This episode is sponsored by Wondrium.
Stick around til the end of the video to learn more about it.
Hello Brains!
Have you ever doubted whether or not you remember something correctly?
Or felt like you were over reacting?
I do. All the time.
And that can make us particularly vulnerable to something called "gaslighting".
[ 🎵 Up Beat Intro Music 🎵 ]
Gaslighting, verb, is a form of manipulation in which
the target is deliberately misled and made to question their perception of reality.
The term "gaslighting" comes from the 1944 film, Gaslight.
In the film, a manipulative husband tries to make his wife
think she is insane by making subtle changes in her environment,
including slowly and steadily dimming the flame on a gas lamp,
but denying it when she points it out.
As a result, the wife starts second guessing herself, her feelings and her memories.
While that's an extreme example, gaslighting as it's commonly referred to today,
is a form of emotional abuse.
It's a pattern of psychologically manipulative behaviors
in which the target is intentionally misled by a perpetrator
attempting to convince them that their
thoughts, perceptions, or beliefs are mistaken
for some sort of personal gain.
So the gaslighter can save face, get them to stay in the relationship,
[or] win an argument; whatever it is they are trying to accomplish.
When the target tries to express their perspective,
they're often met with not only a dismissal of that perspective
but an intentional attempt to convince them they are wrong,
even about their own experience.
"Oh you're not remembering that correctly."
"You don't actually feel that way."
"You're crazy."
"It's not that big a deal."
"I was just joking."
"You're misunderstanding."
Even when the gaslighter knows that's not true.
And the end result is often the same, as it was in the movie
The target of gaslighting ends up feeling crazy and questioning their sense of reality.
Understandably, those of us who already have difficulty remembering things
and have heard our whole lives that we're too sensitive,
or over-reacting, or misunderstanding things, might be more vulnerable to this.
ADHDers often have ingrained beliefs of feeling inadequate
after decades of being corrected and told that we're wrong.
As a result, we might trust other's judgment over our own.
Also, those with ADHD tend to have fewer social supports than our neurotypical peers,
and isolation is a common technique used by gaslighters.
If you can't check your perspective against anyone's but theirs,
you're more likely to believe you were misremembering things,
and if other factors are involved it puts people at even greater risk.
For example, Autistic Brains might have a harder time recognizing when someone is being manipulative,
and are often so used to hearing they missed a social cue, and misunderstood something that they're likely to believe it.
And those who menstruate are already preconditioned to believe they're "hormonal", or "crazy"
and question whether or not they actually are "over-reacting".
There's no one behaviour that constitutes gaslighting
which can make it hard to identify
and a lot of behaviors can be done for reasons besides gaslighting.
That said according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline
some of the behaviors that might be used
Withholding is when the gaslighter pretends to be confused or refuses to listen.
"You're trying to confuse me."
"I don't want to hear this again,"
Countering is when a gaslighter will question a target's memory
in spite of [the target] having remembered things correctly.
"That's not what happened."
Blocking and diverting are when a gaslighter changes the conversation
from the subject matter to questioning the target's thoughts, and controlling the conversation.
"Where did you get a crazy idea like that?"
Trivializing involves making the target believe their thoughts or needs aren't important.
"It's not that big a deal."
Abusive forgetting and denial can also be forms of gaslighting,
where the abuser pretends to forget things that have really occurred and deny they ever occurred.
"What are you talking about?"
"You never told me that."
These behaviors often happen incrementally over time and they add up.
Gaslighting isn't just someone expressing a different perspective,
it's them not allowing our perspective to exist.
In a healthy dynamic both people can put their stuff on the table
-- thoughts, feelings, etc --
and then you sort through it together, and maybe one person realises they were wrong,
[or] someone shifts their perspective.
With gaslighting, it's like your stuff isn't even allowed on the table.
Gaslighting is an extremely effective form of emotional abuse,
because it creates or increases a power differential.
If you can't trust your judgment,
and have no one else to check your perspective against
you have to rely on their's [the gaslighter's].
And because it happens incrementally over time and often with the people closest to us
we often don't realize we're being gaslit.
Some gaslighting behaviors are most subtle than others and can seem like them looking out for you.
Isolating for example,
can happen when the gaslighter encourages the target to end a friendship with someone who isn't treating them well
or who encourages a move across country because it will be good for their career,
someone might seem like they're being a good friend by challenging you
and helping you reframe your negative thoughts in a way that
just happens to benefit them, even when it's more obviously problematic or even clearly abusive.
When it's someone we care about it's easy to rationalize or make excuses for them:
"They have a mental health condition."
"They've experienced trauma."
"They're under a lot of stress right now."
What makes it even more confusing?
The person gaslighting you might not even realise that's what they're doing.
Projection is common.
A gaslighter might accuse the target of being narcissistic, emotionally abusive, or even of gaslighting them,
and it can be extremely hard to tell when these behaviors are, in fact, gaslighting.
Sometimes when people genuinely don't understand, they will ask for clarification.
Sometimes we do forget things, and people will have to remind us.
Sometimes we have misunderstood and sometimes people lie to us for reasons that aren't gaslighting.
But where as someone just lying to us can make us angry, and lead to us doubting them,
gaslighting tends to leave us exhausted, confused, and doubting ourselves.
Someone who is gaslighting may not realize the motives behind their behaviors,
but gaslighting is intentional psychological manipulation.
And it's abusive.
There is always an intentional attempt to deny a target's reality, for the perpetrator's benefit.
Even if that benefit is small.
But at the end of the day, regardless of whether or not someone's behavior is intentional,
whether it's gaslighting, or lying, or just being dismissive of your perspective,
if it's hurting you, it's hurting you.
And there's a difference between "understandable" and "acceptable".
If any of this sounds familiar I've linked to resources in the description below.
[ SPONSOR AD ] Wondrium is one of the reasons we can do
the important videos we do on this channel.
They sponsor videos like this one regularly and I'm also just a huge fan.
If you haven't heard of Wondrium, Wondrium is the rebrand of The Great Courses Plus,
and is designed for curious brains.
I love it because they have a ton of courses and anything I wanna watch is included in my subscription.
How To's. Tutorials. Documentaries.
Wondrium is where you can find the answer to pretty much everything you've ever wondered about.
This week my hyperfocus is learning how to decorate like a designer.
I know absolutely nothing about design and I don't have to.
Their courses are meant for people who're just curious about a topic and want to learn more.
So far I've learned about the evolution of design,
how to figure out my personal brand and style,
the effects of color, and i'm about to learn how to do all of this on a budget
which is good because I was starting to think this new hobby was going to be really expensive.
One of the tips he shares is to start with a small space,
like a corner of a room, or a foyer.
That blew my mind, because I always assumed design was something you had to do to your entire house.
It felt like such an overwhelming and intimidating thing.
I feel like I can try something bold with my entryway that I wouldn't feel comfortable doing to an entire room,
and it wouldn't be too hard to change in case I hate it.
I'm excited to get creative with this.
I'll keep you posted on how it goes.
If you'd like to try it out go to wondrium.com/HowtoADHD
or click on the link in the description below to start your free trial today.
If you like our Definitions series, you can check out this playlist -- [ click the (i) in the upper-right! ]
Thank you to our Brain Advocates and all our Patreon Brains
for making it so we can cover important topics like these.
Like, subscribe, click all the things, and I will see you next video.
Bye Brains!
[ 🎵 Jaunty Outro Music 🎵 ]