Have you ever left an experience and wondered what happened with another person? And, almost felt as though a truth was shoved down your throat that wasn’t the truth? Or, as though you asked someone a question and you were made to feel crazy for asking it? 

I have and this called being gaslit or someone gaslighting you. The term is said to be derived from a story of a couple where a husband and wife would have dinner every night and he would switch off some of the lights, her response was to ask him if he did and he would say no. He did this for so long that after time, she stopped asking. Which is what gaslighting is meant to do. 

It is to creat cognitive dissonance within a person who is being manipulated or abused so that the person who falls victim to this behavior becomes a shell of themself and doesn’t know right from wrong or cannot tell the truth because it has become so distorted. 

I have experienced this in all realms: in my family, in work situations and amongst friendship circles. That is why it is important to have confidence and speak from a place of honesty, always! 

If you think someone is gaslighting you, here are 9 ways this could be happening to you: 

1. You ask someone a question about something you know is true and are told that you are seeing things or you made it up. 

2. You confront someone with how you feel about something they have done or how you have been treated and they turn it on you. Like, ‘If you didn’t do this to me (whenever you did) then I wouldn’t act this way. 

3. Someone uses your vulnerabilities against you by calling you names or weaponizing them in an argument or a disagreement. 

4. You tell someone a secret, they tell others and then blame you for telling them in the first place. They say things like, ‘You know you can’t trust me’. 

5. You can never get a real answer from someone. 

6. When someone disappears on you after saying they would be there and blames you for their absence. 

7. When you tell someone a story that has happened to you and they say, ‘Are you sure?’ Or, ‘Maybe that didn’t happen’. 

8. When you leave a person feeling like you couldn’t get a word in because that person disbelieves anything you tell them or combats you instead of listening to you. 

9. When someone tells you not to trust your intuition. 

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