“Relationship” is one of the most meaningful aspect of our life and “Love” is one of the most profound emotions known to us as life experience. There are many expressions of relationships we hold in our life; are the source of deep fulfilment for us as human being. Relationships can be a source of love, pleasure, support and fulfilment; or it also can be a source of grief and anguish. If individual have no mature sense of understanding of others emotions and lacking in expression of positive emotions can poison the relationship.  Each of our relationships has its needs and potential problems and each has the potential to influence the way we feel in our emotional subjective experience at real life time.

Relationship can be healthy or unhealthy; it depends on various factors where one side positive emotion can strengthen the relationship, vice -versa negative emotions or emotional abuse can play opposite role and negatively affects the relationship.  Healthy relationship is where your close person is able to understand you the way you are. He/she will never drag you down under any circumstances and always inspire you to be the better version of you.

“Quality of emotional investment” determines how healthy or unhealthy our relationships are?

Many of us may experienced emotional abuse in our life time, may be in relationship of parents and children, husband and wife, boss and employee, friend or other relations. “Emotional abuse” is a condition where one dominant person tries to control over another person by using emotional abuse in terms of -: humiliating or constantly criticizing other person, shouting on the person, threatening, embarrassing, shaming, blaming making them, making  them subject of jokes, or using sarcasm to hurt their self to get Power or some kind of self benefit.

Gaslighting is a form of Emotional abuse and it happens when a partner tries to control other person by twisting their sense of reality. Gaslighting is a condition where the dominant person (abuser) tries to manipulating another person by bulling them to make them questionable about their own sanity. This is a severe form of emotional abuse, leads the sufferer person to feel confused, blame and questioning own self regarding their mental health, memory, thoughts, or events that have happened is true or not? The sufferer of gaslighting starts to feel unsure about their perceptions of the world and even wonder if they are losing their sanity. And may leads to doubting and losing their sense of identity and self-worth or as though they cannot trust themselves.

 (The term “gaslighting” comes from the name of a 1938 “play” and 1944 film “Gaslight” in which a husband manipulates his wife into thinking she has a mental illness).

How gaslighting affects individuals mental health

Gaslighting is a method of gaining control over others. It works by breaking down a person’s trust in themselves while increasing how much they trust or depend on the partner. In relationships, gaslighting often begins gradually. The dominant partner gains their partner’s trust, sometimes with an initial “honeymoon period” in which there is no abusive behavior. Then the person begins suggesting that their partner is not reliable, that they are forgetful, or that they are mentally unstable.

Over a period of time, this emotional abuse can cause sufferer individual to question themselves? What if their partner is right? The more this happens, the more power and influence the dominant person will gain. The sufferer person unable to trust themselves, they may start to rely heavily on their partner to recall memories or make decisions. They may also feel they cannot leave them, even after getting so much emotional pain.

Gaslighting can occurs in variety of ways. For example:

• Countering –: This is when someone questions a person’s memory. They may say things such as, “Are you sure about that? You have a bad memory,” or “I think you are forgetting what really happened.”
• Withholding -: This involves someone pretending they do not understand the conversation, or refusing to listen, to make a person doubt themselves. For example, they might say, “Now you are just confusing me,” or “I do not know what you are talking about.”
• Trivializing -: This occurs when a person belittles or disregards how someone else feels. They may accuse them of being “too sensitive” or overreacting in response to valid and reasonable concerns.
• Denial -: Denial involves a person refusing to take responsibility for their actions. They may do this by pretending to forget what happened, saying they did not do it, or blaming their behavior on someone else.
• Diverting -: With this technique, a person changes the focus of a discussion by questioning the other person’s credibility. For example, they might say, “That is just nonsense you read on the internet. It is not real.”
• Stereotyping -: An article in the American Sociological Review suggests that a person may intentionally use negative stereotypes about someone’s gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, nationality, or age to gaslight them.

Signs of gaslighting

Individual who experience gaslighting can find it difficult to recognize the signs. They may trust the dominant person or believe that they truly do have some psychological or other problem.

Some potential signs that someone is experiencing gaslighting are -:

• Feeling uncertain of their perceptions
• Frequently questioning if they are remembering things correctly
• Believing they are irrational or “crazy”
• Feeling incompetent, unconfident, or worthless
• Constantly apologizing to the abusive person
• Defending the abusive person’s behaviour to others
• Becoming withdrawn or isolated from others

Gaslighting may cause anxiety, depression, psychological trauma, or other psychopathology for the victim especially if it is part of regular pattern of abuse.

“Emotional abuse” cause significant distress in psychological, social, work or other areas of life. If someone is suffering with similar kind of situation in their life can get support and help to live more healthy life.

Seek and Stick With Treatment

LA is providing *Free psychological assessment and screening for  interpersonal relationship problems  and offering personalized counseling and psychotherapy for marital relationship iissues, couple in living relationship, child parant relation and relationship counseling.

If you or someone you know is in immediate distress and need help. Contact us.

You are not alone. We are with you.  LA is welcoming you to live again and get better version of you.

Your mental health care is our priority.

Live Again India