Are You Being Gaslighted?

The Gaslight Effect: How to Spot and Survive the Hidden Manipulation Others Use to Control Your Life
by Robin Stern, Ph.D.

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Turn Up Your Gaslight Radar. Check for These Twenty Telltale Signs

Gaslighting may not involve all of these experiences or feelings, but if you recognize yourself in any of them, give it extra attention.

1. You are constantly second-guessing yourself.

2. You ask yourself, "Am I too sensitive?" a dozen times a day.

3. You often feel confused and even crazy at work.

4. You're always apologizing to your mother, father, boyfriend, boss.

5. You wonder frequently if you are a "good enough" girlfriend/wife/employee/friend/daughter.

6. You can't understand why, with so many apparently good things in your life, you aren't happier.

7. You buy clothes for yourself, furnishings for your apartment, or other personal purchases with your partner in mind, thinking about what he would like instead of what would make you feel great.

8. You frequently make excuses for your partner's behavior to friends and family.

9. You find yourself withholding information from friends and family so you don't have to explain or make excuses.

10. You know something is terribly wrong, but you can never quite express what it is, even to yourself.

11. You start lying to avoid the put-downs and reality twists.

12. You have trouble making simple decisions.

13. You think twice before bringing up certain seemingly innocent topics of conversation.

14. Before your partner comes home, you run through a checklist in your head to anticipate anything you might have done wrong that day.

15. You have the sense that you used to be a very different person - more confident, more fun-loving, more relaxed.

16. You start speaking to your husband through his secretary so you don't have to tell him things you're afraid might upset him.

17. You feel as though you can't do anything right.

18. Your kids begin trying to protect you from your partner.

19. You find yourself furious with people you've always gotten along with before.

20. You feel hopeless and joyless.

How I Discovered the Gaslight Effect

I've been a therapist in private practice for the past twenty years, as well as a teacher, leadership coach, consultant, and fellow at the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, where I help develop and facilitate trainings for women of all ages. In all these domains, I constantly encounter women who are strong, smart, successful. Yet I kept hearing the same story: Somehow, many of these confident, high-achieving women were being caught in demoralizing, destructive, and bewildering relationships. Although the woman's friends and colleagues might have seen her as empowered and capable, she had come to view herself as incompetent - a person who could trust neither her own abilities nor her own perception of the world.

There was something sickeningly familiar about these stories, and gradually I realized that not only was I hearing them professionally but they also mirrored experiences my friends and I had had. In every case, a seemingly powerful woman was involved in a relationship with a lover, spouse, friend, colleague, boss, or family member who caused her to question her own sense of reality and left her feeling anxious, confused, and deeply depressed. These relationships were all the more striking because in other domains the women seemed so strong and together. But there was always that one special person - loved one, boss, or relative - whose approval she kept trying to win, even as his treatment of her went from bad to worse. Finally, I was able to give this painful condition a name: the Gaslight Effect, after the old movie Gaslight.

This classic 1944 film is the story of Paula, a young, vulnerable singer (played by Ingrid Bergman) who marries Gregory, a charismatic, mysterious older man (played by Charles Boyer). Unbeknownst to Paula, her beloved husband is trying to drive her insane in order to take over her inheritance. He continually tells her she is ill and fragile, rearranges household items and then accuses her of doing so, and most deviously of all, manipulates the gas so that she sees the lights dim for no apparent reason. Under the spell of her husband's diabolical scheme, Paula starts to believe that she is going mad. Confused and scared, she begins to act hysterical, actually becoming the fragile, disoriented person that he keeps telling her she is. In a vicious downward spiral, the more she doubts herself, the more confused and hysterical she becomes. She is desperate for her husband to approve of her and to tell her he loves her, but he keeps refusing to do so, insisting that she is insane. Her return to sanity and self-assertion comes only when a police inspector reassures her that he, too, sees the dimming of the light.

As Gaslight makes clear, a gaslighting relationship always involves two people. Gregory needs to seduce Paula to make himself feel powerful and in control. But Paula is also eager to be seduced. She has idealized this strong, handsome man, and she desperately wants to believe that he'll cherish and protect her. When he starts behaving badly, she's reluctant to blame him for it or to see him differently; she'd rather preserve her romantic image of the perfect husband. Her insecurity about herself and her idealization of him offer the perfect opening for his manipulation.

Copyright © 2007 by Dr. Robin Stern.

About the Author

Robin Stern, Ph.D., has been a therapist for more than twenty years, specializing in issues of emotional abuse and psychological manipulation. She has been a keynote speaker at universities, and consults to schools, corporations, and nonprofit organizations. She teaches at Hunter College, Teachers College, and Columbia University and is also a leadership coach for faculty. She is a founding member of the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership. She currently maintains a psychotherapy practice in New York City, where she lives with her husband and two children.