Have you heard of “gas-lighting”? In terms of stage shows, it is usually done to smoke-screen inappropriate romantic behaviors.
Well, this can also be defined as a situation whereby a person (the perpetrator) draws your attention away from a behavior he/she is trying to hide from the victim in order for them to avoid being scrutinized or judged.
Do you understand that definition? If you don’t just relax, you will understand while you read this article.
Gas-lighting is a weird combination of a refusal to reveal information or negotiate decisions which should normally be decided together, affront at being questioned, explicit or implicit questioning of the mental capacities of the other person involved with unpredictable emotional withdrawal.
Men portray this behavior more than women and this makes the lady victim susceptible. The tactics involved in gas-lighting create anxiety and confusion which serve to dis-empower and increase dependency in the perpetrator.
The end point of this dark trick is usually psychological torture. The ‘gas-lighter’ overtime begins to override their partner completely and when they are satisfied they end the relationship and this leads to complete break-down of their partner.
You the victim may even not know that your partner is doing this dark trick to you until a third party who has seen what is going on intervenes. It may seem hard to believe but when you take a critical look at the relationship you are in then the naked truth is revealed.
In 1938, a play was released in London titled “Gas Light”. This movie is a clear example of what we are talking about.
The heroine was a victim of her husband’s dark tricks. It finally became dawned on her when the inspector tells her the truth that her husband is a murderer. Rather gratifyingly, his wife finally had her revenge.
The inspector letting his suspicions informed to the husband who tries to enlist his devoted and ‘irrational’ wife to help him escape justice for his crimes.
But instead, she planned his escape towards the hands of the inspector. As her husband threatens her one last time, she places the cherry on the sour cake of his deception by claiming that he cannot hold her responsible for his actions.
It will be the rare women who have not experienced some version of this treatment, from a man who takes advantage of the stereotype of the emotional, irrational women in order to downgrade her confidence in her own perceptions, as a way of covering his own bad behavior.
Some women have endured such well-executed gas-lighting for a long time and this affects their mental health permanently because of the scars of self-doubt and anxiety.
I tell you now today that you have been enlightened and now you have the choice to choose to – believing in your own perceptions and realizing that such a trick could be played on us. In conclusion, be careful, watchful and cautious of these dark tricks so you can fall in love your relationship to the fullest.
