A short educational YouTube talk by Dr. Carol (Carol) Darca, a trauma psychologist and founder of Reconnect Trauma Treatment Center, explaining gaslighting: its theatrical origin (1938 play, 1944 film "Gaslight"), how it appears in intimate relationships (infidelity denial, memory questioning, withholding, blame, diversion), parental and workplace/medical contexts, and how gaslighting interacts with trauma. She recommends seeking external validation/allies, trusting bodily intuition, setting boundaries, and—when needed—professional trauma therapy; gives clinic contact information and references a related video on projection.
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Hi, I'm Dr. Carol Darca, author, trauma psychologist and founder of Reconnect Trauma Treatment center in Los Angeles. Today we're going to talk about something very popular and very interesting. Have you been hearing this term gaslighting? What does gaslighting mean? It's a form of emotional manipulation and abuse into making someone believe that they're pretty much insane. It's really a psychological form of abuse and it has a very interesting story. Do you know where this term came from? It actually comes from a theater play in 1938. Then eventually they turned this into a movie in 1944. I forgot the name of the movie, actually. Oh, it's called Gaslight. Hello. It is Gaslight. Because the man, the. The husband was trying to convince the wife that she's basically going insane for whatever that he was doing. I didn't watch the whole thing. So he had gas lights, you know, as far part of like instead of the lamps and everything all around the house. And he was dimming them and pretending that. That he didn't dim them. And when the wife was saying, I'm seeing sort of different lighting, he was saying, you must be hallucinating. So that's from there. People made the gaslighting as a term of whenever you believe you're doing something right, but someone else is trying to hide the truth, they make you think that you are crazy. So I don't know why this recently became very popular, but I'm going to guess a lot to do with intimate relationships. Because this guy gaslighting happens the most in romantic relationships, apparently. In fact, one of the most common ones is when a partner is cheating on the other one. So an example, sorry, I'm giving a woman and a man differentiation, but it could absolutely be the opposite way around. So let's say your partner is cheating on you, or you have suspicions that he's cheating on you and you confront him because you find some traces. Maybe you found a used condom or you found traces of hair. And he starts not only denying the reality, but he starts making you feel like you're crazy, saying things like, don't you remember we used that condom? Or don't you see this as your hair is the same exact color and what's wrong with you? I think you need therapy and really start making you doubt yourself, making you think that you're crazy, especially if you have been jealous in the past. Then he goes maybe into saying things like, of course you're always jealous. This comes from your childhood trauma because your parents cheated on each other and that's why you never trust in me. And then you take this back into your therapy thinking, okay, something is wrong with me. I keep suspecting my poor partner. He's been so faithful to me. There must be something wrong with me. As you can see, this level of manipulation creates a lot of problems. Let's talk about other kind of examples. Things like someone really countering, questioning your memory, saying things like, okay, you never really remember anything. Are you sure you're remembering this one right? So let's say you are known to have memory problem sometimes. And then the person really just takes that and uses against you. So another thing could be withholding. So when someone withholds information and when you confront them about something, they say, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. I never said such a thing. You're just trying to convince me. So not only they're denying, but now they're blaming you almost for gaslighting them. So that could be another way this happens. Here's a good one. They're blaming you for being too sensitive. That happens actually in intimate partnerships, but that could also happen among children. So parents can even do that to their kids when they say, there's nothing to be upset about. I don't know why you're so angry. You're just so sensitive. You know, don't be a crybaby and that kind of a thing. So a partner who's maybe an alcoholic is using, comes home drunk, and then the wife smells alcohol and says, I'm sorry, I don't mean to say the wife every time. It could happen to the man too. Of course. The partner says, you smell alcohol, and they say, oh, I just drank one little one. Here you go again, trying to create a problem for me. What's wrong with. Just because your parents were alcoholic doesn't mean that I'm an alcoholic. And boom, again, putting it back onto the other person. Of course, the simple denial just. I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Right. That's a. That's another form of gaslighting, leaving you completely clueless, feeling like you're going crazy. Or diversion. Right? Maybe saying things like, where did you get this idea from? Are your friends telling you this? Your friends always tell you these bad ideas. They're putting these ideas into you now. They're saying you are being gaslighted by your family or by your friends. So as you can see, there are lots of ways to use gaslighting for. It could be also medical gaslighting. So it happens in the professional realm unfortunately too, or even in the political realm. Another way of giving you guys an example of this is maybe you're diagnosed with something and the doctor did a treatment that you didn't think that was right. And then when you confront the doctor, they're saying all of a sudden, like, why are you trusting the Internet? You know, just don't believe everything you're reading. Of course I know better than you. And the moment you hear I know better than you, are you insulting me as a doctor? Then you feel like, oh, no, I'm being a bad patient. I should not say that. What do we do? If you realize that you really believe that what you said was accurate, you are actually being blamed for this or being really gaslighted. How do you deal with this? What do you do? Well, first of all, my first recommendation is probably to talk to somebody else. Because sometimes when you are alone with a thought, with a feeling, with an intuition, it's really like your own feeling or your own word versus the other person. So I would recommend to talk at least to one more person and kind of have a bit of a sanity check, I want to say, especially if you're a person who don't trust your intuition very much, see what they're saying about that. So that will really give you a sense of having an ally with you. And then you can ask few more people, in fact, and then confront the person again. If they still deny, then you can say, you know what? I see that you continue to lie to me, you continue to deny what, what you did. But I'm going to trust my intuition and I'm going to trust my common sense. So we're going to have to leave this at that. Rather than really believing that person, you just go with your guts. And then of course, you can make a decision about what you want to do about this relationship. Well, unfortunately, sometimes if you are in this, maybe domestic violence situation or a very emotionally abusive relationship, you might be gaslighted on an ongoing basis and really have lost your sense of intuition. You don't know anymore. Right. So there you might really need even a professional help for someone to guide you and see how they can help you to get back in touch with your intuition and, and really trusting your feelings and your thoughts. One of the ways to trust your feeling and develop an intuition to fight against gaslighting is actually using your body and your gut sense. So when someone lies, sometimes you can just almost feel it in your stomach of like a reaction of something smells fishy, something doesn't feel right. And I'm just really going to recommend for you to trust yourself. Let's talk about how the trauma and the gaslighting unfortunately coincide together. So if you are raised in an environment where you're constantly told negative things about yourself, you're too sensitive or you're not good enough, you're not smart enough and you really came to believe that because of your parents conditioning then you might take that belief and really take it into your adulthood life. So I know, I've been giving relationship examples. Let's talk about, let's talk about a work situation. For instance. Maybe your boss is giving you a lot of work, extra work and you really believe you did a good job. And each time you're getting really criticism and being told constantly that you're not good enough. So now here's a good example of gaslighting. But unfortunately you may find yourself believing your boss if you have been raised hearing these negative comments about yourself. So then you really go into self doubt about okay, oh my God, I'm not, I'm not good enough. That's right, my boss is right. In fact I was told this as a child. What do I do? I have to do more. I have to do more and more and more. And so now not only you are a victim of gaslighting, but this might never really end. So getting support, getting maybe therapy, even resolving the childhood core beliefs, the negative beliefs about that you're not good enough would be very helpful at this point. So you can really confront the person and put the right boundaries for your sake. If you would like professional help for improving your intuition or reducing these negative core beliefs, you can find us in Pacific Palisades, los angeles@renectcenter.com we are trained professionals and especially we are trained in trauma. So we can definitely help you with that. And I hope you found this video helpful. Helpful. And also I recommend for you to watch the previous video about projections because they're very much related. This way you get to really know yourself better and you can support yourself and put boundaries and say no to people who gaslight you. And remember, trauma equals disconnect and healing equals reconnect. Stay connected. Sam.
