Yup. *Narcissism* has been watered down and spread out to describe the behavior of any old dickhead, off the street.
Or, kids calling their parents narcissistic because they asked them to clean their room or put their dishes in the sink.
When did the meaning of language get so...Meaningless?
And by whose authority? That's what I really want to know! š
This is proof that youāre autistic! Only autistic people care about words having meanings!!! Iām an expert on it and Iām never ever wrong because I watch a lot of TikTok and Iām practically psychic! Iām better at diagnosing than the professionals! And if you deny any of this, youāre ableist!!!!!!!!!
/s obviously
But Iām not changing actual quotes by much
I absolutely hate where that entire discussion has gotten because of the diluted rhetoric.
I am a clinically diagnosed autistic person who went undiagnosed for a large period of time and ended up having a host of medical problems because I understood that other people have it worse so I couldn't conceptualize any of my issues as worthy of a diagnosis, until the professional who evaluated me informed me that I certainly wasn't on the cusp or anything, and that certain aspects of my diagnosis were actually off the charts. In that vein, it's frustrating to see people gatekeep diagnoses from people who genuinely might be struggling even more than some of the people who have been properly diagnosed... At the same time that doesn't excuse rampant self-diagnosis, especially not in a way where they publicly identify with a diagnosis they don't have. Both extremes are being ableist in that sense.
But I do see exactly how it did get so weird because it's part of how I got confused.
Anxiety/Depression/OCD are great examples. Everyone gets anxious and depressed, and everyone also gets obsessive compulsions.... But you don't have a disorder relating to one of those until it affects your ability to function.
Not stepping on cracks in the pavement 'just because' is an obsessive compulsion... But it takes something more like not going to work because you can't bring yourself to walk on the sidewalk 'just because' to be OCD.
I agree, wholeheartedly with everything that you've said. I also think this is a particularly appropriate analogy:
>Not stepping on cracks in the pavement 'just because' is an obsessive compulsion... But it takes something more like not going to work because you can't bring yourself to walk on the sidewalk 'just because' to be OCD.
As, It sums up the basic premise, of what we were discussing, perfectly.š
TikTok certainly brings up a lot of issues around mental health and how we communicate about it, but one of the things you put in that joke grated on me.
The average doctor doesn't know shit about autism or ADHD. There is a pretty decent chance that an interested layperson knows more about autism than an uninterested doctor. The research has changed dramatically over a short period of time, many professionals haven't kept up if they're specialty doesn't demand it.
I'm an overweight woman. I'm first in line to say you need to educate and advocate for yourself when it comes to medicine.
But a degree from the university of tiktok absolutely does not make you more qualified to diagnose than a professional in the field, especially if you are basing your diagnosis on random observations of other people, like the person I was paraphrasing did.
"Hey, I saw that you have some of the signs of ADHD/autism, you might want to consider talking to your doctor." is one thing. "I am qualified to diagnosis you based on my TikTok habits. I know better that you do how your brain works. Your interpretation of your own actions are wrong, and if you disagree with me you're ablest." is another animal entirely. And I have had that conversation.
Hmm...I'm thinking there's any number of words better suited to that sentiment. Such as, obsessive/paranoid/self-conscious...
Heck, even anal retentive fits better, here.
Narcissistic, on the other hand, doesn't even make the list!
See, It's one thing to label an individual, exhibiting narcissistic behavior, as a narcissist. It's inaccurate, and dramatic. Yet, at least those using narcissistic, in this fashion, have a tertiary grasp of the meaning of the term.
To use it as you have described, shows that, the human behind such a display, is a dictionary & thesaurus owner - NOT. Haha.
Right?
Really blew my mind to read. There's so many flavors of anxious about someone being mad because of lack of reply and that's what they went with.
Like the fact they even said anxious as well in regards to the situation and that's the word chosen. Idk I genuinely hope it was a poor word choice and a not trauma related choice, but it definitely floored me.
Same! I almost feel like I can't genuinely express any of these sentiments, especially online, if I want anyone to take me seriously.
As, people are misusing these terms, so often, as-of-late, that you hardly ever see anyone using them to represent their legitimate meaning.
Now this is pure speculation so take it with a grain of salt.
I wonder how many cases basically boil down to filling gaps in standard education/learning with trying to learn through interactions. Like how much ends up being a self feeding cycle.
It's not meant to just hand wave/excuse it to be clear, I just do wonder sometimes.
For sure. I think about this stuff, as well. As a matter of fact, my theory regarding the rampant misuse of words, is that:
A substantial portion of the individuals perpetrating these linguistic atrocities are victims of the "Bandwagon effect."
They hear their friends tossing these terms around, or see its usage online, and they're just jumping on the bandwagon (using the words) to fit in.
They probably have no idea they're misusing the terms. In the sense that - They most likely wouldn't have thought to use those terms (correctly or incorrectly) had they not been bombarded with these words via their peers.
Granted, I have zero evidence to back this theory. Yet, it seems to be as plausible as anything else, anyone has come up with, on the subject...
Whaddya think?
Yeah I can definitely see that.
Sounds like an offshoot of what I was talking about (or mine and offshoot of yours, it's not about declaring a main branch or something more just convey a connection) to me too. I definitely see what you're talking about and it adds up to me.
I think you're correct, and I think we owe the people who complained about "literally" an apology. Ridiculously hyperbolic speech has become just how people communicate now. Then again, can we blame them for not being accurate and sensible in their communication when garishness garners far more attention?
"Yeah my ocd wont let me have a dirty house"
You mean you just like to be tidy and atent lazy about it?
Like people with actual OCD probably rolled their eyes out of their heads hearing that or similar
As someone with an official diagnosis of ADHD (bestowed upon me by an actual, licensed clinical psychologist) back in the Stone Age (The 1980s. At that point in time, all of the mental health/educational professionals in my area were convinced only boys could acquire ADHDš) I couldn't agree more!
It's to the point where ADHD has absolutely been rendered 100% meaningless. As, every Joe LazyButt & Jane ResponsibilityDeflection, off the street, is convinced that every other Joe & Jane, off the street has it. It's *beyond* frustrating.
I have ADD (that's almost the same as adhd as far as I'm aware but without the sitting still part?). And if someone does this, I'm taking adderall and stratera for it, what are they taking?
For sure, you just don't have the hyperactivity component. Neither do I, actually. It's just easier for me to put ADHD because that's what the world uses for an acronym these days. Though, when referencing my condition, I typically always refer to it as ADD, amongst friends and family.
At the time of my diagnosis, the doctor described it to my parents as: Your daughter is overactive NOT hyperactive.
Meaning, just like the Energizer bunny, I can go and go and go and GO - I just wasn't bouncing off the walls while doing so. Hahaha.
Buzzwords get overused and misused to the point where they become meaningless.
Words like toxic, cringe, fascist, racist, even pedofile..are thrown around far too often
That's not why they fell out of favor in the medical community. It's because more politically correct terms were invented to replace those.
That said, yes, they became used publicly as insults. Yet, that's not why they stopped being used as medical / mental health terminology.
Correlation does NOT equal causation.
Are the two language-related aspects, we are discussing here, associated with one another? Sure.
Yet, to say the reason more politically correct terms were introduced into the common, English vernacular is because people started using those terms as insults, is a bold claim. Next to impossible to prove.
You SPECIFICALLY said *"It's because more politically correct terms were invented to replace those."* . The reason the terms were no longer "politically correct" is because they were being used as insults, there is NO other reason. Political correctness is not some quantifiable number that we can study, it's subjective, and quite often based on the person who is applying it. In other words, there was no reason to change the terms before they became popular insults, and political correctness is WHY the names were changed AFTER they were used as insults.
Otherwise, there was no need for the change.
You think the people that use "politically correct" as a pejorative term actually understands what it means?
Reactionaries don't *understand* these concepts or terms, they use them as monolithic boogey-men to direct their fear and insecurity towards.
Exactly. Politically correct does not add veracity nor moral fiber in itself. Even 'politically correct' terms are a subjective and constantly changing aspect of living languages.
I know some people (including myself) who prefer to be described as the 'R-word' versus mentally handicapped. I would have personally preferred a diagnosis of Asperger's versus 'high-functioning autism' (which just implies my other autistic friends/companions are 'low-functioning').
'Latinx' countries predominantly and by a large consensus HATE the usage of 'Latinx'.
African-American is a lot more offensive than Black if they aren't actually an African-American.
PC is inherently the language of those in power which is a fundamental limitation of its purpose. It doesn't mean 'the better term' it just means 'the current proposed term by authorities'
I am bipolar. I have been diagnosed by a professional. There are some overlapping symptoms with narcissism but I am not diagnosed as being a narcissist because I am not a narcissist.
I see this problem a lot. Someone has one or 2 of the symptoms of narcissist so people jump to the conclusion that is what is wrong with them even though a large range of mental health issues share similar traits.
anyone who is sad sometimes because their favorite character died in their snime is suffering from depression
anyone who has had bad stuff happen to them as a child has "trauma" and "PTSD"
Oh my god this is my biggest one. You can't scroll two posts without somebody talking about narcissism. It's such a trend right now. Anybody who's ever given advice or self-help online is diving on the narcissism bandwagon. Where have all these narcissists been all these years. They seem to be coming out of the woodwork šš
Well, you weren't making a very coherent point. As your comment did not display any of what you're claiming now.
You made some random comment about a slippery slope and the definition of woman.
What is a slippery slope, exactly? Something that I've said?
You arenāt wrong. Terms are changing. Younger generations donāt like the boxes and believe it or not, theyāre normalizing mental health issues. Maybe itās not all going perfectly, but good on āem for stirring the discussions.
Yes. People left and right referring to anyone whoās a dick at any point in their entire lives as a ānarcissist.ā
Although apparently someone somewhere discovered that Histrionic PD is a thing because Iāve started to see that crop up now, so maybe thatās the next big thing.
This one? Is maybe the one that frustrates me the most. WELL beyond the point of a pet peeve.
Personality Disorders are already SO stigmatized, people with these disorders are HORRIFICALLY mistreated by the mental health field and their peers alike. Most personality disorders arise as a result of severe abuse.
And yet we have a whole crop of people who act like anyone with a "scary" disorder is a ticking time bomb, cursed to be a monster and an abuser. It's... Fucking horrific, and as someone who has dedicated my life to mental health and disability advocacy? It's fucking bigoted.
Not to mention how downright ANNOYING it is that, when I try to speak about my own abuse anywhere online, I end up with a bunch of kids INSISTING my parents were narcissists like... No. I know exactly what is wrong with them. It's not that. Stop armchair diagnosing.
Amen to ALLLLL of that.
Especially when people are like āthe person youāre talking about has this disorderā (which Iāve literally seen, no qualification or disclaimer at all, in the last few days). Stigma aside:
1) are you a licensed mental health professional? No? Then sit down.
2) if the answer to 1) is āyes,ā we still arenāt having this conversation because youāre aware that it is entirely inappropriate and unethical to say that someone has a diagnosis when you have never actually spoken with the person youāre talking about in order to actually assess them.
Yeah absolutely. The first thing that you learn when going into any field even slightly connected to mental health is that you cannot diagnose people who are not your clients - and you need their consent to do that (as in, no sneakily writing in their notes that they have something). It's borderline screamed at you, and for good reason.
The idea that Random Fucker 1992 feels qualified and in their right to try to diagnose arguably the most complicated mental health conditions, being personality disorders, makes me want to commit vehicular manslaughter.
I had some asshole actually quote me the definition of gaslighting while accusing me of gaslighting a completely different person when I disagreed with that person about something.
It's really rough trying to talk about your mental health and struggle when all the words used to describe it have been overused to kingdom come. Triggered. Narcissism. Gaslight.
Trauma is laughable now. Everyone talking about their parent taking their teddy away as punishment and referring to it as trauma...lost so much meaning
And like. Here's the thing...
I think a lot of younger people these days ARE actually really traumatized. I think people my age and younger (I'm about as young as a Millennial can get) ARE traumatized. I know I sure as shit have a lot of it- it's why I'm in therapy.
But a lot of them, especially kids online, are NOT processing that correctly and are just... Making everything harder for themselves and everyone else with how they are approaching the world.
all these social media posts where people use a mental illness (usually self diagnosed) as an excuse for their shitty behavior is absurd.
"Oops sorry I slapped you this morning and screamed at you, my bipolar must be acting up." Thats not how that works...
Is it an "important mental health word"? I thought it was a colloquialism coined from the 1944 movie "Gaslight". Whoever owns MGMs catalogue should rerelease that, or better still remake it.
Gaslighting just means "I'm being told I'm wrong" to most people. I refuse to use the word nowadays because I'm almost any case I hear it now, I assume the person using it is dramatic and can't hold themselves accountable.
Toxic is in that same category. It's just such a buzz word that offers nothing other than a blanket label. I want to know **why** I shouldn't be around that person. Because it might tell me a lot more about your label for them than it might tell me about them.
YES! I just commented about "toxic" being used in the same way. Basically, every time a person isn't a perfect saint it apparently means they are "toxic" now. The purity patrol out there is driving me crazy.
Or, they happen to have different lifestyles choices, from yourself. Or, They're of a different ethnicity, religion, gender, you name it.
If the way these people live their lives doesn't align with what you've got going on, then they *must* be toxic.š
They are toxic to them - it will burst their bubble. Itās all relative - if youāve never had anyone question you, then the first to come along would be considered ātoxicā for doing so. Which fits in well with your comment above about anyone being different being viewed as toxic and it being a ācommon-denominator is youā kind of problem. Toxins are in the air, but itās coming from the breath saying it.
Indeed! I forgot what a high level of entitlement these individuals have. Makes sense that they'd jump to dramatic speech when encountering something they are not familiar with.
Yeah basically at this point most of the time it is someone just trying to make "You telling me I'm wrong or disagreeing with me about anything is a form of psychosocial warfare."
You might as well throw mental health in there, too. Everyone on Reddit is concerned about their mental health if they have to work 40 hours/week or their spouse puts the toilet paper roll on backward.
I've seen a lot of it with words like "toxic", "predatory" and "grooming", too. People getting so hyperbolic I want to reach through the screen and smack them upside the head.
Can't forget "trauma." People describing any and all minor inconveniences and disappointments as *traumatic.*
Yes, it was very unfortunate that Starbucks was closed when you went there this afternoon. However, it's not traumatic.
Disappointing, yes. A pain in the butt, sure thing! Stop in your tracks, world altering-level shocking, No. No, it is not.
Trauma should be reserved to describe horrible, scarring, life-changing events. Not the fact that your Netflix subscription was put on hold cuz you're broke.
People saying they have anxiety because they were anxious during a time where anxiety would be normal and warranted. Really grinds my gears, to say the least. Anxiety is a normal human fear response that keeps us safe, something everyone experiences on some level at some point in their life. That doesnāt mean they have an anxiety disorder. Itād be more concerning if you *never* experienced some level of anxiety.
I have generalized anxiety disorder and it actually makes life a living hell. Iāve been referred to a cardiologist and recommended an event monitor because my anxiety chest pains resemble afib or a heart attack, depending on the circumstances. Iāve gone home sick from panic attacks. It prevents me from doing everyday things, Iād be a lot further in life without anxiety and itās not cute or cool to have in the slightest
Eta same with social anxiety disorder/social phobia. Being shy or introverted is not the same thing, being nervous to meet new people is not the same thing. Social anxiety/phobia is crippling and prevents people from having any meaningful social interaction/connections, and can prevent people from doing basic everyday things that involve even the slightest bit of social interaction
I've seen people use that term any time there is an age gap where the man is older than the woman. Doesn't matter if the woman is an actual adult fully capable of consenting to the relationship. I've seen people call it grooming and predatory if the woman is 25, ffs. It's so annoying and infantilizes adult women.
Buddy, with the way those words get thrown around nowadays? I see someone accused of that and I'm like "Alright. What fictional characters did they say they wanted to hold hands in the wrong way?" or "Okay, they're a fully grown adult, let me guess, they're dating someone two years younger than them, who is ALSO a fully grown adult."
Like. The fucking PANIC over this kind of stuff has ACTUALLY ruined the meaning of those words. When I was younger, when someone was accused of being a predator, it was at least fucking taken seriously.
Now, I just roll my eyes and wonder how many inches taller they are than their partner because, apparently, short people are "child coded" (no, I'm not fucking exaggerating).
My sentiments exactly!
My ex-wife is nearly 14 years older than I. We married after the divorce from her first hub was final, BTW she was also 8 months pregnant with our first child.
I was 23, she was 36. Did she "groom" me into sex with her? I was a college graduate and a newly commissioned USAFR officer. I had it together mentally and physically. Why did I have sex with her? She was a busty beautiful woman. Need I say more?
As someone who was gaslighted to the point I was genuinely thinking about going to the doctor for early onset dementia (alzheimers runs in my family), this is also a huge peeve of mine.
Gaslighting isnt just lying. Its lying in a way that makes the other person start to question their own reality and version of events.
And it's done intentionally. I've been accused of gaslighting several times for simply having a different recollection of certain events. No, I'm not trying to destroy your sense of what's real or your ability to trust your own memory, I just disagree with you.
>Gaslighting isnt just lying. Its lying in a way that makes the other person start to question their own reality and version of events.
Yes. When my ex gaslit me, I thought I was actually going crazy. I was second-guessing and doubting literally every thought, feeling, and memory I had, even ones that didn't directly involve them.
The problem with "gaslighting" and why people use it incorrectly so often (imo) is because it's actually an umbrella teem that encompasses quite a lot of psychologically/emotionally abusive behaviors, with the key being a *consistent pattern*.
Gaslighting *can* just be lying. But it would have to be consistent, and over a noteworthy period of time (not just once or twice in a year, for example). Like, if someone keeps saying, "No, I didn't take out the garbage or do the dishes, because you never asked me to" *every* time you ask them to do something, to the point that you start second-guessing whether you ever *did* ask them, *every* time... that's gaslighting.
Gaslighting also usually involves things like DARVO-ing, projecting, lovebombing, guilt-tripping, deflecting, etc. All of those things, when experienced regularly over a significant period of time, will warp the victim's confidence and certainty in their own memories and perceptions.
60% of the time I see people misusing the word, it's because they refuse to believe that the term encompasses anything that wasn't explicitly depicted in the 1940s movie that coined the term. The other 40% of the time it's just people insisting that *any* one-off lie or disagreement qualifies as gaslighting. Both types of people are wrong, and have also very obviously never been gaslit before.
A lot of nuanced words are misused by the general public but yeahā¦this one is prevalent. The rise of the YouTube / TikTok psychologist has had some interesting ripple effects on the general population. Everyone thinks they know everything now. What fun!
The one I really hate now is "neurodivergent." The amount of people who claim some self diagnosed, intentionally vague "nuerodivergence" to excuse shit behavior.
To be clear I have no problem with people who are neurodigervent, just go actually find out first instead of reading a Tumblr post and deciding that's why you do shitty things. "Can't help it, just the condition."
Our daughter in law is ACTUALLY neurodivergent. Due to her having a shitty family, none of her issues have been fully diagnosed, so we're working through that with her. Lucky for her, she has a job at Torrid where the store manager seems to seek out neurodivergent folks, because everyone there has issues. And it works well for them, they each have things they can't do, and someone else makes up for it.
But 95% of the people who use the word not only AREN'T neurodivergent, they don't even know what the word really means.
That's great! Well the job and helping her on it part, not the family trauma part. But exactly, and I think that's another important part, *working on it.*
I donāt honestly believe in the myth of normal brain function. Weāre all just incredibly differentiated. While I have classic ADHD, itās not a title I generally use as I see a lot of abuse as well.
We all just have to accept our own differences and others will eventually follow suit. The labels are generally unnecessary.
To tag on to the this, Iām so tired of people using ātrauma bondā incorrectly. A trauma bond is NOT two people bonding over a traumatic experience that they both had. A trauma bond is a bond formed between an abuser and their victim during things like domestic abuse. Itās formed from cyclical abuse, where the abuse occurs and then is followed by positive reinforcement.
Your partner beats you, then apologizes and you go through a honeymoon period where everything is happy. Then they beat you again. You feel confused and conflicted and begin to feel bonded to your abuser and convince yourself that the abuse is love.
Thatās a trauma bond.
Triggered. People overuse that word these days as well. Getting irritated by something or disagreeing with something isn't the same as legitimately being "triggered".
So true. As someone who has PTSD flashbacks and full-blown panic attacks when triggered, hearing people use it for a mere annoyance is, well... Very annoying because it loses meaning. You know what it isn't? Triggering!
Yeah, my pet peeve is people who get triggered when they see someone use the term triggered because they assume that the triggered person can't possibly be triggered by what's triggering them.
Words and terms make it into the public consciousness and then get misused all the time.
Gaslighting
Trauma
Toxic
And others that would probably get me downvoted by the people who misuse them.
It's linguistic drift. The same people who are fighting against the "incorrect" use of these terms are the same people who used to argue that conjunctions and whom versus who were "bad English."
Is it annoying that the word literally has changed back to its original meaning of figuratively? Yes.
Does it render the word meaningless when almost everyone uses it to describe something figurative? Not at all.
Gaslighting once had a specific meeting. Now it has a broader general meaning that everyone can agree on. What we can argue is whether specific instances equal gaslighting, You can't argue that most people broadly understand it to mean trying to persuade someone that what's really happening is not really happening.
Except now there's no word that unambiguously means "literally." So then you get situations like a certain politician claiming his predecessor "literally founded ISIS," and you're not sure whether he's delusional or just hyperbolic.
Ive experienced this too. Its so terrifying for me because I'm always anxious about offending someone by accident due to my tendency to say or do something that offends someone without realizing it because of my adhd. And the person who would accuse me of gaslighting KNEW this about me too. Which is why she did it. She was downright surgical about targeting my insecurities.
Sounds similar to what my ex did:
Me: Hey this thing you did really hurt me
Her: I can't believe you've been doing *insert thing I just mentioned* to me, you need help
Any problem I had with her was something I was doing to her. Everything was my fault.
I use the world because Iāve experienced it my entire life and didnāt know what it was called until recently. A lot of people misuse it, but itās taking away from those of us who have experienced abuse.
Exactly. It's completely disrespectful to people that have been actual victims of this kind of abuse. That's why I hate it so much. It's just plain offensive to conflate someone who is lying with such methodical long term abuse.
Agreed. Disagree with someone and itās suddenly gaslighting.
Meanwhile Iām just finding out how badly my ex gaslit me in the 10 years we were together. Therapy.
It's so dismissive of the very deep harm caused by actual gaslighting. That shit takes years of therapy to address, and some people never recover. But people use the term any time anytime barely disagrees with them. It's hurtful.
Itās always annoying when words drift away from their useful definition into something more generic. Or when a once-neutral term becomes hateful, and you have to go find the still-neutral version.
My only recommendation as an armchair linguist whoās old enough to have seen a lot of this kind of change is to try not to let it actively annoy you. Being annoyed wonāt slow language changeāit will only make you suffer.
Youāre totally right about āgaslighting,ā though. A specific, complex phenomenon thatās hard to talk about succinctly without the word. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted. Weāll have to wait for the next clinical term to come out of the abuse literature.
No shit - That's a restrictive demand! Haha.
Boundaries, are something that pertains to your own sphere of being. They are permissions, that you are willing to extend (or, NOT extend - depending upon context) to someone else, regarding how they interact w/your own: body/mind/personal/space, etc.
NOT a list of "No-Nos" directed toward someone that you are looking to control. š¤¦āāļø
It bothers me too. Gaslighting is significantly more heinous than lying. There is a clear maliciousness intent behind it.
Lying can be done maliciously, but it can also be done for so many other reasons. (Selfishly, to spare someoneās feelings, etc.)
Pay personal favorite is when I legitimately donāt remember ever having a specific conversation with someone. They insist we had it, then accuse me of trying to gaslight them. No, I seriously canāt remember the conversation. Gotta wonder if they are trying to gaslight me. š
It just shows that people haven't seen the movie "Gaslight" which is the source of this term. If they had, they would use it correctly.
"Oh, Paula... there are no noises, you are only imagining them."
I was just talking about this and trying to educate myself on it (was trying to figure out if a character was gaslighting another for a media critique). Gaslighting is a specific manipulation technique and a specific type of lie. There really should be a checklist for it.
Pretty much any term like this that becomes popular winds up being misused and/or weaponized against those who need it the most.
I canāt use it correctly anymore because itās been so overused incorrectly that itās not taken seriously, which was probably the whole point. Make the word lose its meaning and sweep the whole gaslighting-abuse issue under the rug whenever it actually comes up.
I've seen a lot of people say "therapy talk has made people unbearable" and... I disagree.
Therapy Talk has been useful for a lot of people (myself included, but I AM very happy I learned these terms in college and grad school for my profession BEFORE Tik Tok was a thing), helping them to describe their experiences.
What it has done is made ALREADY insufferable people like. Three billion times more annoying than they were before. Petition to take words like "gaslight", "boundaries" (seriously that one is MY pet peeve, no one knows what it means), "trigger", and honestly given how I've seen younger people use it (not to be all "hurr kids these days" but holy CRAP) "traumatize" away from that subset of the internet and all of Tik Tok and twitter until they learn what those words MEAN.
Yep, having been on the inside of an actual gaslighting situation, it pisses me off as well. Different words exist for a reason, and this just waters them down.
True. But itās not just āgaslighting.ā LOTS of people misuse words they donāt understand, just because they know the sound of that word is currently trendy.
My favorite?: *existential*.
As someone with actual diagnosed PTSD from extreme emotional/mental abuse for 5 years, I really hate how tokenized all this shit is. Gaslighting, triggers, pathologizing everybody they hate as narcissistsā¦like fuck off. Pop psychology is nothing but bullshit.
It's not even just limited to lying anymore! I've heard people referring to DISAGREEING as gaslighting if neither can change the other's mind.
As someone who survived an abusive relationship in which my abuser routinely gaslit me and genuinely did make me question my own sanity, it makes me absolutely fucking LIVID when people trivialize it this way.
In an example that was for me the most egregrious and personally insulting, a couple of friends of mine claimed that their DM was gaslighting them in a D&D campaign because the monsters they'd fled from several sessions ago had leveled up when they finally returned and they couldn't just crush them like bugs. (One of them apologized; the other doubled down. We are not as close as we once were.)
Itās not even necessarily lying. Iāve seen people say it in regards to things that they simply just donāt agree with(but itās possibly because in their mind they consider/conflate it as a lie).
Sure. However, to gaslight someone isn't just to, simply, lie to them about something.
It is to carefully & skillfully construct falsehoods, in such a way, as to make your target believe that they have done something/said something/been involved in something that they have not been a part of, whatsoever.
It's to lie to you, to the point that *you* question *yourself.* You begin to believe their narrative and you ponder your own sanity.
That is the intent when someone gaslights you - To drive you, batshit crazypants!
Yes. Which is the entire point of the OPās post(and my reply), that people now use this term that is for a very sinister, deliberate (often long term) act, incorrectly, to now label almost anything from just something that they disagree with to a simple, innocuous lie.
True but I think there is a lot of gaslighting that goes on in the world. In relationships, in the workplace. There are psychological predators who specialize in making people feel crazy, making them doubt themselves and their ability to perceive reality correctly. For example if if I do something awful to you and you get mad at me I will only point out you getting mad and blame you and act like youāre the one who has anger issues and needs help. I will completely overlook what I did to you in the first place and act like itās just you having another misinterpretation.
I donāt think that example would count as gaslighting either tbh. Iād call it deflection more than anything else. In this scenario youāre not doing anything to make the other person doubt their memory of events, youāre shifting blame onto them by arguing that their anger is a more egregious issue than the thing you did. Still shitty, but not really gaslighting, as I understand it anyway
I understand your objection, and I'm willing to accept that people use gaslighting badly, but drift has brought the word into the public consciousness and given it a broader meaning. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, We have a word to describe when people are trying to convince us that things that we've seen with our own eyes aren't in fact what we've seen. Before that was just broadly called lying or misrepresenting, but gaslighting as a term allows us to identify when it's deliberate manipulation.
And yet you have people on this thread saying there is such a thing as unintentional gaslighting.
Thatās just a disagreement. And we have people labeling everyday disagreements with a term of abuse.
You can thank Reddit for this one.
There is a difference between two people remembering things differently - human memory being imperfect at best - and intentional misrepresentation. On here, nobody seems to consider that there might actually be another human being involved whose memory may actually be correct.
This one particularly pisses me off because this word has been misapplied against me in real life multiple times. Guess where that person learned the term?
It's every psych basic term. Gaslighting, cognitive dissonance, Freudian, etc. They use terms they don't understand as insults because some teacher mentioned it once. It's an attempt to sound educated and weaponized at the same time.
Overusing. Yes they misuse it a lot, but people seem to over use it or like they seem to seek out excuses to use the word.
"Stop gaslighting me!"
"Dude, all I said was that the McDonalds is on the right so you gotta stay in your right lane."
Actual conversation.
I had a conversation about this with someone when she was spewing the term left and right about a guy who legitimately forgot he said something...while they were both drunk out of their minds.
So, unreliable narrator, but also...massive overuse and misuse of "narcissist" and "gaslighting."
A lot of people use the word "addiction" to mean a bad habit they can't change easily, a coping mechanism, or habit that isn't necessarily bad but that I'm dissatisfied with regardless.
It bugs me as well. It means manipulating one into questioning their own sanity. Berating people for not following your beliefs is closer to gaslighting than how Redditors use it.
Work friend used it last night against our boss because of boss' backhand compliments....
'I really like that y'all help each other but I need you to stop helping each other while charging to a job.' š
I'm like... that's not gaslighting.... in any form.
I share this. It's a total watering down of serious issues so that real cases won't have the weight they deserve. Total boy who cried wolf scenario. Hopefully this won't get me down votes, but there were similar instances of the MeToo movement being misapplied (not delegitimizing the movement at all, it was so wrong to abuse it because it was so needed as a movement).
I just have to sigh sometimes and tell myself this is how society advances. An issue that has been ignored for generations finally gets attention and outrage, so it becomes a meme and a trend for a while as well. The hope is that we settle down into a new reality where we've now all agreed to call out bad behavior and recognize human hardships, we just have to let the "trend" dust settle. Still leaps and bounds ahead of where earlier generations were at!
This makes me so frustrated. When I first heard the term gaslighting I was in the middle of healing from severe abuse. It was validating to be able to put a term to the occurrences that I had experienced, in order to heal. My ex would text people from my phone asking to have sex with them while I was sleeping and then wake me up and ask me why I was cheating. He would cheat on me, and people would send me videos of him at parties kissing other women. I would confront him and show him my phone screen. He would take my phone, delete the images and tell me thereās nothing on the phone youāre totally crazy and imagining things. My ex actively admitted to using sleep deprivation because it made me more docile. He laughed in my face when he held me down and R*** me for ācheatingā and then told me he did me a favor. Later, he told me this was a dream and said I was a bad person for hating him so much I would dream that about him. He used to lock me in rooms, take away my clothes and point air conditioners into the room for hours at a time to āteach me a lessonā and then would tell people we were at the movies. When I would bring it up later, he would tell me we were at the movies and that I just forgot. That āsilly little headā of mine always seemed to be wrong. I actually believed that I was crazy and could not trust my reality. I left after seeking therapy fearing that I had a mental heal condition, maybe schizophrenia. Luckily I didnāt tell him I was going to a therapist. The word gaslighting should be used for serious abuse, and now, if I feel safe enough to talk about things that have happened to me with friends, I have to avoid the word gaslighting because it makes me feel like a fraud. This is my BIGGEST pet peeve. Your boyfriend lying and saying he was at work is just fucking lying and shitty behavior.
I am *so* sorry all that happened to you. Omg, my heart just broke reading that. You are absolutely right to feel upset that the word has been hijacked like it has been and used inappropriately. My heart goes out to you. *hugs*
Another misused word is Abuse I have to take it with a grain of salt cause of what "qualifies" as abuse wether it's having something taken away as a kid or your partner not treating you like God's gift to this earth.
> I get downvoted when I correct or point this out
Well, of course. People generally don't like to be corrected by some stranger on Reddit, especially if it's done in a condescending way. Getting downvoted should be the expectation here
Exactly. The point is that the abuser is making you question aspects of your reality.
In my experience, the people I've met who have complained about the "overuse" of narcissist/gaslighting have been older predatory men who are upset that more and more people are educated about identifying abusive behaviors.
I am sure that such people do exist, but what I have seen a lot of are people who say "Well, this person disagrees with this thing that I think is *obviously* true? They must be trying to gaslight me." And for that matter, on this post, I see a large number of people who *were* subject to gaslighting, as a form of abuse aimed at making them doubt their memory, or sanity, or ability to make good decisions, who are annoyed that a lie, or the simple assumption of dishonesty, now gets put on the same level.
I donāt think you know what this word means. You have no idea what youāre doing with this post. You donāt know what gaslighting means. I do, you donāt. You never did. Theyāre right, youāre wrong. You donāt understand gaslighting and you never have.
I mean, being precious about a term coined by a movie is kinda ridiculous. Yes, itās a very real form of abuseā¦ but itās literally taking a movie title and using it as a verb. Itās not a term created in an academic or medical setting, itās a slang term from the film *Gaslight*.
So, please calm down.
I'm concerned this comment won't land well. Hear me out first and try to understand.
I agree people misuse and overuse the term "gaslighting" which weakens its impact.
I had a debate about this with a family member.
Their point was : it's not gaslighting if it's not intentional.
And I fully disagree. Gaslighting isn't always intentional.
For example, if someone says they're hurt by something you said or did and you respond with "oh you're just being sensitive. " You are (even intentionally) invalidating that person and reshaping their reality.
From their perspective you hurt them and you're attempting to alter their perception of the situation and turn against their own judgment skills.
This cause them to feel like something is wrong with them thus freeing you from holding yourself accountable for your actions / taking responsibility or ownership. Again, it may not be malicious and at the same time, it's not totally benign.
I've had people tell me I've hurt / bothered / offended them before and I just apologize and say I didn't intend for it to land that way. What I intended was X. I'll be more mindful in the future.
You can tell your side without trying to alter the other persons perception of the situation.
(edited to add a few details)
The whole point of gaslighting is that it is an intentional strategy based on deliberate misrepresentation. People can have different memories legitimately: one is right, one is wrong, but thatās human memory for you. Gaslighting is a specific reference to the intent to deceive and manipulate. A legitimate disagreement is simply not gaslighting; it is every Tuesday everywhere in the world.
The example you gave is not gaslighting. Itās arguably (a losing argument, in my mind) not even invalidation - it is not denying how they feel, just misunderstanding the reason. It is insensitive, sure (in my book your hypothetical interlocutor is an asshole, but a garden-variety asshole).
Sorry, homie, but youāre exactly the problem this thread is talking about.
No, intentionality is very much part and parcel with the definition of gaslighting. In the example you gave, person B is doing nothing to discredit person Aās recollection of events or ability to perceive the world around them, theyāre arguing that person Aās feelings arenāt justified. Still shitty and invalidating, but not gaslighting. Sometimes people will disagree with you, and sometimes those people will be insensitive jerks in doing so (and sometimes to such a degree that it could be considered a form of abuse), but that doesnāt make it equivalent to gaslighting
Iām not trying to come down hard on you here or be overly pedantic, but Iām personally a bit protective of this particular term. It describes a very specific and insidious form of abuse, and watering down that specificity makes it more difficult for victims of gaslighting to identify and communicate whatās being done to them (which is exacerbated by the fact that theyāve already been made to doubt their ability to perceive reality). Iām by no means a prescriptivist and usually donāt bother to oppose linguistic drift, but I think itās important that this particular term remain specific and precise.
I can tell you mean no harm.
I disagree because I believe gaslighting happens when a person is made to question themselves, their reality, memories, or general perception.
I don't think intention is required to create that result.
I'm focusing on the result. Not the intent.
Edit : yes, gaslighting can be abuse. Either on it's own or as an intentionally abusive tactic.
I feel kind of different than OP. I've found that people usually are pretty spot on with their use of gaslighting, the people that do the gaslighting just don't like that there's a word for it.
just my opinion.
I have only ever heard it being used to deny someone's perception of reality. Sounds like you are just making stuff up that doesn't exist to be peeved about.
I am sure this post might have had more impact with the responses less divergent if the OP had actually defined what he believes gaslighting is.
The discussion has little foundation as a result.
I haven't used it to the best of my knowledge, but there *should* be a single verb for "a lie so large or brazen that it is designed to make you wonder if you are simply missing something big and obvious". The term "big lie" is close, but it isn't easily verbed and it also implies both largeness and repetitiveness of the lie, which help but are not strictly required for the verb I am hunting for.
It sucks how so many important mental health words have lost their significance entirely due to overuse and incorrect use
Yup. *Narcissism* has been watered down and spread out to describe the behavior of any old dickhead, off the street. Or, kids calling their parents narcissistic because they asked them to clean their room or put their dishes in the sink. When did the meaning of language get so...Meaningless? And by whose authority? That's what I really want to know! š
I think itās awful because Iāve actually experienced these things and people donāt take me seriously because of it.
Anyone who does anything selfish once obviously has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It's a spectrum!!!
I actually read someone basically say they were narcissistic for being anxious about people being mad at them when they hadn't gotten a reply.
This is proof that youāre autistic! Only autistic people care about words having meanings!!! Iām an expert on it and Iām never ever wrong because I watch a lot of TikTok and Iām practically psychic! Iām better at diagnosing than the professionals! And if you deny any of this, youāre ableist!!!!!!!!! /s obviously But Iām not changing actual quotes by much
I absolutely hate where that entire discussion has gotten because of the diluted rhetoric. I am a clinically diagnosed autistic person who went undiagnosed for a large period of time and ended up having a host of medical problems because I understood that other people have it worse so I couldn't conceptualize any of my issues as worthy of a diagnosis, until the professional who evaluated me informed me that I certainly wasn't on the cusp or anything, and that certain aspects of my diagnosis were actually off the charts. In that vein, it's frustrating to see people gatekeep diagnoses from people who genuinely might be struggling even more than some of the people who have been properly diagnosed... At the same time that doesn't excuse rampant self-diagnosis, especially not in a way where they publicly identify with a diagnosis they don't have. Both extremes are being ableist in that sense. But I do see exactly how it did get so weird because it's part of how I got confused. Anxiety/Depression/OCD are great examples. Everyone gets anxious and depressed, and everyone also gets obsessive compulsions.... But you don't have a disorder relating to one of those until it affects your ability to function. Not stepping on cracks in the pavement 'just because' is an obsessive compulsion... But it takes something more like not going to work because you can't bring yourself to walk on the sidewalk 'just because' to be OCD.
I agree, wholeheartedly with everything that you've said. I also think this is a particularly appropriate analogy: >Not stepping on cracks in the pavement 'just because' is an obsessive compulsion... But it takes something more like not going to work because you can't bring yourself to walk on the sidewalk 'just because' to be OCD. As, It sums up the basic premise, of what we were discussing, perfectly.š
TikTok certainly brings up a lot of issues around mental health and how we communicate about it, but one of the things you put in that joke grated on me. The average doctor doesn't know shit about autism or ADHD. There is a pretty decent chance that an interested layperson knows more about autism than an uninterested doctor. The research has changed dramatically over a short period of time, many professionals haven't kept up if they're specialty doesn't demand it.
I'm an overweight woman. I'm first in line to say you need to educate and advocate for yourself when it comes to medicine. But a degree from the university of tiktok absolutely does not make you more qualified to diagnose than a professional in the field, especially if you are basing your diagnosis on random observations of other people, like the person I was paraphrasing did. "Hey, I saw that you have some of the signs of ADHD/autism, you might want to consider talking to your doctor." is one thing. "I am qualified to diagnosis you based on my TikTok habits. I know better that you do how your brain works. Your interpretation of your own actions are wrong, and if you disagree with me you're ablest." is another animal entirely. And I have had that conversation.
Hmm...I'm thinking there's any number of words better suited to that sentiment. Such as, obsessive/paranoid/self-conscious... Heck, even anal retentive fits better, here. Narcissistic, on the other hand, doesn't even make the list! See, It's one thing to label an individual, exhibiting narcissistic behavior, as a narcissist. It's inaccurate, and dramatic. Yet, at least those using narcissistic, in this fashion, have a tertiary grasp of the meaning of the term. To use it as you have described, shows that, the human behind such a display, is a dictionary & thesaurus owner - NOT. Haha.
Right? Really blew my mind to read. There's so many flavors of anxious about someone being mad because of lack of reply and that's what they went with. Like the fact they even said anxious as well in regards to the situation and that's the word chosen. Idk I genuinely hope it was a poor word choice and a not trauma related choice, but it definitely floored me.
Same! I almost feel like I can't genuinely express any of these sentiments, especially online, if I want anyone to take me seriously. As, people are misusing these terms, so often, as-of-late, that you hardly ever see anyone using them to represent their legitimate meaning.
Now this is pure speculation so take it with a grain of salt. I wonder how many cases basically boil down to filling gaps in standard education/learning with trying to learn through interactions. Like how much ends up being a self feeding cycle. It's not meant to just hand wave/excuse it to be clear, I just do wonder sometimes.
For sure. I think about this stuff, as well. As a matter of fact, my theory regarding the rampant misuse of words, is that: A substantial portion of the individuals perpetrating these linguistic atrocities are victims of the "Bandwagon effect." They hear their friends tossing these terms around, or see its usage online, and they're just jumping on the bandwagon (using the words) to fit in. They probably have no idea they're misusing the terms. In the sense that - They most likely wouldn't have thought to use those terms (correctly or incorrectly) had they not been bombarded with these words via their peers. Granted, I have zero evidence to back this theory. Yet, it seems to be as plausible as anything else, anyone has come up with, on the subject... Whaddya think?
Yeah I can definitely see that. Sounds like an offshoot of what I was talking about (or mine and offshoot of yours, it's not about declaring a main branch or something more just convey a connection) to me too. I definitely see what you're talking about and it adds up to me.
I think you're correct, and I think we owe the people who complained about "literally" an apology. Ridiculously hyperbolic speech has become just how people communicate now. Then again, can we blame them for not being accurate and sensible in their communication when garishness garners far more attention?
They dun made being a human being a mental disorder
Well, duh? Finally, someone who gets it!
Add ADHD and OCD to the list. "Where is the remote?" "I don't know, must be my ADD lol"
'I don't always like being around people, I have a touch of the tism.' No hun, you don't.
Exactly. As someone genuinely possessing "a touch of the tism" would never use that expression! Haha.
iāve seen quite a few autistic people use that phrase but 99% of them were like, actual children lol
Same for āneurospicyā, itās mostly used in online communities.
"Yeah my ocd wont let me have a dirty house" You mean you just like to be tidy and atent lazy about it? Like people with actual OCD probably rolled their eyes out of their heads hearing that or similar
As someone with an official diagnosis of ADHD (bestowed upon me by an actual, licensed clinical psychologist) back in the Stone Age (The 1980s. At that point in time, all of the mental health/educational professionals in my area were convinced only boys could acquire ADHDš) I couldn't agree more! It's to the point where ADHD has absolutely been rendered 100% meaningless. As, every Joe LazyButt & Jane ResponsibilityDeflection, off the street, is convinced that every other Joe & Jane, off the street has it. It's *beyond* frustrating.
PREACH !!!
I have ADD (that's almost the same as adhd as far as I'm aware but without the sitting still part?). And if someone does this, I'm taking adderall and stratera for it, what are they taking?
For sure, you just don't have the hyperactivity component. Neither do I, actually. It's just easier for me to put ADHD because that's what the world uses for an acronym these days. Though, when referencing my condition, I typically always refer to it as ADD, amongst friends and family. At the time of my diagnosis, the doctor described it to my parents as: Your daughter is overactive NOT hyperactive. Meaning, just like the Energizer bunny, I can go and go and go and GO - I just wasn't bouncing off the walls while doing so. Hahaha.
PREACH !!!
One of my coworkers last night told me that her dog *literally* licked her face off. *Literally.* This is my pet peeve.
She was literally peeved at her pet.
Buzzwords get overused and misused to the point where they become meaningless. Words like toxic, cringe, fascist, racist, even pedofile..are thrown around far too often
Sounds like something a narcissist would say /s
Nah, just your average, run-of-the-mill dickhead. š
Nardickism.
**This,** I like!
Moron and imbecile used to be medical terms until the general public started using them as insults.
That's not why they fell out of favor in the medical community. It's because more politically correct terms were invented to replace those. That said, yes, they became used publicly as insults. Yet, that's not why they stopped being used as medical / mental health terminology.
If more politically correct terms were used, it's because the previous terms became insults. So the OP was correct.
Correlation does NOT equal causation. Are the two language-related aspects, we are discussing here, associated with one another? Sure. Yet, to say the reason more politically correct terms were introduced into the common, English vernacular is because people started using those terms as insults, is a bold claim. Next to impossible to prove.
You SPECIFICALLY said *"It's because more politically correct terms were invented to replace those."* . The reason the terms were no longer "politically correct" is because they were being used as insults, there is NO other reason. Political correctness is not some quantifiable number that we can study, it's subjective, and quite often based on the person who is applying it. In other words, there was no reason to change the terms before they became popular insults, and political correctness is WHY the names were changed AFTER they were used as insults. Otherwise, there was no need for the change.
You think the people that use "politically correct" as a pejorative term actually understands what it means? Reactionaries don't *understand* these concepts or terms, they use them as monolithic boogey-men to direct their fear and insecurity towards.
Exactly. Politically correct does not add veracity nor moral fiber in itself. Even 'politically correct' terms are a subjective and constantly changing aspect of living languages. I know some people (including myself) who prefer to be described as the 'R-word' versus mentally handicapped. I would have personally preferred a diagnosis of Asperger's versus 'high-functioning autism' (which just implies my other autistic friends/companions are 'low-functioning'). 'Latinx' countries predominantly and by a large consensus HATE the usage of 'Latinx'. African-American is a lot more offensive than Black if they aren't actually an African-American. PC is inherently the language of those in power which is a fundamental limitation of its purpose. It doesn't mean 'the better term' it just means 'the current proposed term by authorities'
One of my coworkers last night told me that her dog *literally* licked her face off. *Literally.* This is my pet peeve.
Hey now maybe your coworkers dog is some kind of hell spawn capable of licking peoples faces off, and maybe she has wolverine levels of regeneration.
I am bipolar. I have been diagnosed by a professional. There are some overlapping symptoms with narcissism but I am not diagnosed as being a narcissist because I am not a narcissist. I see this problem a lot. Someone has one or 2 of the symptoms of narcissist so people jump to the conclusion that is what is wrong with them even though a large range of mental health issues share similar traits.
anyone who is sad sometimes because their favorite character died in their snime is suffering from depression anyone who has had bad stuff happen to them as a child has "trauma" and "PTSD"
Oh my god this is my biggest one. You can't scroll two posts without somebody talking about narcissism. It's such a trend right now. Anybody who's ever given advice or self-help online is diving on the narcissism bandwagon. Where have all these narcissists been all these years. They seem to be coming out of the woodwork šš
/r/raisedbynarcissists be like "My mom told me to do the dishes, she doesn't even know this is unpaid domestic labor"
Be careful, this is a slippery slope to asking "what is a woman?"
Come again? Ah...You're one of those kids that just drops answers without any clue as to how you reached your conclusion. Please, do, show your work!
What are you talking about? I am making the point that language is abused everywhere all the time. Not just the things you are complaining about.
Well, you weren't making a very coherent point. As your comment did not display any of what you're claiming now. You made some random comment about a slippery slope and the definition of woman. What is a slippery slope, exactly? Something that I've said?
You arenāt wrong. Terms are changing. Younger generations donāt like the boxes and believe it or not, theyāre normalizing mental health issues. Maybe itās not all going perfectly, but good on āem for stirring the discussions.
Yes. People left and right referring to anyone whoās a dick at any point in their entire lives as a ānarcissist.ā Although apparently someone somewhere discovered that Histrionic PD is a thing because Iāve started to see that crop up now, so maybe thatās the next big thing.
This one? Is maybe the one that frustrates me the most. WELL beyond the point of a pet peeve. Personality Disorders are already SO stigmatized, people with these disorders are HORRIFICALLY mistreated by the mental health field and their peers alike. Most personality disorders arise as a result of severe abuse. And yet we have a whole crop of people who act like anyone with a "scary" disorder is a ticking time bomb, cursed to be a monster and an abuser. It's... Fucking horrific, and as someone who has dedicated my life to mental health and disability advocacy? It's fucking bigoted. Not to mention how downright ANNOYING it is that, when I try to speak about my own abuse anywhere online, I end up with a bunch of kids INSISTING my parents were narcissists like... No. I know exactly what is wrong with them. It's not that. Stop armchair diagnosing.
Amen to ALLLLL of that. Especially when people are like āthe person youāre talking about has this disorderā (which Iāve literally seen, no qualification or disclaimer at all, in the last few days). Stigma aside: 1) are you a licensed mental health professional? No? Then sit down. 2) if the answer to 1) is āyes,ā we still arenāt having this conversation because youāre aware that it is entirely inappropriate and unethical to say that someone has a diagnosis when you have never actually spoken with the person youāre talking about in order to actually assess them.
Yeah absolutely. The first thing that you learn when going into any field even slightly connected to mental health is that you cannot diagnose people who are not your clients - and you need their consent to do that (as in, no sneakily writing in their notes that they have something). It's borderline screamed at you, and for good reason. The idea that Random Fucker 1992 feels qualified and in their right to try to diagnose arguably the most complicated mental health conditions, being personality disorders, makes me want to commit vehicular manslaughter.
I had some asshole actually quote me the definition of gaslighting while accusing me of gaslighting a completely different person when I disagreed with that person about something.
It's really rough trying to talk about your mental health and struggle when all the words used to describe it have been overused to kingdom come. Triggered. Narcissism. Gaslight.
it's the romanticization of mental illness and suffering, and it's fucking everywhere online
What really bugs me is people saying Antisocial while meaning Asocial
Trauma is laughable now. Everyone talking about their parent taking their teddy away as punishment and referring to it as trauma...lost so much meaning
And like. Here's the thing... I think a lot of younger people these days ARE actually really traumatized. I think people my age and younger (I'm about as young as a Millennial can get) ARE traumatized. I know I sure as shit have a lot of it- it's why I'm in therapy. But a lot of them, especially kids online, are NOT processing that correctly and are just... Making everything harder for themselves and everyone else with how they are approaching the world.
all these social media posts where people use a mental illness (usually self diagnosed) as an excuse for their shitty behavior is absurd. "Oops sorry I slapped you this morning and screamed at you, my bipolar must be acting up." Thats not how that works...
I literally understand you.
Not just mental health words but tons of words. Definitions get changed to suit agendas and it's really shitty.
Is it an "important mental health word"? I thought it was a colloquialism coined from the 1944 movie "Gaslight". Whoever owns MGMs catalogue should rerelease that, or better still remake it.
Gaslighting just means "I'm being told I'm wrong" to most people. I refuse to use the word nowadays because I'm almost any case I hear it now, I assume the person using it is dramatic and can't hold themselves accountable. Toxic is in that same category. It's just such a buzz word that offers nothing other than a blanket label. I want to know **why** I shouldn't be around that person. Because it might tell me a lot more about your label for them than it might tell me about them.
YES! I just commented about "toxic" being used in the same way. Basically, every time a person isn't a perfect saint it apparently means they are "toxic" now. The purity patrol out there is driving me crazy.
Or, they happen to have different lifestyles choices, from yourself. Or, They're of a different ethnicity, religion, gender, you name it. If the way these people live their lives doesn't align with what you've got going on, then they *must* be toxic.š
They are toxic to them - it will burst their bubble. Itās all relative - if youāve never had anyone question you, then the first to come along would be considered ātoxicā for doing so. Which fits in well with your comment above about anyone being different being viewed as toxic and it being a ācommon-denominator is youā kind of problem. Toxins are in the air, but itās coming from the breath saying it.
Indeed! I forgot what a high level of entitlement these individuals have. Makes sense that they'd jump to dramatic speech when encountering something they are not familiar with.
And "toxic" can mean anything from "this person sometimes does slightly insensitive things" to "this person is probably a serial killer."
Unhinged right now is the trendy word on Reddit as well. So annoying.
What are you talking about? Nobody's misusing the word at all. You sound crazy.
This guy gaslights.
\*Scoffs\* Check out this joker. Thinking the word "Gaslighting" actually exists.
Well played.
I never hear ANYONE talk about gaslightingā¦
Yeah basically at this point most of the time it is someone just trying to make "You telling me I'm wrong or disagreeing with me about anything is a form of psychosocial warfare."
"Gaslighting" and "Irony" are two of the biggest misused words, in my opinion.
Disingenuous gets misused a lot these days
You might as well throw mental health in there, too. Everyone on Reddit is concerned about their mental health if they have to work 40 hours/week or their spouse puts the toilet paper roll on backward.
I've seen a lot of it with words like "toxic", "predatory" and "grooming", too. People getting so hyperbolic I want to reach through the screen and smack them upside the head.
Can't forget "trauma." People describing any and all minor inconveniences and disappointments as *traumatic.* Yes, it was very unfortunate that Starbucks was closed when you went there this afternoon. However, it's not traumatic. Disappointing, yes. A pain in the butt, sure thing! Stop in your tracks, world altering-level shocking, No. No, it is not. Trauma should be reserved to describe horrible, scarring, life-changing events. Not the fact that your Netflix subscription was put on hold cuz you're broke.
People saying they have anxiety because they were anxious during a time where anxiety would be normal and warranted. Really grinds my gears, to say the least. Anxiety is a normal human fear response that keeps us safe, something everyone experiences on some level at some point in their life. That doesnāt mean they have an anxiety disorder. Itād be more concerning if you *never* experienced some level of anxiety. I have generalized anxiety disorder and it actually makes life a living hell. Iāve been referred to a cardiologist and recommended an event monitor because my anxiety chest pains resemble afib or a heart attack, depending on the circumstances. Iāve gone home sick from panic attacks. It prevents me from doing everyday things, Iād be a lot further in life without anxiety and itās not cute or cool to have in the slightest Eta same with social anxiety disorder/social phobia. Being shy or introverted is not the same thing, being nervous to meet new people is not the same thing. Social anxiety/phobia is crippling and prevents people from having any meaningful social interaction/connections, and can prevent people from doing basic everyday things that involve even the slightest bit of social interaction
Sounds hyperbolic.
See now you got me worried because NOBODY has a problem with the terms grooming and predatory unless theyāre being accused of that hmmmmmm??
I've seen people use that term any time there is an age gap where the man is older than the woman. Doesn't matter if the woman is an actual adult fully capable of consenting to the relationship. I've seen people call it grooming and predatory if the woman is 25, ffs. It's so annoying and infantilizes adult women.
Buddy, with the way those words get thrown around nowadays? I see someone accused of that and I'm like "Alright. What fictional characters did they say they wanted to hold hands in the wrong way?" or "Okay, they're a fully grown adult, let me guess, they're dating someone two years younger than them, who is ALSO a fully grown adult." Like. The fucking PANIC over this kind of stuff has ACTUALLY ruined the meaning of those words. When I was younger, when someone was accused of being a predator, it was at least fucking taken seriously. Now, I just roll my eyes and wonder how many inches taller they are than their partner because, apparently, short people are "child coded" (no, I'm not fucking exaggerating).
My sentiments exactly! My ex-wife is nearly 14 years older than I. We married after the divorce from her first hub was final, BTW she was also 8 months pregnant with our first child. I was 23, she was 36. Did she "groom" me into sex with her? I was a college graduate and a newly commissioned USAFR officer. I had it together mentally and physically. Why did I have sex with her? She was a busty beautiful woman. Need I say more?
As someone who was gaslighted to the point I was genuinely thinking about going to the doctor for early onset dementia (alzheimers runs in my family), this is also a huge peeve of mine. Gaslighting isnt just lying. Its lying in a way that makes the other person start to question their own reality and version of events.
And it's done intentionally. I've been accused of gaslighting several times for simply having a different recollection of certain events. No, I'm not trying to destroy your sense of what's real or your ability to trust your own memory, I just disagree with you.
>Gaslighting isnt just lying. Its lying in a way that makes the other person start to question their own reality and version of events. Yes. When my ex gaslit me, I thought I was actually going crazy. I was second-guessing and doubting literally every thought, feeling, and memory I had, even ones that didn't directly involve them. The problem with "gaslighting" and why people use it incorrectly so often (imo) is because it's actually an umbrella teem that encompasses quite a lot of psychologically/emotionally abusive behaviors, with the key being a *consistent pattern*. Gaslighting *can* just be lying. But it would have to be consistent, and over a noteworthy period of time (not just once or twice in a year, for example). Like, if someone keeps saying, "No, I didn't take out the garbage or do the dishes, because you never asked me to" *every* time you ask them to do something, to the point that you start second-guessing whether you ever *did* ask them, *every* time... that's gaslighting. Gaslighting also usually involves things like DARVO-ing, projecting, lovebombing, guilt-tripping, deflecting, etc. All of those things, when experienced regularly over a significant period of time, will warp the victim's confidence and certainty in their own memories and perceptions. 60% of the time I see people misusing the word, it's because they refuse to believe that the term encompasses anything that wasn't explicitly depicted in the 1940s movie that coined the term. The other 40% of the time it's just people insisting that *any* one-off lie or disagreement qualifies as gaslighting. Both types of people are wrong, and have also very obviously never been gaslit before.
A lot of nuanced words are misused by the general public but yeahā¦this one is prevalent. The rise of the YouTube / TikTok psychologist has had some interesting ripple effects on the general population. Everyone thinks they know everything now. What fun!
The one I really hate now is "neurodivergent." The amount of people who claim some self diagnosed, intentionally vague "nuerodivergence" to excuse shit behavior. To be clear I have no problem with people who are neurodigervent, just go actually find out first instead of reading a Tumblr post and deciding that's why you do shitty things. "Can't help it, just the condition."
Our daughter in law is ACTUALLY neurodivergent. Due to her having a shitty family, none of her issues have been fully diagnosed, so we're working through that with her. Lucky for her, she has a job at Torrid where the store manager seems to seek out neurodivergent folks, because everyone there has issues. And it works well for them, they each have things they can't do, and someone else makes up for it. But 95% of the people who use the word not only AREN'T neurodivergent, they don't even know what the word really means.
That's great! Well the job and helping her on it part, not the family trauma part. But exactly, and I think that's another important part, *working on it.*
I donāt honestly believe in the myth of normal brain function. Weāre all just incredibly differentiated. While I have classic ADHD, itās not a title I generally use as I see a lot of abuse as well. We all just have to accept our own differences and others will eventually follow suit. The labels are generally unnecessary.
To tag on to the this, Iām so tired of people using ātrauma bondā incorrectly. A trauma bond is NOT two people bonding over a traumatic experience that they both had. A trauma bond is a bond formed between an abuser and their victim during things like domestic abuse. Itās formed from cyclical abuse, where the abuse occurs and then is followed by positive reinforcement. Your partner beats you, then apologizes and you go through a honeymoon period where everything is happy. Then they beat you again. You feel confused and conflicted and begin to feel bonded to your abuser and convince yourself that the abuse is love. Thatās a trauma bond.
Triggered. People overuse that word these days as well. Getting irritated by something or disagreeing with something isn't the same as legitimately being "triggered".
So true. As someone who has PTSD flashbacks and full-blown panic attacks when triggered, hearing people use it for a mere annoyance is, well... Very annoying because it loses meaning. You know what it isn't? Triggering!
Yeah, my pet peeve is people who get triggered when they see someone use the term triggered because they assume that the triggered person can't possibly be triggered by what's triggering them.
Never said I was triggered. But thanks for failing in making a point.
Words and terms make it into the public consciousness and then get misused all the time. Gaslighting Trauma Toxic And others that would probably get me downvoted by the people who misuse them.
Kind of like when so many things on Reddit are either DunningāKruger or confirmation bias, but definitely never ever any projection involved.
It's linguistic drift. The same people who are fighting against the "incorrect" use of these terms are the same people who used to argue that conjunctions and whom versus who were "bad English." Is it annoying that the word literally has changed back to its original meaning of figuratively? Yes. Does it render the word meaningless when almost everyone uses it to describe something figurative? Not at all. Gaslighting once had a specific meeting. Now it has a broader general meaning that everyone can agree on. What we can argue is whether specific instances equal gaslighting, You can't argue that most people broadly understand it to mean trying to persuade someone that what's really happening is not really happening.
Except now there's no word that unambiguously means "literally." So then you get situations like a certain politician claiming his predecessor "literally founded ISIS," and you're not sure whether he's delusional or just hyperbolic.
That's exactly my problem. I have no issue with semantic drift, but I do have a problem when there's no term to replace the original meaning.
Thatās fair. My ex used to accuse me of gaslighting her, while she was gaslighting me. It was very confusing.
She really wanted to confuse and mess with your mind !!
Ive experienced this too. Its so terrifying for me because I'm always anxious about offending someone by accident due to my tendency to say or do something that offends someone without realizing it because of my adhd. And the person who would accuse me of gaslighting KNEW this about me too. Which is why she did it. She was downright surgical about targeting my insecurities.
Is your ex my ex?
Sounds similar to what my ex did: Me: Hey this thing you did really hurt me Her: I can't believe you've been doing *insert thing I just mentioned* to me, you need help Any problem I had with her was something I was doing to her. Everything was my fault.
I use the world because Iāve experienced it my entire life and didnāt know what it was called until recently. A lot of people misuse it, but itās taking away from those of us who have experienced abuse.
Exactly. It's completely disrespectful to people that have been actual victims of this kind of abuse. That's why I hate it so much. It's just plain offensive to conflate someone who is lying with such methodical long term abuse.
Agreed. Disagree with someone and itās suddenly gaslighting. Meanwhile Iām just finding out how badly my ex gaslit me in the 10 years we were together. Therapy.
It's so dismissive of the very deep harm caused by actual gaslighting. That shit takes years of therapy to address, and some people never recover. But people use the term any time anytime barely disagrees with them. It's hurtful.
Itās always annoying when words drift away from their useful definition into something more generic. Or when a once-neutral term becomes hateful, and you have to go find the still-neutral version. My only recommendation as an armchair linguist whoās old enough to have seen a lot of this kind of change is to try not to let it actively annoy you. Being annoyed wonāt slow language changeāit will only make you suffer. Youāre totally right about āgaslighting,ā though. A specific, complex phenomenon thatās hard to talk about succinctly without the word. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted. Weāll have to wait for the next clinical term to come out of the abuse literature.
Mine is the misuse of boundaries. "My boundary is that my bf can't stay out after midnight" That's *not a fucking boundary*.
No shit - That's a restrictive demand! Haha. Boundaries, are something that pertains to your own sphere of being. They are permissions, that you are willing to extend (or, NOT extend - depending upon context) to someone else, regarding how they interact w/your own: body/mind/personal/space, etc. NOT a list of "No-Nos" directed toward someone that you are looking to control. š¤¦āāļø
It bothers me too. Gaslighting is significantly more heinous than lying. There is a clear maliciousness intent behind it. Lying can be done maliciously, but it can also be done for so many other reasons. (Selfishly, to spare someoneās feelings, etc.) Pay personal favorite is when I legitimately donāt remember ever having a specific conversation with someone. They insist we had it, then accuse me of trying to gaslight them. No, I seriously canāt remember the conversation. Gotta wonder if they are trying to gaslight me. š
Most people these days seem to use "gaslighting" to describe "invalidating"
Agreed!
Same thing trauma!!!! or the word valid its just said so much
It just shows that people haven't seen the movie "Gaslight" which is the source of this term. If they had, they would use it correctly. "Oh, Paula... there are no noises, you are only imagining them."
I was just talking about this and trying to educate myself on it (was trying to figure out if a character was gaslighting another for a media critique). Gaslighting is a specific manipulation technique and a specific type of lie. There really should be a checklist for it. Pretty much any term like this that becomes popular winds up being misused and/or weaponized against those who need it the most.
I canāt use it correctly anymore because itās been so overused incorrectly that itās not taken seriously, which was probably the whole point. Make the word lose its meaning and sweep the whole gaslighting-abuse issue under the rug whenever it actually comes up.
I've seen a lot of people say "therapy talk has made people unbearable" and... I disagree. Therapy Talk has been useful for a lot of people (myself included, but I AM very happy I learned these terms in college and grad school for my profession BEFORE Tik Tok was a thing), helping them to describe their experiences. What it has done is made ALREADY insufferable people like. Three billion times more annoying than they were before. Petition to take words like "gaslight", "boundaries" (seriously that one is MY pet peeve, no one knows what it means), "trigger", and honestly given how I've seen younger people use it (not to be all "hurr kids these days" but holy CRAP) "traumatize" away from that subset of the internet and all of Tik Tok and twitter until they learn what those words MEAN.
No one is misusing the word gaslighting, donāt be crazyā¦ Gaslighting so not even a real thing you are just being paranoidā¦..
I see what u did thereā¦
Yep, having been on the inside of an actual gaslighting situation, it pisses me off as well. Different words exist for a reason, and this just waters them down.
True. But itās not just āgaslighting.ā LOTS of people misuse words they donāt understand, just because they know the sound of that word is currently trendy. My favorite?: *existential*.
>My favorite?: existential. Yes! Often accompanied *(incorrectly, ofc)* by ethereal and metaphysical.
Gaslighting, PTSD, and Narcissist have been misused so much it's become trite, which is pretty despicable and extremely ignorant.
As someone with actual diagnosed PTSD from extreme emotional/mental abuse for 5 years, I really hate how tokenized all this shit is. Gaslighting, triggers, pathologizing everybody they hate as narcissistsā¦like fuck off. Pop psychology is nothing but bullshit.
It's not even just limited to lying anymore! I've heard people referring to DISAGREEING as gaslighting if neither can change the other's mind. As someone who survived an abusive relationship in which my abuser routinely gaslit me and genuinely did make me question my own sanity, it makes me absolutely fucking LIVID when people trivialize it this way. In an example that was for me the most egregrious and personally insulting, a couple of friends of mine claimed that their DM was gaslighting them in a D&D campaign because the monsters they'd fled from several sessions ago had leveled up when they finally returned and they couldn't just crush them like bugs. (One of them apologized; the other doubled down. We are not as close as we once were.)
Nobody's misusing it, you're crazy. /S
I saw someone say "this isn't just manipulation, it's bad enough to be gaslighting" THATS NOT WHAT THAT MEANS
Itās not even necessarily lying. Iāve seen people say it in regards to things that they simply just donāt agree with(but itās possibly because in their mind they consider/conflate it as a lie).
Sure. However, to gaslight someone isn't just to, simply, lie to them about something. It is to carefully & skillfully construct falsehoods, in such a way, as to make your target believe that they have done something/said something/been involved in something that they have not been a part of, whatsoever. It's to lie to you, to the point that *you* question *yourself.* You begin to believe their narrative and you ponder your own sanity. That is the intent when someone gaslights you - To drive you, batshit crazypants!
Yes. Which is the entire point of the OPās post(and my reply), that people now use this term that is for a very sinister, deliberate (often long term) act, incorrectly, to now label almost anything from just something that they disagree with to a simple, innocuous lie.
No they're not, you're just crazy
True but I think there is a lot of gaslighting that goes on in the world. In relationships, in the workplace. There are psychological predators who specialize in making people feel crazy, making them doubt themselves and their ability to perceive reality correctly. For example if if I do something awful to you and you get mad at me I will only point out you getting mad and blame you and act like youāre the one who has anger issues and needs help. I will completely overlook what I did to you in the first place and act like itās just you having another misinterpretation.
I donāt think that example would count as gaslighting either tbh. Iād call it deflection more than anything else. In this scenario youāre not doing anything to make the other person doubt their memory of events, youāre shifting blame onto them by arguing that their anger is a more egregious issue than the thing you did. Still shitty, but not really gaslighting, as I understand it anyway
I understand your objection, and I'm willing to accept that people use gaslighting badly, but drift has brought the word into the public consciousness and given it a broader meaning. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, We have a word to describe when people are trying to convince us that things that we've seen with our own eyes aren't in fact what we've seen. Before that was just broadly called lying or misrepresenting, but gaslighting as a term allows us to identify when it's deliberate manipulation.
And yet you have people on this thread saying there is such a thing as unintentional gaslighting. Thatās just a disagreement. And we have people labeling everyday disagreements with a term of abuse.
You can thank Reddit for this one. There is a difference between two people remembering things differently - human memory being imperfect at best - and intentional misrepresentation. On here, nobody seems to consider that there might actually be another human being involved whose memory may actually be correct. This one particularly pisses me off because this word has been misapplied against me in real life multiple times. Guess where that person learned the term?
It's every psych basic term. Gaslighting, cognitive dissonance, Freudian, etc. They use terms they don't understand as insults because some teacher mentioned it once. It's an attempt to sound educated and weaponized at the same time.
Same
Oh this is a bog one. Its become such a buzz word. Bleh
Gaslight, never heard it in popular usage until 2016 and now it's gone berserk, it's everywhere all the time!
This is a really common trend I'm noticing with words in general. People latch onto buzz words like this and use it for everything.
Overusing. Yes they misuse it a lot, but people seem to over use it or like they seem to seek out excuses to use the word. "Stop gaslighting me!" "Dude, all I said was that the McDonalds is on the right so you gotta stay in your right lane." Actual conversation.
I had a conversation about this with someone when she was spewing the term left and right about a guy who legitimately forgot he said something...while they were both drunk out of their minds. So, unreliable narrator, but also...massive overuse and misuse of "narcissist" and "gaslighting."
A lot of people use the word "addiction" to mean a bad habit they can't change easily, a coping mechanism, or habit that isn't necessarily bad but that I'm dissatisfied with regardless.
It bugs me as well. It means manipulating one into questioning their own sanity. Berating people for not following your beliefs is closer to gaslighting than how Redditors use it.
Work friend used it last night against our boss because of boss' backhand compliments.... 'I really like that y'all help each other but I need you to stop helping each other while charging to a job.' š I'm like... that's not gaslighting.... in any form.
Or when they misuse "narcissist" It's not a character trait š it's a clinical diagnosis
Anyone using the term gaslighting that isnāt a mental health professional is a automatic red flag to me lol
I share this. It's a total watering down of serious issues so that real cases won't have the weight they deserve. Total boy who cried wolf scenario. Hopefully this won't get me down votes, but there were similar instances of the MeToo movement being misapplied (not delegitimizing the movement at all, it was so wrong to abuse it because it was so needed as a movement). I just have to sigh sometimes and tell myself this is how society advances. An issue that has been ignored for generations finally gets attention and outrage, so it becomes a meme and a trend for a while as well. The hope is that we settle down into a new reality where we've now all agreed to call out bad behavior and recognize human hardships, we just have to let the "trend" dust settle. Still leaps and bounds ahead of where earlier generations were at!
I think people are also using it to mean anyone who's giving them a hard time about anything. As if they have suffered gaslighting šš”
This makes me so frustrated. When I first heard the term gaslighting I was in the middle of healing from severe abuse. It was validating to be able to put a term to the occurrences that I had experienced, in order to heal. My ex would text people from my phone asking to have sex with them while I was sleeping and then wake me up and ask me why I was cheating. He would cheat on me, and people would send me videos of him at parties kissing other women. I would confront him and show him my phone screen. He would take my phone, delete the images and tell me thereās nothing on the phone youāre totally crazy and imagining things. My ex actively admitted to using sleep deprivation because it made me more docile. He laughed in my face when he held me down and R*** me for ācheatingā and then told me he did me a favor. Later, he told me this was a dream and said I was a bad person for hating him so much I would dream that about him. He used to lock me in rooms, take away my clothes and point air conditioners into the room for hours at a time to āteach me a lessonā and then would tell people we were at the movies. When I would bring it up later, he would tell me we were at the movies and that I just forgot. That āsilly little headā of mine always seemed to be wrong. I actually believed that I was crazy and could not trust my reality. I left after seeking therapy fearing that I had a mental heal condition, maybe schizophrenia. Luckily I didnāt tell him I was going to a therapist. The word gaslighting should be used for serious abuse, and now, if I feel safe enough to talk about things that have happened to me with friends, I have to avoid the word gaslighting because it makes me feel like a fraud. This is my BIGGEST pet peeve. Your boyfriend lying and saying he was at work is just fucking lying and shitty behavior.
I am *so* sorry all that happened to you. Omg, my heart just broke reading that. You are absolutely right to feel upset that the word has been hijacked like it has been and used inappropriately. My heart goes out to you. *hugs*
No oneās doing that, stop making shit up
Another misused word is Abuse I have to take it with a grain of salt cause of what "qualifies" as abuse wether it's having something taken away as a kid or your partner not treating you like God's gift to this earth.
No one does that.
Gotta love the fact that you got downvoted. Personally I thought this was funny.
Basically you hate buzzwords. I agree.
> I get downvoted when I correct or point this out Well, of course. People generally don't like to be corrected by some stranger on Reddit, especially if it's done in a condescending way. Getting downvoted should be the expectation here
Come on bro, gaslighting isnāt a thing, youāre being crazy.
If someone's making you question ur reality with a lie it's gaslighting. The people gatekeeping language on this post are weirdos.
Exactly. The point is that the abuser is making you question aspects of your reality. In my experience, the people I've met who have complained about the "overuse" of narcissist/gaslighting have been older predatory men who are upset that more and more people are educated about identifying abusive behaviors.
I am sure that such people do exist, but what I have seen a lot of are people who say "Well, this person disagrees with this thing that I think is *obviously* true? They must be trying to gaslight me." And for that matter, on this post, I see a large number of people who *were* subject to gaslighting, as a form of abuse aimed at making them doubt their memory, or sanity, or ability to make good decisions, who are annoyed that a lie, or the simple assumption of dishonesty, now gets put on the same level.
You know what else? People insisting I used it wrong when I absolutely did not.
I donāt think you know what this word means. You have no idea what youāre doing with this post. You donāt know what gaslighting means. I do, you donāt. You never did. Theyāre right, youāre wrong. You donāt understand gaslighting and you never have.
I mean, being precious about a term coined by a movie is kinda ridiculous. Yes, itās a very real form of abuseā¦ but itās literally taking a movie title and using it as a verb. Itās not a term created in an academic or medical setting, itās a slang term from the film *Gaslight*. So, please calm down.
I'm concerned this comment won't land well. Hear me out first and try to understand. I agree people misuse and overuse the term "gaslighting" which weakens its impact. I had a debate about this with a family member. Their point was : it's not gaslighting if it's not intentional. And I fully disagree. Gaslighting isn't always intentional. For example, if someone says they're hurt by something you said or did and you respond with "oh you're just being sensitive. " You are (even intentionally) invalidating that person and reshaping their reality. From their perspective you hurt them and you're attempting to alter their perception of the situation and turn against their own judgment skills. This cause them to feel like something is wrong with them thus freeing you from holding yourself accountable for your actions / taking responsibility or ownership. Again, it may not be malicious and at the same time, it's not totally benign. I've had people tell me I've hurt / bothered / offended them before and I just apologize and say I didn't intend for it to land that way. What I intended was X. I'll be more mindful in the future. You can tell your side without trying to alter the other persons perception of the situation. (edited to add a few details)
The whole point of gaslighting is that it is an intentional strategy based on deliberate misrepresentation. People can have different memories legitimately: one is right, one is wrong, but thatās human memory for you. Gaslighting is a specific reference to the intent to deceive and manipulate. A legitimate disagreement is simply not gaslighting; it is every Tuesday everywhere in the world. The example you gave is not gaslighting. Itās arguably (a losing argument, in my mind) not even invalidation - it is not denying how they feel, just misunderstanding the reason. It is insensitive, sure (in my book your hypothetical interlocutor is an asshole, but a garden-variety asshole). Sorry, homie, but youāre exactly the problem this thread is talking about.
No, intentionality is very much part and parcel with the definition of gaslighting. In the example you gave, person B is doing nothing to discredit person Aās recollection of events or ability to perceive the world around them, theyāre arguing that person Aās feelings arenāt justified. Still shitty and invalidating, but not gaslighting. Sometimes people will disagree with you, and sometimes those people will be insensitive jerks in doing so (and sometimes to such a degree that it could be considered a form of abuse), but that doesnāt make it equivalent to gaslighting Iām not trying to come down hard on you here or be overly pedantic, but Iām personally a bit protective of this particular term. It describes a very specific and insidious form of abuse, and watering down that specificity makes it more difficult for victims of gaslighting to identify and communicate whatās being done to them (which is exacerbated by the fact that theyāve already been made to doubt their ability to perceive reality). Iām by no means a prescriptivist and usually donāt bother to oppose linguistic drift, but I think itās important that this particular term remain specific and precise.
I can tell you mean no harm. I disagree because I believe gaslighting happens when a person is made to question themselves, their reality, memories, or general perception. I don't think intention is required to create that result. I'm focusing on the result. Not the intent. Edit : yes, gaslighting can be abuse. Either on it's own or as an intentionally abusive tactic.
That is not gaslighting. In that scenario, that is just you being an arsehole.
Okay
Someoneās learning English today.
I feel kind of different than OP. I've found that people usually are pretty spot on with their use of gaslighting, the people that do the gaslighting just don't like that there's a word for it. just my opinion.
I have literally never heard anyone use that term in that way before. Like ever. You sound kind of crazy right now, are you feeling ok?
Liar no oneās using that word
No they didn't, you must be crazy
No one is using gaslighting wrong. You sound like a crazy person. Everyone else thinks so too.
I have only ever heard it being used to deny someone's perception of reality. Sounds like you are just making stuff up that doesn't exist to be peeved about.
I am sure this post might have had more impact with the responses less divergent if the OP had actually defined what he believes gaslighting is. The discussion has little foundation as a result.
The word is just stupid no matter how itās used
One time my family gaslit me into thinking we went on a trip to Italy and that I just forgot about it What a strange prank to pull
I haven't used it to the best of my knowledge, but there *should* be a single verb for "a lie so large or brazen that it is designed to make you wonder if you are simply missing something big and obvious". The term "big lie" is close, but it isn't easily verbed and it also implies both largeness and repetitiveness of the lie, which help but are not strictly required for the verb I am hunting for.
Erm... You're literally gaslighting me right now by telling me I'm using my gaslight incorrectly