The 3 Signs You’re Being Gaslit (And What to Do About It)

gaslit, so we're going to be talking about how do you know it, what to do, and if it's you,

“who's actually unconsciously unknowingly doing the gaslighting, all that more coming up.”

Welcome to the Jefferson Fisher podcast. We're on an mission to make your next conversation, the one that changes everything. I want to give some exciting news, and that is the next conversation in workbook, is officially out for pre-cell, you can find a link down in the show notes, is something I have worked very hard on to make sure you have practical exercises to continue your communication journey. Also, if you're listening, and you have not done it, please click

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Gaslighting. Almost always, I get the question of what exactly is gaslighting. I know I've

talked about it on this podcast, but it's worth reiterating again. Gaslighting is a term that has come about to me when somebody's trying to distort your reality in communication. They're trying to make you question your truth, the versity of what you say to make you question your own state of mind. It comes from what I researched as a term from a play, and I think it was actually a movie like in the 1930s, where it was a woman in her husband, and in the house, they had a gas

light out in the yard, and what he would do is, every once in a while, turn it a little bit lower, and she'd say like, isn't it? I think it's a little bit lower, and he's like, I don't know, you're talking about your crazy. It looks exactly like it was yesterday. And the whole more of the sort was that she eventually just kind of lost her mind where she was doubting everything, right? And it was a control tactic of, by this husband of saying, you can't trust your own

memory. You can only trust me. That's really what gaslighting is. It's where you're saying, look,

“you can't trust what you think. You have to trust what I think. I'm the one who's responsible. I'm”

the one who is going to say what you should think and how you should think it and what's the truth and what's not the truth. What I say is the truth. Now what you say. And so gaslighting presents itself in a way in a variety of different ways. And it can be conscious, unconscious, meaning you can be intentional, and also unintentional. For example, maybe have you ever tried to get somebody off the scent of something. It's not outright lie, but you're bringing something up in a way,

or maybe distracting something in a way that's going to keep you from getting in trouble. Right? So if I were to say, I don't know, this is going to be a very caveman like example. But if I asked my daughter, did you eat the cookie? And she said, no, that would be a lot.

But if she tried to convince me somehow that there was never any cookie. Like, what are you talking

about? There was no cookie. Nothing happened. You see how that's all of a sudden changing my whole mindset of like, um, maybe I'm not losing it, my memory, where you're trying to throw somebody off a scent. So it can be, let me just say this, I've gaslight. You've gaslight. We all have done it intentionally, unintentionally. It happens. It's different from lying in the aspect of gaslighting, it's typically a pattern. A pattern of getting somebody to only accept what you say is true in order

person is made to feel inconvenient and a problem. And that's not healthy conversation. A healthy

“conversation doesn't make you the problem for pointing out that there's a problem. Healthy conversation”

should make you feel like you wish there was a witness to it. Healthy conversation is where you can say something and they consider and want, you know, your perspective rather than just saying there is only one experience and it is my experience. So in a nutshell, that is gaslighting. So let's look at the internal and external factors of whether or not in that moment. How do you know, am I being gaslight? Maybe there's something going on in your life right now and with another person, boy from

girlfriend, romantic relationship, whatever it is, and you're going, I don't know, from really being gaslight. Here's some tips, right? Number one, if you feel like you leave conversations more confused,

right? If you feel like you are always doubting, am I the one? Is it me? Am I crazy? Am I? The problem?

Am I? Is it me? Whenever you have that high sense of self reflection onto you, not on the whole moment, not on the whole conversation, not the overview. Instead, you have that self reflection

“onto you that you must be the problem. If you continue to start to feel the need to write things”

down right after they happen. Because if you don't trust yourself, we just had a conversation and now I need to write it down. I need to make that note. Now I need to have this and writing. I need to have proof. Otherwise, you're not going to trust yourself of what you're saying. Those are high internal factors that something else is going on. Because healthy conversation doesn't need proof of the truth. Whenever you feel like you are constantly going, I don't, this just doesn't

feel right to me. I feel like I'm the only one that's pointing out there's a problem and all of a sudden when I point out a problem, I'm the issue now. Now it's about me and you're starting to feel guilty for bringing things up. That's a problem. When you feel guilty, where you feel almost like an inconvenience in order to say that something is a problem or point out an issue and all of a sudden

it now becomes you. It's always you. You're the one that's doing this. You can never be happy. You're the

only one. Any of that kind of stuff is high likelihood. That would say red, flag, factors, high risks of somebody potentially gaslighting you. Now I want to talk about external factors. This to me happens a lot in conversation in terms of shifts. Narcissists do this. Talks to people. Do this. We all do this. I find it as a symptom of gaslighting to where it shifts from something about them to something about you. You might hear it as flipping the table. They have flipped the conversation.

That's exactly what it is. Instead of it being about the impact of how it felt to you, it's now become about their intention of what they intended to do and because they intended this well then that's the end of it. I don't care about how you feel. The impact you shouldn't be feeling that that's not what I intended because I didn't intend for you to be upset. I didn't intend for you to be so frustrated. Well then that's your problem because that was a my intent. If it was a

my intent then sorry this is the only truth. This is the only experience that matters. Maybe there's another shift that all of a sudden it's not about what they said. It's now about your tone. Now it's about how you said things. Yeah I said this but if you had an of just use that tone

you know that tone you always have. If it was all of a sudden you being the problem. When you know

good and well you're like no this is something is off here. This is where I'm going to remind you trust your gut. Trust your gut. When that happens when you feel like not this something is off. High sign here that those external factors are pointing to something that's pushing on you. Before we continue I want to take a second to tell you about Wafir. This new year one of the things

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w-a-y-f-a-i-r.com Wafir. Every style, every home. And now let's keep going. Here's another shift. When it comes from accountability on their part to all of a sudden shifts to sensitivity on your part.

Meaning they could take all accountability right then and there. Instead of taking accountability,

they shift it to now being about you being too sensitive. You can't take a joke. You can't be normal with anybody else. You're less than because you're too sensitive. And all of a sudden you're now questioning yourself. Am I too sensitive? Is there something wrong with me? It's where that self-reflection piece becomes the center of everything. In my opinion, I find that most people who are susceptible to being gas lit or the people that are more insecure and often more self-reflective

meaning they overthink things in their head all the time. They say something and then they overthink a conversation that they had said, "Why did I say that? That was so dumb. I must look so stupid to them." And they really get negative in their own thoughts about that. That's where I find that people who are gaslighting get into the crevices of that. They can tell and they pray on those

“type of personalities. Here's one last shift that I think I see a lot is it shifts from their behavior”

to your reaction. Meaning it doesn't matter what they've done, how they've behaved, what they've said, how they've reacted, their own behavior. And now it becomes about how you reacted to them. They wouldn't have done this, had you not reacted that way. They wouldn't have done x, y and z. You had it, you not. It's all, it's reverse rather than talking about calls and effect. They're saying that the effect was what stimulated the cause. It's the opposite. It's illogical thinking.

And that's the whole point of gaslighting. It is a logical thinking that ultimately only harms you.

All right. Now that we've talked about both the internal factors and the external factors that can signal to you if somebody is gaslighting you, what are you going to do about it? Like what's there to do about it? Here's where I want to give you some tools right away. Right. Anytime that somebody is trying to pull that onto you, there's a phrase that I continue to

“teach time and time again because it works so well. And it is this. I remember things differently.”

Period. It's not a lip season. It's not dot dot dot dot. It is. I remember things differently and stick in with it. I try to move off not trying to over explain to justify. No, that's going to work because the more you justify and try to explain, the more you are exposing, the things that they can try and shift. Right. So for a behavior to react from accountability, to sensitivity, any of that kind of stuff that's their playground. So rather than trying to chase everything

and dig every hole, I want you to just say, I remember things differently. If that doesn't feel good to you, that wasn't my experience. Period. It's the ellipsies that get you. When you say that wasn't my experience because you said this and I said this and you continue to talk, talk, talk, talk, talk and now you are what? Over explaining and now it becomes how,

“oh my gosh, you're so draining. Can you hear yourself right now? Can you hear how crazy you sound?”

There have been told that before. Can you hear how crazy you sound? Whenever you hear that, red flag should just be waving alarms should be going off in your mind. When you just say, can you hear how insane you are? How crazy you are? Insane, crazy, unreasonable, irrational. That's a good one. Those are words that I would say, I put in the box of these are words that gaslighters use.

A lot to try and convince you that something is wrong with you. Everybody else is normal. But you're not. Right. And when that happens, I want you to go back to what you know and be grounded and say, I remember things differently. That wasn't my experience.

trying to spot light something else. I want you to come right back to that wasn't my experience.

“That to me is something that keeps you so grounded in that moment that they really can't do anything”

with it. So that's a phrase that's going to help you time and time again. Before we keep going, I want to take a moment to tell you about a sponsor that I use almost every single day if not every day is momentous. Like me, you're probably someone who's a very busy life and you have work, you have kids, you have obligations and responsibilities and you don't have time to make sure that you're in some 1,000% peak fitness. Why? Because sometimes you skip breakfast, you skip lunch.

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stuff. So right now, you can go to livemomentous.com. Use the promo code Jefferson for up to 35% off. That's livemomentous.com. Use the code Jefferson and get up to 35% off. You won't regret it. And now, let's keep going. What about for the people who go, am I gaslighting people and I don't even know it? Am I doing something that I'm unconscious of? Here's where I would point out to you. Gaslighting is a pattern. So it's not just kind of this one-off thing. It's a pattern of doing it.

So how can you tell if you're gaslighting somebody? If at the end of the conversation,

“you have to walk away as the victor. It can only be your truth. You're the only one that's right.”

The other person is doubting themselves that they're in the conversation yet you are completely sure of yourself. The other person is a little confused and you feel completely justified. They feel apologetic and you feel like you absolutely deserve every bit of an apology and you don't have to offer anything where you're discussing a problem and they're the problem and you're no part of the problem. You see how off-kilter that is when the scales just absolutely

always put you on top. You're never part of the problem. You never have to apologize.

You know everything. Only your experience is the right one. Only what you have to say. You're the one who has the final say that final answer. You always have to be right. Anything that they say is irrational, illogical, unreasonable, crazy insane. I'm going to have to break it to you. You're most likely delving into a behavior of gaslighting the other person in your life. So I hope that this is an episode that has been a little bit enlightening for you of the three

signs that you really need to make sure that you know if somebody is gaslighting you in your life. We talked about what gaslighting is. Some internal and external signs of whether that's happening to you. We talked about what to do when it happens. And we've really talked about how to know if it's you.

That's doing it unconsciously unknowingly to somebody else. And if it's always that you're the one

that has to end up with no mud on you and the other person has to be caked all over, chances are you might be gaslighting somebody. Again, that does not mean you're a terrible person. All right, because we all do it to some extent. It's more so that you're catching it and not making it a pattern and giving yourself a little bit of grace and being able to say, "Hey, there are two sides to this coin." I can say, "That's not my experience. Help me

“understand what was yours." To say, "I remember things differently. What would you remember?"”

If you can open your mind and reverse that damage by saying, "Hey, look, the other day I kind of close you down." I kind of, I did. I did close you down and made it to where my explanation was really the only logical explanation. I don't think that was very fair. Can I hear what you had to say again one more time? You say, "Oh, you can start to kind of unwind that before it gets entrenched

into you just being this grudge of my way always has to be right and if it's not,

whenever bad behavior I've been doing." That's what I'm talking about. Gaslighting. It is out there

“more than you think. That's why you need to protect yourself. So I hope you able to share this episode”

and it's always, you can try that. What do you want to do? If you want to build a new studio,

that's right. Save. How do you like it? Hold your money. Now, let's try it out.