Gaslighting — perfection of relational deception and betrayal

Some time ago I wrote: “Gaslighting is the ultimate scapegoating experience.  I say ‘ultimate’ because when it is carried out and done so ingeniously, there is absolutely no sign of the wrongdoing having been done; so much so that the victim is levelled and dissolved from where they stood, their person and position completely disintegrated on a bed of lies.”

More concisely, that’s only half the deal: a deception so perfect it is completely concealed.  This is how it leaves the victim.  The other half is how the victim is very often completely unaware it’s even taken place.  The victim is left with the tattered reputation and is usually the last to know.  They have no idea what hit them half the time.  Before they realise what’s happened, everyone else — including the gaslighter — have moved on.  It is first a deception, then later comes the sting of betrayal.  And the victim never gets closure on the fuller story.  There are always missing pieces of information, which serves to aggravate the soul stuck in analysis mode.

As the person has been gaslit reflects, they may often wonder about how brazen the person was who gaslit them.  It happened in broad daylight.  They had the gall to carry out mental grand larceny in full view of potentially many witnesses, and like a magician, they get away with it with a sleight of hand.

The effect of gaslighting is such that everyone doubts what was actually seen.  Even with eyewitnesses, somehow there is cause to doubt, deflect, deny, all because moral citizens would never try a person in the court of their minds unless it were obvious they were guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  Doubt exists, so the gaslighter gets away with it; as if it were never done.  No wonder gaslighting is crazy-making!  It makes a mockery of the sensible mind, of first-hand accounts, of claims of deception and betrayal — when such claims made against reasonable persons would be fully explored.  But claims made against some, no matter how convincing, will fall away as if they didn’t occur in the first place.

The person who has a major claim, who never truly gets a hearing, has a bevy of case examples — dozens if not hundreds of examples — and yet the more the other person infracts them, the more licence there seems to be to continue infracting.  It does the victim’s head in.  How could the belligerence be carried out by such a smiling assassin?

Gaslighting is performed by people who are audacious and unashamed.  Their psychopathy justifies their entitlement to exploit situations and they bear not a skerrick of empathy.

Photo by Thomas Despeyroux on Unsplash