Here’s a recent example, but I want to talk about the word in general, not simply this example:
Gaslighting isn’t just lying: it’s deliberate, intentional, and cruel deception for the purpose of making the victim doubt their own sanity. It absolutely happens, but it happens when someone is fundamentally a dishonest conversant.
The board has rules against accusations of lying in most forums. I’m curious whether accusations of gaslighting are treated as accusations of lying, and whether others agree that they should be.
I’ve not reported this yet, because I think the word’s use is both common and ill-defined. If others are interpreting it differently from me, I’ll back off; but in my opinion, it’s an accusation of a very pernicious sort of lying, and should not show up outside of the Pit.
That feels like line-tiptoeing to me, but I see what you’re saying. It’s good to know, if I’m reading you correctly, that a more direct use of “gaslighting” would be modded. Thank you!
Maybe I was misusing the word. I generally try to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they are not purposely lying, or trying to make me think I’m crazy for believing X. I don’t believe anyone was doing so in this case either (and my comment wasn’t supposed to be addressed specifically to you. TBH I can’t remember if you were one of the people denying it in the original thread).
But this is indeed the effect on me, and I wanted to express that. If anyone can suggest a less inflammatory or offensive way to do so, then I’d be glad of suggestions.
But you can feel like you are being gaslit even if everyone is acting in good faith, and I think pointing that out is valuable.
There are many reasons why this could happen. Maybe you have access to some important info that other people don’t have, but you don’t realize they don’t have that info, so they come to conclusions that you cannot understand a good faith actor coming to.
Or maybe they just misinterpreted what you said, and because of the miscommunication you cannot align on something very simple, which makes you feel as if you are being gaslit.
Or maybe you’re literally schizophrenic.
In any of these cases, expressing the feeling of being gaslit is a sign to the other party that there is some fundamental disagreement going on, and that your attempted explanations are sailing past one another. It’s a signal to take a step back and examine the assumptions both sides are making.
That said, there’s a difference between “this disagreement feels like gaslighting” and a direct accusation, like “are you gaslighting me” or similar.
Emphasizing this. “Gaslighting” is possibly the most wretchedly misused term on the Internet. It has become synonymous with “making an evidence-based argument that’s intended to make me question my cherished bullshit beliefs”.
Posters who wail about “gaslighting” in such a context deserve to be metaphorically whacked with the Sunday New York Times, circa 1980.
It would be far better to avoid the highly emotive and overloaded word “gaslit” and instead say “I think we are talking past one another.”
Gaslighting assumes ill will on the part of your counterparty. If you “feel like” you’re being gaslit you “feel like” the other person is deliberately attacking you. Rather than counter-attacking with an accusation, say something neutral: “We’re not communicating; I think we’re talking past one another” or “We probably don’t agree on what our terms mean” or …
That way lies a path to resolution, not a path to anger and glaring at one another across folded arms. Or worse, the dreaded tit-for-tat one sentence at a time quote dissection of each other’s posts.
Can’t you just say that? “I think we’re seriously misunderstanding each other; can we step back and examine whether we’re using the same assumptions?”
Or even just “I think you’re seriously misunderstanding me” combined with either an attempt to explain yourself in a different fashion, or with “I don’t know how to explain it any more clearly”.
Or, even more concisely,
I suppose I must be a Vulcan, then; although other evidence indicates otherwise. Because I’ve used the language I suggested more than once on these boards; and I don’t believe I’ve responded to a thread by saying I felt I was being gaslit.
That isn’t what I wanted to say, though. The misunderstanding had already taken place, and more or less been corrected at that point.
I was trying to express how this reaction of reflexively denying the existence of something I’ve experienced made me feel. And to say that if instead people had replied with something more nuanced, like what LHoD had just said in the post I was replying to, then I wouldn’t have felt like that, and approaching it this way would likely lead to more constructive discussion.
I’d point out also that when it comes to any time people try to deny someone’s subjective personal experience, it feels like gaslighting.
For instance, I may say, “All of the New York Yankees fans I’ve ever encountered were mean jerks.” And someone else may say, “Nonsense, all of the Yankees fans that I know are great friendly people! You’re making things up.”
Even if not meant to be gaslighting, it comes across as gaslighting because Person B is trying to claim that Person A’s experiences are fake or invalid just because they don’t jibe with Person B’s own (different, separate) experience.
I think gaslighting is more about objective fact and memories. If you say that when you went to Yankee Stadium you were pushed and shoved a lot and someone says not you weren’t; no one touched you. That’s gaslighting.
But I (and probably others) was denying what I thought you said. Not denying what you apparently meant to say.
We can’t automatically guess what you mean, no matter how sincerely you mean it.
So it seems to me that misunderstanding is still the issue; and that if people appear to be denying something that you’re sure happens, the first thing to do is to make sure that they understood what you meant.
I wouldn’t say “you’re making things up”. I’d say something along the lines of “we must know different people” or “that isn’t my experience”.
If you react to somebody saying their experience is different as if they automatically mean to deny yours – that problem’s with you. If they actually say you’re making yours up – the problem’s with them.
But if what you said was just ‘New York Yankees fans are mean jerks.’ without specifying that you mean only the ones you’ve personally encountered – that would also be your problem.
Gaslighting is an insidious form of manipulation and psychological control. Victims of gaslighting are deliberately and systematically fed false information that leads them to question what they know to be true, often about themselves. They may end up doubting their memory, their perception, and even their sanity.
