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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Original poster

Tell me your gaslighting stories

75 replies

Sandra15 · 11/04/2021 18:22

I had a relationship with a guy in my 20s who was obsessed with the idea I was a cheat and hated me seeing my friends. One day he told me he had received an anonymous letter telling him all about how terrible I was, flirting all the time with different men at work and so on. It was a three page letter torn out of a spiral bound notebook. He told me it had been sent to him at work.

I knew it was a load of old pony because nobody I worked with was sufficiently interested to do that, nobody knew where he worked and it was all untrue anyway. I asked him to show me the envelope it had arrived in.

He came up with a Jiffy bag and it was his own handwriting on it in capital letters. He had written it himself using his non-dominant hand and sent it to himself. Absolutely ridiculous.

Of course this is mildly amusing not to mention stupid, but the guy went on, a year later, to beat me up and tell me he was doing it to restrain me as I was in danger of hurting myself.

OP posts:

Nowhereelsetogo90 · 12/04/2021 17:36

Telling me I was drunk when I wasn’t, every time I had so much as half a glass of wine.

Getting a second SIM card and texting himself anonymous messages accusing me of cheating in order to get me to “confess.”

Claiming to have seen me with another man with his own eyes in order to get me to “confess”. I was at the other side of the city with a bunch of other people at the time.

Using my MH against me and telling me to take my pills whenever I disagreed with him on anything he said.

Sending various texts “accidentally” meant for other people to my phone discussing my behaviour and making it look as though they were agreeing with him.

Getting his mate in another household to send me sexual messages when he was sitting beside me so he could see them and “confirm” I was cheating.

Posting social media statuses then deleting them and claiming they had never been there (Thank god for screen shots!)

Anotheruser02 · 12/04/2021 17:40

But that's what people do when they deny things or minimise isn't it. they ask the victim of their behaviour to feel like they are ott for being upset or just crazy for thinking that of them. it doesn't surely have to be elaborate, it's telling someone else that their (real) version of events isn't real.

fedup078 · 12/04/2021 17:41

@Nowhereelsetogo90

'Using my MH against me and telling me to take my pills whenever I disagreed with him on anything he said'

Yeah I used to get this a lot too

Nowhereelsetogo90 · 12/04/2021 17:44

Horrible isn’t it? So glad to be free of that!

BigButtons · 12/04/2021 17:48

mine used to make me go and have sleeps in the afternoon ( for my mental health)

JanFebAnyMonth · 12/04/2021 17:52

I’d say most of the examples on here are definitely gaslighting, ie not just lying but making out that you’ve misremembered/made something up.

The play is Gas Light, written in 1938, and actually portrays something which is not what subsequently became known as gaslighting!

JanFebAnyMonth · 12/04/2021 17:55

Iirc, the film version, is what gave rise to the psychological term.

BigButtons · 12/04/2021 17:56

@JanFebAnyMonth that's what I thought too

JanFebAnyMonth · 12/04/2021 18:03

Good summary here, although I can’t work out why I (and am sure have read similar perceptions by others elsewhere) concluded it did not show what came to be called gaslighting:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_Light

JanFebAnyMonth · 12/04/2021 18:06

But yes, I’ve experienced it too, horrible. Like much that seasoned abusers do, it’s a weird, disturbing combination of very clever and very stupid!

Doyoumind · 12/04/2021 18:08

Plain lying and manipulation isn't really gaslighting.

I experienced the real thing over years with me ex, including him telling me I was a horrible person every day, no matter what I did. He tried to make out everyone agreed I was. Although I knew in my heart it wasn't true it does wear you down and destroy your confidence.

He still regularly tries it now (despite the very limited contact we have regarding DC) but I'm a different and stronger person now and it doesn't work. He's the same angry, malicious and abusive idiot but he's wasting his time.

JackieTheFart · 12/04/2021 18:27

A boyfriend. We didn’t live together, but we had a relationship about 18 months long, with a break in the middle.

He was the type of coward who wouldn’t break up with a girl, he’d just start being meaner and meaner until she dumped him, in the meantime he’d have already started another relationship. He did it with me, I don’t know why I was surprised when he cheated on me - twice!

Anyway, the gaslighting from him was really innocuous and low level. We’d arranged to meet at a tube station - but when I got there, he’d be furious because I was late. Or he wouldn’t be there because he’d said another one. Or he’d say he would come over and then wouldn’t - and it would be my fault if I was upset because I didn’t ever remember stuff properly.

It didn’t really work on me because I had a phenomenal memory and would be able to repeat word for word what he had actually said, and I’d always ask him why he was lying, but it was horrible all the same. Unfortunately I was a very ‘cool girlfriend’ at the time, so didn’t dump him. He dumped me - twice - and both times I was devastated. It took me a long long time to get over him.

m0therofdragons · 12/04/2021 18:40

Lying and manipulation is gaslighting (changing the truth and making you feel like you’re losing your mind). Not sure why a number of posters are so insistent on undermining other posters who have clearly been in abusive relationships and feel they’ve been gaslighted. There appears to be a few nuances but generally, making you question yourself is gaslighting.

Anotheruser02 · 12/04/2021 18:59

@m0therofdragons

this. There are plenty of was to lie without asking someone to question their sanity or their normal reactions to things, there are plenty of ways to manipulate without asking someone to question themselves. Gaslighting is a certain kind of lie or manipulation sometimes more extreme than other times, I feel for anyone that has had extreme plots devised to make them look 'crazy' but really if you were punched in the face would you let someone else tell you that wasn't assault because they had their arm broken so yours was a plain old punch?

bunnychubby · 12/04/2021 19:29

Wow. Didn't realise what gaslighting was until I stumbled on here. Whenever I went out to see friends or family, he would say I've lied as I wasn't back for the time I said, even though I didn't say times I would be back. Or telling me 'we' made plans to watch film etc. Even though I didn't agree to anything as I plan days in advance to see friends and family. Arguments when I'd come home. Now (and even before covid) I'd get anxious to go out, to save the hassle I didn't. Then would tell me I'm stopping myself. Wow how much u realise over time

Original poster

Sandra15 · 12/04/2021 19:58

I started seeing a guy a few years ago who was the ex of my friend's older sister and I'd had a massive crush on him as a teenager. He did some odd things, and one was to invite me to his house (50+ miles away) for Saturday night and I was expected to stay over. There was a diversion, traffic problems etc that meant I was delayed and he went ballistic at me when I arrived late, even though I'd kept him informed through the whole journey. He'd got tickets for the Manic Street Preachers and not told me at all saying it was a surprise. A surprise that I then had to drive to, to Nottingham, having battled my way to Grantham in the dark from Barnsley, having to take loads of diversions in an area I didn't know and he accused me of messing the evening up and I got the silent treatment for the whole weekend.

Eventually after more of this, he told me (by text) he thought we weren't suited. So I agreed - he was another who wouldn't talk on the phone, so I had to email him about it, saying I agreed, sorry it didn't work, wishing him well.

I then received a tirade about how selfish I was and that it was typical of me that I made no effort, wouldn't try etc.

My own experiences, and reading stories on here particularly about OLD (which I wouldn't do myself) have made me think all I can look forward to is meeting samples that are terrible and that I'd be better off with a great circle of friends and a few cats!

OP posts:

Seadad · 12/04/2021 22:05

I think the term 'gaslighting' is very misunderstood- and often used as a substitute for deception or underhand cruelty.
You can't offer a single example because the whole issue of gaslighting is the persistent and gradual erosion of another person's grip on reality to destroy their boundaries and make them more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

So an example would be ... a partner encouraging and supporting you to get counselling to deal with your trust issues, paranoia and over active imagination...when I reality they are stealing from you and cheating on you and convincing you that you are paranoid.

AlexaStop · 12/04/2021 22:09

I saw my ex of a few years just a few days after we split up in the city centre, clearly with a new girl. Confronted him later that day and he denied it, called me crazy, said I was seeing things and he was at work all day that day.

Checked her fb and they were indeed out that day! He actually made me think I was hallucinating it!

BigButtons · 12/04/2021 22:26

My ex has now got my older dc to try and do it do me. It never bloody stops.

Starseeking · 12/04/2021 22:37

Accusing me of doing things that he'd actually done himself. Madness.

duffmcstockings · 12/04/2021 23:13

Men are pretty shit. On the whole they think the world was created for them to stand on.

Onthedunes · 12/04/2021 23:50

@BigButtons

My ex has now got my older dc to try and do it do me. It never bloody stops.

A lot do @BigButtons

Everyone has to be convinced of your madness.

sanityisamyth · 13/04/2021 06:51

A friend of mine gave me some DVDs (not in their boxes) to watch as I haven't seen many films and she thought I'd like these. This was in the days before you could download/stream anything you want! I brought them home and put them next to the TV. I told now Ex H that they were only on loan and I'd give them back after I had watched them. They disappeared. I still have no idea what happened to them. ExH convinced me that I had lost them, and he had no knowledge of them ever being in the flat. I had to admit to my friend that I lost them. She never spoke to me again. Turned out that aexH didn't like me having friends do it was his very clever way of manipulating and gaslighting me and cutting me off from my friends. There were many other examples too :(

BigButtons · 13/04/2021 09:48

@Onthedunes things have blown up massively recently. I always knew he was skewing their view of me but now they have completely bought into his narrative that I am an abusive manipulating woman.

Onthedunes · 13/04/2021 21:20

@BigButtons

It must be hell.

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