. Je pense, donc je suis (I think, therefore I am).

I will never be told how to think.

Just when I think I know a language well, words like these appear. We do not use them nor have I heard them so thank you for the education. I have to use software every time I write in English so I wonder according to Descartes if this is really... Me.

I like the idea of wearing masks though, then again I have a fetish for hats. I look forward to a word for this, English is very inventive language.