Welcome to my Blog: Surviving an Abuser

Gaslighting is a form of abuse and manipulation in which a person seeks to sow seeds of doubt in you, making you question your own memory, perception of reality, and sanity by using misdirection, contradiction, and lying.

They may say things like: “you are being too emotional, you are being dramatic, you are imagining things, that never happened, stop taking it so seriously, I was just joking, you’re the problem and your memory is just getting bad.”

Gaslighting involves attempts to the victim to delegitimize the victim’s beliefs. You start to feel like everything you do is wrong, that its your fault you messed something up. Once you start feeling this, you become more stressed, anxious and depressed.

Narcissism is a disorder where a person has an inflated sense of his own self importance. This includes self-flattery, perfectionism, arrogance, and gaslighting.

1. Narcissists are often proudly and openly shameless; they are not bound emotionally by the needs and wishes of others. Narcissists hate criticism, and consider it “toxic” as criticism implies they are not perfect and need to change. Narcissists prefer guilt over shame, as guilt allows them to dissociate their actions from themselves – and put it onto their victim.
2. Narcissists see themselves as perfect. They also project their perception of reality in order to “dump” shame onto others.
3. A narcissist who is feeling deflated may “reinflate” their sense of self-importance by diminishing, debasing, or degrading somebody else.
4. A narcissist may secure a sense of superiority in the face of another person’s ability by using contempt to minimize the other person or their achievements.
5. Narcissists hold unreasonable expectations of particularly favorable treatment and automatic compliance because they consider themselves special. Failure to comply is considered an attack on their superiority, they consider themselves as not receiving “respect.” Defiance of their will is a narcissistic injury that can trigger rage.
6. Exploitation can take many forms but always involves the exploitation of others without regard for their feelings or interests. Often the other person is in a subservient position where resistance would be difficult or even impossible.
7. Narcissists do not recognize that they have boundaries and that others are separate and are not extensions of themselves. Others either exist to meet their needs or may as well not exist at all. Those who provide love and caring to the narcissist are treated as if they are part of the narcissist and are expected to live up to those expectations. In the mind of a narcissist, there is no boundary between self and other