You dramatize? Are you oversensitive? Are you twisting the facts? Maybe. But maybe you gaslight yourself too.
With the term gaslighting we usually describe something that one or more people do to another person – sometimes more, sometimes less consciously. In the play Gas light by British writer Patrick Hamilton, after whom the phenomenon is named, the gaslighter acts with full, perfidious intent: To drive his wife crazy, for example, the man changes the lighting in her apartment with gas lights, but afterwards denies it to have done. In this way, he makes her doubt her sanity, distrust her own perception, become insecure and ultimately feel dependent on her beloved man, whom she trusts and who she believes would have her best on his mind.
In reality, too, there may be cases in which people make targeted use of relationships of trust and deliberately gaslighten other people, i.e. manipulate and make them insecure in order to be able to exercise power over them. But in many cases gaslighting happens unconsciously. For example, it can be that someone is so convinced of their own perception that they: They make others doubt theirs – although it is perhaps even closer to reality than that of the person who is convinced of themselves. To put it briefly: Just like very few narcissists: choose inside, narcissist: be inside, not all gas light ends explicitly decide to gaslighten. For most of them, it establishes itself as a pattern of behavior that they hardly recognize as such. Therefore it can theoretically also happen that we ourselves become gaslighters unnoticed – even in the relationship with ourselves. The following habits could be signs of this.
5 signs that you are gaslighting yourself
1. You distrust your judgment
It is natural and healthy to doubt yourself occasionally – but if we question our perceptions and judgments over and over again, it can be an expression of self-sabotage. We need a basic trust in our intuition, our judgment, our memories and perceptions in order to make decisions and to feel reasonably safe and free. With the help of our decisions, actions and the consequences, we learn and can further develop our intuition and our judgment. If, on the other hand, we doubt it before we make a decision, we take the chance to develop this.
2. You think you are too sensitive
A typical statement that is made in connection with gas lighting is: “Don’t be so sensitive all the time! You’re overreacting again.” And often enough it is our inner voice from which it comes. It may be that we could look at some situations from a perspective that would make them appear less bad, dramatic, stressful, or something else. But if we don’t do that right away, there are reasons and it’s okay. How we perceive and evaluate something belongs to us, is part of our personality and biography. It’s never wrong or too sensitive – it’s just how we feel.
3. You downplay your feelings
“Others have it much worse than me”, “But what I achieved wasn’t that great either”, “It’s not a big deal” – to judge ourselves for how we feel or to classify our feelings as inappropriate, is a surefire way to unsettle ourselves, make us feel guilty, and make us feel small. And it’s a classic gas lighting strategy. Our feelings are our most intimate and reliable advisors. Your messages may not always be easy to understand, but they always have value. They make us alive, human and who we are. Judging our feelings is judging ourselves. In doing so, we not only torpedo our self-worth and self-acceptance, but also our authenticity.
4. You look for excuses for others
Nothing against empathy. It is good when we can empathize with other people and understand them. But subordinating our own perspective, our own interests and feelings, goes too far. “He’s got so much on his mind right now”, “Certainly she didn’t mean it that way”, “It’s just his way of being late”. There may always be explanations and excuses for when others treat us badly or hurt us. But it is not our job to find these excuses. Our job is to alert others when an apology is appropriate.
5. You blame yourself all the time
Do you feel responsible for everything bad that happens to you and in your relationships? Then you are deceiving yourself – because you are not. Blameshifting, blaming someone else, is a typical element of gaslighting. When we gaslighten ourselves, we always seek (and find) the sole or primary guilt with us. This creates a permanent guilty conscience in us as well as the feeling of having to make amends. But most conflicts, crises, arguments, or injuries involve more than one person. The guilt that we ascribe to ourselves therefore (almost) never rests on us alone.
If we discover behaviors in ourselves that indicate self-gaslighting, we can try to break through the patterns in a targeted manner. For example, it may help to write down our feelings and think about what triggered them. In this way we learn to recognize that everything we feel has a reason and a justification. If the self-sabotaging behavioral patterns are too stuck for us to find out on our own, psychotherapy can be useful and appropriate in order to find a healthier, more appreciative way of dealing with ourselves.
Sources used :wirtschaftsforum.de, forbes.com, healthline.com, medium.com