The Gaslight Effect

Are You Being Gaslighted?

Check for these telltale signs:

1. You constantly second-guess yourself.

2. You wonder, "Am I being toosensitive?" a dozen times a day.

3. You wonder frequently if you are a "good enough" girlfriend/wife/employee/friend/daughter.

4. Youhave trouble making simple decisions.

5. You think twice before bringing up innocent topics of conversation.

6. You frequently make excuses for yourpartner's behavior to friends and family.

7. Before your partner comes home from work, you run through a checklist in your head to anticipate anything you might have done wrong thatday.

8. You buy clothes for yourself, furnishings for your apartment, or other personal purchases thinking about what your partner would like instead of what would make you feel great.

9. You actually start to enjoy the constant criticism, because you think, "What doesn't kill me will make me stronger."

10. You startspeaking to your husband through his secretary so you don't have to tell him things you're afraid might upset him.

11. You start lying to avoid the put-downs and realitytwists.

12. You feel as though you can't do anything right.

13. You frequently wonder if you're good enough for yourlover.

14. Your kids start trying to protect you from being humiliated by your partner.

15. You feel hopeless and joyless.

Your husband crossesthe line in his flirtations with another woman at a dinner party. When you confront him, he asks you to stop being insecure and controlling. After a long argument, you apologize for giving him a hardtime.

Your boss backed you on a project when you met privately in his office, and you went full steam ahead. But at a large gathering of staff-including yours--he suddenly changes histune and publicly criticizes your poor judgment. When you tell him your concerns for how this will affect your authority, he tells you that the project was ill-conceived and you'll have to be more careful in thefuture. You begin to question your competence.

Your mother belittles your clothes, your job, your friends, and your boyfriend. But instead of fighting back as your friends encourage you to do, youtell them that your mother is often right and that a mature person should be able to take a little criticism.

If you think things like this can't happen to you, think again. Gaslighting iswhen someone wants you to do what you know you shouldn't and to believe the unbelieveable. It can happen to you and it probably already has.

How do we know? If you consider answering"yes" to even one of the following questions, you've probably been gaslighted:

Does your opinion of yourself change according to approval or disapproval from yourspouse?

When your boss praises you, do you feel as if you could conquer the world?

Do you dread having small things go wrong at home-buying the wrong brand of toothpaste, not having dinner ready on time, a mistaken appointment written on the calendar?

Gaslighting is an insidious form of emotional abuse and manipulation that is difficult to recognize and even harder tobreak free from. That's because it plays into one of our worst fears-of being abandoned--and many of