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Gaslighting, is someone using this trap on you?

GaslighterRealityOne of the most diabolical emotional abuses is Gaslighting. Ever heard of it? I hadn’t heard it named until I read a comment by a reader named Deborah a few months back.

Gaslighting according to Wikipedia, “is a form of intimidation or psychological abuse in which false information is presented to the victim, making them doubt their own memory and perception.”

The term derives from the 1938 stage play Gas Light…The plot concerns a husband who attempts to drive his wife to insanity by manipulating small elements of their environment, and insisting that she is mistaken or misremembering when she points out these changes. The title stems from the husband’s subtle dimming of the house’s gas lights, which she accurately notices and which the husband insists she’s imagining. ~Wikipedia

A few years ago, I was explaining to a boss something a client had told me. As I spoke, he rolled his head and eyes in his best, “Oh, Lori,” put-down body language.

He insisted “You are just being too sensitive” and “You are being too defensive about all this.” He argued for his version of what happened even though I kept telling him, “You weren’t even there.” He implied he knew my reactions better than I and that I was wrong. Finally, he switched to his cold, angry voice and verbal intimidation. How dare I question him?

You may know someone who “corrects” your choices or viewpoints (“You don’t want to read that book. It’s nonsense.”) or who makes up stuff about you to others and then lies to your face about it (“You are mistaken. Why would you make something like that up?“) Perhaps they act like all’s well in the midst of a relationship difficulty (“Why are you always upset?”) or blame you for everything (“If you loved me you’d stop this line of questioning.“)

How do you know Gaslighting is happening in your life? The list below comes from my experiences and from The Gaslight Effect: How to Spot and Survive the Hidden Manipulation Others Use to Control Your Life by Robin Stern, Ph.D.
  • You feel sabotaged but can’t explain it.
  • You’re the one “needing” to apologize.
  • You second guess yourself and feel a lot of draining confusion.
  • You constantly feel like you have to prove yourself.
  • You shoulder a lot of the blame in the relationship.
  • Guilt follows you no matter what you do.
  • It’s often implied you are inconsiderate, disrespectful, or too sensitive.
  • You often defer to the other person’s take on a situation or matter.
  • Life feels out of whack, but you can’t pinpoint the cause.
  • As you think back, you remember being more carefree and confident.
  • Lying seems easier to avoid drama or explanations.
  • You feel you can’t defend yourself verbally or emotionally anymore.
  • You find yourself accepting weird or bad behavior in the other person as normal.
  • Confrontation with the other person has them offering a reasonable explanations and making you feel bad for questioning them.

Gaslighters feel so insecure, they are compelled to make you think they are right and get you to accept their version of reality, even if this shifts blame to you. Those on the receiving end often respect or admire this person and try to desperately seek their approval.

If you are in the middle of this kind of relationship, you are going to feel raw and drained. Please remember:

  • You are valuable and no one has the right to tell you otherwise.
  • You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone.
  • Know you aren’t crazy. They are the crazy makers.
  • Talk to healthier people about your value to them.
  • Learn to recognize and let go of your need for approval from anyone.

I plan to write more about how to avoid and recognize Gaslighting. I’d love to have some ideas from readers. Please leave some thoughts about this in the comments!

My second post on this subject, “Gaslighting makes you question reality,” can be found by clicking here.

UPDATE: You may also want to read this ezinearticle.com written by Trish Lambert, “Have You Been Gaslighted Lately?

Want to know more? Take a look at
The Narcissist — A User’s Guide

Thank you for visiting!

I offer free information on the abusers and users known as narcissists here.

Lori Hoeck

Photo: Lady-bug

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  • Cyndi March 23, 2010, 5:48 pm

    Excellent article on this topic! Not too many people are aware of it and certainly can’t name the problem as it’s occurring, just as your article points out. It’s an extremely effective insidious, confidence eroding manipulation tactic.

  • Betsy Wuebker March 23, 2010, 8:50 pm

    Hi Lori – Coincidentally, about the same time we became aware of “Gaslighting” I watched the Hitchcock movie version “Gaslight” with Ingrid Bergman on TCM.

    I can’t wait to get more into this subject. What is especially crazy-making is that a gaslighter will pooh-pooh an idea or observation you might have, yet if someone else they perceive as a higher-up presents the same exact thing, they will accept and promote it. It is most bizarre to have your own idea touted by citing a respected authority from someone who completely dismissed it, and who can’t seem to remember where it originated. Argghhh!

  • Hilary March 24, 2010, 2:00 am

    Hi Lori .. thank you for this enlightening post. GasLight is a frightening play ..

    I’m sure there’s a lot of this at a more superficial level – we’re always being told by people .. that we wouldn’t like that, or can’t do that .. when we’ve expressed an interest .. it always seems such a negative way of life. I’m in the stronger position and therefore it’s not for you: as Betsy is describing.

    Thanks – interesting to hear more about .. Hilary

  • Beth March 24, 2010, 12:04 pm

    Good article. This sounds very familiar to me, unfortunately.

    But how do you know where the line is? I do do things wrong. I do forget what he asked me to remember, I remember him asking it only once he’s upset with me. And maybe he’s right that the only reason that others don’t call me on being inconsiderate is because they don’t live with me all the time and it’s considered polite to not say something like that. I certainly have been clueless and inconsiderate and long before I met him.

  • Lori Hoeck March 24, 2010, 12:46 pm

    Hi Cyndi,
    Insidious is right! Unfortunately the confidence often erodes before we know it, and by the time we awake, it seems like a long way back to well-being. Recognition is the first step. Once we get there, it’s the open door to a healthier tomorrow.

    Hi Betsy,
    I’ve seen the same Gaslight Effect used in some episodes on TV shows, too. I haven’t had what you mentioned happen before, but it would have to be tough to sit through!

    Hi Hilary,
    I think our society is making us more susceptible to this kind of thing. My grandparents never let such “malarkey”– as they might have called it — rule them. They held strong beliefs and could argue them with passion and civility.

    Hi Beth,
    The line for me was the first four listed above:
    *You feel sabotaged but can’t explain it.
    *You’re the one “needing” to apologize.
    *You second guess yourself and feel a lot of draining confusion.
    *You constantly feel like you have to prove yourself.

    I had others supporting my sense that something wasn’t right, and they showed me I was becoming less healthy and losing confidence. I had to take a step back to see how the barrage of Gaslighting affected my well-being.

  • Barbara Swafford March 24, 2010, 4:26 pm

    Hi Lori,

    I’ve heard of this, but didn’t know it was called gaslighting.

    Unfortunately I can see how some could easily fall into the gaslighting trap. Questioning themselves, etc. If we weren’t in the right state of mind, it could drive us bonkers. What I find sad is how those that are gaslighting are finding pleasure in it.

    Thank you for opening our eyes to another tactic “crazy makers” are using.

  • janice March 25, 2010, 9:16 am

    Good for you for pointing this one out, Lori. Can I add something? It’s particularly frightening for perimenopausal and menopausal women, whose memories are often prone to wee glitches anyway because of the rewiring their brains are going through. Once someone senses a woman has that vulnerability – women who experience turbulent emotional PMT are vulnerable to this, too – it becomes so cruelly easy for a gaslighter to blame everything on their ‘victim’s hormones and memory lapses. My advice to anyone experiencing this? Believe with all your heart that the menopause brings with it deeper intuition and sharper insights than you ever imagined possible. Accept the challenges, but rise up to your full height, trusting your phenomenal inner instincts and wisdom.

  • Lori Hoeck March 25, 2010, 11:50 am

    Hi Barbara,
    Isn’t it nice to name the beast and put it down?

    Hi Janice,
    Interesting thoughts. I’m sure many folks going through similar times of emotional upheaval — Alzheimer’s patients, people in rehab, and those facing major illness or even crushing stress — are also more vulnerable. I’d love to hear more about the deeper intuition brought on by menopause. Sounds fascinating.

  • Patricia March 25, 2010, 4:10 pm

    I had never heard this term before – but I found in my counseling practice that many incest surviving children described this activity.

    My sister always did this to me with my parents and school peers. My parents always believed her – so I just dove into reading and hiding. I worked hard at figuring out what it was – because I knew I was not lying or making things up? I think though it has made me unable to relax or act (as in being an actress) because I had to hold my emotions in such firm control and stay clear of her so much of the time.

    It comes from great and deep insecurity I have found.
    Thank you for this good information

  • Lori Hoeck March 25, 2010, 4:14 pm

    Hi Patricia,
    It’s hard when others don’t believe you. It eats away at self esteem and puts you into fight or flight mode as a default setting. Very tiring!

  • Amy @ Taste Like Crazy March 26, 2010, 9:47 am

    That’s what that’s called?!

    I’ve experienced that – a lot – but never had a term and explanation for what I was feeling.

    Thanks a lot for this. Seriously.

  • Lori Hoeck March 26, 2010, 10:30 am

    Hi Amy,
    Awareness is the key to so many things. I liked that I could name it, too. Now I can be more clued in when someone tries it. You’re welcome!

  • vered March 26, 2010, 5:54 pm

    Gaslighting sounds horrible – I guess the more emotionally secure one is, the less susceptible she’ll be to fall for it.

  • Lori Hoeck March 26, 2010, 6:07 pm

    Hi Vered,
    The more savvy Gaslighter figures out how to “groom” his or her targets so that the transition to control is seamless, but yes, they pick the less secure.

  • Ginger March 29, 2010, 9:39 pm

    My mother has done this to me at least a few times, trying to rewrite my childhood so that I was an abnormal child, rather than admitting that she wasn’t around/didn’t pay attention. (There are only a few I remember because they were really obviously incorrect, but it makes me wonder how many times she did this and I bought it).

    Either my mother has gotten worse at this or I’ve gotten better at recognizing it, because her recent attempts at gaslighting have been humorously bad. The most obvious example: When I was in elementary school I refused to wear pink (it was terribly uncool amongst my classmates at the time), a color that she loved, and I constantly heard her bemoan the fact that I wouldn’t wear it (at some point I may have started refusing just to annoy her). A couple of years ago I was helping her go through some old boxes and something reminded her of the no-pink-wearing ordeal. She started her old lament again, adding that I still don’t wear pink, how awful! Of course the humorous was that I had worn a pink jacket to her house that weekend and it had been hanging over the arm of a chair in the living room the entire visit – right where you would have to be blind to miss it if you went anywhere in main level of the house. I’m not certain of her intentions behind this pink narrative, but its always made me feel like she’s trying to prove that I’m not feminine enough, which has bothered me greatly.

  • Lori Hoeck March 30, 2010, 9:29 am

    Hi Ginger,
    Thanks for stopping by and commenting.

    The great thing about being aware of gaslighting is you can decide that you no longer have to prove yourself — or your pink-wearing skills — to mom or anyone else.

  • Hazel8500 April 1, 2010, 6:18 pm

    LOL I heard the term Gas-lighting several months ago for the first time, looked it up and KAPOW! Saw my marriage in a completely new light. The promise of starting a family kept me in line, I kept wondering why he would never actually DO anything about it…. Then the answer hit me like a 2×4. I’m not upset about the lack of babies, I’m GRATEFUL. I’m, angry over being manipulated and lied to, I’m angry that he watched me cry EVERY MORNING for years in frustration, I’m angry that every time I began to edge closer to the truth he would call me crazy, paranoid, broken. I’m angry that when he realized I was preparing to leave him he began telling his family I was cheating on him. I’m angry that he continues to lie about me and his role in the development of my anxiety disorder… which btw has evaporated since I jumped on that Plane Shane LOL! But I AM so HAPPY it’s behind me now!

  • Hazel8500 April 1, 2010, 6:21 pm

    @ Lori Hoeck re: The great thing about being aware of gaslighting is you can decide that you no longer have to prove yourself — or your pink-wearing skills — to mom or anyone else.

    OMG LOL Get Outta My MIIIIND! I gotta story to tell… maybe later. 😉

  • Lori Hoeck April 1, 2010, 8:06 pm

    Hi Hazel8500,
    I’m glad you found a way out to better days and greater sanity!

    The word “broken” in your comment stuck out for me. Toxic people, narcissists, or gas-lighting types seem to foist that on others with uncanny ability. That’s why a sense of security, inner well-being, and self acceptance are so vital to thwart these people from the get-go.

  • Groover April 4, 2010, 11:40 am

    Thank you Lori for your insight in this. I can finally put a name to the toxic relationship I did have with my mother & younger sister all these years. My mother & sisters are classic gaslighters. My mother had me at 17 & always reminded me constantly in subtle & not so subtle ways of how much she gave up to have me/how much harder her life was/how she could have easily had me adopted. My personal fave was when she told me that if abortion had been available when she was pregnant with me, she would have had abortion! My mother would constantly belittle me, dismiss my efforts to please her & compare me with my younger sister who ran wild & descended into into drug addiction. My sister could do no wrong in my mothers eyes & pretty much got away with anything. My sister lied, cheated and stole even before her drug habit got bad. She had no hesitation in “borrowing clothes”, taking personal possessions & then when caught out she’d rant at me try to turn it onto that I gave her these things, saying things such as “you know what your memory is like/how forgetful/this looks much better on me than you”. She made sure when she did this, it was often with an audience & usually she would involve my mother. When ur up against 2 experienced manipulators gaslighting me at the same time! Whew! If I dared to challenge their argument or stand my ground I would be swiftly be put in my place, & my mother would make me into the bad guy for calling my sister a thief (despite never using the word) & daring to question her integrity & for being selfish & I would end up being guilted into apologizing & walking out totally confused as to what had transpired. This continued for years. My other personal faves were: if you had been a better daughter/sister, why are you wasting your time with that course when you know you’re not smart enough, these clothes make you look fat (despite weighing 41 kgs).

    Things changed for the better when my partner came into my life 5 years ago. The first time he witnessed this behaviour by my mother, he did what any self respecting partner would do – he recognized what my mother was doing & he stood up for me. Unfortunately this put him on my mothers hit list. Once I started asserting myself more, the more my mum & sister tried to split us up trying to get into my head with: “he’s younger & will leave u anyway so enjoy it while u can” “ur not getting any younger so u have to take what u can get” & “he’s brainwashing u & trying to turn u against us”. 5 years & 2 wonderful toddlers & total bliss. Push came to shove when my 14yo son from a prev relationship, with the assistance of my mother & sister, decided to runaway to my sisters after being grounded for swearing at us when we found out that he had been behaving badly at school & not making any effort whatsoever. What ensued was untrue accusations against us of abuse, neglect & drug & alcohol abuse. We were told that we were not allowed to speak to him & we were not allowed to come up there to see him as he was too” traumatized”. We spoke with the police & they advised that because he is 14 he can move out of home as long as he moves in with an 18+ person. My sister had no interest in what our version of events. We were basically tried & convicted in a kangaroo court. My mother predictably came out in support of my sister appealing to me that she had done the right thing had to make the tough decision of choosing my sons “safety” over our our relationship & that I should be more considerate of her & my sister’s feelings! The straw that broke the camels back was after a few weeks of flinging sly digs regarding our parenting abilities & what we should have done, my mum let slip that she had been talking with my son for a few months & she knew he was planning on running away. When pressed further, my mother decided she did not want to talk about it & left. My partner advised me that if I ever wanted to have any self respect & any semblance of a normal life, I needed to stand up to her once and for all. I confronted her about her role with my son moving out & why she didn’t tell me that my son was planning to move out. Again predictably, my mother employed all the gaslighting tactics in her arsenal even providing the justification for not telling me that she quote “was protecting jordan’s confidence & it was not my business or right to know & as she was his grandmother so it was her right. She even tried to make out that she warned me a few months earlier that my son was having problems & was planning on moving out. Fortunately I saw through this & my mother told me how much I had hurt her by saying this stuff & she advised she didn’t want to talk to me for awhile. A few days later my mother & sister left childish posts with digs at me. This confirmed my decision to cut my mum & sister out of my life.

    The past 10 months have been the happiest my life because of this decision. I feel more confident & self assured of myself. I rarely second guess myself & have learned how to be kinder to myself & have faith in my abilities. My son has since moved back home after realising the grass was nit greener on the other side & although touch & go for awhile, my son, partner communicate better & more positively than ever without the destructive influence of my mother.

    If are a victim of gaslighting one thing is certain – these people never change their behaviour will rarely ever change. U have 2 choices either keep the person in your life & tolerate the behaviour or take a stand & say enough is enough. Any person who makes you feel bad about, unsure of yourself, puts u down & humiliates you to make them feel better about themselves is unworthy of a relationship with you. Being related does not justify this behaviour at all. Positive healthy relationships are ones of mutual respect, understanding, empathy & the ability to listen to each other irrespective of personal views/prejudices.

  • Lori Hoeck April 4, 2010, 2:56 pm

    Hi Groover,
    What an awful ordeal. Thank you for taking the time to share it so others can learn from your hard-won insights. I’m glad you found more sanity and better levels of peace.

    Good advice: “Any person who makes you feel bad about, unsure of yourself, puts u down & humiliates you to make them feel better about themselves is unworthy of a relationship with you.”

  • Groover April 4, 2010, 6:04 pm

    Thank u 4 that Lori. The best lesson I’ve learnt from all of this is that to stop this from continually happening & to maintain my self respect & confidence, I need to step up & stop being a victim. I am by no means minimizing or justifying my mother & sisters behaviour, but I enabled them by allowing them to walk over & bully me all these years & not being assertive enough to tell them where to go & cut them out of my life. People who gaslight (primarily persons with personality disorders) can only victimize if there is a willing victim to do this to & it is much easier to do particularly if they have a close personal relationship with the victim. I noticed that they never got away with it with my youngest brother because he didn’t allow them to do this to him. When my son ran away they tried to recruit them to their cause of discrediting myself & my partner & seeing that what they were doing was right. When this failed to work they tried the more underhanded tactic of guilt tripping. “you’re not being supportive of us” & “you’re hurting us & your nephew because of your harsh attitude. My brother was smart enough to see through this & dismissed them as a pair of clueless idiots with no concept of the havoc they created.

    By allowing myself to be a doormat & not being assertive all these years, pervaded my life in terms it nearly destroyed my relationships with my partner & teenage son. Even the most supportive of partners have their limits of how much crap they can tolerate from their partners families & by not being assertive sent out the wrong message to my son, that it was ok to treat me & others like that because I allowed it to happen. Ironically the other day my son & I were talking about this & my son admitted that he wanted to come a few days after he ran away & realized his error but when he told this to my sister, her, her partner & my mother gaslighted him big time. He was bullied into staying. They convinced him that he was unsafe going back home & that it was a “toxic environment” (despite their home being one of the worst kind). They pulled out the big guns of guilt: “if u do this you’re letting us down” “after all we have done for you” & the mother of all manipulations “if you move back home we’ll never speak to you again”. My son being 14 at the time & not fully understanding that he was a pawn in a sick game by my mother & sister to destroy my life so that things could go back to the way they were before – basically manipulating & treating me like crap. Fortunately after 5 months of emotional abuse (it took me 39 years) he worked out what they were doing, he decided to come back home. True to form my mother & sister shifted the blame to my son, trying to make out what an evil manipulative child that caused undue stress that destroyed our relationships. I chose not to take the bait & instead didn’t repond at all. My son came back an emotional wreck & we have spent the 6 months trying to undo the damage wreaked by my family. But for the first time in years things are looking much brighter. Within my own family unit we all get along & communicate better than ever. We even have made our house into a no put down/manipulation/negativity zone.

    To anyone out there experiencing gaslighting. Terminate this relationship immediately. The longer it goes on, the more difficult it is to walk away & it pervades every area of your life & destroys it. Gaslighters rarely if ever change their behaviour. If they use the I love you line. Don’t fall this. This is not love. A person who genuinely loves & cares 4 u would not treat u this appallingly. A gaslighter no matter how much they say they love u, does not engage in this behaviour out of love. This behaviour is motivated purely by their own inflated ego, self interest & a pathological desire to control their environment & everything in it including the people they “love”. Saying no the first time is excrutiating especially when it’s a person u love & that person is employing everything in their arsenal to make u look & feel bad. But it does get easier, the more u say the magic word “no” the easier it is to say it & eventually u start to feel much better & more confident enough about yourself. As I indicated in my previous post, any relationship that makes u feel bad about yourself diminishes your confidence & self is not one worth keeping. A healthy relationship makes u feel positive & good about yourself & involves mutual caring, respect, trust, honesty & most importantly the hard work of all parties to make the relationship work. If all else fails saying no, I highly reccommend reading the book “When I say no I feel guilty” by Manuel J Smith. Although it is 30+ years old, it is still relevant today & provides brilliant commonsense advice on asserting yourself positively that actually works. My favourite technique is the “broken record”

  • rjbig July 10, 2010, 12:29 am

    Really interesting stuff here Lori. although maybe a bit of a Bummer. I read the March article on Gaslighting and then read through a bunch of the others. As I read the first one it seemed to me that I was a person using these techniques…I read the articles and many of them state something to the effect how people are intentionally using these techniques and how evil it is. Well I personally never realized I was doing this before…in one of the posts a person mentions that she was forgetful and did make mistakes, so maybe she was partially to blame. I think maybe she was on to something…Not that she was to blame but that one feeds the other…The person fails and then the Gaslighter makes a comment and then the person feels guilty and possibly this guilt causes them to fail again and again and the problem just keeps getting worse until the relationship splits…The person getting Gas-lighten does exactly what the Gaslighter does not like, maybe not intentionally, but as some sort of defense mechanism…Of course I am speculating here. So I have always been a leader. A very strong personality, very confident…My mother recently passed and I admit I was crushed…I knew it was going to happen but I thought it would take soo much longer. Reading your article, the statements Gaslighters make…I did not like that much, reading those lines, they could have been quotes of things I have said and done since her passing…And I am not that person…or at one point I was not that person or maybe I just never realized it…Hmm…Thinking about it now I think I probably have always been one…I don’t want to be that person. I never wanted to be that person. I have always wanted to be a person who spread Confidence and Wonder…See even here I need to make it sound like I am something special…Boy I need to makes some changes…Thank You Lori, and of course the other posters who shared there stories of being Gas-lighten…I grow now..

  • GWEN September 22, 2010, 3:07 pm

    I believe that this was done to me and it was the local psychological psychiatrist’s that organised this. I have to guess at there reason’s but believe that they accussed me of being a bully. My family’ so called friends and nieghbour’s were the perpetrator’s. I have been more or less house bound for about 18 years because when I went outside something was done to make me feel uncomfortable, but until lately I did not realise this was going on. I was that brow- beaten that people came into my house took things and I would not ask for them back, a worker I employed I asked him to fix an petrol lawn-mower and he took it , he was fixing up the back-garden, a friend? while in my house saw a sandwich maker and bread knives and said I’m taking them and I said nothing then. Even my own family were reminding me of things I would have found shameful. The friend taking things goes back over 23 years, they were played and well played. I realise that this is actually conditioning and a few years ago I think I had a breakdown because of it I just did not catch on what was going on. Also facts about my life were twisted and distorted to make them look like something they weren’t, I was blamed on gossiping that I didn’t do but at the time was that confused that I didn’t know what was going on. I have music downloaded from the internetfrom supposedly reputtable companies with the words changed from’from deep inside to hung deep inside’ There was a great deal of pressure for us myself and my children to ‘top ourselves’. People around us mentioned death and hanging as much as posible and one person even said that her husbend had changed his name from Lynch to Clarke,the shoes and walking in them. I have many examples of really wierd things happening along proof of it. My brother was killed in 81 becuse of goading by another worker the other man was found guilty of manslaughter but as given a suspended sentence and served no time for it, there was NO INQUEST. No-one has ever died or come to serious harm for anything either I or any of my family has ever done.I know this all sounds off but I believe that I can prove odd weird things have been happening. I can also tie it to authority figures. I have a hacker and when I have e-mailed them I have gotten back what can only be described as rude replies to my e-mails with no reason on their part for the rudeness. I have tapes of some of the odd occurances because I was proving to myself that these things were really occurring and it was’nt all in my head. My children also threw things out or moved them and told me that I had done it. I lashed out verbally at my children something I bitterly regret and have lost my daughter because of it. The smear champaign generated was also I believe responsible for the death’s of a cat and a rabbit,the rabbit was a couple of months old and I got up in the mornig and found it dead Ithink someone rang it’s neck,until recently I thought it was because I had fed it gratted carrots but it didn’t have diaoerrhea and the cat went away and never came back , a neighbour told me that they went away to die and I stupidly believed her but I had brought the cat to the vet before because someone had given her a kicking. Because I wouldn’t do this to animal’s it never occurred to me at the time that this was what happened. Having taken university courses in sociology, I know the effect the belittling ,hummiliation and derogatory treatment a well as having no privacy has had it made the family into the lowest of the low and facilitated the acceptance that it was alright to do this. I don’t think my sister’s have caught on yetor ever will they still think in term’s of why would anyone do that to us we haven’t done anything, and I don’t talk to them now. I have in effect been cut off from everyone, because this has been very very nasty. My autistic son has suffered greatly because of this and I feel very very bitter to these things were also done to him and my daughter, and the fact that the people that were supposed to help were the people that did it makes it worse. by the way it’s not paranioa.

  • BT March 23, 2011, 7:06 pm

    I finally figured out I’m being gas lighted at work. Two people, the owner and her sociopath partner have been exploiting me and trying to drive me crazy. I realize now I was being systematically emotionally abused and controlled, feeling paranoid and lost, couldn’t figure out why and even now I wonder why did I let this happen to me??They’ve set things up to make me think I’m going crazy, stuff missing and reappearing, saying weird comments out of the blue to make me paranoid. I’m still there, but trying to get out-it’s just I unfortunately have a financial investment in the business. I found out they’re telling people I’m crazy, I feel so lost and alone. I wish there was something legally I could do to protect myself and get justice for what they’ve done to me.