The Gaslighting Twenty
You are familiar with gas lighting where we twist reality over and over again in order to create doubt. You begin to question yourself, doubt your recollection and feel like you are losing your sanity. It is an insidious tactic and one which we always use in order to destabilise you and maintain our control and the upper hand. We change history, re-write what has happened and we will do so even when faced with what you think is incontrovertible truth and evidence. Our confidence and certainty in the way we approach this, combined with the patronising appearance of caring about your tired and failing mind is especially bewildering. Our aim is to cause you to question your reality so you much more readily accept the false reality that we create and operate in. Here are twenty of our favourite phrases which are used to gas light you.
- “It never happened.”
- “You are lying.”
- “You imagined it.”
- “You haven’t remembered it correctly.”
- “Yes,you did do it because I remember distinctly.”
- “Are you calling me a liar?”
- “If I look for it you had better hope I don’t find it. Oh, what’s this? Just where I said it would be.”
- “I never told you to do that, why would I ever say that?”
- “Your dad wouldn’t do that to you.”
- “You are suffering from delusions, I think we need a doctor for you.”
- “You like to cause an argument out of nothing don’t you?”
- “You twist my words, I did not mean it like that.”
- “You never told me that at all,I would have remembered.”
- “Nobody likes you, they’ve all told me this.”
- “You need help, it is caused by your anger problem.”
- “Why are you inventing things again? You are such an attention seeker.”
- “That never happened.”
- “Dear me, you always make things up, you’ve done it ever since you were a child.”
- “We are just friends, you are reading too much into it.”
- “That couldn’t possibly have hurt you, why are you saying it did?”
49 thoughts on “The Gaslighting Twenty”
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It’s so entertaining to a narcissist Fuel when it’s low and when it’s not it’s reserve for the arsenal. Seems like a war of some kind if the narcissist is challenged. So the narcissist must fuel up.
So in a way is another definition of fuel attention . Attention from others of which you must bring out yourself ? Both the positive and negative attention ?
It has to be emotional attention. Somebody could look at me and be nonplussed. That would not give me fuel.
Even if it is disgust or hate or anger towards you ? It gives you pleasure and satisfaction ?
Correct
I am curious, Do other narcissts interact with you here and are they upset by you outing them
Narcissists do occasionally appear here but they do not know the they are narcissists.
Have you ever felt Akathisia?
No but I have felt an Anastasia, she did not complain.
I know, I was with you when you did so.
Do you ever get depressed or have anxiety, Sir Tudor? If one of your special-fuels leave you, do you experience heartbreak, or merely forget about this delicious appliance, and take your pleasure from your other fuel-producers?
I do not get depressed. I experience some anxiety if fuel levels are dipping, it is more a sort of significant restlessness rather than out and out anxiety.
I do not experience heart break.
If my primary source escaped me I would feel furious.
Nooooo, Sir; I mean if one of your most wonderful and delicious Secondary Sources left you?
No. I just replace them.
You are mean.
Moi? Not at all. I am generous to a fault.
Certainement Pas!
So sentimental, you are.
Don’t you think you should let that person go and learn how to be a better human
It is funny because you do not necessarily think about any of these being a tactic to make you second guess yourself… You question your own self and then you start to punish yourself and try harder. Unfortunately, for my ex, he only pushed me to really think about my own self worth, my own sanity and my impeccable memory. Eventually I stopped allowing him to do this to me, I would either be able to prove he was wrong or just let this mumbo jumbo BS go in one ear and out the other.
The sad part of all of this is when I was having very poor cognitive issues (due to health issues) he took full advantage.
I will say it again…”Know thyself”… Second guessing yourself is why we KEEP choosing this type of man (or woman) and staying. We ignore the red flags because we will always feel guilty and will want to try harder. This is the truth but we already try harder, why do we have to second guess ourselves?
My friend wrote this word on a piece of paper. The journey started from this one word. I am here because of this powerful word on a little piece of paper. Like a fortune cookie.
I only recall a few of these statements that he used on me.
SA,
Side note you may find funny……
Every year Halloween costumes get more slutty…lol…True. I literally seen a slutty fortune cookie costume yesterday. Consisted of 2 pieces. Barely covering skit with draped like fortune cookie shape. Bra like top with mini fortune cookies to cover and of course the long sash coming off the side looking like the paper that said…..I’m your future….hahahaha. hope that made you laugh. Btw I guess if you had a date he’d go naked with chopstick shaped thong?
Halloween is a big deal in Las Vegas. It is amazing to see the costumes as there are very big contest with big prize money. They are not home made ones but ones that look right out of Hollywood. I would always go in full cover clothing. I was a Prima Ballerina one year but with the costume to my knees. It was custom made. One year I was a vampire with fangs made by my dentist. I wore a long black dress the was fitted, but again covered my body. One year I was a bunch of grapes. Green leotards with small purple balloons all over my torso. This one was fun. I do not go out like I did at one time. Been there done that. >
Heard many many of them but specially from the greater of greats.. my last relatiinship.
Again excellent.. had not read during the last 3 days and I found all excellent..
mo wonder the huge popularity of your blog .
HG, are you happy?
I dont do happy in the way that you do. At this point at which you ask me, Viktoria, I am feeling fuelled, therefore edified and effective.
What has you feeling fueled today? >
Many things but all to do with people of course.
Is it fueling when people ask you if you are happy, Mr. Tudor? I just wish to understand more.
If they ask with a look of concern or concern in their voice when they ask, yes it is fuel.
This is sweet.
I am asking in complete candid curiosity, how in the hell do you or people like you live with yourselves and why havent you left this earth yet? I have intentions of emailing you my story and questions because I am absolutely dumbfounded that narcisstic people actually exist. I do not understand looking at yourself, knowing the incredible pain and loss you caused in your endeavors, and feel ok to keep living. Do you ever feel remorse? Does any narcisst? I know mine professed to but it was a scathing lie to appease me just to hurt me again. The sad part of all this is that it fascinates me but you ignite a type of disgust in me that makes me look sideways at who you are and how you live day to day without hating yourself. I know my ex hates himself inside, he’s confessed it. But he also has a grandiose idea of himself that he projects and it is absolutely appalling. Aren’t you ever appalled at yourself and the things you say? What made you make this site or write the books?
1. Easily.
2. Why leave, there is no reason to.
3. I have no conscience and what I do is necessary for me. My perspective is different from your perspective.
4. We do not feel remorse – its expression may be used purely yo manipulate.
5. The expression of self-hatred is also just part of the manipulation.
6. No I am not appalled, why would I be?
Hi Elyse! I identified with your churning of feelings of being dumbfounded, shocked and yet fascinated by the extent of NPD and what HG writes and exposes of the condition and how they function. I literally was clueless when I found this blog.
What I did learn, over time, with myself, is I tend to do what is called complimentary projection. In that, I functioned believing everyone has good in them somewhere, somehow and to treat people how you want to be treated in return. And because I operated on that premise, I believed naturally everyone does in their core.
Nope. Can’t do that anymore. I’m learning better boundaries and also to read people more on the level on how do they operate as their own individual level (not if I wouldn’t do that to someone, surely they wouldn’t either…)
You learn a lot about narcissism here and you can learn a lot about yourself.
I cannot reply to the comment you left me and I thank you for the perspective. I am curious, does any narcisst ever, feel remorse? I have read many times that narcs hate themselves which is WHY they project it. My ex threatened to kill himself when I wouldn’t return and then flipped the script when I reacted with “calling the police.” He started self loathing then the next moment I was stupid to believe he’d do that. Secondly, what are your thoughts about exposing a narc? Has anyone ever exposed you? I tried to expose him to one of his supplies, because we are married and he gave her an STD ….and I was the crazy one, I was the bad one…he had her so convinced of how terrible I was, she didn’t do anything but project on me. She was one of many. What are your thoughts on exposing a narc with legitimate proof
Clarece,
What you said is profound, complimentary projection. Exactly how I operate. If something makes me feel guilty, then surely he must feel guilt. This is not the case. It’s been a painful lesson to learn and I feel naive that I didn’t learn it earlier. I’m wondering if narcs see this naivety and target more.
Hello Nina! That is probably one of the most significant things I have learned which actually came from another resource about the complimentary projection. But then to tie that in with HG really driving home the point that they operate with a completely different mindset and world view than we do, it really helped me put the pause button on with people I meet and am getting to know.
I need to print it out and memorise it. Thank You. Fabulous! :*
You are welcome Maddie.
Interesting.
I didn’t either.
My favorite was always, “No, I didn’t. ”
He conveniently *couldn’t remember* half the hurtful garbage lies insults he told me.
But then, he’d get angry & depressed for days over misplacing his favorite pair of glasses. Which eventually would be found, of course.
Wonder if he talked that way with everyone (when he wasn’t doling out the silent treatment), he had a long list of people who’d *pissed him off,* two strikes, ugh, what a P/A bully
Great post!
“Our aim is to cause you to question your reality so you much more readily accept the false reality that we create and operate in.”
As everyone knows, I am “slow” when it comes to understanding the Narcissist’s mindset so this is a me interpretation question, but does the distorted reality compare to the reality the Narcissist experiences through the construct?
Thank you Sarah.
Yes it does.
HG, for the first time, I can say I understand the chains. Seeing and feeling like the Construct is literally hell on earth – but is this possibly related to a sensory perception that is affecting how literally the world is seen through the eyes of the Construct? Thinking like that hurts the upper part of my brain and I noticed pupil dilation changes. So let’s go to my favorite word “appliances”. Do you believe that you see humans different than let say others? Like, I know that is hard to speculate because you see the way you see, but when going through this for a day, I had to put major boundaries to avoid looking to deep as it probably was developing subconsciously for a while but I never noticed it until it was like, “OH SHIT!” – But I noticed that it was like my eyes were zooming up way to close that I was missing the picture so I had to stop and re-train – I was surprised that it wasn’t going back automatically and notice that when looking at the same visuals, it will automatically want to do it again – it is extremely fascinating but…is this ringing any truth?
Yes we see people in a completely different light, that is why I make repeated reference to how so much of why the narcissistic dynamic is confusing and does not make sense to the victims and onlookers is because of the different perspectives adopted by the various parties, to the same set of facts.
And I am sure that list could go on.
Lol I never misplace things, and everything has a place. So when things would either disappear or be moved, I just made a big deal when he “found” them, he was my knight and always fixed things.
I will say it was in other areas he got me.
never knew what it was called before finding you
I never knew this is what that was called!
Yep! I wish I knew this back when, I thought I was going crazy. Thank you for validating us.