Are You Being Gaslighted?
Check for these telltale signs:
1. You constantly second-guess yourself.
2. You wonder, ôAm I being too sensitive?ö a dozen times a day.
3. You wonder frequently if you are a ôgood enoughö girlfriend/wife/employee/friend/daughter.
4. You have trouble making simple decisions.
5. You think twice before bringing up innocent topics of conversation.
6. You frequently make excuses for your partnerÆs behavior to friends and family.
7. Before your partner comes home from work, you run through a checklist in your head to anticipate anything you might have done wrong that day.
8. You buy clothes for yourself, furnishings for your apartment, or other personal purchases thinking about what your partner would like instead of what would make you feel great.
9. You actually start to enjoy the constant criticism, because you think, ôWhat doesnÆt kill me will make me stronger.ö
10. You start speaking to your husband through his secretary so you donÆt have to tell him things youÆre afraid might upset him.
11. You start lying to avoid the put-downs and reality twists.
12. You feel as though you canÆt do anything right.
13. You frequently wonder if youÆre good enough for your lover.
14. Your kids start trying to protect you from being humiliated by your partner.
15. You feel hopeless and joyless.
Your husband crosses the line in his flirtations with another woman at a dinner party. When you confront him, he asks you to stop being insecure and controlling. After a long argument, you apologize for giving him a hard time.
Your boss backed you on a project when you met privately in his office, and you went full steam ahead. But at a large gathering of staffùincluding yoursùhe suddenly changes his tune and publicly criticizes your poor judgment. When you tell him your concerns for how this will affect your authority, he tells you that the project was ill-conceived and youÆll have to be more careful in the future. You begin to question your competence.
Your mother belittles your clothes, your job, your friends, and your boyfriend. But instead of fighting back as your friends encourage you to do, you tell them that your mother is often right and that a mature person should be able to take a little criticism.
If you think things like this canÆt happen to you, think again. Gaslighting is when someone wants you to do what you know you shouldnÆt and to believe the unbelieveable. It can happen to you and it probably already has.
How do we know? If you consider answering ôyesö to even one of the following questions, youÆve probably been gaslighted:
Does your opinion of yourself change according to approval or disapproval from your spouse?
When your boss praises you, do you feel as if you could conquer the world?
Do you dread having small things go wrong at homeùbuying the wrong brand of toothpaste, not having dinner ready on time, a mistaken appointment written on the calendar?
Gaslighting is an insidious form of emotional abuse and manipulation that is difficult to recognize and even harder to break free from. ThatÆs because it plays into one of our worst fearsùof being abandonedùand many of our deepest needs: to be understood, appreciated, and loved. In this groundbreaking guide, the prominent therapist Dr. Robin Stern shows how the Gaslight Effect works and tells you how to:
Turn up your Gaslight Radar, so you know when a relationship is headed for trouble
Determine whether you are enabling a gaslighter
Recognize the Three Stages of Gaslighting: Disbelief, Defense, and Depression
Refuse to be gaslighted by using the Five Rules for Turning Off the Gas
Develop your own ôGaslight Barometerö so you can decide which relationships can be savedùand which you have to walk away from
Learn how to Gasproof Your Life so that youÆll never again choose another gaslighting relationship
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