Gaslighting is a term originating from the movie Gas Light where a husband manipulates his wife to make her question her own sanity.
He uses tactics that make her question what she sees and hears. He even questions her memories. If you have a soulmate or twin flame relationship where you’re second-guessing yourself, you may be a victim of gaslighting.
GASLIGHTING IS MENTALLY AND EMOTIONALLY ABUSIVE
Your confidence declines as your self-doubt grows. You will feel as though you’re walking on eggshells, worried to speak up for yourself.
One of the first steps in gaslighting it to set the stage for the best results. To do so, they have to first go after those closest to you. They will lead you to believe all your friends, family and coworkers are against you, and a danger to your soulmate or twin flame relationship.
One by one they will be forced to exit your life. The purpose of this it to isolate you and to weaken your support system. The other method they will use is to slowly convince those closest to you that you’re problematic and treating them unfairly. Then, when you want support from your people, you find they are more sympathetic towards your partner. Either method leaves you alone and vulnerable.
When you express your emotions, they’re quickly set aside.
They will strip you of your rights to your own feelings. You shouldn’t be hurt by what they say, because they don’t intend to hurt you. They insist you’re just being too sensitive. They will say you should know they’re only joking.
Accusations of you being too melodramatic, and making something out of nothing, will be constant and continual. No matter how big the offense, you cannot be offended. Your partner, of course, has every right to feel the way they feel. And any little thing you say or do will be blown way out of proportion.
Eventually, you’re afraid to say anything no matter how you feel. You stop standing up for yourself altogether. Now they can do and say whatever they want. You won’t dare say a thing about it because you know what will happen if you do.
A person being gaslighted often finds themselves apologizing all the time.
Their soulmate or twin flame often accuses them of things they didn’t say or do. Their partner loves playing the victim, so they must be apologetic and beg for forgiveness.
The one doing the gaslighting is never wrong, so they never have to apologize. If you’re hurt or upset in any way, it’s not their fault, but yours.
A victim of gaslighting ends up, at some point, questioning their own recollections. Their partner will accuse them of not remembering things properly. The one doing the gaslighting will deny they ever did that, or said that, you must have a problem with your memory.
It simply never happened.
Now you swear to yourself your memory is fine, but after this happens repeatedly over time you find yourself not so sure of your memory anymore. Rather than argue your side of things you wind up just chalking it up to faulty memory.
A person being gaslighted may have been feisty, and not put up with people’s nonsense, prior to this relationship. But now, in their twin flame or soulmate relationship, the gaslighting leads to them lacking confidence and feeling weak. They question their own judgement when it comes to decision making. They often make choices that are more toward what their partner wants than what they themselves want.
Another gaslighting technique is to use false flattery or compassion. They will say things like : “They are only challenging you to bring out the best in you.” and “The only reason they didn’t help you is to help you see you could do it yourself.” The gaslighter will claim they did all this to help you, not hurt you. Yet you repaid them by getting mad at them for helping them? How dare you? Once again, you’re in the wrong.
If you try to point the finger at the person doing the gaslighting, they will quickly turn it back on you.
They will either use deflection, or simply change the subject, to make you the bad guy. Your partner will wind you up, trigger you and set you off on purpose.
They know what buttons to push and they will push them repeatedly. When you finally react, they’ll tell you how you’re overreacting or mentally unstable. They of course will have remained fairly calm the whole time, which was their intention. After all, they have to prove to you, and everyone else, how neurotic you are.
When they’re gaslighting you, the truth falls by the wayside. If you catch your partner in a lie, they will never admit it. It doesn’t matter how much proof you have, they won’t budge. Your memory may be at fault, but not them. It’s really confusing when you know the truth, but someone refuses to admit they lied. Once again, you start to question reality.
Empathic people are very sensitive to other people’s feelings. Many twin flames and soulmates are empathic and often find it difficult to create and enforce proper boundaries. This is why empathic people can be easy victims for gaslighting.
If your soulmate or twin flame is gaslighting you, you have to make some dramatic changes immediately.
First, you need to build back your support network. You may want to include some professional help as well. Next, you need to pull your focus away from your soulmate or twin flame. Now is the time for self-care. Too much of your attention was drawn away from your own needs and it’s time to bring it back into focus. You also need to take some time and space away from your partner until you find your true self again.
This decribes my situation to a T!