Victims of abuse don't always show bruises. But they're being punished for telling the truth.
A woman, disheveled, with a black eye, sobbing, lays curled up in the corner of the room, hands protecting her head from more hits.
Hours later, at the grocery store, a former high school classmate she used to admire walks past but doesn't seem to recognize her. She had heard that this woman had become a successful, sought-after, innovative and financially independent professional. The life of this smiling, well-put-together woman seems to be galaxies away from her own.
In reality they shared wounds, although of a different kind, from something just as evil. You wouldn’t see those wounds, though, in this woman, in your colleagues — or maybe even in yourself.
As a kid, I watched “The Burning Bed,” the story of a battered wife and mother whose cry for help is ignored and decides to set her abusive husband’s bed on fire after he raped her. I saw the biographic movie about Tina Turner as she suffered severe assaults from her first husband. I admired Jodie Foster for her compelling role of a woman after a gang rape. All these movies left a strong impression on me, while at the same time insidiously shaping my representation of what a victim looks like.
I felt an overwhelming empathy as these stories continued to haunt me throughout my life. But skewed representation of the prototypical victim also created a bit of false reassurance… until other encounters as an adult woman and psychiatrist, and the multiplication of micro (and not-so-micro) aggressions, challenged those views.
It is no controversy to say that sexism, misogyny still exist. Sexual harassment became the way men asserted their power in the corporate world where they feared for their jobs as more women decided to leave behind the socially conditioned “happy suburban housewife” persona, as Betty Friedan described in The Feminine Mystique, and entered the workforce or accessed higher education. Unfortunately, denouncing “the problem that didn’t have a name” and holding perpetrators accountable didn’t stop misogynists from refining their warfare or coercive control methods.
Here is an example of such a controlling tactic:
A woman is diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease even though she has had a stable relationship with her husband of 12 years. Distraught by this, she decides to investigate and looks into her husband’s email because she fears direct confrontation, having experienced dismissal too many times before when she anxiously asked if there was anyone else. She had felt deeply ashamed from asking after he had started laughing and said, “You are being paranoid! Don’t you trust me?”
Her suspicions were confirmed as she found regular, unequivocally romantically-charged communications with a colleague and later on, receipts from local hotels. She tried to calm down but was emotional upon approaching her husband and telling him that not only had she discovered he had cheated on her, but that he had also contaminated her.
His response was unexpected: instead of being remorseful or apologetic, he got angry and told her that what she had done was a violation to his privacy and “serious and unacceptable.” Then, he added, “How will I ever be able to trust you again?”
She was momentarily stunned, wondering what she had done wrong, and unable to access or articulate what should be an obvious truth: shouldn’t he be the one losing her trust?
This fictitious (but inspired by real dynamics) interaction is just one example of a highly destructive manipulation tactic that seems on the rise in interpersonal relationships, in the workplace, in the court room, in the media with fake news, and on the political scene: gaslighting. It is a form of control through perception modification, deflection of blame or blatant lying (“I never said/did that. You imagined this.”). When repeated, it can have an impact similar to domestic abuse; in fact, it is a form of psychological abuse. I’m reminded of a talented singer from where I grew up in Canada who left a similar relationship years ago and described her experience of mental abuse as being like someone “drilling in her head.”
Proclaimed one of the words of the year in 2022 by Merriam-Webster, gaslighting is a psychological violence, a vicious manipulation built on deception and control. Through a dismissive and discrediting replying narrative, the gaslighter makes the victim doubt the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories. It typically leads to confusion, erosion of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability, and even a dependency or over-reliance on the perpetrator.
The term originates from a British play, and later a film, from the 1930s called “Gas Light.” The plot is about a husband who mentally and emotionally manipulates his wife into believing she is crazy by changing the intensity of the gas lamps within their home.
I wonder if gaslighting is the new main form of intimate terrorism on women or other oppressed groups, a sort of spiritual rape. It is also a subtle expression of misogyny, since gaslighters tend to be predominantly male and the victims, female. It is difficult to detect and even harder to prove — how do you repeat or reproduce a narrative that leaves you confused? And, once it is finally recognized, the damage has often been done and is hard to reverse. It induces fear and a lack of trust that makes it even easier for the gaslighter to manipulate their victim, leading to a vicious cycle of coercive control.
Who gaslights? Narcissistic individuals, highly insecure people who have developed primitive and destructive defense mechanisms. They are prone to projection, or attributing their own anger or weakness to others as a way to cope with developmental trauma. Often, this is readily apparent to almost everyone but the victim. Organizations and politicians are increasingly making gaslighting part of their tactics.
Gaslighting often occurs in relationships or situations where there is a social inequality, such as gender, race or economic level, and is used to gain or maintain power. It is often tied to gender stereotypes in heterosexual relationships, as gaslighters “rely on the association of femininity with irrationality.” Therefore, gaslighters are more likely to be men and women are more likely to experience gaslighting both in professional environments and in their personal lives.
Gaslighting often occurs in relationships or situations where there is a social inequality, such as gender, race or economic level, and is used to gain or maintain power.
People who engage in this form of manipulation deny reality, even hard facts. It works because it creates confusion in the victims and triggers stress response systems or autonomic reactivity (the fight, flight or freeze response) that are at play during traumatic experiences. The victim is usually so stunned or astonished by the enormity of what the gaslighter says — and by how assertively and convincingly it’s said — that they momentarily lose the capacity to respond, to pinpoint what is wrong and what is going on. Since gaslighters attack the person’s own capacity for discernment through distortion, denigration and humiliation, the victim becomes disconnected from their inner compass. That is why it is important for victims of gaslighting to become aware of body sensations again and learn to decode them.
Gaslighters tend to twist things around and may use your own words as ammunition against you. It is a mechanism to protect an ego unable to face certain realities, such as that they made a mistake or that women are human beings, too, and have rights. It is a denial that is highly dysregulated and distorted.
I know what denial feels like. When the doctor who did an ultrasound during my pregnancy with my daughter told me that my baby had a major heart defect, my first thought was that it was a joke, that she was teasing me. Such a drastic avoidance of this worst case scenario was a defense mechanism. I could simply not believe this to be a fact, or the truth. That was denial. But instead of being processed in healthy way, gaslighting is a gross denial that is externalized in the form of attacks directed at those who tell uncomfortable truths.
So if you have heard sentences like, “I was just kidding; can’t you take a joke?” or, “Everyone knows you’re crazy,” or maybe, “I am right, you are wrong,” and if you feel uncomfortable, dismissed, invalidated… Good news: you might have been gaslighted!
But why do I consider that good news for a target of gaslighting? Because it means you’re a truth-teller. I will be the first to tell you that gaslighting is highly unpleasant and even traumatic. I was on the receiving end of gaslighting for many years before knowing what was going on and that it even had a name. Once I found out, thinking it was part of the category of communication glitches or interpersonal misunderstandings, I tried a dialogue, pointing out the toxic behavior with gentle confrontation.
But as a typical empath, and thinking a person would be empathetic to how this made me feel and would do all they can to change (because that is how I would react in such a situation), I realized I was naïve to believe this would be constructive. I didn’t fully grasp that the manipulation was intentional, and by exposing the tactic, this would seem like a power reversal and therefore threaten the gaslighter’s ego. This only escalated narcissistic abuse further, engendering more trauma. And that kind of trauma leads to isolation and shame. I would not wish this on anyone.
Over the past few years, as I heard more and more stories like mine, and feeling more validated and less alone, I shifted from victim to warrior. When we say something that leads to a violent reaction in others, that usually means we are onto something. People who are gaslighted are often scapegoated this way because, as the saying goes, the truth hurts. Like the woman who exposed her husband’s infidelity, telling the truth is dangerous but necessary. So if you have been gaslighted, there is a possibility that you were punished because you dared to speak up.
Being a truth-teller is desirable and noble. And the courage it takes to speak the truth makes you the envy of narcissists who cannot admit or process their shame, therefore they project the blame on the truth-teller to mute them.
Gaslighting is intimate terrorism. It is a form of mental torture because the victims dig deeper and deeper as they try to clarify and defend themselves in a quicksand of distortion and word-traps. Think about the victim-shaming and blaming culture we live in; there are still those who would say, “But what where you wearing?” to a rape victim. This deflection of blame, or our modern witch-hunt, is cowardice. And while more trauma is created in survivors, perpetrators continue their damage.
The more we can deconstruct what the coercive controllers, narcissistic abusers and gaslighters do to oppress and annihilate, the more equipped we will be to respond and their tactics will eventually be condemned to extinction. Meanwhile, we must help survivors heal their wounds. We must believe and support all women and other groups who have suffered gaslighting (such as children who were sexually abused), not minimizing their trauma just because they are not falling apart in front of our eyes. Maybe being so caring, resilient and bold made them vulnerable to gaslighters’ attacks in the first place.
No one, regardless of the level of accomplishment, is totally exempt from oppression, gaslighting or other forms of violences. Those representations depicted in the cinema risk creating a tunnel vision made of biases. And biases, when unaddressed, get consolidated into myths. While we must still look out for women who are assaulted to the point of annihilation and broken bones, we must not fall into the trap of what I would call “the victim myth” or generalize it. We should not overlook nor discredit the ones who seem to have it all together.
In a podcast I participated in this year on the devastating effects of gaslighting, I shared practical steps to heal and reclaim power:
Self-care: to survive a gaslighter, we tend to shut down our inner whispers and neglect our needs. Learn to trust your intuition or gut feeling again (or at least, give it some attention before dismissing it). Observe yourself and become aware of bodily responses such as feeling numb, palpitations, terror, etc., in the presence of a person with whom you are having a difficult interaction. Maybe this person is gaslighting you; at first, that might mean seeking outside validation by describing the exchange to a trusted friend or relative. You might need to hear from others who know you, and can tell you, “No, you are not crazy,” until you can start believing it again. Get enough sleep, eat whole foods, exercise (move your body to decrease inflammation from toxic stress and untie knots of energy after trauma), surround yourself with caring and supportive people, and do activities that give you joy. Make your own choices, don’t allow others to rob you of your power nor delegate decisions to others.
Stop trying to make sense of what happened. Details of events were purposely skewed or falsified to make you doubt yourself… it is like trying to put together pieces coming from different puzzles. There are many inconsistencies and contradictions — and no cohesiveness — in the gaslighter’s narrative and that is their goal. So reset your narrative, repeat positive mantras: “I am not crazy. And even if I indeed forgot some details and I am inaccurate, this is not reason to be aggressive towards me.” Remember that a person who doesn’t gaslight wouldn’t appear so defensive, blaming and shaming, and instead would explain what happened more patiently, compassionately and without contempt or denigration. The goal should be to seek solutions, not to win a debate or pin you down. If you feel bad inside, pause and remove yourself from the situation before being bombarded with more falsities.
Humor, once there is enough distance from the abusive situation, can be healing. Trying to emphasize how egotistical, absurd and aberrant the gaslighter’s thought process is. Writing a play or short story can be quite cathartic!
Maybe you are feeling stuck in the victim role, but it doesn’t mean you are actually helpless. If you have been gaslighted, be proud: it means you have bravery and integrity. And most likely, you have gifts and super traits that the narcissistic abuser or gaslighter could not even dream of: compassion, propensity to joy, genuineness, success, generosity and a love for justice. So, reconnect with your powers to heal your soul and dismantle the myths and biases.
I agree with Francoise Heritier, a French anthropologist, who said that sexism is at the root of all other forms of oppression and intolerance. We need to dismantle the gendered phenomena such as coercive control to end racism, ageism, ableism, antisemitism, and other destructive -isms once and for all. Injustice, regardless of form, is injustice, and the majority of us, because of gender, race, socio-economic status, religion, or other traits that make us who we are, risks experiencing some degree of it at some point in our lives. We need solidarity and harmonious connections while developing antennae to detect those who try to do otherwise.
I am a truth-lover and speaker. I choose to live my life according to my deepest core values even if I run the risk of being burnt at the stake. Who is willing to join me?
Caroline Giroux, MD - cgiroux@ucdavis.edu
