Reading Time: 7 minutes

Hello Cool-Girls ! Gaslighting is a term that is slowly beginning to enter everyday language; however, the mechanisms behind this manipulation technique remain largely unknown.It is a frequent form of abuse that one can encounter within their inner circle as well as in the workplace. Those who practice this technique are aware that they are distorting the truth, but they are not always aware of the effects it has on the victim. Gaslighting is violent and devastating because it makes you doubt your own reality. It insidiously erodes your confidence in your own judgment and memory. For this reason, it is a matter of public interest to recognize the most common examples of gaslighting, because to be informed is to be protected. In the second part, I will give you the keys to rebuilding your gut feeling.

Emotional Warning: The examples and situations described in this article concern gaslighting and may be triggering for some people, particularly those who have experienced abuse or trauma. If you do not feel ready to read this content, it is perfectly okay to step away at this time. If you feel overwhelmed or confused while reading, please prioritize your well-being and do not hesitate to consult a mental health professional. You are not alone and your well-being matters.

1. Denying your reality

This is the first step in gaslighting and sometimes the only one: it consists of denying the existence of a shared reality in order to recreate one that serves their advantage. When you bring up a past event, the gaslighter will tell you that isn’t what happened, that you don’t remember it correctly, that you misread the situation or even that you have memory problems.

This reality can be distant or very recent (just a few minutes ago). While you are speaking, the person might say something to you and then just moments later, when you refer back to what they said, they will tell you with absolute conviction that they never said that or that you misunderstood them.

For example, they might start an argument by insulting you or being disrespectful and then deny ever doing it. When someone uses this type of manipulation, they can make you doubt yourself, especially when you trust them or see them as an authority figure.

Generally speaking, we tend to give others the benefit of the doubt and that’s precisely when this technique causes the most damage. Even if you are convinced of what you saw or heard in the moment, the other person’s denial can plant a seed of doubt. This happens because we want to be fair and we’d rather question ourselves than wrongly accuse someone else.

2. Gaslighting Examples : Shifting blame

Shifting blame is one of the most common gaslighting examples people recognize.

When you confront a gaslighter, they will try to shift the focus onto you by attacking you, all to avoid taking responsibility for their actions. The goal is to make you almost forget the original subject of the conflict (their behavior) by exploiting your good faith.

For example, they might take a reproach you’ve made and use it as an opportunity to bring up grievances they’ve never mentioned before. They might also hold you responsible for their actions, explaining that you pushed them to the limit, that you provoked them or that they only reacted that way because of what you did.

Another tactic involves going even further by attacking your character, targeting your weaknesses or criticizing the things you care about most.

Shift-blaming is so subtle that you don’t even realize the spotlight has shifted onto you until it’s too late. You find yourself defending a completely different topic and once you’ve taken the bait, the gaslighter feeds into this new subject: YOU.

The result ? They successfully move on without ever questioning their own actions. Meanwhile, you’re left feeling guilty for even speaking up and deeply frustrated at not being heard. The gaslighter has managed to shift the entire weight of their own guilt onto your shoulders, leaving them purified and unburdened.

If you catch on to their game and try to shift the focus back to the original issue, they will simply keep redirecting the attention until you are completely exhausted !

3.Gaslighting Examples: Minimizing Your Feelings

When we think about gaslighting examples we think about minimizing feelings.Your feelings are an integral part of your reality. They don’t appear by magic; they are rooted in your experience, your body, your history and sometimes in invisible or unconscious mechanisms. And they always deserve to be validated.

When you express how you feel, a gaslighter will try to discredit you by telling you that you’re exaggerating, that you’re too sensitive or that what you’re feeling isn’t normal. They believe that by minimizing your feelings, they can minimize the weight of their own actions.

In the most severe cases, it goes even further: the gaslighter may question your emotional stability to destabilize you. They will then pathologize you, calling you “crazy”, “hysterical” or even “bipolar”.

He might also ask you for examples, but not to understand you better rather, to debunk them. Once you provide some to illustrate your point, he will systematically contest them because his goal was to trap you all along.

By asking for examples, the gaslighter assumes you won’t find any not because they don’t exist, but because during a conflict our emotions can overwhelm us and prevent us from gathering our thoughts. If unfortunately he senses that you are struggling to find examples, he will exploit that weakness to discredit your words.

4. The effects of gaslighting on your gut feeling

If you’ve made it this far, you may have realized that you, too, have been a victim of gaslighting. It’s important to know that gaslighting is very common; in most cases, it is used to:

• avoid consequences
• protect one’s ego
• shift responsibility away from oneself
• ..

There is no awareness that the gaslighting will affect the person, nor is there a desire to cause harm. Most of the time, it is a single, isolated and opportunistic event that can make you doubt yourself or make you angry because you know the truth and find the situation unfair. But on its own, it will not permanently shatter your perception of reality or your self-esteem, unless you have already been exposed to gaslighting in the past !

In some cases, gaslighting is a standard operating procedure for manipulative personalities. Here are the most frequent signs:

• it is not the first time the person has manipulated you
• the person uses several of the techniques mentioned on you or someone else
• you are starting to doubt your own perception
• the person has a past of lies and manipulation
• you feel drained, misunderstood or unheard after expressing your needs or grievances
• the person never admits they are wrong and never apologizes
• when the person is confronted with the facts, they seek out other excuses
• you have the impression you are losing your head
• you ruminate on your conversations and anticipate the next ones (what you said, what you should have said, etc.)
• you feel guilty or ashamed instantly, even without proof and you put yourself in a position of fault before any verification of the facts

5. What is your gut feeling ?

Gut feeling isn’t a magical power, it’s your brain analyzing information so rapidly that you don’t have time to put it into words. You’ll simply feel a sense of discomfort or a general unease telling you that something is wrong. This information can include:

• micro-expressions perceived from an individual (smirks, a raised chin, chuckles, side-eyes, fakes smiles)
• the tone used (condescension, subtle passive-aggressiveness, etc..)
• identified patterns, when your brain recognizes someone’s behavior based on accumulated data (your brain is like, “Wow, now it makes sense, I have the missing piece of the puzzle”)

6. How to rebuild your gut feeling ?

Mastering your gut feeling requires trusting yourself and refusing to place others’ perceptions above or even on the same level as your own. What gaslighting does is flip this hierarchy and strip us of our own sovereignty. The gaslighter wants you to believe them more than you believe yourself‼️

If it works, you will have a hard time acting on the information your brain is sending you. Your gut feeling never truly disappears; it is simply its power that diminishes. The good news is that this power can be restored. I am going to give you the necessary steps to do so:

1. don’t trust feelings of shame or guilt, these are often projected onto you by others
2. understand that your intuition comes from a place of neutrality and calm
3. stop justifying yourself to manipulators, use the “Grey Rock” method with neutral phrases like “That’s your opinion” or “Okay” or simply ignore them
4. cut ties with manipulative personalities
5. stop giving legitimacy to the words of someone who has already proven they lack integrity, even if they haven’t targeted you directly yet
6. document your interactions with anyone who makes you doubt yourself (write down what happened and how you felt)
7. talk about what you’re going through with a third party, such as a mental health professional or a trusted friend (not the one who plays “devil’s advocate”)
8. silence the ruminations that make you second-guess yourself
9. be patient with yourself
10. learn how to attract healthy relationships