Why is everyone suddenly using the term ‘gaslighting’ for absolutely everything?

[OolieMacdoolie]

The term ‘gaslighting’ has a very specific meaning - it’s a form of manipulation in which a person causes another to doubt their perceptions, memories and beliefs by using denial, misdirection, contradiction and disinformation.

But I see it all the time on mumsnet to refer to any number of usually much more benign things - someone disagrees with you about something? Gaslighting. Someone points out that you forgot to do something? Gaslighting. Someone had a difference of opinion about a subject of debate? Gaslighting.

Is it just in vogue at the moment? Or do people think it legitimises their position in a dispute if they can characterise a routine disagreement as someone actually trying to psychologically destroy them?

No, I think “you do you” is genuinely new. Used in a neutral and friendly way to mean “that wouldn’t be my personal choice, but sure, if it’s what floats your boat then go ahead, it has no effect on my life.” I think it’s a useful phrase. But it’s often used in a disparaging way.

@Rummikub

I dislike ‘you do you’. Agree it’s dismissive.

Yes, I agree it sounds dismissive but it sort of sounds like coming from a very entitled place too. I mean, imagine turning round irl and saying to someone 'I do me'... I remember I had a friend when I was about 10 and I didn't know her parents well but we were in her house once and she told her dad something minor (can't recall what was said, so clearly fairly insignificant). His response was "Doesn't matter. You look Number 1"(meaning her.) I thought at the time as a child myself, what a rude, selfish thing to say. It's stayed with me. That's what "You do you" is similar to, comes from the same place.

*After Number 1

I’m ok with ‘whatever floats your boat’. I don’t have the same reaction to it as you do you.

@Rummikub

I’ve only noticed it recently. Had it said to me 😱

What did you dare to do?

😂 I’m trying to remember now.
It was said to me by a good friend. I did laugh it off - on the outside only!

YANBU. I've started noticing it being used a lot recently too. And it's very frustrating. It means a specific type of abuse. Me saying I don't remember you asking me to pick up milk, because I forgot or wasn't listening is not abuse. It's just and me being a bit rubbish. Gaslighting is deliberately setting out to fuck with someone's head.
I guess its over use is part of a natural human behaviour to exaggerate, but it does rather diminish actual Gaslighting. It's tricky because stuff all exists on a continuum, and even the lower end has an effect. But it's been annoying me too lately.

@Happycat1212

Orgasmagorical

It should be the people who claim their ex is a narcissist just because they don’t like them that put you off saying it, not me for pointing it out that not every single persons ex is a narcissist 🙄 it’s a rare condition

Sorry, I wasn't having a go at you.

If you're not married to a gaslighting narc you're not on Mumsnet.

Orgasmagorical

It’s my mistake I read your post wrong

I agree.
Narcissism and gaslighting are awful things and are not as common (thankfully) as people claim. It does an injustice to the people that have genuinely suffered from this sort of behaviour by just calling the average dickhead a ‘Narcissist’. Narcissism and gaslighting is more than just not being very nice.

@Bbq1

While we're here, I would add 'Could it be Autism/Aspergers?' usually suggested in response to an adult showing 'unreasonable' behaviour. That is really offensive to people who have Autism and their loved ones and i think it is because so may people don't understand what Autism really is and truly means

Thank you for posting this - yes it really is offensive and upsetting and propagates the unfair and inaccurate understanding of autism.

There’s a horrific long running thread in relationships where autistic partners are discussed openly and extremely pejoratively. Apparently we all “love-bomb” our partners as they become our “special interest”. Then we gaslight them when we deny we ever behaved differently. And we’re also narcs on many occasions too. The vast majority of these partners not having any diagnosis - it’s just the unhappy partner who has decided they are autistic.

The armchair diagnosing is so dangerous - and completely undermines the legitimate diagnoses.

Everything is misogynistic, too.
Literally everything.

Also a great song by Steely Dan

Here's an example of the very real impact the overuse of these words have.

My mother was (is, but I'm no longer in contact) a true narcissist who gaslighted me basically my whole life.she also physically abused me and I get horrid physical flashbacks.

I'm was in a trauma therapy session recently and want to say that X event triggered a flashback. Except I couldn't. It felt totally wrong to use the word that people use for such small things. It in no way conveyed the depth of what happened in that moment. So I found myself struggling to describe it.

Similarly I am embarrassed to say, even in therapy to a therapist who suggested it as a possibility (not the first one who did either) that I have any experience with a narcissist. Because, isn't my mother just normal? Loads of people are narcissists. And this is damaging because of course, she brought me up to believe that she's normal and I'm wrong.

As for the gaslighting, I try and avoid using that word at all costs. I feel it sounds like I'm overreacting to the impact of it. I didn't feel that way 5 years ago, then it felt accurate.

So loads of people out there who are triggered on a daily basis by everything from the sounds of a mouse sighing to someone saying "Hello" have stolen words from victims of twisted abuse leaving them without adequate ways of describing in simple terms what happened to them.

"My truth" is another term they've done this to. It was also a word from therapy to help people who had been gaslighted massively to attempt to believe that they were allowed their own interpretation of events they experienced.

I'm actually disgusted with people who have had therapy then misuse these terms. It's usually done in a form of manipulation too.

'Introvert' seems to growing in popularity, too. Now used as a cast-iron, not to be questioned, excuse for avoiding social obligations, usually involving in-laws.

So loads of people out there who are triggered on a daily basis by everything from the sounds of a mouse sighing to someone saying "Hello" have stolen words from victims of twisted abuse leaving them without adequate ways of describing in simple terms what happened to them.

daretodenim This. I was talking to a counsellor from a specialist charity recently and the appropriate word was 'triggered' but I was desperately trying to think of another way of putting it and ended up feeling that I hadn't got across what I really wanted to say.

A lot of things are exaggerated on here:

toxic, gas lighting, abusive etc.. It is a shame because people who actually are victims to this may not be taken seriously because of the terms being used to exaggerate a situation which are not these terms.

I remember seeing a post here where a guy was 24 or 25 and he was dating someone who was 19 or 20. Apparently, he was a potential rapist. The same people who are saying this probably have parents grandparents who when they were 25+ dated someone under 18 or that person is their current mother or grandmother. But of course they won't be cancelled or called out because they are "loving" men.

It's the same for many ism's too like narcissism, racism, financial abuse and misogyny. All it does is cast the net to wide and actual injustices just gets ignored because people see the usual suspects claiming everything is a race sex for financial abuse problem and people just roll their eyes and ignore it.

YANBU, as pp said, it is the go-to phrase now for 'asshole behaviour' or even 'disliked behaviour' sometimes. As daretodenim says, it's makes actually using terms like gaslighting for purposefully malicious manipulation over a period of time feel like not enough. I'd rather things went back 'toxic' - at least that felt less like trying to diagnose people (people still did, but it felt less like it). So many useful phrases have been oversimplified and drained of their usefulness for more complicated situations because some want a weightier word for their every complaint.

Gas lighting? It's not rocket science. It's not blue sky thinking. We have to think outside the box and work this!

This made me chuckle, definitely known a few jargon lovers.

Yup, everybody is gaslighting. Or toxic. Perhaps a narcissist.

'you do you' has been used a lot in relation to covid and usually towards the person who is hand wringing about their neighbour's second time out of the house in a day and how covid will never go away with such selfish people around. It is just shorthand for 'stop worrying about what others are doing as you can't change that, just do the things that you feel you have to do.'

Same with ‘triggering’ people are now ‘triggered’ by almost everything on here. Pathetic.

@Macncheeseballs

Surely people have a right to describe a person or a situation as they see fit, no-one owns these terms, although I have to admit when a poster describes their mil, for example, as a self obsessed narcissist, I generally take it with a pinch of salt

People have the right to describe things however they want, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're right, nor does it mean people have to believe them.