Isabella Trowbridge

Dr. Cassel

ENG 1201

July 14, 2020

The Effects of Gaslighting

If I am being completely honest, have struggled writing this paper, I am a victim of this

manipulation tactic and doing further research really has opened my eyes. Looking at the

psychology aspect and how its effects relationships later on in life has allowed me to take the

time to reflect so I can make sure I have the best possible relationships I can. I lived in a co-

parenting toxic environment for 16 years. The reason it was toxic was due to my biological

father having a textbook definition of gaslighting down to a science. Both of my parents got

remarried and my mother did nothing but support me for wanting to continue my relationship

with my father. That’s the number one thing I can take from being a victim of gaslighting, until

the individual is ready to admit that they want to get out, you can’t really help them. This is all

due to the manipulation factor of this emotional abuse tactic. Since then, I have tried to be

conscious of how this abuse effects my relationship with people and my romantic relationships.

With emotional abuse being such a loaded topic, we can use psychological analysis and

personal experiences to make sense and attempt to look at just how these individuals cope.

Gaslighting is a form of manipulation from one person to another. It usually is a sign of a

power struggle over the idea of the manipulator being right. The perpetrator will go to

unimaginable lengths to belittle the other induvial involved to just feel a sense of self-worth.

The Department of US Health and Human Services has a Women’s Health section and they

speak specifically of gaslighting, “…form of emotional abuse that abusers use to maintain power
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and control. When a victim is questioning her memories or her mind, she may be more likely to

feel dependent on the abuser and stay in the relationship. Gaslighting happens over time, and you

may not notice it at first” (Basile, 2018). As I mentioned before, and from speaking from

experience, not only can it be hard to notice because you are directly involved, but it also has to

happen on the victim’s own time. Relationships with people that have these narcissist tendencies

are tolling. They make the victim feel confused, make them question their self-worth and even

can take the idea of their personal rights as a human being away (Evans, 2018).

So, what’s the science behind gaslighting? It all has to do with power, the abuser wants to

feel in control of whatever situation it may be or who it may be. “…there’s not much alignment

between their actions and their words. So, it’s really important to be looking at their actions,

more so than their words, because they will tell you anything to control you” (Jo, 2018). When

power comes into play so does manipulation. The number one similarity we see with gaslighting

is Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Tonia Evans, an author, who dealt with NPD wrote a book

about surviving tells her story that too many people live every day. She sheds some light on how

NPD comes about, “… dreadful unconsciousness in the form of a psychic disease, which causes

people who are emotionally wounded to act out in behaviors that are destructive to others”

(Evans, 2018). Now, she is not trying to let all narcissistic off the hook, keeping perspective

throughout this whole process is key. Taking the time to understand why the abuser is the way

they are can allow the victim to accept that they are in fact, not the issue.

Emotional abuse is extremely hard to explain to someone, especially if they have never

had to deal with it first-hand. In my case, I had not only had the emotional abuse, but I was also

lucky to have verbal abuse strew throughout each negative encounter with my father. This allows

for my trust in men in general to diminish quite rapidly. Taking the time to go to therapy and
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understand how to cope with all the “emotional baggage” that I have collected is a task in itself.

With all that being said, we can see a number of ways that gaslighting can affect people later on

and the struggles that they have to work though. That can be anything from the inability to

actually being able to be in a romantic relationship, to the inability to trust the people they are in

a relationship with, or even struggle of give and take in daily friendships. All of these are battles

within themselves that are not easily fixed with a couple therapy sessions or heart to hearts.

Below is a table of data collected from The Sociology of Gaslighting by Paige L. Sweet (2019). It

talks about the demographics of the survivors of gaslighting. You can see, it happens anywhere

and at any time.

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Taking a closer look at this table we can see that this study looked at a number of factors.

The demographics of this issue is clearly showing that it can happen anywhere at any time. We

see a pretty even percentage when it comes to race. Latina was the highest with 40% and white

was in a close second with 30%. The study also looked at housing situation and we see

interesting results. Rental housing was the most popular with 56% and the closest to that was

owning a home at 16%. We see a huge jump and I find this to be interesting because rental

properties are clearly not set in stone and then renter is usually not in charge. Narcissists are

usually always wanting to control every aspect, so the idea that they don’t own the space that

they are living in is interesting. The last thing I would like to mention is this kind of abuse

doesn’t happen in newer relationships often. We see the higher percentages when the two

individuals have been together for 10+ years. These could be easily explained due to being

manipulated or scared into staying. It could be due to financial security, physical security or even

they have no other place to go.

The idea of being in a relationship isn’t a happy thought when your main source of male

attention is based off of what you are raised around. Now, I had great male relatives and

grandparents, they have always been so understanding but the father roll holds a higher position

of importance. My father made sure he was known to be the most important and that is what

allows the mistrust in men in general to come into play. The father is usually looked at as the

caretaker and when that relationship is toxic, you don’t want to depend on anyone being you

caretaker. Hence, not wanting to be even give a romantic relationship a try later on in life. “It

also can evoke long-held-at-bay rage that the survivor has usually turned against the self. Anger,

rage and a demand for restitution often marks a period of trauma recovery that is important in

restoring wholeness. This is a revitalizing phase of recovery, but it becomes problematic if the
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survivor cannot move beyond it” (Frawley-O’Dea, 2016). We see that sometimes that period of

not being in any sort of romantic relationship is a normal stage to work through.

Trust is a very basic idea with extremely difficult additives that aren’t necessarily

mentioned. I’ll paint the picture, you found someone that’s great, you feel like this might work

and you have done nothing but try to better yourself. You get in a disagreement and there is a

moment of weakness on his part which ends up with him doing a number of things; get frustrated

and show aggression, blame it on you, or act like they don’t care and go silent. Now, being a

victim of gaslighting I can tell you each and every way that someone in my position can take

those actions as. Instead, I interviewed someone that I know has also been a victim of gaslighting

and told them this exact situation, “Okay, well the frustration is obviously going to scare me into

thinking that it could lead to physical abuse, that’s a given. If he blames it on me, I’m going to

think that he is trying to spin it back on me, on something I know I didn’t do. Lastly, if he acts

like he doesn’t care, I’m going to assume that he doesn’t care about me or I’m not worth it,

worth fighting for it” (Trowbridge, 2020). The trust you had is immediately thrown out the door.

I will also admit, this isn’t fair at all to either party. His moment of weakness in other

circumstances would be upsetting but easier understood but there was no way for a win-win

situation due to the thought process of a victim of gaslighting.

When you are a couple there are gives and takes. An example of that could be something as easy

as compliments. Sadly, that idea of positive reinforcement is one of the manipulation tactics that

you see commonly used in gaslighting. A therapist explains this manipulation tactic, “You might

notice that somebody who does this to you can often barite you or put you down and other times

will use some kind of positive reinforcement like praise...” (Jo, 2018). We see the mentally
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tolling aspects of controlling someone’s life and showing aggression but then positively reinforce

their relationship with a compliment. It allows for simple acts of love to be a red flag and want to

abort due to past experiences. “Personally, I have a hard time believe people are being genuine,

not matter what the context is. Even with men, even if they have the nicest of intentions, I’m

always going to want to make them jump through a number of hoops” (Trowbridge, 2020). The

simple act was paired with a couple hours of verbal and emotional abuse and the ability to

associate the two because it is a different person is easier said than done.

You could argue that emotional abuse is nothing compared to physical abuse. This would

be a logical way to think of it, you don’t have any physical bruises, cuts, etc. to remind you daily.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline published, “1 in 4 women (24.3%) and 1 in 7 men

(13.8%) aged 18 and older in the United States have been the victim of severe physical violence

by an intimate partner in their lifetime” (2018). Domestic violence is not something that should

be talked about light heartedly, it’s a serious issue and we see too many cases in every day life as

we can see above. Without taking away the seriousness of physical abuse, I just want to shed

light on how prevalent emotional abuse can also be. “Some people are under the mistaken

impression that if things don't escalate to physical violence, there is no abuse. But emotional

abuse has been documented to have serious, long-lasting psychological consequences” (Howard,

2019). Emotional abuse is something that is hard to prove and keep track of, but there are very

clearly evident psychological effects. There might not be psychical bruises that remind but a

certain tone of voice or even a situation from afar could trigger an episode of anxiety.

Instead of attempting to belittle the idea that physical abuse doesn’t amount to emotional abuse,

the whole purpose is to have the difficult conversations that need talked about. Gaslighting is

happening more and more because of the ability to educate ourselves and the idea that asking for
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help is not a bad thing. I highly encourage therapy; I think it is a great tool to use and especially

with emotional trauma. There is so much to whatever it is that you went through and it will affect

you for the rest of your life, all in different ways. To end, I like to use music as an outlet and the

Dixie Chicks just recently came out with an album and one of the songs is named, Gaslighter,

“Gaslighter, I'm your mirror

Standin' right here until you can see how you broke me

Yeah, I'm broken

You're still sorry, and there's still no apology”. (2020)

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Bibliography

Basile, K. C., Jones, K., & Smith, S. G. (2018, September 13). Emotional and verbal abuse.

Retrieved July 05, 2020, from https://www.womenshealth.gov/relationships-and-

safety/other-types/emotional-and-verbal-abuse

Evans, Melanie Tonia. You Can Thrive after Narcissistic Abuse : The #1 System for Recovering

from Toxic Relationships. Watkins, 2018. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=cat01128a&AN=scc.b1987208&site=eds-live.

Frawley-O’Dea, Mary Gail. “There Is Hope for Survivors to Heal.” National Catholic Reporter,

vol. 52, no. 16, 20 May 2016, p. 17. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=pwh&AN=115641181&site=eds-live.

Howard, T. (2019, October 07). Long Term Effects Of Emotional Abuse And How To Cope.

Retrieved July 05, 2020, from https:// www.regain.us/advice/general/long-term-effects-of-

emotional-abuse-and-how-to-cope/

Psych2Go (Director). (2017, January 8t). 10 Gaslighting Signs in an Abusive Relationship

[Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As_8Bb0bVNY

Statistics. (2018, April 05). Retrieved July 17, 2020, from

https://www.thehotline.org/resources/statistics/

Sweet, P. L. (2019). The Sociology of Gaslighting. Retrieved July 10, 2020, from

https://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/attach/journals/oct19asrfeature.pdf

The Chicks. “Gaslighter,” 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbVPcPL30xc.

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Trowbridge, O. K. (2020, July 10). Your Experience with Gaslighting [Personal interview].