Gaslighting: Word Of The Year 2022

In this episode, you will learn about the formal definition of gaslighting and why it was chosen as the word of the year for 2022. Gaslighting is a term used to describe intentional deception. Victims of gaslighting eventually develop a dependency upon their abusers after a long time of exposure to this form of psychological abuse. Lisa A. Romano is a codependency and narcissistic abuse expert helping spread awareness about gaslighting.

Transcript

Welcome to the breakdown to breakthrough podcast.

My name is Lisa a Romano.

I am a life coach best-selling author YouTube vlogger meditation teacher and expert in the field of codependency and narcissistic abuse I am a believer in the power of an organized mind My aim is to help people learn what it means to live above the veil of consciousness Rather than living a reactive life May your heart feel blessed your mind feel expanded and your spirit find hope as you spend time with me here At the breakdown to breakthrough podcast.

So today we're going to be talking about something super exciting and I can't wait to share it with you So today I want to share many of you have probably heard that gas lighting is Merriam-Webster's word of the year for 2022 and a shout out to Leon Roberts over at Twitter who sent me this link and Made me aware that this has actually happened I had heard that this had taken place,

But I hadn't sunk my teeth into it And it just made me so excited that I wanted to share it with this community Because I think that this is a real success.

This means that understanding terms like Narcissism and understanding gas lighting are becoming more mainstream.

And why is that important?

That's important because it's giving us context It's giving us language to understand what's happening to us when you are Being gas lit and you don't have a term for it Then you end up feeling like you're going bananas and that's not fun When you are someone who is questioning your reality It makes you feel like you're going insane And is there anything more frightening than thinking that you can't trust your mind?

And I want to get into how they are describing the word actually,

Because I think that that is amazing and it gives a lot of context to What is really happening here and why it's so important Because in a world where gas lighting can often seem the norm I mean once you understand what gas lighting is,

You can't not see it You see it in the political sphere.

You see it amongst your friends.

You you hear it in your family and You begin to become super aware of how horrible and how manipulative and how damaging speaking to someone this way is and you begin to understand the consequences of this type of Manipulative tool you understand the consequences of what this tool has on someone's psyche on what this has What this can do to someone's spiritual self and how it can rip someone From their very core and make them feel so fragile that they all but give up and oftentimes People who have been gaslight do give up,

You know When you're driving down the road you take for granted that you trust that you know how to get to point A from point B But when you're dealing with someone who is highly narcissistic highly manipulative They can get you to doubt that you know how to drive a car from point A to point B They get you to doubt why you put salt in the water before you boiled the pasta They get you to doubt why you're wearing the sneakers that you chose to catch the bus like why aren't you wearing?

Something else.

Why did you choose those sneakers?

What's wrong with you?

And this inability to trust yourself comes from living with someone who is deliberately Messing with your reality to make sure that on a daily basis you feel insecure And you can't trust your everyday thoughts the thoughts that come to your mind It's impossible to fall asleep with having these bats swarming in your mind It's impossible to feel comfortable in your own skin when you are someone who has been gaslit for any Extended period of time.

So let me get to what Miriam Miriam Webster's dictionary is saying it's a word that has risen so quickly in the English language And especially in the last four years that it actually came as a surprise to me and to many of us said Peter Sikalsky Miriam Webster's editor at large in an exclusive interview with the Associated Press Ahead of Monday's availing it was a word looked up frequently every single day He said Miriam Webster's top definition for gaslighting is the psychological manipulation of a person Usually over an extended period of time that causes the victims to question the validity of their own thoughts perception of reality memories or typically leads to confusion loss of confidence and self-esteem uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability and a Dependency on the perpetrator more broadly the dictionary defines the word thusly the act or practice of grossly misleading someone Especially for want someone's own advantage Gaslighting is a heinous tool frequently used by abusers in relationships and by politicians and other Newsmakers it can happen between romantic partners within a broader family unit and among friends It can be a corporate tactic or a way to mislead the public There's also medical gaslighting when a health care professional Dismisses a patient's symptoms or illnesses as all in your head the term gaslighting was later used by mental health practitioners to clinically describe a form of prolonged coercive control in abusive relationships This is the implication of an intentional deception and once one is aware of that deception It's not just a straightforward lie as in you know,

I didn't eat the cookies in the cookie jar It's something that has a little bit more devious quality to it It has possibly an idea of strategy or a long-term plan.

So the significance of this I believe is profound it says that on a gross level people are becoming aware of Coercive control they're becoming aware that there are tactics that certain people use to their own benefit that are maniacal that are malevolent and that are purposeful to think that there are people on planet Earth that deliberately intend to gaslight and to confuse someone to the point where they are mentally emotionally crippled that They now depend on the perpetrator is sick But how many of us know people or how many of us have been in this situation?

Situation where we have been dealing with people who say I never said that you're crazy You didn't see that you're making it up a narcissist is someone who doubles down Catch them doing something wrong and they deny it.

It wasn't me.

It wasn't me,

Right and That causes us to doubt our perception of reality another thing that Fair people will run into people who are fairly healthy will run into is wanting to understand How it is that someone who's gaslighting them Cannot admit to the fact that they're gaslighting them We get caught up in these loops all the time And then what happens is we become infuriated our ego gets activated and all it does is keep us stuck One of the things that we have to be careful of if we're dealing with someone who we believe is gaslighting us Is that we don't get caught up thinking that we need to prove that what this person is doing They are actually doing it's better to acknowledge that up I've just been gaslit or this person is attempting to manipulate my sense of reality Or it's better to even pay attention to when you start to feel off in a relationship Relationship when you start to feel confused in a relationship.

That's a sign that you're in the wrong relationship Relationships supposed to be they're supposed to feel downstream.

It's not supposed to be a constant uphill battle You're not supposed to be constantly defending yourself or going through the weeds and questioning whether or not you heard what you heard You saw what you saw you felt what you felt and so that's really important But oftentimes people have been in these tragic relationships for any any period of time And you don't realize what you're dealing with you so depend on the perpetrator You so depend on what they think in their version of the reality that you forget to start wondering About why it is that you feel confused.

It's just your norm.

You have acclimated to this craziness and That's a really sad state but I'm hoping that as the word gaslighting becomes more commonplace as People continue to Google the term as people begin to share this information.

They start talking about it I think that this is going to make a big difference.

It's going to make a change certainly for people who?

Recognize oh my gosh.

This is actually what I've been dealing with in my relationship.

I just didn't have a word for it That's what happened to me when my psychotherapist said to me you're codependent Finally there was a word for why I needed approval why I burnt myself out trying to be good enough Why I never felt good enough why I doubted my feelings why I needed to be needed Why it was hard for me to be alone and why I didn't trust my feelings suddenly this one word Made it so much easier for me to understand myself and we know the greatest philosophers of our time have all stated that we really need to know thyself and so if you've been Gaslit you need to know that about yourself if you are codependent you need to know that about yourself words matter they bring context to what we're Experiencing they put a word on what we're feeling they help us organize What's going on in our life in a way that without a word we sort of feel lost in the soup So I want to say kudos to Merriam-Webster dictionary Thank you so much for choosing gaslighting as the word of 2022 I hope that you understand the value that this adds to us as a global community when we finally begin to recognize what a Coercive control tool is and how often people use it to manipulate other people That's just not fair.

We can do better as a society.

Thank you very much And I hope that you are in as inspired by this news as I am namaste everybody until next time.

Bye for now

Reviews

Most people don’t know where the word gaslight came from. It’s the title of an Ingrid Bergman film, where she was being gaslit by the use of gas lights.

This is so powerful. I now understand what I was going through. Thank you.

Excellence talk. Thank you.

It's exciting to witness millions waking up

Word of my year too

WOW!!! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you ❤️

💯 true, thank you for helping get me through the months after gaslighting happened to me, was devastated and now have more awareness about it!