Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation

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Yes. I lost count of the number of times people have told me a lie, watched me act on it, watched me get in trouble for it, and then deny that they ever said what they said.

As it is now, I don’t act on what other people say until they put it in writing — a text or an email will do — and if they refuse to put it in writing, it is ever so easy to ‘forget’ what they said and then to deny that they ever said it!

Turnabout is fair play, after all.

Passive-aggressives can utilise "gaslighting" very effectively.
I tend to attract passive-agressive personality types, btw.
As a result, I find it simpler and pragmatic not to get too involved with people in general.

Tony Attwood pointed out, in regards to the issues associated with autism, that "other people tend to be the problem" for those on the spectrum.

Consider:



http://autismnt.org.au/discover/should- ... diagnosis/

Being a minority group which is overwhelmingly considered defective by the dominant majority provokes a multitude of psychological problems.

-It is not uncommon for those on the spectrum to develop an inferiority complex, as an example.

--Young NTs are particularly driven by their emotional needs rather than their undeveloped neocortex.
Driven by their emotional needs to establish societal relevance and be in a position of dominance to service their dependency on chemicals such are serotonin, is it surprising many young NTs will revel in harassing those they perceive as different and easy targets?

--NT culture overwhelmingly values speed over substance and usually equates this with gross intelligence.
There is a tendency for some/many on the spectrum to "fake it" to keep up.
This causes a dissociation between the public persona and the actual social/philosophical skill-set of the autistic individual.
Ironically, an autistic individual may spend enormous personal resources on maintaining their emotional stability rather than focusing on self-development. (Masking?)
This is a major strategic culdesac which exacerbates the problem of ret*d self-actualisation.

Since social value systems are largely arbitrary, it is difficult not to feel sympathy/pity for and see the futility and irony of those who desperately desire acceptance by a community who embrace a social protocol which is inherently toxic to their particular "Operation System".

The corruption of reality is a form of psychological abuse.
Lies are often a manifestation of "the will to power" to quote Nietzsche.
It is motivated by the satiation of emotional needs.
It is an indication of the dearth of intellectual integrity.

Erm,
So yeah.
Gaslighting is wery wery bad. <chuckle>

NTs tend to have less respect for the truth than those of the spectrum.
This observation is indisputable and the tenancy towards honesty is one of the defining characteristics of those on the spectrum.

I suspect the corruption of reality has a lot to do with maintaining dominance over others.
And evidently, the "will to power" seems to be much more prominent in NT neurology.
As an autistic person, I find this emotion-driven power lust bizarre.

You can't effectively fight it.
We just have to accept it,
And take this predominantly NT mindset into consideration.
What can you do apart from adopting a cynical attitude?

"Power corrupts,
And absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely".
This is at the heart of general human psychology.
The ability to pervert reality is simply another manifestation of a different type of power lust.

Disclosure: I am aware that perverting the truth can be a survival mechanism.
The difference is the situational context and the attitude adopted by the person distorting reality.

I thank you.
<bow>
<exit stage centre>

Its funny cause people convince other people to believe false things all the time. I mean, people-especially children-are naturally quite gullible. Its very easy to convince someone to remember something that never actually happened or to convince them nothing happened when something actually did. Not in like an abusive make them go insane way, but I feel like its a pretty normal tactic to get out of trouble or get someone else into it.
Heck, parents do it to children all the time. And siblings too.
My brothers could convince me of ANYTHING. Lmao. They use to pin all their childhood crimes on me and little tiny grace would swear before god that I was in fact the one to blame. (then again- little tiny grace was also 100% convinced that she had accidentally "walked into a doorknob" so ya know maybe I was just especially gullible lol )

@aquafelix, @Fnord, @SaveFerris, LOL, LOL, LOL.

I was severely gaslighted (gaslit?) as a child. I am being gaslighted some now as an adult. I want to joke about it also. Can I play?

I know, I know, I can't play because you are not playing, I incorrectly interpreted the situation. Or you'd let me play if I hadn't lost the ball.

I am too good at being gaslighted. I am not so good at gaslighting.

(trying to figure out how to turn it around, how to gaslight, … I got nothing.... but wait----)

Clearly @aquafelix, @Fnord and @SaveFerris are …. (nope, still nothing)

My husband married me for my honesty. (@Pepe, he's passive aggressive and previously did a lot of gaslighting - now I'm better at calling him out on it and he's better at taking responsibility for himself.)

Like Sheldon Lee Cooper (the original model) I find the need to have a significant other relationship baffling.
As with most people initially, directed by indoctrinated social brainwashing/memes, I envisioned the beacon of meaning in the form of a life partner.
I very slowly realised that for some, this was merely a deceptive mirage created by our social architects to provide lemming-like life direction.

Yes, there are instinctual needs focused on procreation, to be considered.
Yes, we are largely driven by our genetic coding.
But evolution has also provided a means of transcending nature's manipulation through the development of the neocortex.

Still, the seduction of our emotional needs is, err, seductive.
For me personally, it is a curiosity,
In some ways humorous, but in hindsight, ultimately a biological phenomenon I would have preferred not to have.

An enquiring mind will, err, inquire.
Philosophical curiosity may not have "killed the cat", but it did make it sit up and take notice of why it was behaving and thinking the way it was.
It did kill the machiavellian social mechanism philosophically pinning me to the ground.

Personally speaking,
And dependant on the prioritisation of an individuals value system,
I think it inevitable that elements of existentialism, stoicism and nihilism, err, inevitably changes the life perspective of an individual to the point of rejecting proletariate/pedestrian/2-dimensional philosophies.

There comes a point where dogma and the conniving of interfering social architects loses its power over true freedom of thought.
At this point, there is a metamorphosis from a philosophical caterpillar to a butterfly, free of the earth-bound philosophical restraints which obstruct greater enlightenment.

So yeah, it's "boss", it's groovy, it's sick, it's copacetic...
Everyone should try it.

And no amount of cultural/social gas-lightening will ever deny me the fruits of my investigative, err, investigation.

Life is beautiful. <la la la la la>
Well, no it actually sux,
It's a biatch and then you die,
But it doesn't suck as much as it used to,
When you find your philosophical MoJo.

I thank you. <bow>

I can do that to toxic people. If I have listen to someone rant about how something is really broken and needs to be fixed I can demonstrate that it still works.

I don't know what Pepe's agenda is here as I haven't seen evidence in his posts about actual gaslighting.

Gaslighting is a serious workplace issue particularly when a senior person decides to make a junior staff member doubt their own self-worth by sabotaging their reputation all the while pretending that it's the victim's fault.

I understand it can also happen in social groups.

That. That. That. OMG, that.
(feeling slightly sick and overwhelmed by it, but keeping in mind I will find a way out)
https://www.theladders.com/career-advic ... hting-boss

Which of these two is gaslighting the other?

Sam: "Have you finished that important project I told you about last week?"
Joe: "You only told me about it; you did not tell me to actually work on it."

Sam? Joe? Both?

Neither:
* Sam truly requested Joe finish the project (explicitly or implicitly)
* Joe truly didn't understand the direction

Sam or Joe:
* Sam didn't request Joe work on it (nor finish it) although he says he did
* Joe understood perfectly what Sam requested but is denying it

What's the "Truth"?

Back in the 1990s I had a new senior manager who took an immediate dislike to me thought I was too much of a smart arse.

He "termited" me behind my back to other senior people so I began to lose respect I couldn't work out why senior people I formerly had a good working relationship with were now giving me the cold shoulder? (termiting is behaving like a termite undermining the foundations without you noticing).

Secondly he used to give me data to analyse which deliberately contained mistakes. When I produced policy reports for clients he would make a "big show" of how I made so many mistakes and was not paying attention to detail. The clients were led to believe it was my fault. I began to doubt my own competency but at the same time "smelled a rat",

I took a secondment and eventually left that job to maintain my sanity. He was always pretending he supported me and even took me out to lunch. But he was quite evil. I learn't how evil when he did the same thing a female colleague some years later and she revealed his tactics. The penny dropped!! he had been gas-lighting me in exactly the same way all the time I was there.

He eventually pissed too many people off and resigned and ran away to another job before he could be made redundant. But the damage had been done. My wife also experienced a similar type of senior manager except she was female.

There are some insidious psychopaths out their who are Machiavellian in the way they operate. Yet another job skill is your ability to withstand and maintain professionalism while you are being undermined. It happens or will happen to all of us at some point.

What is the point of your post here?
Curious.

Perhaps neither if Joe is autistic and being literal.

What would make Sam a gas-lighter, btw?
To me, there isn't enough detail suggesting he was gas-lighting.
Joe did verify that Sam's statement was truthful through acknowledgement.

Was Sam in a position to dictate to Joe in the first place?
Were they simply co-working together as a team?
Does Joe have the option of working independently of Sam?

I watched A Netflix movie that was based on a true event and it was called Unbelievable. This young woman was raped in her apartment by a random stranger and because she had been gaslighted during interrogation, she actually believed she made it up because they told her she did and said things she said weren't adding up and the contradictions. So she admitted to making it up and it cost her her home and friends and her job. I think for many years she believed she made it up and didn't know why and she probably dreamed it and thought it was real. But there was one therapist she had to see mandatory and she believed she was raped and told her she had been violated. She didn't believe that she made it up even if she said she did. She just knew she was coerced into thinking she made it up.

I don't think they intentionally gaslit her, the police force are not trained to understand trauma so you may only remember what the victimizer smelled like and stuff but not remember the order it happened in or what they looked like or how they came in. And the fact they expect the victim to understand the victimizer's motives like why they would just come in their apartment in the middle of the night and rape them and leave.

Totally understandable.
Please continue.



Totally understood.
People do that all the time to me.
Perhaps some people are threatened by my massive intellectual capacity, ability to reason, my acumen in regards to objectivity and my profound respect for the truth.
Go on.



Sounds like the hallmark of a classic psychopath.
Psychopaths usually do well in a situation you described.



Indeed.
This sounds like a perfect example of psychopathy in the work-place.
And no, it wasn't me.