"Gaslighting": my new favorite word!

[BusynMember]

I've never lived with a gaslighter in a marriage. That must be hades. I have some who intentionally or unintentionally are in my family and they an do a good job of convincing you that your memory is false and that you are a bit off the rails. Of course, they either don't have good memories themselves or can't face reality or lived a different experience in the same environment and believe EVERYONE had the same experience.

Is that gaslighting too? I'm not sure since it it more ignorance of human experience than an attempt to get you to believe the sky is red. I think...

It is more, "I didn't have that experience with XXX so you're lying and you didn't either." Gaslighting or just being a fool?

 

[InsaneCdn]

It is more, "I didn't have that experience with XXX so you're lying and you didn't either." Gaslighting or just being a fool?

Very hard to tell the difference. Because we can't exactly tell their motive. It could be either.

 

[BusynMember]

Reminds me of when you find out the next door neighbor who always dresses nice and seems so helpful to his neighbors and wife and kids and has once helped you change your car's tire is a sexual predator.

"OH, no! Can't be! He is always so nice and friendly and well dressed and never raises his voice and he even helped me change my car tire in the middle of the night! So there is no way he molested your child. You're lying. He has always been nice to me, so it is absolutely impossible that he has another, horrible side that your child saw." Some people, who were not the abused family person, only believe what THEY experienced, stupid though that is. People want to believe the best about loved ones who did not abuse them. They find it incomprehensible that the person is an abuser so you must have caused it, even if it started when you were four years old or ten years old. It's faulty thinking to protect yourself.

Yawn. People like that tire me out. Excuse me while I nap.