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7 Key Steps to Respond to Gaslighting

Art by @crazyheadcomics

Do any of the phrases in the image sound familiar? Do you feel like your thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and sanity are challenged in your relationship? Do you feel like you are living in a giant contradiction machine? If you answered yes to the above, your partner could be a narcissist and is actively gaslighting you in your relationship.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) places narcissism under the category of narcissistic personality disorder. Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration and a lack of empathy for others. Narcissists also have very low self-esteem and very fragile egos. Although they may seem confident, they struggle greatly in this regard, and their relationships tend to be affected immensely. Signs and symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder and the severity of symptoms vary. Your importance is valued by how well you are meeting the needs of the narcissist. Once you no longer meet the narcissist’s excessive needs, you lose all value and prominence in the relationship.

Signs of Gaslighting in Relationships

A narcissist has certain behavioral patterns that highlight their gaslighting tactics. These behaviors include:

  • Blame — This tactic is employed to allow a narcissist to maintain control of a situation by not taking accountability for their actions and twisting things around to where you are at fault for their behavior.
  • Self Doubt — Narcissists instill self doubt in you and your mental faculties when discussing your feelings, mental state, physical appearance, and competency.
  • Manipulation of events — Narcissists dismiss, divert, disagree, or ridicule your memory of events. This often includes a complete rewrite of actual events.
  • Targeted crazymaking phrases — Narcissists will use phrases such as too sensitive, overreacting, I never said that or crazy when you try to speak about how low they make you feel or how your needs are not being met in the relationship.
  • Consistent Lying — Narcissists tend to blatantly lie but will never admit to lying. They create a rationale for the lie making it true in their own twisted minds. Lies are used as part of the narcissist’s toolkit to maintain control and create a false narrative about your character.
  • State of Confusion — Narcissists remove clarity from conversations, speaking in “word salad” and/or ambiguities increasing their ability to twist future situations.
  • Projection — Narcissists tend to transfer their actions to their partners by accusing their partners of their wrongdoings ( e.g., cheating, lying). The partner, in turn, finds themselves defending themselves for things they did not do.
  • Buildup and Tear Down — A narcissist will actively flatter you and criticize you at the same time. This causes you to stay in a constant state of cognitive dissonance questioning if the narcissist is a loving, caring person deep down or truly a mean spirited and deceitful human being.

Gaslighting is psychological warfare. It undermines everything you believe about who you are and what you are capable of to the point that you begin to believe what the narcissist says to you as truth.

How To Successfully Respond to Gaslighting In Your Relationship

7 Key Steps to Respond to Gaslighting:

  1. Learn the traits of gaslighting.
  2. Spend time alone to recollect and deal with your emotions when your memories have been questioned.
  3. Hold onto your recollection of events. Don’t let the narcissist reprogram your memory.
  4. Gather evidence. Take pictures, record audio or take notes following conversations.
  5. Speak with family and friends. Get their perspectives on your recollection of events.
  6. Speak to a licensed therapist to help build your mental strength.
  7. Focus on self-care and taking care of your mental health.

Final Thoughts

Remember, the goal of a narcissist is to make you question your own thoughts and memories through gaslighting. They want to distort your reality. Gaslighting causes one to doubt their gut feelings and recollection of events.

If you have feelings of self doubt, apologize for everything that goes wrong in your relationship, are often confused, unhappy, and not your typical logical self, then seeking professional help is essential to safeguard your mental health. Having that outside professional perspective can highlight things you are unable to see due to your connection to the narcissist. Once you learn to look at the narcissist in a more detached way, their gaslighting tactics will become less impactful allowing you the opportunity to take more deliberate action on how to respond and what to do about your relationship.

http://www.surthrivetribe.com

The Issue of Race While Married to a Narcissist

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

There are many things you have to deal with while being married to a narcissist. With all of the gaslighting, blame shifting, emotional and verbal abuse a narcissistic relationship entails, that’s enough to handle just by itself. But, when you’re an interracial couple and your partner is a narcissist, there’s an additional challenge to endure. Especially, when you are an African American female married to a Caucasian male in America. That challenge can create even more difficulty after the relationship ends. Unexpected challenges that could not be predicted but were there all along and present themselves over time in the most toxic ways.

The Beginning

I met my ex-husband through online dating. He was from small town America with a population so small it couldn’t even be defined as a city. Needless to say, there was little to no diversity in this town and more than likely a lot of very old stereotypes helped lay the foundation for this community. The local high school science teacher actually taught the kids African Americans can jump high playing basketball because they have an extra bone in their feet. I don’t know if it was his fascination with people of color or his curiosity that enticed him to date outside of his race but whatever the reason he set his sights on me.

His first interracial relationship was with a Hispanic female in high school. His parents immediately put the hammer down on that relationship citing, “she was using him.” She was from a poor family and he could do better was the narrative. “Poor’’ meant a minority wrapped in an economic status that placed the woman of his affections as a negative just by existing in her racial makeup and current economic state.

Fast forward, five years later and I meet this innocent looking young man on a dating site. He doesn’t list his location as his small town, he lists the location he’s moving to. My city, over 500 miles away. He moved to my city not long after we met online. We met, we dated, and we fell in love. Or, so I thought. There were a number of red flags along the way that really made me question if he ever really loved me. When you consider how narcissists prey on their potential victims and become everything a potential mate is looking for in a significant other, it really makes you question the true authenticity of your relationship. It’s been said that narcissists are incapable of love and based on my experience, I’m inclined to believe that.

The Stigma of Interracial Dating

When my ex-husband first introduced me to his family. His mother was immediately dismayed. What would the neighbors think was her first reaction? Then, she went into the stigma of the kids and how society would never accept them. We were essentially intentionally sending our kids to damnation by choosing to bring them into this world. She cried for days and days constantly trying to convince her son to break up with me (one of many red flags I missed — narcissistic mother). Now, on top of all the issues of being with a narcissist, you now have the additional toxicity of racism added to it.

The Narcissist Emerges

As the years progressed, I noticed changes in the man I married. He became very controlling and emotionally abusive although at the time, I didn’t know what to call what I was experiencing in my marriage. I thought his maltreatment of me was my fault. He also displayed extreme favoritism to our daughter and treated my son horribly.

As my son progressed into his teenage years, he began to grow his hair out and became interested in hip hop music. “You need to cut your hair,” my ex-husband would repeatedly tell him. “Why do you have that ‘fro?” “Turn off THAT music!” If my son turned on a hip hop or R&B song on the radio in the car, the station was immediately changed. “We’re not listening to that nonsense!” My ex-husband would sneer as if my son was doing something wrong or illegal. Etched into these behaviours and responses is the family that enabled him and perpetuated stereotypes that he never relinquished, despite the fact that he married and had children with me. In some way, he was saving me by marrying me and taking me into a new, better status. In reality, I was the upgrade that uplifted his social and economic status.

Racial Identity Denied

When I tried to teach my kids about African American history and their culture, I was immediately shut down. “Why does everything have to be about race?” He would often say denying my kids a part of who they were. He even went so far as to put their racial identity as “white” on application forms whereas I always identified them as both races never denying their racial makeup.

My children grew up terrified to be themselves in their own home. In addition to having to survive the consistent put downs and live up to the unrealistic standards set by their father, they couldn’t embrace their own identities. They scurried to turn off music if dad walked into their room and changed the TV station if it was tuned to an urban show. Everything they enjoyed related to their culture had to be a secret to avoid dad’s wrath.

Not only did my children have to grow up dealing with a father who went into narcissistic rages at the drop of a dime, gaslighted and made them feel inadequate in every shape or form, but they grew up having to hide their racial identity in their own home. Something no child should ever have to experience.

Newfound Strength

I finally found the strength to leave my marriage after 16 years of abuse. I am proud of my children for finding their own identity despite the roadblocks their dad threw at them along the way. They continue to learn about their African American heritage and are finally free to be themselves. I still feel guilty for subjecting my kids to years of abuse, but I can’t beat myself up forever. I too was trying to survive in a household where you continuously walked on eggshells trying to avoid that next episode of narcissistic rage terrifying you into submission.

Was it My Fault, now available. Click here to order my book.