Hey friends.
I am writing this post as a very unofficial, personal-experience public service guide. Having experienced gaslighting several times, both intentionally and unconsciously perpetrated, I wanted to write out a guide to help others who might be in this situation.
This guide covers:
- Noticing the symptoms of being gaslit,
- Choosing what to do about them,
- AND how to recognise if you yourself are unintentionally lighting that fire.
Please read the introduction for context — at least the next two paragraphs — and then, if you want, you can skip the personal part and go to the User Guide.
The Personal Part
I’ve experienced multiple relationships, over the last few years — I can name at least 5 — where I felt like reality was being turned upside down. This happened not only in romantic relationship, but also multiple times in business and community.
I am writing about it not because I want to accuse “people who gaslight”. My experience — controversial as this may seem — is that these people are NOT malicious. They, in some way, are victims as much as we are: victims to a pattern and part of the self that is nearly invisible to the person enacting it, and often very…
