Gaslighting: It's Not Me, It's You
Before we dive into today's theme (gaslighting), I want to make a quick housekeeping note that these emails will be dropping on the weekends starting... now. It feels like a more favorable time to chat about non-work-related mental health stuff.
I enjoy making myself a warm cup of something (currently matcha) to sip while I read the emails I actually enjoy on the weekends. Feels cozy. Hopefully that provides some inspo on how to engage with this email right here.
Also, I'm trying this new thing where I offer an audio-version of each email, so if you're a multi-tasker who likes to listen on-the-go, now you can!
And now: Gaslighting
I'm sure you've heard of it, but if you need a refresher on what exactly it is, here's the Wikipedia definition.
In short: gaslighting is the act of invalidating another person's experience.
Gaslighting gets a lot of bad press because, well, it's a form of manipulation, which is not okay—but it's often villainized in a way that I find unhelpful. Here's why: what the bad press fails to mention is that it's not just villains (abusers / power hungry individuals) who use it.
You have probably gaslit someone in your life. You have also been gaslit by someone in your life (likely someone you see as a good person!). We have all done it and we have all received it. I know that because our CULTURE is LATENT with gaslighting. It's built into our communication system. (widespread victim shaming is a good example of this).
The problem with villainizing, or writing about it as though only bad people engage in gaslighting, we invite SHAME into the narrative. (Remember shame is any negative "I am" statement). And when shame gets attached to a behavior, we refuse to acknowledge where we might be participating in that behavior.
"I couldn't possibly gaslight anyone because I AM not a bad person!"
So I want to take away, for a moment, the villainous nature of gaslighting and break it down to what it truly means:
what you're saying when you gaslight someone: this is not about me, its about you.
Here's where that gets really messy:
In almost every scenario where someone is confronting us with big feelings (like we talked about last week), it really IS about them on some level. THEIR big feelings were triggered because THEY have a need that isn't being met. And YOU might have said something innocuous (to you) that sets them off. So, in your mind, you're thinking, "this person is nuts. I didn't do anything wrong, this is about them."
And what do you end up saying to them? More than likely, you end up defending, deflecting, and INVALIDATING their experience. "Whoa, calm down, I didn't say anything hurtful," which is another way of saying, "This is about you—I think you need to work that out."
Just like that, you've gaslit someone.
You didn't have bad intentions. You actually understand, on some level, that their experience is individual to them—and there's some healing that needs to happen there.
Let's flip this around:
A friend of yours makes a sarcastic comment about your shoes. Little does he know, you have some insecurities about your appearance that dates back to childhood. So when he says, "wow, real appropriate shoe selection for this hayride." (humor me here) YOU feel triggered. LET'S SAY you start to cry. Because this is just like when you were a kid and your mom used to shame you for picking the wrong outfit for an outing. And your friend is SO shocked by your big emotions that he says, "Whoa! Overreact much?"
How is that going to feel for you?
It's going to feel a lot like your experience is being invalidated. And that's gaslighting.
So: what can we do?
We can acknowledge that, on some level, gaslighting isn't ill-intentioned. Even though, yes, when it falls into the hands of someone who uses it to deeply manipulate another (I'm looking at you, cults), it can be.
But we're all sort of victims of this technique as part of our cultural narrative. So we have to draw awareness to where it's being activated—in ourselves as much as in someone else.
Second, we can reframe the experience of "it's not me, it's them." or, when flipped, that narrative would look like: "I'm only questioning this person's behavior because there's something in ME that needs to be addressed."
We reframe it in the context of EMPOWERMENT vs. DISEMPOWERMENT.
When you are approached by a friend who takes issue with your behavior, your gut instinct is probably that it makes you feel bad. And you don't really want to deal with that feeling like you hurt somebody. So you might lean into the (often true) narrative that this isn't really about you. But you have to ask yourself, before you go there: "am I telling this person it's about them just to get out of conflict?" Just to shut them up?
What you're really asking yourself here is, "is my intention to empower this person (to heal) or am I trying to disempower them to get them out of my hair?"
Similarly: if someone invalidates your experience and you take on some shame around your big feelings and start to internalize their implication that this is just about you, ask yourself, "does their invitation for me to analyze my experience feel EMPOWERING or DISEMPOWERING?"
If in either case, the answer is "this is disempowering," PRESS THAT PAUSE BUTTON.
Use the skill we discussed last week (the "I need to process" tool) to remove yourself from the situation, walk through the feelings and needs that are alive for you, and self-regulate.
From a regulated state, you'll be able to reframe your interaction with an empowering agenda.
And... because this email is getting long, we'll dive into how to bring empowerment back into an invalidating experience next week.