The Ultimate Mind Game: How Narcissists Use Gaslighting to Control Your Reality

Unmask the manipulative tactics that make you doubt your sanity and learn how to stand firm in your truth.

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Gaslighting is very subtle, very insidious, and is often intentional.

Gaslighting is a manipulation tactic used by narcissists to gain power and control over their victim by making them question their reality.

So why would someone gaslight you? For one reason alone — to control you. They want to destabilize you, to make you weak, so that they can take control of your thoughts, words, and actions. Exerting power and control over you gives them narcissistic supply and it reinforces their persona — the way they see themselves.

Narcissistic supply is like blood to a vampire or fuel for a race car. It is required for the narcissist’s survival. They will do anything to get it.

Gaslighting distorts your reality. If you haven’t experienced this, it sounds crazy. If you have experienced it, you know it’s crazy-making.

The narcissist uses lying, denial, blame, and deflection to make you question what you know to be true. You question your reality. You question your memories. You are groomed to trust the narcissist more than you trust yourself.

Gaslighting is very subtle, very insidious, and is often intentional.

How could you, or anyone for that matter, allow this to happen?

Realize that gaslighting is an extreme form of emotional abuse and is so hidden, not only does the rest of the world not see it, but you don’t see it either. The narcissist is playing a long game. It often goes unnoticed for 10, 20, 30 or more years. All the while, you suffer believing something is wrong with you.

It is imperative that you recognize gaslighting. Why? The effects on the victim are devastating.

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Effects of gaslighting

Destabilization makes you feel rattled, off balance, unsure of yourself, and confused by your world. You can not and are not able to respond from a position of strength, because you’re so confused about what’s even happening. Destabilization makes you act from a position of weakness and confusion.

You start to doubt yourself — your beliefs, your feelings, your memories. You no longer know what is true. You feel like something is wrong with you. You feel like you’re going crazy.

Through the gaslighting process, your abuser grooms you into believing that they are the one you should trust. They are the one you should look to for the truth. They are the one that has a clear grasp of reality. And you learn to trust them more than you trust yourself. You trust their version of reality. All the while, that unconscious Mr. Hyde part of them grins on the inside about how easy it was to fool you.

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Examples of gaslighting

Say you’re talking to your best friend and you say, “Oh, do you remember last week when we were out to coffee and we ran into Steve from high school? It was so great catching up with him.” And your friend says, “What are you talking about? That never happened. I haven’t seen Steve since high school.” And you’re like, “Wait a minute. Let’s back this up. Remember last week? It was last Tuesday. We were at the Starbucks on Main St just before lunch, sitting at the table, and he came up and said, “Hey strangers.”” And she says, “Yeah, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

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Now you’re really confused, wondering what in the heck is going on here? This is my best friend. Did I dream this? How could I have this very clear memory of something that happened last week and she’s saying it didn’t happen?

And what makes it more confusing is the fact that it’s a minor memory, something rather inconsequential. She has no reason to lie. That alone is destabilizing. It makes you question and doubt yourself because you trust her so deeply.

Now imagine if you and your best friend had run into Steve in a bar. Same conversation. Again, you are completely confused and destabilized by her comment. Then she goes on to say, “Yeah, I think you had a little too much to drink that night.” Now you’re wracking your brains trying to unpack that statement. You remember having two drinks. You remember when you ordered them, what the waitress looked like. You remember everything about that night. Or so you thought. Now you start to wonder. Here your best friend is telling you otherwise.

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Another gaslighting approach that a narcissist might use is to gaslight you about your own feelings to avoid taking responsibility. Let’s say you’re working as a supervisor and you need to correct an employee on an aspect of their job. It’s no big deal. You do this all the time. And their mistake is no big deal — you caught it. You want them to know for next time. You walk up to the employee and say, in a very matter of fact, direct, kind, non-triggered way, “Hey Jerry, when you do this task, I need you to do these three steps, so that this part doesn’t need to be redone.” Jerry raises his voice and says, “Why are you so angry? Why are you yelling?” A narcissist loves to use this tactic in front of other people, because this is a great way to recruit flying monkeys, those people who blindly believe their nonsense. Even though the other employees did not hear you yell and you are not at all angry, the narcissist leads them to believe that you are. That is gaslighting.

Later when Jerry’s in the break room talking to his coworkers, your employees, he says, “Yeah, she’s always so angry. I wish she could just give me feedback in a nice way. I’d be happy to do it differently.” Now he is not only gaslighting his peers, he’s building the support of his flying monkeys. This is known as triangulation. He’s making them think poorly of you. In reality, none of it is real, because you were never angry. You didn’t raise your voice. You delivered a correction, which was your job as a supervisor.

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A third, extreme, and classic example of gaslighting is moving or hiding something deliberately. This time, let’s say you come home every day from work and you always put your keys in the same spot. You’re very intentional about it. And now an hour later, you need to leave and your keys are not there. You can’t find them anywhere. If you are living with a narcissist, chances are they have moved your keys. You think that you’re going crazy. You just put them there.

All the while, inside your mind you think, “What in the heck is going on? The keys were in my hand. I remember walking through the door. I remember setting them here. I sat my purse there.” You start to doubt yourself.

You can not believe anyone, especially some one who loves you, would be playing with you, toying with you. That would be really sick. It is. It is called gaslighting and you have just been gaslit.

I’ve shown you why and how a narcissist or other toxic person uses gaslighting, the devastating effects gaslighting has on you, and I’ve given you some subtle and not so subtle examples of gaslighting. Next, I’ll show you when the gaslighting isn’t intentional and most importantly, how to end it, so that YOU can break free from the gaslighting fog of confusion, distortion, and destabilization.