Someone recently told me that they sometimes feel gaslighted around me because I effortlessly make them question their beliefs and feelings. Hearing that didn’t sit well with me, especially since I’ve been pondering the question in the title for quite some time.
I’ve always been quite critical of myself and don’t consider myself a very nice person. When I discover that someone doesn’t enjoy being around me, I don’t blame them one bit. It’s not like I’m intentionally mean or abusive; quite the opposite, actually. I have very strong morals. However, this includes things like not lying, which means I always speak the truth, even if not everyone likes hearing it. I don’t conform to many social norms expected of me.
Despite all of this, I have deep relationships with several people and especially the elderly and for example the parents of my past girlfriends have all liked me a lot. But I can’t help but wonder why they don’t see me as I see myself. I worry that I’m hiding the true me so well that people don’t actually like me, but rather the facade I unknowingly maintain. Then again, a true psychopath probably wouldn’t be second-guessing themselves in this manner.
You should talk to a therapist.
Asking this question and being self critical is a good sign.
Being told you are gaslighting is NOT necessarily a sign you are a psychopath. They could be gas lighting you. Or you could just have some other blind spots about your own behavior.
You should talk to a therapist.
Definitely. This.
It’s really the only good answer OP is likely to get on the internet.
People throw gaslighting around willy nilly now, so it could jest mean OP made them think about some opinion they had.
It’s very hard to say without knowing the person, but I think your advice is good.
If you worry that you may be a psychopath, you’re not one!
You’d have framed this question differently. You’d be putting the blame on the other person
“Why is he/she stupid enough to think I’m gaslighting? Can’t they grow up?”
Something to consider in regards to honesty, is tact.There’s no reason to lie, but also no reason to be abrasive. It is something I struggle with myself and how I use words.
An example of tact could be someone has bad breath your response could be: “Your breath smells like shit” or “You could use a mint”
The latter will be much better received than the former but neither are a lie and present the issue. Saying things as definitive I’ve noticed also comes across as harsh even if you are 100% certain of something. I don’t fully grasp communication in that way but I’ve gotten better once I’ve recognized it and it has helped my interactions. Perhaps it could aid yours.
Someone recently told me that they sometimes feel gaslighted around me
Are you sure that they know what that word means? Most of the time I see the word gaslighting, they actually mean something else.
What does it mean? It’s a relatively new term and I’ve seen it used to describe everything from accidental logical fallacies to being short-changed at the liquor store
From the wiki article describing the play/movie the phrase comes from:
“In the story, the husband secretly dims and brightens the indoor gas-powered lighting but insists his wife is imagining it, making her think she is going insane.”
Imo it’s when someone is deceived by a person who lies about the actual state of affairs/reality to make the other person question what they experienced as credible. I don’t think that’s the same as when someone helps question beliefs in general because skepticism is good to make sure we aren’t self deluding, but if that person is lying about reality to manipulate them it becomes bad/gaslighting.
Another example I think is from it’s always sunny in Philadelphia in the episode where Dennis and Mac go to live in the suburbs and Mac asks Dennis if he hears a beeping the audience can hear and Dennis says he can’t until he blows up saying of course he can when berating Mac. Dennis is angry at Mac and in retaliation he gaslights him about the annoying beeping sound to manipulate him into questioning if the beeping is real or an audio hallucination.
Edit: just realized it’s possible it’s always sunny was doing an homage to Gaslight in that episode as they’ve done similar things in the past with other older movies and TV shows
Gaslighting is the process of making someone question their own beliefs. It’s usually seen in the context of abusive relationships, but any person can gaslight any other person in whatever context (i.e., politics, etc).
It’s not really beliefs in the general sense, it’s making them question reality, their memory, their reasons for doing things.
Plus with the context of malicious intent and lying.
Getting a racist to question their racist beliefs isn’t gaslighting, but would fit the vague definition of getting someone to question their reality, their memory, and their reason for doing things when they have fallen into racist dogma.
No, that is exactly the over-broad, willy-nilly, tossed-around definition they were talking about. Gaslighting has a much more insidious context than simply making someone question themselves. It means doing it on purpose; intentionally lying to someone and trying to convince them that they’re crazy. Like if I said I was going to the grocery and then when I came back with nothing, I insisted I never said that. Or if i borrowed $50 and when it came time to pay you back, I try to tell you I only borrowed $25. It’s inherently deceptive and cruel.
are you sure it isn’t autism
You sound like someone on the ASD spectrum - honest, principled, not confirming to social norms, overthinking. You had to mask to survive, yes, so obviously there is a facade, but that don’t make you a thief. You are thoughtful & intelligent, & capable of using logic to steer the conversation, but that don’t make you manipulative. You are honest man with morals, how can you not be kind? Why don’t you consider yourself a nice person?
For what it’s worth, ADHD folks tend not to fit social norms, either, and have blind spots about their behavior and how people perceive them.
I had ADHD but also read this as ASD.
There is a lot of overlap with ASD and ADHD symptoms/behaviors.
Why don’t you consider yourself a nice person?
I’m a bit arrogant at times and have very little patience with people I don’t find interesting. If I like my own company better than being around someone else they’ll probably going to notice. I also find most topics that “normies” talk about to be extremely uninteresting which is why for the most of the time I just remain silent and then when I do open my mouth it’s often something that goes against the common narrative or just otherwise is easy to misunderstand. Then there’s often this one guy in that group who later comes to me in private and tells me that they totally agree with what I said earlier. Those are the people I then bond with.
Yep, ASD. We are intelligent. We are perfectionists. We take our sweet time to learn about the world around us. Once we’ve learnt about something, we are quite sure of it, & hence we’re strongly opinioniated on things we know. Stupidity, and not being able to see things correctly may even ‘trigger’ us, & hence we can come across as arrogant. We can see the forest for the trees, but we lose our minds because the rest of the world only sees the trees for the trees.
It doesn’t seem like you’re a sociopath, it seems like you have ASD. That kind of analytical, no nonsense approach to socialization is typical of high functioning ASD.
It might be worth looking into, of for no other reason than to better understand yourself
Not to be an armchair psychologist over here (you should probably see a therapist) but it sounds more like autism, not psychopathy.
You’re probably right - or atleast less wrong. I don’t really think it’s psychopathy either.
Maybe you’re undiagnosed autistic. Im serious.
Yeah maybe. It’s the same as with ADHD; many of the sympoms fit me but most don’t.
New to lemmy I see. Welcome.
One of us
One of us
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Psychopathy is a popular catch-all term. “Low-empathy” is better, but I think you’re just a critical person and most people don’t like criticism or self-reflection.
The psychopaths I knew were quite proud of their ability to manipulate people.
The undiplomatic straightforwardness you describe makes me think your empathy might be severely limited, which is sometimes looked at as a defining aspect of psychopathy. Have you heard about this guy? It’s a great story.
No, mainly because even when I try to manipulate people, I usually don’t succeed.
Just out of curiosity: When you say you always speak the truth, is that truth you speak always something negative?
Yeah, there’s an important distinction between genuine honesty and an asshole who “just tells it like it is”.
Also a difference between “always tells the truth” and “always says all of what’s on their mind”.
Like if someone asks if they look good in an outfit , there’s a very large range of truthful replies. Some are more hurtful than others.
No, it means I don’t say things that are untrue. If I can without lying avoid saying what I know someone doesn’t want to hear I prefer to do that. But if you ask for my opinion you’re going to get it.
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