Ambient abuse. Just heard a presentation about it. It goes on in the background, not easy to know where it is coming from or where it is going. Like the frog in the boiling water soon it is to late.

This so called subtle manipulation must be the core of whole cultures?

Personally I sense that it is very normal trait inside cults. Depreaciating self-worth is seen as a virtue and it becomes a part of the personality to stay in a harrasment-mode.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2013 10:11PM by volrammos.

Of course it is a common theme in cults. How else do they get you to stay when you are having rational thoughts leading you away? They need to undermine your experiences and perceptions, of course. Try presenting a conflicting revelation or experience you had to a bishop or TBM family member and watch the gaslighting ensue.

I meet this old friend of mine, and the first thing he said to me was this: There is a rumour going around that you are a great whoremaster, travelling down to the continent playing with hookers!

I was baffled, how would I now react? So, I laughed a bit and said something like that was something I had not ever heard before.

Afterwards I sensed that he wanted to see and hear me defend myself to be able to tell me that I lacked self-distance and humour.

That must have been some kind of gaslightning?

Adults using gaslightning against other adults is crazy. But that is probably why we have this cult and other kinds of dictatorships all around the world.

Let's get very clear about exactly what this is. It is a deliberate attempt to convince someone to doubt their own perceptions and not to trust their own thought processes.

Example: Planting a document or receipt in your wallet, purse or desk, and then asking you how it got there. You, of course, have absolutely no idea how it could have gotten there, because you didn't do it. But if things like this keep happening, and you have no explanation, you begin to doubt your own memory, your own integrity - and that is EXACTLY what is intended.

Anyone who would attempt to play with somebody's head like this is just plain EVIL.

It sounds like gaslightning can be both used as a weapon or a shield.

As a weapon the example from the movie "Gaslight" seems to be a good one. Just read the plot.

As a shield, it must be of use when it comes to protecting tenents of a religion or ideology.

Do you think that people the join the mormons are gaslighted from the beginning? The projection of sins must be the first weapon to make a person doubt his autonomy and so on?

Gas Lighting comes from the gas lights being dimmed in the movie.

This is probably rather rare in our personal experience, I would think. Not often do we live with the kind of sociopath who is intent on trying to pervert our sense of reality by purposely doing things and denying them with the intent of making us think we are loosing all sense of perspective and reality. It's a purposeful act with the intent of making us think we are crazy. It's really quite diabolical. It has to be planned and executed with precision. That kind of mind that can do that kind of thing is well outside the range of "normal" !

We probably run into some lesser examples of it sometimes in families, and other situations in our life time.

I have not seen it done, nor know of any examples of anyone else experiencing it in it's true form.

Yes. I saw the movie. It's a great teaching tool. Pay attention to what people are doing around you and learn to recognize a sociopath!

We would never spy on americans. We are not recording and keeping any phone calls. That guy that exposed this is endangering your security. Government uses gaslighting every day.
Oh, well OK, we are doing all those things but, that doesn't mean we are doing all those things.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/2013 03:09PM by ramonglyde.

I have experienced it personally when I was in an abusive relationship. The guy tried to gaslight me constantly. When you doubt your own sanity, it's much easier to control you.

The church also gaslights us. It tells us we have free agency when we don't really. We're constantly told we are making our own choices for ourselves, but when you're mormon, you're not making your own choices at all. Have you not ever heard an exmo say they can't trust their feelings or their own mind anymore? That's from gaslighting.

You HAVE witnessed it.

I was about to type the same thing, actually. Abusive relationships, bully bosses, and cult-like churches all practice gas lighting to a degree that I find chilling ... especially now that I know it when I see it (when it first happened to me, I didn't).

Yup, I love that movie. You can see it on Amazon and/or Netflix. It's a classic starring Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman (not Olivia DeHavilland -- unless that's a different version I've never seen, LOL).

Ingrid Bergman's new husband tries to convince her that she is mentally ill. He does it by going above the ceiling in her room and manipulating the old fashioned "gas lights" in her room to flicker on and off at strategic moments.

He hides her things and when she cannot find them, convinces her she is careless twit, a crazy woman, a child ... etc. He isolates her from others, humiliates her ... in essence, psychologically abuses her.

Her husband has a murderous secret which he will do anything to protect, even if that means driving his wife insane.

Yup, just like the Mormon Church. They too have a lot of murderous secrets that they will do anything to protect.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/2013 11:11AM by senoritalamanita.

Yep. Based on a brilliant play called "Angel Street."

My wife does that all the time. Whenever I can't find something, I go ask her if she's seen it. She usually show me where she put it, and then tells me she was just cleaning up. Yeah, right.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2018 04:37PM by fossilman.

Actually, gaslighting would be if she told you that you had put the item there, and your memory was failing.

I have a relative who plays this game. Not with me, but her spouse. She used to try and play it with me when I was a child.

I would turn the tables on her. I would take it one step further and try to set up situations so she would get in trouble. She had met her match. She hates me for that. I would do it again if she got near me.

Back at the BYU, gaslighting was elevated to an artform. Not only would individuals try to change reality, they would do it in groups. Of course the religion based denial of reality was the wellspring of this behavior. It worked in that venue so well, the same tactics were used in personal relationships, in politics, basically in all parts of BYU life.

I went to BYU to try to find a way to believe in lds-ness. I studied and found the church to be nothing. The people at BYU sealed the deal for me. I'm out. Forever and for all eternity.

Welcome to the secondary classroom.

I'm the victim of gaslighting. It's very, very destructive.

In marriage where there is abuse it is likely that the man commits the majority of the abuse. I'm in a minority. My ex-wife is a narcissist and getting others to doubt reality is nearly something she's turned into an art form. And if you think trying to believe just in Mormonism creates cognitive dissonance it doesn't compare to the cognitive dissonance that comes to the one being gaslighted, but put Mormonism on top that and it's emotional destruction and steroids.

The church was definitely a factor. Her narcissism was fed by Mormonism in general, its "saved to come forth..." bullshit, and her certainty that she was so righteous (never mind her adultery, physical and mental abuse to my son, and me).

What I've written here doesn't at all begin to scratch the surface of the damage this will do. Anyone in a relationship with a gaslighter, get out and run away as if they had the plague.

I was married to a narcissistic gaslighter.

My best friend was a fan of older movies, and she was the one who told me, "He is trying to make you crazy - just like in that old movie, 'Gaslight.' You need to get away!"

The episode that tipped everything over was when the now-ex asked me, "Did you pick up those clothes from the dry cleaner's?"

I hadn't taken anything to the cleaner, and said so. His GF, who was "just staying with us for a while," said, "Are you sure? Why don't you check your wallet for a receipt." And sure enough. There it was.

I was so thoroughly bewildered, I didn't know where to turn next. I had never heard of "Gaslighting." I don't think that the term had come into popular usage back then. It was lucky for me that my friend knew about the movie. I left Prince Toxic shortly after that.

My family and Mormon community told me that my agnostic thoughts were planted by Satan. I was right, but I was punished anyway. Eventually I was institutionalized and then disowned.

Gaslighting I know. It cost me a lot.

Failing Gaslighting 101 also allowed you to escape. Being disowned and being liberated are concepts not very far apart.

But I've seen and experienced excessive amounts of mormon manipulation and I do know they tend to think they're better and more loved of God than apostates or non-believers. This leads them to think they should pressure and manipulate others with extreme and absolute sneakiness or force.

They push and shove and harass, then blame their target for being mean if they object. It's annoying that mormons think they are always in the drivers seat, then call foul if everyone doesn't comply with their wishes, as if no one has rights except the ones mormons choose to grant.

Spot on!

Once i read what gaslighting was i realized this sh#t got pulled on me a sh#tload and helped in ruining my life.

Hel, the church has gaslighted everything it use to teach from the 1840's to about 1980.

It goes on in the background. Sometimes you don't even know you're doing it. Until you've done it. Burned up an afternoon, out in the field. Work in the field long enough and good enough and you'll get higher(ed) [education].

When you (think you) know it all… learn some more. Never find yourself in the dark. You aren't lost. You're just high(ding) [we have a winner]> WINNING!

TRY SOLAR or Natural Gas(lighting). Now, back to that grass-lighting; it's a gas. Stay smart… and don't try to remember everything. Just the good stuff. That's enough!

M@t