Finally, a name for it -- Gaslighting

[alfreda89]

You've probably heard this happen to someone, if you haven't experienced it yourself. Emotional manipulation and undercutting the people in your life, especially the women in your life.

Gaslighting.

Comments

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

As the article mentions, this is nothing new. In particular, the practice (common in emotional-abuse situations) of telling the victim that something they remember never happened, even when it happened only 5 minutes ago, is an example of gaslighting.

What's new here is the extension of the term to the (extremely common in many situations) practice of telling women that their reactions to ANY kind of mistreatment are inappropriate, that "normal people" don't feel or act that way.

Someone else on my friendslist linked this article last week. I find it telling that the very first comments, both on the article itself and on her journal, were all "But what about the MENZ?" and "Women do this kind of thing too, why are you blaming MEN for it?"

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, what about the men?

As one young woman put it to her boyfriend, who always played this gaslight card: "You mean that my feelings are never important, never valid? That only yours are valid?" Lucky her, he had to admit that of course that wasn't true. He could still learn, and stopped playing this card with her.

So many men don't understand that this happens everywhere -- relationships, work, extended family -- ALL THE TIME.

There's a reason I have never remarried. Don't think I will. I would have to trust a man completely to get into that woven a situation again, and that trust was destroyed, daily, in my marriage. I was just too conditioned to stick with the "til death do you part" biz.

Until I realized he was killing me slowly. I didn't think murder should be part of the package. Fifteen years of emotional abuse.

No, thanks.