Gaslighting: Why Narcissists Do It And What You Need To Know

Welcome to the Breakdown to Breakthrough Podcast.

My name is Lisa A.

Romano.

I am a life coach,

Best-selling author,

YouTube vlogger,

Meditation teacher,

And expert in the field of codependency and narcissistic abuse.

I am a believer in the power of an organized mind.

My aim is to help people learn what it means to live above the veil of consciousness rather than living a reactive life.

May your heart feel blessed,

Your mind feel expanded,

And your spirit find hope as you spend time with me here at the Breakdown to Breakthrough Podcast.

I'm Lisa A.

Romano.

I'm the Breakthrough Life Coach.

And today we're going to be talking about gaslighting and why I think everybody should know about gaslighting.

So many of us today struggle with depression.

We struggle with anxiety.

We struggle with debilitating self-doubt.

We hear ourselves doubting that what we're feeling is valid.

And because so many of us have grown up in homes where we've been taught that what we think and what we feel is irrelevant,

Then we don't know to look within and to ask ourselves questions that can help us identify gaslighting behavior.

In order to identify gaslighting behavior,

You have to be somebody who loves themselves,

Who has the ability to go within,

Who isn't afraid to go within.

You have to be able to be somebody who is really good with boundaries.

You have to be somebody who does not struggle with codependency.

If you are highly empathic,

You are very much a target for gaslighting because you're always trying to help other people and you're trying to understand other people.

So if someone accuses you of doing something that you're not guilty of or if they accuse you of lying,

Your position is,

I'm going to prove to this person that I'm not lying and that I love them.

And so I think everybody should know about gaslighting and understand gaslighting.

So we don't immediately think that there's something wrong with us and we don't stay in abusive relationships.

So now there are a couple of things about gaslighting that we should all know about.

Gaslighting is a thing that narcissists,

Sociopaths,

And psychopaths do often.

It is a tactic that they use in order to take control over their victim.

And they do it because they want you to doubt your reality.

If you're with somebody who is cheating on you and they don't want to lose you because you are their main source of supply,

Then they will lie to you about cheating.

If you've seen somebody that you're in a relationship with kissing another girl at a bar,

They will tell you,

You did not see that.

They will make up and contrive some story to justify what happened,

But they will never admit to your reality.

They will then attack you in some cases and say,

No one thinks like you do.

Or if you weren't so insecure,

You wouldn't have seen that.

That never happened.

She was just talking to me.

You know what it is?

You're so insecure and every guy you've ever been with has cheated on you.

And so now when you look at me talking to a girl,

Immediately that's what you say.

And what it does is,

And especially if you come from a trauma background,

It makes you question what you've seen.

If you're dealing with someone who's really skilled at gaslighting,

You end up apologizing for being gaslighted.

You end up apologizing,

Saying,

Oh,

I'm sorry that I ever accused you of kissing this girl.

Or I can't believe I made you feel offended.

What a gaslighter will do is say,

I can't believe you accused me of such a thing.

You've hurt me by accusing me of such a thing.

So now not only are they lying to you and getting you to doubt what you've seen,

Now they want to make you feel guilty for what you've seen and control you even further.

So this is important to know.

If you feel like you are in a relationship that makes you feel crazy,

If you feel like you're in a boxing ring with the person that you're supposed to be loving and who's supposed to be loving you,

If you are in a punitive relationship,

Meaning you are with someone who feels it necessary to punish you for approaching a subject,

Or punish you for not making them happy,

Or punish you for suggesting that they lied to you,

If you're with somebody who has a punitive mindset where people should be punished,

You might want to reassess this relationship,

Dear ones.

So that's a fact.

If you're in a relationship that makes you feel crazy,

Like you're starting to doubt your reality,

Certainly that was me.

I would say things to my ex-husband,

And he would tell me I never said it.

It got so bad that I had to start writing things down.

One time during our separation,

He kept his work truck in our driveway,

And he was telling me he wasn't working,

And that's why he couldn't pay child support.

I snuck into his truck,

And I made copies of the contracts that he was making with other people.

I did it to save my own sanity.

I never did anything with it,

But at least seeing it like,

Oh my God,

I'm not crazy.

He is working.

It's dated.

It was paid.

It says cash,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

He's going to deny it,

But at least now I know I'm not crazy.

It anchored me to the here and now.

Another thing that we should know is that anybody,

I don't care how smart you think you are,

You can be duped by someone who's very good at gaslighting you,

Because one of the things that a narcissist,

A sociopath,

And a psychopath do is they charm you into trusting them deliberately.

What they're doing is they're getting you to open up.

They're getting you to expose your vulnerabilities.

Why?

Because when you start to feel comfortable with someone,

You start to tell them how you feel.

What a psychopath or a narcissist will do is they're collecting information.

They're writing everything down.

Oh,

You have a problem with your mother?

Write that down.

Oh,

You feel abandoned?

Write that down.

Oh,

Your mother used to say that you were selfish?

Oh,

Write that down.

You know why?

Because when they need to manipulate you,

When they need an emotional crowbar to gain power over you,

They're going to pull that out of their arsenal.

They're going to say,

Even your mother thinks you're crazy.

Or you know what?

You don't have any friends.

Or you know what?

You have a problem with everybody.

No one thinks like you do.

You're the only person that I have these issues with.

It's not me.

It's you.

Are you sure you feel OK?

Have you ever been institutionalized?

Have you ever had a breakdown before?

Are you sure?

Wow,

You're quite emotional right now.

Do you feel all right?

Making you question your reaction to being abused.

And on top of it,

If you start to gain some leverage,

Meaning you start to gain in an argument,

Whatever you have revealed to them that is the most sacred to you,

That is the most,

Your deepest wound,

They're going to use it against you.

Now here's the thing.

Here's the thing.

When you're suffering from shame,

That's why it's so important,

Codependency,

Recovery,

Narcissistic abuse recovery,

We must identify our shame because we must heal it.

Because the minute someone like a narcissist or a sociopath or a psychopath tries to hurt us by shaming us,

By using our vulnerable information against us,

We feel shame.

And in that moment,

We can't identify that we're being abused because the amygdala has been hijacked.

We are experiencing visceral information from the outside.

So the vagus nerve is taking all this information from the outside.

And the information that we're receiving from the outside is triggering us.

And now our brain is sending information to our bodies at the same time.

We are literally,

Our brains are being hijacked.

We're going offline,

Right?

Our thalamus information from the thalamus is being interrupted,

Which means I feel like I'm three,

Four,

Five,

Or six.

And I'm not able to understand that what's happening to me is abusive.

I'm losing the ability to put this situation into context.

I'm not a 54-year-old woman being abused by another human being for their own satisfaction,

For their own emotional gain.

I am reacting to the sensations.

My brain has gone offline.

And that's the agenda of somebody who is gaslighting you.

If someone is able to make you feel that traumatized,

Then they can control you.

And they make you feel like you are going crazy.

You start to doubt your reality.

And if they're really good,

They'll make you feel guilty for questioning them.

I can't tell you how many people that I've coached that have caught their husbands or caught their wives.

One man in particular had a wife who had extramarital affairs.

And she would say to him,

It's your fault that I'm having an affair.

I never thought that I would be this woman that would cheat on my husband.

I have three kids.

I can't believe that I'm doing this.

But it's because of you that I'm doing this.

There's this sense of exploitation.

There's a lack of empathy for this other person in her life who is running himself ragged to try to make her happy.

So gaslighting is a form of brainwashing.

So you have this idea.

You have this concept.

You have this reality.

And slowly over time,

This person is making you doubt what you see,

Doubt that you have a right to your internal experience.

So again,

Gaslighting is done to knock a victim off of balance,

Off emotional balance.

Why?

So that you don't have the chutzpah and the courage to leave the relationship.

I think of it this way.

I think of Humpty Dumpty.

So someone who gaslights you,

It's like you're Humpty Dumpty.

They pick you up.

They put you on the wall.

Right?

They straighten out your tie.

They fix your hair,

Make sure everything's in place.

And when no one's looking,

They knock you off the wall.

Now you're shattered to the ground because you're Humpty Dumpty,

Right?

But guess what?

Very often time,

This is the person picking you back up again.

I'll take care of you.

No one loves you like I do.

You know,

I put up with you because I love you.

And you're fractured,

You're broken,

But they're the person pulling you back together and putting you back on the wall.

And before long,

They're pushing you off the wall again.

So gaslighters also use triangulation.

They're using triangulation with your family,

With your friends,

Even with your co-workers.

I've had stories with clients who reported that their spouses went to a holiday party and behind my client's back,

They were triangulating them saying,

You know,

I love her,

But you know,

She's been a little bit off lately.

You know,

She forgets things or she accuses me of things that I'm not guilty of.

Yeah.

Can you believe she came home last week and she accused me of having an affair with my boss?

Yeah.

Crazy stuff.

Why?

Because a gaslighter,

Psychopath,

Narcissist know what they're thinking.

Maybe you're going to work telling your friends that my husband's probably having an affair.

So now when he has an opportunity to pooh-pooh that and make you look like you're going crazy,

He has just triangulated you.

He has begun this smear campaign.

Now he has put doubt in the minds of the people that you know,

The people that you care about,

So that you no longer have a support system,

Very,

Very important to identify if this is happening in your life because it's highly,

Highly destructive.

So when you've been gaslighted,

Right,

So now you're learning,

You're feeling crazy.

You go on YouTube.

Like why do I feel crazy?

You look in narcissistic abuse,

Codependency,

Empath,

Whatever.

You start to learn about gaslighting.

So here are a few things that I think you should do when you're learning about gaslighting.

When you think you're being gaslighted,

If you're in a relationship that makes you feel crazy,

Start writing things down.

And I mean everything.

I got to a point with my ex-husband where I had to start recording our conversations.

He didn't know I was doing it,

But I had to record the conversations because he would say we never had them.

It made me feel off balance.

I didn't even feel comfortable telling my best friend about a conversation because he told me the conversation never took place.

And so there was this like inability to orient myself to my,

What is reality?

It was so maddening and it shakes you on the inside.

It makes you feel like you're going to break,

You're going to have a nervous breakdown.

And so if you're in that type of a relationship,

Start writing everything down.

Write down the date.

Write down the time.

Write down what he was wearing,

What she was wearing.

Write down the context of the information.

Engage in small bits of,

In small bits.

Don't have long-winded conversations because they're harder to remember.

So when you're talking to someone who you think is gaslighting you,

Keep the conversation short.

Use short sentences because they're easier to remember.

If you can have the chance to write down first what you want to say to someone,

Like if you think that someone stole money from you or took money out of the bank account,

They're never going to admit it,

Right?

Some boogeyman came and took $1,

000 out of your account,

Right?

You're the only person with your PIN number,

But somehow some boogeyman took the money out.

Whatever.

You get the picture.

So now you're preparing yourself to go to this person and say,

Did you take the money out of the account?

Or you say,

I noticed $1,

000 is missing out of the account.

So write down the phrase you're going to use when talking to this person,

Right?

Practice this.

On Monday at 12 noon,

I'm going to text him and say,

Or I'm going to call her and say,

Right?

So you're prepared.

Then whatever they say,

No matter what they say,

No matter how much guilt shows up,

No matter how accusatory or whatever they project,

That's the other thing,

Gaslighters project.

So whatever they project,

Just disidentify.

Keep it out here.

Imagine you're wearing a psychological condom.

Can't get through.

Can't get through.

I'm in observing mode,

Dude.

Now whatever he says or whatever she says,

You write it down.

Write down the facts.

Go to the bank.

Talk to the bank manager.

Okay.

How could this have happened?

Could this have happened any other way?

No.

Okay.

Facts will help orient you to reality.

Very important.

I would say also record your events with your cell phone,

But do it for your own benefit.

You don't tell someone who is abusive that you're recording them because there's always a chance that they can get violent.

And so you don't want to do that.

The other thing that you want to do is you want to make sure that you talk to a safe person.

Find a narcissistic support Facebook group.

Find a narcissistic abuse support group in your area.

Find people that you know that you can talk to safely about what you are experiencing.

Reassess the relationship that you're in and find a way to put an end to this maddening experience because gaslighting,

In my opinion,

Is a criminal offense.

If someone comes into your house and they take your watch,

That's against the law.

They stole from you.

When someone breaks into your home,

It's a violation.

You've been violated.

And so gaslighting is a form of violation.

It's like somebody is inside your head and they're effing with your head against your will.

Because gaslighting is done,

It's like carbon monoxide.

You don't know when it's happening all the time,

But it's deadly.

And it robs us of our innocence.

And when we come out of a narcissistic abusive relationship,

Oftentimes it's when I'm out for a year and I look back and I'm like,

Whoa,

What the hell was going on?

While you're in the middle of the tornado,

When you're in the middle of a tornado,

You don't know how big the tornado is.

You don't even know where the tornado is.

You're like a chicken caught up in the middle of the tornado.

But when the tornado spits you out,

Let's say you're the chicken that was spit out.

You look up,

You're a mile away.

You're like,

Wow,

That's a big ass tornado.

So space away from an abusive relationship will give you the new clarity,

A new set of eyes.

And more will come to you.

This is the other thing.

One of the saddest things about narcissistic abuse and recovering from codependency,

When you're codependent,

You're in a narcissistically abusive relationship and you're on the recovery path,

You start to look back.

You start to gain your own autonomy.

Your brain comes back online.

Your amygdala has calmed down.

You're inputting information from the outside in a healthier fashion.

The brain is sending information to your body in a healthier fashion.

When this starts to happen and you start to reflect on the lies and the abuse,

It can be overwhelming.

That's why I love working with traumatized victims who suffer from codependency and narcissistic abuse who come from alcoholic homes and alike because they need support.

In that space,

You feel so alone.

You're like,

How could this have happened to me?

You start to judge yourself.

Why couldn't you get out of it or why didn't you see it happen?

The thing is that narcissist psychopaths and sociopaths who gaslight are very,

Very clever.

They are oftentimes very intelligent,

Especially psychopaths,

Very intelligent,

Very charming.

They know what they're doing in lots of the cases.

And so they're grooming you.

And so if you've been kicked out of a tornado,

Thank heaven.

If you're coming out of the tornado,

Thank heaven.

In time,

You'll heal.

Do what you can to stay out of a relationship for a while and get on the recovery path.

Learn about gaslighting.

Learn about narcissism.

Learn about codependency.

Learn about attachment trauma.

Learn about how the brain responds to trauma.

It's not your fault if you've been a victim of gaslighting.