Battle Narcissist's Gaslighting

Gaslighting is what a toxic person will resort to in order to get you to doubt your inner reality. When you confront a narcissist, they might resort to gaslighting you as a means to gain control. In this episode, Lisa A. Romano helps you learn to prepare for this control tactic.

Transcript

Welcome to the Breakdown to Breakthrough podcast.

My name is Lisa A.

Romano.

I am a life coach,

Bestselling 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 some of the language that can help you battle a narcissist's gaslighting.

So first let's get clear about what gaslighting is.

So gaslighting is what someone with high narcissistic traits can do that infuses you with the idea that what you think cannot be trusted.

That the way that you view the particular situation is false.

So one of the ways that we move about through life in a healthy way is that we kind of trust what we think and we feel.

Even the most unhealthiest people trust what they think and trust what they feel.

If you imagine someone like Charles Manson,

He trusted what he thought and he trusted what he felt.

And he took on some behaviors that of course were criminal and atrocious and horrendous.

Whether it's Charles Manson or you're the little old lady that goes to church and believes that you should tithe 10% of your income and you believe that you should help people as much as you can and that you should give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

This is the way she thinks and this is the way she feels and this is the way she goes about her life.

If you are a wife and you believe that it is your job to stay home and to take care of the kids and to take care of the food situation and to clean the house,

You believe that that's right and you move through life.

This is what I think and this is how I feel.

What I'm trying to get at is that as human beings we all need to feel integrated and like what we think and what we feel is congruent.

Doesn't matter where you fall in the spectrum.

This is not about a morals class.

This is not saying that one person's perspective is morally just and one person's perspective is not.

That's not what this discussion is about.

That's not what this analogy is about.

What I'm trying to help people understand is that human beings need to feel congruent.

That what they think and what they feel is the same.

So even if I don't believe that I'm worthy,

I tend not to feel worthy.

So there's even congruency when I think something and I feel something even if it's not in my best interest.

However when you think something and you feel something and there's someone outside of you insisting that you shouldn't think what you think or you shouldn't feel what you feel or they insist that what you see is not what you saw.

That creates tremendous mental health concerns because if you can't trust what you think and you can't trust what you feel then it's impossible for you to make healthy decisions for yourself.

It's impossible for you to move left right up down.

It's impossible for you to make any type of decision that is in your best interest.

Gaslighting is what people do to cause you to doubt your internal perception.

To doubt your internal reality.

Again we're not having a moral conversation as to what one person may have believed was true and accurate and how they felt about that and what subsequent behaviors resulted from that type of thinking.

We're not having that conversation.

We're having this conversation about the necessity for a human being to feel congruent even if depending on who's judging the situation even if what is happening in the person's mind is immoral and even if what is happening in someone's mind is unhealthy.

So even if I am afraid to gain weight and I think that and I feel that and I act on that perhaps through some type of an eating disorder even though it's unhealthy the reality is there's some congruency there.

When we're dealing with someone who is narcissistic and they're gaslighting what they're trying to do is separate your ability to trust what you think and to trust what you feel.

They're saying that what you feel what you think is irrelevant you are crazy no one thinks like you that didn't happen I never said that it's all made up in your mind and inside your mind becomes a very very frightening place.

You can't trust what you think you can't trust what you feel and you are literally like stalled and or arrested.

Now sometimes we're involved with people who have very high narcissistic traits and they are incredibly emotionally insensitive they are incredibly painfully abusive they are they attack your moral character they put you down in front of your children they put you down in front of your your family and this is very overt.

Then there are other forms of gaslighting that aren't so obvious they're more covert and this would be someone who says something like well why did you why did you put the light on the stove or why did you turn the gas on on the stove and you know that you didn't turn the stove on but the person who is suggesting that you did turn the stove on and is gaslighting you into thinking that you turn the stove on well do that to someone enough and you can infuse them with this idea that they might be losing it or they can't be trusted.

Now that makes someone feel very dependent upon other people because it makes someone feel insecure and this happens a lot inside of unhealthy toxic narcissistic relationships where the more narcissistic partner is causing the their their other partner to doubt what they think and to doubt what they feel and it is to exert control over the relationship and to be in control over the relationship.

Now for instance when you're talking about someone who is emotionally and verbally abusive I have always found it very interesting when narcissists defend their position they say something like oh I'm so bad right so let's say you confront someone who is being verbally abusive they're just putting you down in front of your family putting you down in front of your kids they're embarrassing you at a family picnic whatever is happening you're feeling really berated and maybe you don't say something right there but when the two of you are together you sit down you say hey listen I don't like when you say this to me it's hurtful and depending on the person's level of self-awareness and self-reflection you might hear something that sounds like oh I'm so bad right like I cheat on you right like I only drink once in a while right like I go to work every day you have nothing to complain about this happens over and over and over and over and for someone who has been gaslit for someone who has been devalued for someone who has just been beaten down by this constant devaluing scenario when you finally find the courage to say hey knock it off I don't like this and the narcissist uses this logic it can destabilize you it can make it difficult for you to stand your ground and so I wrote out a couple of language patterns that I wanted to offer people who might be in this situation I know I was because when I complained about something in my first marriage these were the types of things I heard well I don't cheat on you well I come home every day after work I'm so bad right Lisa you have so much to complain about and it threw me off balance it made me feel like I didn't have a right to feel what I felt it made me feel like I was the bad person for wanted to clear the air it made me feel ashamed for standing up for myself it made me doubt that I had a right to say hey like can we work this out it made me feel like there was something wrong with wanting my partner to understand and recognize the lack of empathy that he had in this situation I thought it was good to come together and say hey listen when you said this this is this was how I felt and maybe we can soften this up a little bit I thought those were good things but when you're dealing with someone who needs to consciously or unconsciously dominate the relationship who needs to have financial control in order to feel safe who needs to dominate you financially emotionally in order to regulate their own anxiety when you're dealing with someone who needs to minimize you so that they can feel dominant over you because they can't be vulnerable with you because they don't know how to do the mutual thing they don't know how to validate you they know only know how to be aggressive and domineering when you're dealing with that type of person their rationalizations can be mind-boggling and you've got to be prepared for that and so let's say you have a partner who's been verbally abusive perhaps in front of children and you decide to have a conversation about what happened in your home and you hear something like oh I'm so bad right what I'm so terrible that you need to divorce me or I'm so terrible that you need to confront me about this like what about all the other amazing things I do for you that you don't notice or I'm so bad like I don't drink all the time I drink once in a while like I'm so bad that you find it necessary to talk about this maybe you're just hyper aware of things like this maybe you're just super sensitive maybe you just like to argue about things maybe this is your issue maybe if you weren't so insecure all the time we wouldn't have this problem when you are hit with those types of rationalizations if you are a victim of gaslighting you it might throw you off your game and you might not be able to stand there and hold on to your perception which is what gaslighting is all about it's about divide and conquer and I'm not saying that all narcissists know that they're doing it and I'm quite frankly I think we need to be afraid of people who do this on purpose like you really need to be aware of the potential for someone to be this calculating that they're they're minimizing your experience on purpose to sort of like divide and conquer you from your right your your reality and so if someone can conquer you from your inner perspective then they diffuse they diffuse how you feel and now you can't hold them accountable which gives them the keys to the kingdom if you cannot hold on to yourself and talk about how you feel and set boundaries you are living a prisoner in someone else's kingdom and that is essentially what someone who is highly narcissistic want narcissists aren't always looking to be happy they want control and oftentimes someone is highly narcissistic is very happy inside an unhappy relationship that they feel in control over that is why the partner of a narcissist will deal with things like depression or anxiety or cognitive dissonance or low self-worth because you're unhappy in this unhappy marriage but the person that you're living with seems happy I mean it's really it's crazy making so let's say you confront your spouse and you say I don't like that you said this this and this and the narcissist turns around and says oh I'm so bad right I want you to understand it's important that you understand that what's happening is you are being devalued it's important that you get that language that you understand that language oh I'm being devalued oh I'm being minimized I made a list this is a diversion technique which is causing you to divert from your point of contention or what it is that you want to focus on this diversion tactic has been created sort of like smoke and mirror so let's say you are really upset about being put down and ridiculed in front of your in-laws and you confront your spouse and they say something like this like oh I'm so bad right I don't cheat on you I cook for you or I pick the kids up from school I just want you to know none of that has anything to do with the fact that you've been verbally abused none of it so if you're gonna have a conversation with someone with high narcissistic traits that's something that you've got a really really hold on to that just because this person did pick up the kids or just because this person does cook once in a while just because this person does hold down a job does not negate the fact that they are emotionally and psychologically abusive or that they put you down in front of other people and you don't like it the good thing that you do in a relationship has nothing to do with the things that you do in a relationship that are wrong that are toxic that are dysfunctional and when you're having a conversation with someone especially a narcissistic spouse or someone with high narcissistic traits it is so important that you don't allow yourself to be derailed that you don't allow this type of thinking to confuse you further and unfortunately if you are dealing with gaslighting you it may be very very difficult for you not to fall for that right this diversion tactic sometimes a narcissist will say things to you like you're nothing without me and so you should really stop talking about this again it goes back to this idea this theme that narcissists are often very very unhappy people that aren't in relationships for happiness they're in relationships for control they're in relationships so that they can dominate they're in relationships sometimes purely because of money it's a marriage of convenience or it's a partnership of convenience they don't necessarily care how you feel they don't necessarily care that you're content they don't necessarily care that you feel respected it's that they have control over the relationship and when you start to act up or you start to speak up that's when you're going to be devalued that's when you are going to be minimized that's when you might even be gaslit even more that's when a narcissist will blame you for bringing it up which is really confusing like what are you supposed to do if you're really struggling inside of a relationship and you may even want the relationship to work what are you supposed to do not talk about it well that doesn't help because that builds resentment but if you've learned over time that if you talk about it there's more negativity that comes this consequence is negative then you don't even realize that you're being conditioned to stuff it to not talk about it and to live in fear of talking about it I think there's tremendous value in recognizing this negative conditioning for a negative outcome I think we have to recognize when we are in relationships where we're being conditioned to fear a negative outcome because that fear is going to prevent us from being able to move to the next level of our emotional development our spiritual evolution we're going to stay stuck if we don't learn to honor what we feel if we don't learn to honor what we feel and there's a big difference between honoring my emotions and reacting to them there's a big difference between me recognizing an emotion within me and then suggesting that other people are responsible for that emotion and they need to take care of it for me big difference what I mean by that is as recovering codependent there's a big difference between acknowledging that wow when I texted my friend and she took four days to respond it triggered feelings of abandonment in me and even shame I'm acknowledging how I felt it's a big difference between acknowledging those emotions and then becoming over emotional about them overeating maybe going down the rabbit hole of shame maybe talking poorly about her maybe even texting her and accusing her of not caring about me that's where we're dipped into the pool of emotionality and we've lost control over our emotion I'm a life coach that likes to teach empowerment skills basically you have an emotion you feel it you honor it and then you decide what you're going to do about it and in the best case scenario you're developing emotional regulation in other words like your emotions are no longer controlling you you can be emotional and feel an emotion without reacting to the emotion really amazing so you can actually learn to learn to observe how you feel now really difficult to do if you're living with someone who gaslights you and gets you to doubt what you think and what you feel ultimately as you learn the language of narcissistic abuse if you when you learn what gaslighting abuse is and how it's meant to conquer and divide the way you feel about the self the way you think it's built to get you to concurrent well actually conquer and divide your perception of reality narcissists who are able to get you to doubt your perception of reality end up dominating and controlling you they it's like a force dependency and so now you don't you don't trust what you think and you don't trust what you feel then they're also conditioning you to fear a negative outcome you can really remain arrested in this situation especially if you have high codependent traits where you need to be needed by someone and it's a subconscious negative default setting it's not you dear one it's your programming but until you make that which is unconscious conscious thank you Carl Jung it operates your life so imagine being someone who by default needs to be needed and who has manifested a narcissistic relationship and the narcissist can continues to devalue the codependent that makes the codependence trigger abandonment so now a codependent has even a deeper need to need to be needed and so the acquiesce they fall and they subjugate their needs for the sake of this narcissistic person they might even give up their complete stance on hey I don't like when you put me down in front of the kids and so what I'm what I hope you're hearing and whatnot what I hope you're taking away from this session is that be mindful of when you have conversations with people who try to deflect and who use the good things about their personality or the good things that they've done to justify the bad things that they've done it makes no sense to approach someone about something like financial abuse or verbal abuse and have them use the excuse oh I'm such a bad person now because of this that's how you feel well look at all the other things I do for you how come you don't give me credit for that that is complete smoke and mirrors and you need to know as someone who may may have experienced gaslighting abuse that it's easier to confuse someone like you who has tremendous self-doubt in cognitive dissonance maybe even struggles with codependency which is a shame based you don't feel good enough and when this person is threatening you with I'm not happy with who you are right now that triggers your abandonment and that may cause you to abandon what you originally set down to talk about which means that you're never going to be able to resolve this verbal abuse issue so keep in mind that when this happens when this tactic happens it's about devaluing you you need to see it okay I'm being devalued I'm being minimized this is smoke and mirrors this is cognitive dissonance happening inside of me I doubt my reality this person is using the fact that they cooked a meal or the fact that they picked up the kids two weeks ago to throw me off my game what they did then has nothing to do with the abuse that is taking place in this moment it's going to be a struggle for someone who is codependent especially or someone with high empathy because those of us who are codependent have high empathy and who struggle with the need to be needed are very triggered when a domineering personality accuses us of seeing things incorrectly it's all par for the course it's all par for the course of emotional sobriety and emotional recovery I am NOT however saying it's easy I know that this is incredibly difficult to stand in front of someone when you have cognitive dissonance as a result of gaslighting and you want to correct this issue and you're dealing with someone who's got high narcissistic traits who then again minimizes you and says what are you paying attention to that for you should be paying attention to this which means that we can never fix the issue that we need to fix we as people who are dating or married or dealing with people with these high narcissistic traits have got to be able to stand our ground we've got to know what the rules of engagement are I appreciate that you did this but that has nothing to do with this situation when you speak to me this way when you make fun of me in front of the kids when you chastise me in front of the children that has nothing to do with you cooking twice a week we need to stay on point now someone who's highly narcissistic can't take accountability they don't like feeling the shame they really do think that they're correct they have this illusion of themselves that is incorrect but that's why it's an illusion they believe that they're smarter than you better than you and that they deserve the control they have over the relationship so they believe within their right to put you down in front of the kids they believe within their right to control all the finances they believe within their right to mock you in front of their family they really believe that they have that right so now when you speak to them and hold on to your ground it will not compute what's going to happen more gas lighting more minimizing more devaluing how does this conversation help you this conversation helps you because as you're being devalued rather than go down the rabbit hole of cognitive dissonance you're saying oh I'm being minimized oh I'm being devalued just putting a label on what is happening will prevent you from going too far down the rabbit hole again this is not easy to do because as you learn to do this you are going to be consistently confronted with the potential for needing to set yet another boundary and another boundary and about another boundary but the last year ones we have to start somewhere I do hope that this session has been helpful and beneficial and if it has please let me know namaste everybody until next time you are enough you really are bye for now

Reviews

You are incredible, thank you! I always thought my father was a narcissist but it turns out, my mother is a covert narcisssist and uses the tactics shared here! Your work is helping me put the pieces together and I thank you 💕

Lisa, I have been listening to your sessions for over a year. I am divorcing my narcassistic husband. It has been excrutiating. Your messages, your tips, your descriptions have been the soul of my recovery. Love and Light.

Oh my gosh! Lisa thank you so very much for sharing your experience. 🙏🏼🦋

Perfect

Wow…this hit home. Eye opening! 🙏🏻

Very helpful and well explained. Thanks so much!

Thank you Lisa. So very helpful in understanding the dynamic of how someone who struggles with co-dependency can get stuck in the web of the narcissistic gaslighting. Easier to see after getting out of this kind of toxic relationship but when we are in it getting gaslighted we truly doubt our own thoughts and feelings. We learn to not trust our own gut. We talk ourselves out of our feelings that are true. That is so harmful and damaging to our well-being. Thank you for your work in this field. So important.

This one resonates with me so much. I have BPD. What I am also finding is that I have inadvertently gaslighted partners during BPD episodes. That makes me sad. I have several NPD (undiagnosed) people I my life including family. It is hard to know how to deal with all of this. But I am ready to seriously start working on this. Thanks for all the podcasts Lisa.

Would love to hear this one in terms of a narcissistic boss as well.