To be sick of the word gaslighting?

[NotOneOfTheInCrowd]

Thats it.

Every time someone has an experience they don’t like they say they’re being gaslighted.

People need to and look up the meaning of the word, because by throwing it around so casually has led to the trivialisation of genuine abuse.

Yes I do!

The film was an adaptation of the play by Patrick Hamilton (who wrote Hangover Square as well). Really terrifying play, as it sounds like the film is. I have seen it misused as a term on here quite a bit.

I don't think 'gaslighting' means what you think it does OP. Maybe try looking up the definition and speaking to people who use it more accurately?

What makes you think they don't understand the term?

Lmao GDPR is so true! Narcissist and gaslight drive me wild on here.

YANBU. It's a very specific type of behaviour. And it was a useful term before every person who didn't get the GP appointment they wanted decided the receptionist was gaslighting them. Hyperbolic victimhood that belittles what actual victims go through.

@NotOneOfTheInCrowd you've read my mind. I was contemplating starting just such a thread.

I've never seen gaslighting applied correctly so far on MN. In my defence, I rarely look on the Relationship threads where the real thing is more likely to be found, but it litters AIBU and Chat.

While I can see language evolves and all that, these days it's nearly always in the direction of a lack of precision, a lessening of nuance. Or in this case, just plain wrong.

Are you trying to gaslight the OP now? Or have you got the wrong end of the stick?

Gaslighting doesn’t exist. HTH.

Pmsl.

Are you sure you meant to use that phrase ? It's usually not used in this context just so you know.

Are you trying to be condescending? You don't seem to know what gaslighting is yourself.

I saw the play 'Gaslight' at the Opera House in Belfast years ago. It was absolutely brilliant, so I had a fair understanding of the term when it became fashionable a few years ago. It definitely has been watered down and corrupted in everyday conversation.

But don't get me started on OCD. People saying 'I'm a bit OCD' because they like their cushions to match or their desk to be tidy🙄 Or that awful show 'OCD Cleaners.' Not that I ever watched it, but I'd bet my house that there wasn't an OCD diagnosis in sight. And if there was, the TV company should have been sued for exploitation. It's such a debilitating illness. I had it as a teenager. DS2 is 12 and has had it for two years. He has no life and hasn't attended school since June. So people can fuck right off with their 'little bit OCD.'

Not read the whole thread, but before I joined Mumsnet, I'd never heard of the term gaslight, and I only became aware of its meaning because of the context posters were describing.

So pre Mumsnet, I might've said that I was being whitewashed or bullshitted.
Is that the same?

Pretty sure there would be a lot of disagreement around the definition of "alcoholic".

The turning up and down of the gas lamps isn't, in itself, the crux of the film or what the phrase means.

That's interesting. It's been a long time since I saw it but I thought the lights dimmed when he was in the attic and he denied it and made out she was mad. The point being she couldn't believe her own reality.

What does the phrase mean?

Now you have gone beyond, "the husband turns up and down the gas lamps in the house.", you are more or less there.

I don't understand what you mean. Gone beyond what? That's my understanding, what's yours?

I'm sick of it because my husband has discovered the word and throws it around if I ask him to do me a favour he doesn't want to do. Or if I disagree with him. The man's no bloody idea.

Gone beyond your earlier post. I was quoting your post........yes?........

You didn't quote my post. What's your interpretation? What does the phrase mean?

I think bagpuss is being deliberately difficult and you can get an accurate easy answer in 10 seconds on Google.

I know what it means, I was interested in what the poster thought it meant. I wanted to know what the crux of the film was if it wasn't the gaslight.

This is a strange one. I was very surprised to be diagnosed with PTSD. My symptoms matched, and I was definitely traumatised (I had a massive breakdown following the events) but my life had not literally been threatened.

Several years later, the concept of CPTSD emerged. It fits my situation much better - but it's still viewed as a bit of a whiner's complaint 😬 PTSD probably does fit someone who, for example, is terrified of animals after a scary encounter with an angry dog. They may end up with a phobia, but the trigger was the traumatic event.

... Aaand ... A trigger is the incident that sparked the chain of events, not some lady in the park who upset you by introducing her pooch without asking! "I was triggered" would properly mean the day you were conceived, if it means anything at all.

Sometimes I hate being a pedant. I can't help it.