Have you ever had a conversation with
someone that makes you question what's real? And I'm not talking about a spiritual
conversation or any sort of cosmic connections. What I'm
talking about is gaslighting. And I'm about to break down the
two types of gaslighting along with the phases of gaslighting and the
common phrases that you might hear. And at the end, I'm going to share my number one tip for
dealing with gaslighting in the moment, because really there's only one thing
you can do that's going to have any impact. Stay tuned... Welcome to the Common Ego community. My
name is Christinan, and on this channel, we talk about emotional abuse,
spirituality, self-help and more. And if that sounds good, and if you'd
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that it's a valuable video that more people might want to see. All
right, let's jump into gaslighting. You've probably heard the term before, and maybe you have a general
idea of what it means. Maybe you're well-versed in gaslighting, but I can tell you there's a lot of
confusion about what gaslighting really is. And it's no wonder because gaslighting
is kind of like an umbrella term. And at times it can feel almost like
the shapeshifter of emotional abuse terminology, because it can be so many
things that can come in so many forms, but the common thread, the common thread among all gaslighting
tactics is that they make you question your reality. And now, I have a video that explains gaslighting
pretty well, pretty thoroughly. So if you're interested in that, if you really want to learn more about
where the term came from and what it means, and I have some examples in there
too, I suggest you watch that video. Now, I'm not going to repeat
most of that stuff here, because I know that a lot of you have
seen it already. And if you haven't, don't worry, there's
still time to catch up. I'm going to pop the link in the card
and in the description below. Okay. So there are two types of gaslighting
and the first type you may not be as familiar with, which is interesting because it's
probably the more common type. The first type of
gaslighting is unintentional. And this is the gaslighting that you might
even have been guilty of doing at one time or another. And I'm
going to give you an example. So you understand what I'm talking about. Maybe I'll give you more than one example. So think about the child who
scrapes his knee and he just goes on and on it's the worst pain he's ever
felt in his life because he hasn't lived very long, you know? And then there's the parent who with
good intentions tries to teach the child not to overreact. Let's not overdo it because you
want your child to be able to handle things, right? So they might say something
like it doesn't hurt that bad, or it's, it's fine when it's really
not. It's just a little scrape. It's not a big deal, but to the kid who hasn't felt a
whole lot of pain in their life yet, thankfully, it is a big
deal and it feels terrible. So you're telling them that what's
real to them is not actually real. And this is one that I think
we've probably all dealt
with as children and maybe we've even done as parents. And it's
done with the best of intentions. It's not done to hurt
the child in any way, but it is still a form of gaslighting. And there are probably better ways
to approach situations like that. Another form of possibly
unintentional gaslighting is let's say that you are trying something new. You're trying maybe skateboarding, or maybe it's a project at work and
you're struggling with it. You know, it's easy for someone
else, but for some reason, there's just something that's not clicking
for you and you're not getting it. And you tell someone else and they
say, well, that's the easy part. Like, I don't understand why you're
struggling with that. They say, that's really easy. That's like
a soft form of gaslighting too, because what you're struggling with
is really hard. Your reality is, man, this is difficult. And they're telling you that you
shouldn't be struggling with this. This is not hard at all. So you end up feeling like there's
something wrong with you. Like, okay, well what's wrong with
me? Why can't I get this? This person is telling me
everybody can do it. And I can't. So the unintentional form of gaslighting,
it might be done with good intentions, or it might just be done just kind
of off the cuff without thinking, without thinking of how something is
going to affect the other person or the other type is different. The other type of gaslighting
is malicious gaslighting. And that is very much intentional.
Although the person might not think, well, hey, let me manipulate
this person. This person, the person who's doing it, might not even know really what
gaslighting is by definition, but it's just kind of in their nature
to manipulate people in situations to their benefit. So somebody who is emotionally abusive
is going to be guilty of malicious gaslighting. And that's what we
talk about most on this channel. When we talk about gaslighting, it's
really the malicious type of gaslighting, but that emotionally abusive person
could also Gaslight unintentionally too. And there's nothing to
say that they couldn't. But so the malicious type of
gaslighting is really manipulative. It's trying to get somebody under
control and or to change their behavior, to suit the abuser. Alright. So those are the two types
unintentional and malicious gaslighting. Now we're going to talk about
the phases of gaslighting. According to psychoanalyst, Robin
Stern, there are three phases, gaslighting that are present in a
relationship with a gas lighter with an emotionally abusive person.
Those phases are disbelief, defense and depression.
So in the disbelief phase, that's kind of when the gaslighting
starts showing up and you're thinking, well, that must've been
unintentional, right? You know that sometimes people gaslight
unintentionally and you think maybe it was, he didn't mean it that way, or
she meant something else. Or maybe, I don't know, maybe I heard
that wrong. It came out wrong. Whatever you kind of make excuses for. The thing that person said that kind
of made you feel bad at that point, you don't quite let it shake you. You don't quite let it question
who you are or, you know, you're, you're kind of still
standing firm, but you, you just don't believe that that
person meant anything by their comments or their behavior.
So in the defense stage, you are starting to lose your certainty. You're starting to lose your grasp
on what's real for you and kind of starting to take on what
the abuser wants you to. So you're starting to
believe the gaslighting, but you are still holding
onto your defenses. So during this phase
is when we have those, those conversations where
we try to be logical, right? We try to logic our way
around this, this gaslighting, you know, the gaslighter says,
I didn't do this. And you say, but I saw you do it. I
saw it with my own eyes. You try to provide as much evidence as
you can. And if you don't have evidence, maybe you think like, okay, well let's talk to somebody else because
what you're saying does not sound right. It sounds completely off. And I think anyone else
would think that you tried a logic your way around the gaslighting, because you think that you're dealing
with somebody who might be logical. And the thing is, it's not that they can't apply
logic it's that they don't want to. So they're not going to,
they're never going to. So the next phase depression is, is
when it really starts getting to you, it starts eating away at your
sense of self at your self-esteem. You become very uncertain and insecure
because you have somebody who's constantly making you question
yourself. So you're not really sure if, if you're capable of making decisions. And it's important to note
that these phases can overlap. You can easily flip flop between
disbelief and depression. It's not necessarily in sequential order, but those are the three
phases of gaslighting. Okay. So let's get onto the common phrases.
So if you're watching this channel, I think you probably have
been gaslighted before and maybe repeatedly, maybe for
months, maybe for years. So I think that you probably
are going to relate to some, if not all of these phrases
and for each phrase, I'm going to try and give some
variations. Because even though, you know, we talk about narcissists a lot
and they're very predictable, emotionally manipulative people who
Gaslight are also very predictable, whether they are narcissists or not. And
so even though they're so predictable, they may not say verbatim
what I'm about to say here, but it's going to be
some variation of this. If you've heard this
type of phrase before. So the first phrase that
gaslighters use super, super common is you're too sensitive. Everything bothers you. You make
a big deal out of everything. And you know, it's possible that people
can make big deals out of nothing. You know, that that
could happen. You know, sometimes maybe we're
even guilty of doing that. But when this is present in an
emotionally abusive relationship and when gaslighting is present and consistent, it's usually used to get
the person to get the target to back down because
what they're trying to get you to back down from actually
is a big deal. You know, it could be something like cheating
or lying about finances and they'll take a little kernel of
it and they'll say, well, there's just this little thing and
you're making a big deal out of it, but it really is a very big
issue. And so when you hear that, when you hear you're too sensitive,
you, you start thinking about, well, I'm too sensitive
compared to who, you know, am I too sensitive compared to everyone?
Does everyone think that about me? Do I make a big deal on everything in
my life or other people just not telling me this, you start comparing yourself to other
people because you're being told that your feelings are inappropriate. So the second common phrase you'll
hear from the gaslighter is I never. Said that, or I don't know. I don't recall ever saying that. Again, this is one where this is kind of how
they get away with it because people forget things, right? You've
forgotten saying things, right. It's believable. You could believe
that somebody would forget something, but when you're in an emotionally
abusive relationship with somebody who's gaslighting you, this is consistent. And it seems almost selective. It seems like they have
a very selective memory. Like they'll remember
all these other things, but never remember when something
comes up around this specific topic. I don't know. I don't remember
saying that, or I don't remember. That happening. It's like they have selective amnesia
and that gets you questioning whether you can trust your, your memory. Well, maybe I'm remembering it wrong and they
might even tell you you're remembering it wrong. So the third common phrase that
a gaslighter will use is I'm not angry when they clearly are angry. So this happens a lot with
stonewalling and the silent treatment. And it could also happen. The abusive person is
yelling and getting angrier and angrier. And you can see it. You
can clearly see it with your own eyes. This form of gaslighting makes
you question. Well, you know, I know what I'm seeing, but why
aren't you telling me that it's wrong? And this one I think is not quite
as effective as the other ones, because you get into patterns
where you see it happening, and then you'll eventually
find out that the person, yes, indeed is angry and you'll
eventually find out why. So that kind of confirms
what you, what you believed. So I think this phrase of gaslighting is
not as effective as some of the others, but you will commonly hear it from
people who use it various different forms of gaslighting. So the fourth phrase that you will
commonly hear from gas lighter is it's all your fault. You know, if they get caught with something
that they shouldn't have been doing, it's going to be your fault. It's going
to be your fault that they did it. It's going to be your
fault that they cheated. It's going to be your fault that they
hid something from you because you can't handle it. If they told you, you
wouldn't be able to handle it. So it's, it's really your fault.
I would have been honest. If you you were more emotionally stable. The fifth phrase that you'll hear
from a gas lighter is you're broken. You're broken but, you know,
it's not your fault. You know, you had a rough childhood, but you can't handle things or
you're emotionally unstable, or they'll tell you that you're not whole, and it's a lie. It is absolutely a lie
because it benefits them for it to have you believing that. We
all have issues, don't get me wrong. And we could all benefit
from working on that. But if somebody is
pointing out your faults, especially when all of these
other things are present, if somebody feels the need
to constantly remind you that you have stuff you need to work on,
they're probably doing it for a reason. And that reason would be
to make you feel insecure, to make you feel like you're not
enough -that you have all this, this stuff, you've got all this baggage.
And you're not enough on your own. Along with that, you might often hear
that nobody's gonna love you. Um, you know, you're, you're lucky I
put up with you that sort of thing. And I hear this sometimes from people
who are victims of emotional abuse, too. In another video that I had, people
had said, well, I've said that too. And while that is kind of understandable, it's not really something
that you want to say it, that shouldn't be part of
any healthy relationship. The sixth phrase you might hear
from a gaslighter is this is why nobody likes you. Now,
something like this, or this is why people don't
want to be around you. What they're doing is kind
of like triangulation, right? They're saying this other person
over here, they don't like you. And in most cases, it's not true. And even if they heard something
to make them think that, that's probably their
interpretation of what they heard. And it's not necessarily
reality. And if they're saying, that's why NOBODY likes you then
that, you know that's not true. But this one is very effective
because this uses other people. It's gaslighting.
And it's kind of, without other people's
permission or consent, they're getting other people in on it. They're getting other people in
on this gaslighting. And they're, they're getting into your head and getting
you to think that other people feel the same way that your
abuser does. And that, unfortunately, that can be very powerful if
you're in a situation like this. And if you're hearing these phrases
and you're hearing them consistently understand that this
is abuse, it's not you. So the seventh and my
favorites not really favorite, but the seventh common phrase that
you will hear from a gas lighter is your petty. It comes up really often in a relationship
with a covert narcissist, you know, whatever type of relationship it is
because there's that whole death by a thousand paper cuts thing.
They abuse often. So subtly. And even if it's not a covert,
narcissist, an overt narcissist can, can also use covert tactics. So if somebody is using a lot
of covert tactics against you, you've probably heard some
version of you're petty. You're childish something
along those lines. So the reason why this comes up
is because what they're doing, they're doing consistently,
but it's so little. It's just so small. They're, you know, maybe they're excluding you from
something or maybe they make, a comment, a dig in front of
somebody that's important to you, but they do it consistently. They do it all the time. And
you've talked to them about it. Ad nauseum. You continue to, you just have so many conversations about
this until you feel like you're blue in the face and you just bang
your head up against the wall. Why don't they get it? And so they do something really
small and they do it on purpose. They do something really small that is
consistent with what they've done all along consistent with everything
that you have told them bothers, you hurts, you, makes you feel bad and
they just, they do it. And then you blow up and
they sit back and say, wow, you're petty. This tactic. It's just so devious. You know, because, because it works, especially if
they do it in front of other people, because you believe that that they're
believing this ...and they might be. They might be looking at you like, wow, you are petty because it's a little thing, but you're not petty. It's because you've just dealt with
this so many times and you're fed up and they say, why would you blow up
over something so little like this? And they probably berate you about it. Even though they're the ones who
are actually doing it on purpose, which makes it really the petty behavior. They're actually the
ones that being petty, but they're doing it so covertly
and they're, they're doing it. They're trying to fly under the radar. And often they do often
they get away with it. So you end up feeling like the petty
one, even though it's the other person. So the eighth common phrase
is you can't take a joke. Now, emotionally abusive people like
narcissists will often poke fun at you and laugh. And you
know, Oh, it's just a joke. And you can't take a joke. They might have pet names for
you that are just downright mean. And you know, maybe you've told them,
I really don't like when you say that, or I really don't like
when you call me that, but they just continue doing it
anyway. And they laugh about it, even though you never do. And they just, it just keeps going and they keep at it
and they keep telling you that you just can't take a joke. You've
got no sense of humor. So the ninth common phrase that you'll
hear from an emotionally abusive person is you're insecure
or you're jealous, or a combination of both.
And this comes up really, really often because
emotionally abusive people often are not honest with their
partners and they are often cheaters. So when you're
with somebody like that, you know that things aren't adding up, you're constantly questioning
the person about things. Maybe you've even found some
evidence that they're denying. And it's easy for them to just
say, no, that's not a problem. You're the problem. It's,
you know, this is fine. There's nothing going on over
here. You're just jealous. You're insecure. I actually had
someone tell me straight face, okay, you're jealous and insecure,
but don't worry. It's not your fault. You're a woman. So the final
common phrase I have for you is, "if you really loved me," that kind
of calls your unconditional love into question. And, and that's what
that's what makes it gaslighting. So you have, you think you have
strong feelings for this person, but they're telling you that no, you
don't. If you don't do what I want, then that means you don't love me. So they're invalidating
your feelings once again. So as promised the number of one thing, the only thing you could really do in a
situation when you're being gaslighted, if you can identify gaslighting
in a conversation, walk away, that is the only thing you can do. When you're dealing with somebody
who is maliciously, gaslighting, you, it's not going to go anywhere. There's nothing you can say or do
that is going to get this person to own up to whatever it is
they're doing. They're just not. And it's going to frustrate you
and you're going to get infuriated. And they might even mess with your head
depending on who this person is and how close you are to them. So it's just, it's not worth arguing at that time.
If they're gaslighting you, "alright, that's gaslighting, this conversation's
over." We can pick it up another time. If you have to, if you don't have to
deal with a gaslighter, then don't. So if you're in a relationship with
somebody who is gaslighting you, or if you can relate to any of these
phrases or the phases of a relationship with a gas lighter, just
start to pay attention, **look for patterns.** And you
may seriously want to consider this relationship how important it is
to you and whether it's worth what you have to lose. Because a relationship with an
emotionally abusive person can really, really eat away your sense
of self-worth and your security, your happiness.
So if you liked this video, go ahead and hit that like button. It really does help the YouTube algorithm
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now. And I will see you next time.
