Gaslighting

by Stephanie Moulton Sarkis

  DBT was originally used to treat borderline personality disorder (BPD). BPD is characterized, in part, by “all or nothing” thinking. People with BPD tend to swing between idealizing people and devaluing them. They will put people on a pedestal—the person with BPD feels that a particular person is perfect and can do no wrong—and then inevitably that person will fall off and be seen as terrible and bad. People with BPD are also prone to self-injurious behavior (including cutting, stabbing, burning, and rubbing the skin with erasers) and suicidal behavior. You may have noticed these behaviors in the gaslighter in your life, or you may have experienced them. Gaslighting and BPD can go hand in hand, just as it is frequently seen with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), histronic personality disorder (HPD), and antisocial personality disorder (ASD, or sociopathy).

  In DBT, the focus is on improving your tolerance of stress, keeping your emotions on an “even keel,” and improving your relationships with others. In DBT it is believed that we can find a balance between acceptance and change. While you may not be responsible for all the things that lead you to using gaslighting behaviors, you are fully responsible for choosing a different, healthier way to live. In DBT, you and your MHP figure out which behaviors to reasonably accept and understand due to experiences you’ve had, and which you should work on and change for you to become a healthier person. This dance between acceptance and change is the “dialectical” part of DBT.

  Some of the key concepts in DBT are as follows:

  Distress Tolerance

  Distressing events will happen in our lives; they’re unavoidable. Some people seem to handle upsetting events fairly well, while others have more difficulties with coping. If you have gaslighting behaviors, you may have difficulty coping with the curveballs life throws at you. You may have said to yourself that this unpleasant thing that happened was someone else’s fault; or this shouldn’t happen to you, or it’s unfair; or this is the worst thing that has ever happened to you. You may have heard these exact statements from your gaslighting parent—we copy what we hear as children. Part of gaslighting is feeling that you are entitled to always have things go your way—when in life, this just isn’t possible. In DBT, the acronym ACCEPT is used as a way to cope with unwanted events.

  A = Activities—Get moving and do simple tasks to distract yourself from an upsetting event.

  C = Contribute—Help out others to stop your self-focused behavior. This also helps distract you and broadens your view of life.

  C = Comparisons—Look at how your life is different from those who have a lot less than you do. Again, focusing outside yourself helps you deal with upsetting events. A gratitude journal, where you write down everything you are thankful for and what is going right, is a way for you to focus on all the good in your life, instead of focusing on the upsetting parts.

  E = Emotions—Act the opposite of whatever emotion you are having. If you are feeling tired, get active. If you are feeling sad, watch a funny movie. This practice shows you that emotions are temporary, and you have the power to change them. You may have heard the phrase, “Act as if ”––act calm until you feel calm.

  P = Push Away—If you are feeling that you’re useless, visualize yourself feeling competent and making change in the world. This is a way of “pushing away” the negative feelings you are having at the moment.

  T = Thoughts—Engage in activities that are not emotion-filled. Focus more on the logical part of your thinking. Watch a movie that doesn’t have heavy emotional content. Basically, become more like Spock for the time being—he was all logic, no emotion.

  Psychological First-Aid Kit

  When you have lived a chaotic life, it can be hard to come up with what you can do to take care of yourself and make yourself feel better. With a gaslighting parent, you may not have received tender loving care. You may not know how to treat yourself with loving kindness. It’s especially difficult to do when you are in the middle of a crisis. What are some things you can do right now to feel good? Make a list of things or activities that make you feel relaxed and calm. Put this list in a place where you will see it often, such as on your bathroom mirror or refrigerator. Take a photo of your list with your smartphone—this way you will always have it with you when you need it.

  Examples include:

  Going for a walk

  Spending time with your pet

  Taking a bath

  Meditating

  Creating some art

  Writing in a journal

  Doing yoga

  Practicing deep breathing

  Listening to a creative visualization recording

  Calling a supportive friend or family member

  Going outside

  Eating a snack

  Drinking some water

  Be Aware When You Are Getting “Wound Up”

  Part of taking good care of yourself is knowing when your stress level is starting to feel out of control. When you have been gaslighted, or you have gaslighting behaviors, you may have difficulty with regulating your emotions. People who have learned to regulate their emotions know when they are getting upset and how to calm themselves down. You also tend to stay more on an even keel emotionally and have less mood swings when you can regulate how you are feeling. What does your body feel like when you are getting upset? People experience:

  Clammy hands

  Knots in their stomach

  Feeling hot or flushed

  Rapid heartbeat

  Shallow or rapid breathing

  Feeling that things “aren’t real”

  When you start feeling these sensations, stop and take a deep breath. Deep breathing, also called diaphragmatic breathing, happens when you are breathing using your full lung capacity. This is achieved by engaging your diaphragm, a muscle at the base of your lungs. If you are doing diaphragmatic breathing correctly, your belly should be expanding when you inhale. Try inhaling for a count of 5, then exhaling for a count of 10. When you practice diaphragmatic breathing, you are kicking in the parasympathetic part of your autonomic nervous system. This causes you to have a feeling of relaxation and peace. Try it the next time you feel a rush of stress or anxiety.

  Another technique for decreasing feelings of stress is to name three things you can see, three things you can feel, and three things you can hear. This practice acts as a distractor and keeps you in the here and now. When you are in the here and now, also known as “being present,” you are more likely to keep your feelings well regulated.

  Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

  The third and final form of counseling we’ll look at is called acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). In ACT, you feel your feelings instead of pushing them aside or ignoring them. Avoiding “icky” or uncomfortable feelings is a natural part of being human. However, the more you avoid a feeling, the more it comes back—and sometimes it comes back with a vengeance. One of the theories of ACT is that you need to fully feel a feeling to be able to come out on the other side of it and let it go.

  In ACT, you are encouraged to be present with your feelings. You’ll use a three-part process of observing yourself, feeling your feelings, and then letting them go. You also discover your personal values and formulate steps to act on those values. Some of the main processes, or tenets, of ACT, are mindfulness, cognitive diffusion, values clarification, acceptance, and committed action.

  Mindfulness: Mindfulness simply means the ability to stay in the present moment. One of the ideas behind mindfulness, or being present, is that when we focus too much in the past, we’re likely to feel depressed; when we focus too much on the future, we’re likely to feel anxious. Focusing on the present brings us a feeling of calm. You will learn more about practicing mindfulness later in this chapter.

  Cognitive Diffusion: This term describes a process whereby you decrease your emotional connection to your thoughts and make them have less of a negative impact on you. The idea is that a thought is just a thought, and it doesn’t have much bearing on who you really ar
e or how you go about your life. One way of decreasing your emotional connection with your thoughts is to acknowledge that you are having the thought, such as that you are not a good person. When you tag it as just a thought you are having, the thought loses some of its power over you. Another cognitive diffusion technique is to repeat a negative thought in a silly voice in your head. Yet another technique is to “externalize” the mind: “Oh, that’s just my mind doing its worrying thing.” This takes the thoughts outside the self, so you are less likely to hang on to them.

  Values Clarification: In ACT, we look at our values as a choice. A value is what gives your life meaning; it gives you a sense of purpose. One technique for understanding your values is to write down what you would want people to say at your funeral. “He cared about his kids. He was a loyal friend. He had a passion for his career.” Another way to determine values is to figure out what you would value if no one knew of the achievements you have made in your life.

  Acceptance: This is just what it sounds like. You accept the thoughts and feelings you are having so as to be able to take action. One technique of acceptance, “unhooking,” involves acknowledging that just because you have a thought doesn’t mean you are going to act on it. Another technique is to ask yourself whether this pattern of thought has worked in your life. Has it helped you become the person you want to be? Or is it holding you back? A counselor may also ask you to write down, or journal, the difficult things you have gone through. Getting things out of your mind and on to paper helps you process them or work them through.

  Committed Action: In this step of ACT, you make a plan to act on your values, a set of goals, both short-term and long-term. You feel uneasy or “not right” when you are veering away from these goals on your life path. Let’s say you discovered that one of your values in your life is to have a good relationship with your spouse. What steps can you take to meet those goals? Be specific about your goals. A broad goal might be: “I want my spouse to be happy.” An immediate goal is something you can do in the next day. For example, “I will get home before dinner tomorrow.” A short-term goal is something you can accomplish within a week. In this case, a realistic short-term goal could be: “I will call and schedule our family photos.” A medium-term goal is something you can do within the next few months. This could be: “I will clean up the garage and finish all house projects.” A long-term goal is something you can accomplish within the next few years, such as: “We will be debt-free in three years.”

  Solution-Focused Therapy

  Solution-focused therapy looks at solving problems. It is focused on the present and future, rather than on the past. Solution-focused therapy doesn’t look as much at your experiences and how you got to where you are today. It looks at how you can create a better tomorrow.

  The Magic Question

  A solution-focused MHP might ask you, “How would things be if they were well?” or “You wake up tomorrow, and everything is how you’d like it to be. Who would be the first person to notice?” The MHP is looking at your goals—what you would like to accomplish in your life. The MHP then helps you create building blocks to get there. Chances are, you haven’t been asked those kinds of questions before. Contemplating what your best life would look like can be freeing and healing all on its own.

  Change One Thing

  One of the premises of solution-focused therapy is that you don’t need to change a whole bunch of behaviors to see positive changes in your life. You can change just one thing, and everything in your life can change. For example, you decide that you are going to start thanking your spouse when you see him doing chores around the house. You notice over time that you and your spouse seem to be getting along better—and you no longer have to ask for something to get done around the house. Just that one thing changed the dynamic of your relationship.

  Give Yourself Credit

  The fact that you are reading this book shows that you have taken the initiative to make change in your life. That is a pretty amazing thing, and a sign that you have a lot of strength. Gaslighters are good at psychologically beating down their victims—and as a result you may be very tough on yourself, and blaming yourself for things that aren’t your fault. In solution-focused therapy, the MHP helps you see all the strides you have made—things you may not have noticed before. It’s important that someone helps us see all the progress we’ve made, especially when we feel like we’re “stuck.” Progress is progress, it doesn’t matter whether it was an inch forward—you still made the effort and succeeded.

  What Is Going Well?

  A solution-focused MHP may ask you what is going well in your life right now, or what has provided you relief from the gaslighting you’ve experienced. It may be that when you exercise it helps clear your mind and decreases your anxiety. You may find that when you are engrossed in a hobby that you temporarily forget about the suffering you endured, and don’t hear the gaslighter’s voice in your head. Your MHP will help you see when things are better in your life, so you can increase those activities or people in your life. What you focus on grows.

  GROUP VERSUS INDIVIDUAL THERAPY

  Group therapy can be more cost-effective than individual therapy. You may be more likely to attend therapy and get more out of it if it’s in a group setting rather than individual. There is positive social pressure in a group—you are more likely to show up at the next session because you are expected to by the other group members. You can experience something called “universalization” in group therapy. This is the feeling that you are not the only one with these particular concerns or issues. Feeling that sense of belonging can be very healing and cathartic. You can do group therapy at the same time you are doing individual therapy—and this can increase the benefits (Echeburúa, Sarasua, and Zubizarreta 2014). You can even attend group and individual therapy via video conferencing.

  MEDICATION

  When you meet with an MHP, he may refer you to a prescriber for medication to help with anxiety or depression. Anxiety and depression are common when you have been dealing with a gaslighter. Sometimes your thought processes may become clouded due to your reality being questioned, or due to lack of sleep. It can be a challenge to absorb what you are learning in counseling if you are feeling really worn out. It may be difficult to even summon up enough energy to attend your counseling session. Antidepressant medication can help you feel less “clouded” and may help you sleep better. When you don’t get enough sleep, it can really do a number on your brain and body. Just getting a good night’s rest can reduce some anxiety and depression symptoms. Side effects of antidepressants include dry mouth and nausea.

  MEDITATION

  Meditation is another powerful tool for working with your gaslighting experiences, thoughts, and behaviors. It has been found to improve our positive feelings toward others and ourselves. Meditation is focusing on your breath. At its most basic, the goal of meditation is to spend some quiet time with your thoughts, not to empty your mind—even people who have been meditating for years find that difficult to do. The goal is just to notice yourself inhaling and exhaling.

  Mindfulness Meditation

  Mindfulness is a type of meditation that has become very popular. Mindfulness is used in both DBT and ACT. You read about its use in ACT earlier in this chapter. With other “focused” forms of meditation, you are usually sitting or lying down. With mindfulness practice, distractions are actually welcomed. When you have a distraction or a thought pop into your mind, just acknowledge it and let the thought pass. If it’s important, it will go on your mind’s back burner until you need to retrieve it.

  Eating mindfully practice: You may be someone who eats more than you should when you’re upset. You may be used to chomping off big pieces of food and swallowing them almost whole and without even really tasting them, because you tend to be distracted while eating. Being distracted can help us not have to deal with issues and feelings, but those issues are bound to come out in other ways—like overeating. Mindful eating can be e
specially helpful for you. When you eat mindfully, you just focus on your food—you don’t watch TV, play on your phone, or read something. You chew each piece of food at least ten times and focus on all the sensations—smell, taste, texture, etc.

  You can also try eating off a smaller plate. Your brain is easy to fool, and it thinks that when a small plate of food has been eaten, it was just as much food as on a large plate. If you are just focusing on your food, you may realize the food you’re eating you don’t even really like. Many people have started eating healthier proteins and fresh fruits and vegetables once they really started focusing on their food.

  You can also practice mindful cooking. You may tend to skip going to the grocery store or cooking your own food because you forget or run out of time. Or you think you don’t like to cook. When you spend time cooking your own food, you usually wind up appreciating it more, eating less, and still feeling satiated or full. You can even turn dishwashing into a mindfulness practice.

  Walking mindfulness practice: In his book Peace Is Every Step, Thich Nhat Hanh (1992) describes a walking mindfulness practice. You walk at a slower pace than usual. When you put your foot down, focus on how your feet feel on the earth, and how the sun and breeze feel on your face. If you see something pleasant, like a tree, just stop and observe it. When you put your other foot down, refocus all over again. This is a great practice for someone with a particularly active and jumpy mind.