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7. Gaslighting unveiled · The Post-Separation Abuse Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about gaslighting.
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Gaslighting, at its core, is a form of manipulation.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: It's present in all abusive relationships and it can be categorised as emotional abuse, psychological abuse and coercive control.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Gaslighting is designed to confuse you and to cause you to question your perception of events, your opinions, your memory, your intelligence, your worth as a human being and your entire reality.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Eventually, gaslighting can even cause you to start feeling deeply unsure about your mental health and even your sanity.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: It's common for victim survivors of continual gaslighting to wonder if they're actually the cause of the problem.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: I work regularly with clients who, even years after separation, may still be struggling with their recollection of events, memories that have been manipulated by their abusive ex-partner, and they can be struggling to piece together the fact that they were deeply manipulated for many, many years.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Older children and teenagers can sometimes be a bit more immune to gaslighting from abusive parents, and this can then lead to increased tension and conflict between the abusive controlling parent and children.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: As the children get older, older children may start to resist or refuse to spend time with an abusive parent and they might talk about the parent as being a liar.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Controlling and abusive people gaslight others.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: This can take various forms.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: It can look like pathological lying about events, even if there's proof of what the reality actually is.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: They will accuse you of lying, of having a vivid imagination, being confused, or telling you that you're crazy, paranoid or hormonal.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Something that can be really confusing with a controlling abuser and this tends to be more common with abusers who have traits consistent with one or more personality disorders is that they can lie about events that it just doesn't seem to make sense to lie about.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: So, on the face of it, most of us could understand why an abusive person might lie about the part that they've played in an argument or a serious altercation.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: You can understand on some level why they're lying to try and get out of it and escape any sort of responsibility or accountability.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: But abusers again, this is more common with personality disorder abusers can also lie about things that it just seems to make absolutely zero sense to lie about.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: So, for example, the town that they grew up in, what they had for breakfast, those sorts of things that, when you discover the truth, can be mind-boggling, really, why they've lied about it.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Gaslighting can also look like minimizing your thoughts and feelings, such as telling you that you're overreacting, telling you to calm down, accusing you of being too sensitive or accusing you of not having a sense of humour.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: They essentially lead you to distrust your own thoughts and feelings.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: They can lead you to wonder whether maybe you are too sensitive, whether maybe you don't have a sense of humour, maybe you are overreacting.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: This is what gaslighting does.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: It causes you to doubt your reality, to doubt your perception of things, to doubt your own thoughts and feelings and memories and responses.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Gaslighting can also look like blame shifting, and this involves the abusive person justifying their behavior by saying that they only behave the way that they do because of something that you're saying or doing.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: So, for example, they might say something like I wouldn't have to yell at you if you actually listened to me.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Gaslighting can also take the form of distracting you, and this is another tactic used to continue the manipulation.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: The actual topic will get so distorted and twisted that you may or may not realize that the abuser has actually successfully thrown you and the conversation completely off course, to the point that you might now be confused about what the actual original disagreement was actually about.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: This isn't just in in-person conversations or arguments.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: If you're co-parenting with an abuser, this can also commonly happen, even in written communication, where you will raise a particular problem and, instead of actually addressing that problem with you directly, you will instead receive a just a barrage of word salad, a war and peace size text message that has very little to do with what your message may have been about.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Very, very common, and again, that's even more common when we're talking about an abuser who has traits consistent with one or more personality disorders.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Gaslighting can also look like discrediting and triangulating you.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: For example, when talking to other people, they might pretend that they're worried about you and might also tell others that they're concerned that maybe you're emotionally unstable, that you don't seem to be coping very well.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: They're worried that you're paranoid or crazy, hormonal or menopausal.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: They can also use genuine or totally fabricated mental health concerns against you, such as anxiety, depression, postnatal depression, adhd.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Literally anything can be either completely fabricated by these people or a genuine diagnosis can be blown completely out of proportion and used to make you look unstable to other people, and it can be turned against you for you to even then question your own sanity and fears of being unstable.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: This tactic can be effective, unfortunately, if you're not prepared for it and if you're not sure how to deal with it.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: You may have already found that some people in your life have been conned by your abusive ex-partner without really knowing the full story.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Someone who engages in gaslighting behaviour is also highly likely to lie to you and tell you that other people believe certain things about you or have said certain things to them about you.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: So, for example, your abusive ex might say something like oh, I was chatting to your Martman, she's really worried about you too, you know.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Or if they bump into somebody that you're friends with or the parent of one of your kids' school friends, again it could be that same dynamic.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, I was chatting to Sally and yeah, she said a few interesting things.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Now, the reality is that whoever's mentioned by the abusive person may never have said anything about you at all.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: That whole conversation could be a complete lie.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: However, the person who's gaslighting you will make every attempt to get you to believe their narrative.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: If the abusive person's personality disordered, there's a chance again that they've completely made up this interaction.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Or if the interaction actually occurred, there's also a good chance that they have completely misinterpreted what was said, a misquoting what was said.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: And because they have very little capacity for empathy and very little insight into how other people perceive them.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: They're often way off base with how the other person perceived that conversation.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: So they may say that they bumped into your mum or Sally or you know whoever and that that person seemed really concerned about you or you know.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: They will lead you to think that you were being discussed and they'll want you to be worried about what was said.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: The reality could be that that other person that they were talking to was totally weirded out by the conversation and just wanted to get away from your ex.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: So it's really important that you don't immediately buy into what they're saying.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: In saying that, there are definitely some things that I help clients with in order to help them navigate these situations.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Gaslighting can also manifest as triangulating, and this is where an abuser attempts to get other third parties involved in an attempt to try and manipulate and exploit the narrative that you're the problem.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of building on what I was just talking about previously in terms of the discrediting and making up conversations in an attempt to get you worried.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: They can also genuinely triangulate, so involve a third party.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: This can be just simply to try and convince other people that there's something wrong with you, that you're the problem, that they're the victim and that you're really the abuser.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: So they'll commonly have a narrative to their own family and friends, for example this is what you're doing to them and they just can't cope and they don't know what you're behaving this way, all of those sorts of things they may then also try to attempt to.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, they can do this to your family members as well.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: So it's important that you're aware of this.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Even if they don't have a good relationship with your family members or friends or have never communicated really with them in the past, it's not uncommon at all for your friends or family members to start getting random text messages or phone calls out of the blue from an abuser.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Again, this does tend to be a little bit more common when we're talking about a personality disorder abuser.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: They then try and use these relationships to abuse you, essentially by proxy, so trying to get the other person to act on their behalf.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: They want the other person to get involved.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: They want the other person to contact you and to say oh look, why are you doing this to him?
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: He just doesn't understand it.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: He seems really upset.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: I'm actually really worried about him.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: He just wants to see the kids.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: You know, why are you limiting his time with the kids?
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: It's just not fair.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: So with this, you know you imagine a triangle.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: You know that's what triangulating is there's you, there's your abusive ex, and then there's the third third party, the other person who's been drawn into this.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: The abusers worked really, really hard to get their narrative off the ground and unfortunately they can sometimes be very believable and to make out that you're to blame.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Now there's issues with this because it's not just going to be friends and family members that they target.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: They can also target the therapists or doctors of your children.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: They can target your kids' teachers, the principal, your coworkers or boss.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Their attempt to infiltrate your world and how other people perceive you.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: The lengths that some people can go to a really, quite incredible again, going to lengths on that scale tends to be a lot more likely when we're talking about a person who's got traits consistent with a personality disorder, and there are things that you can do to protect against this sort of behaviour and to help you navigate this sort of behaviour if and when it happens.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: That's something that I do support clients with.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Depending on their own specific situation, they can also use love as a weapon and as an attempt to try and smooth things over when they're gaslighting you.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: So, for example, they may say something like oh, but you know how much I love you.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I can't believe you'd think that I would do that on purpose.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: That sort of things obviously more common when you're in a relationship with the person, although this can still happen after separation.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: It's not uncommon for an abusive person to try and win you back.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Genuinely.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: They want the relationship to get back on track.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Or they really have no intention of wanting to get back to you or you know it's not a genuine emotion, but they're wanting to confuse you.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: They're actually wanting to throw you off balance by telling you that they still love you, by telling you that you know, oh, I wish you'd reconsider.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Getting back again Could be a complete lie, or it could be genuine, but either way, it's used as a means to gain and maintain control over you.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: They can also say things like I'm really worried about you.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: I'm concerned about how you're coping, those sorts of things being really, really condescending and it's designed to have you, you know, obviously doubt yourself.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: They can also say things like I just want the best for you.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I'd never hurt you on purpose.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: You know that I don't understand how you could possibly think that of me being in a relationship with someone who often doesn't acknowledge thoughts, feelings or beliefs can lead to you then questioning your thoughts, feelings and beliefs as well.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: And if that was a dynamic within the relationship, that dynamic doesn't stop just because the relationship ends.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Personality disordered abuses and non-disordered abuses can lead you to really never feel validated or understood, and it's something that can be extremely isolating Again, not just within the context of a romantic relationship, but also after separation.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Ultimately, you feeling isolated and maybe even sometimes ashamed of the situation that you found yourself in, makes it even easier for them to control and manipulate you even further.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: So if you've separated from a partner, you're navigating co-parenting, maybe there's already lawyers involved or you know you're in the court process.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: It really is in your best interest to ensure that you've got high quality support with that, because this dynamic often doesn't stop anytime soon Waiting for your ex to change in order for you to feel better and in order for your life to be better.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Our life changes when we take action.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Sitting around waiting for your ex to change is just going to lead to you sitting around hoping for the best.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: If you're sitting around waiting for your ex to change before you can start feeling better.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: It's time for you to start taking back your power and control and for my clients, that became possible for them once they started working with me.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: They got a plan in place and we started working together in a really solution focused way on what they were wanting to achieve.