We were gaslighted by our men – they forced us to lie and always said we were overreacting, here’s how to spot it
It’s the buzzword that crops up everywhere from Love Island to the Ryan Giggs trial. But what exactly is gaslighting and how do you know if it’s happened to you?
Yasmin Harisha explains and we hear from two women who have suffered it . . .
‘HE SAID I WAS OVERREACTING BUT MY SUSPICIONS WERE RIGHT’
OLIVIA PETTER, 28, is a journalist and author of book Millennial Love. She says: “I met Jim* at a party and we started regularly hanging out after hitting it off.
“There were dinners at his flat and evenings at jazz bars. Cinema trips on Sundays and long walks. It felt amazing.
“But things changed quite quickly. Jim got into a habit of making plans and cancelling at the last minute, telling me we’d never made those plans in the first place. Whenever I confronted him, he said I was overreacting.
“And I believed him, thinking the things he did that upset me were my fault. I blamed myself for not being clearer when arranging to see him, or for not double-checking if he was free to see me.
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“Things went on like this for four months. Friends noticed something was wrong when I started arriving at parties without Jim after telling them he’d be coming.
“‘We’d been looking forward to meeting him,’ they’d say as I made up an excuse to hide the fact Jim had decided to go to the pub with his mates instead of meeting mine as he’d agreed to.
“Apparently, I hadn’t given him enough warning. Eventually, Jim dumped me. I asked where this was coming from and if he’d met someone else.
“He insisted he hadn’t and that he’d been having doubts for weeks – this was despite the fact that one week previously Jim had been talking about booking a holiday with me. I later found out Jim had been seeing a colleague the whole time we’d been together.
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“What happened to me could be considered a minor example of gaslighting. But whenever Jim questioned my perception of what was happening, I lost confidence in myself, and he subsequently gained more control over me and my emotions.
“Looking back, I’m relieved things ended with him when they did. I just wish I’d recognised what was happening sooner and ended them myself.”
‘I WAS EXPECTED TO GO ALONG WITH HIS FABRICATED TRUTH’
BROADCASTER and mum -of-two Sarah Todd*, 50, says: “My ex-husband was a controlling abuser who used gaslighting to get his own way.
“I met him in 2000 and we married a year later. I started to get doubts on my wedding day – walking down the aisle was the loneliest day of my life.
“I converted to Islam for him but before we married I said I would only convert in name as I am an atheist. He agreed, but after we wed, he insisted I abided by cultural Islamic rules like not eating pork, doing Ramadan and not celebrating Christmas.
“When I tried to point out this was not what I had agreed to, he would become angry and twist the conversation, saying that I was accusing him of being a liar.
“I was always apologising about everything. If I didn’t support his views 100 per cent, he would keep me up all night with the light on screaming and ranting. I would then not be allowed to say I was tired the next day.
“He would retell events and I was expected to go along with his fabricated truth. He would rant about my family, but expect them to cater to his every whim and be nice to him. It really escalated when I fell pregnant with our child in 2002. I started to feel trapped.
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“Any discussion where I didn’t say “Yes, dear” would escalate into verbal bullying and aggression. Four years into the relationship, I decided I’d had enough. It was like the scales had fallen from my eyes. We divorced in 2005.
“After that I “grey rocked” him – not taking his calls and ignoring him when he kicked off. Looking back, the signs were obvious, I just didn’t know what to look out for.”
- *Name has been changed