Why Gas-lighting Is Crazymaking
The original story of gaslighting, a 1938 British play, was made into a 1944 movie called Gas Light. A man wishes to make his wife think she is going crazy, so that he can take over the mansion that she was raised in and its hidden treasures.
He seduces her to fall in love and they marry.
He then does small things like remove a precious ring from its safe place and then convinces her that she lost it. This poor woman started out as a lonely, orphaned girl raised by a wonderful aunt who was mysteriously murdered (by this very man, we find out in the end).
When he searches almost every night in the attic for the deceased aunt’s jewels, he turns on the attic lights, thus dimming the lights in the house below. His wife, Paula, claims the lights mysteriously dim and he tells her she’s “imagining things.”
Why is this backstory important?
Because whenever a person becomes an abuse victim, they were always “primed” for it by previous abuse and trauma.
What do I mean?
When you want to paint a wall, after scraping off whatever needs to come off the wall, in order for the paint to “stick,” you need to apply a coat of primer.
When a person has gotten “used to” abuse and comes to think of it as normal in their family of origin, they’ve been primed for more abuse in their love relationship.
In the movie, Paula, the lonely, sad woman, was primed for abuse because of the trauma she experienced of losing her aunt to murder – a loss following the loss of her own parents.
I would not go so far as to suggest that a gas-lighting man purposely wants to abuse someone and intentionally marries her as the villain in the movie did.
But on an unconscious level, we pick our special someone to marry because they have characteristics or experiences that in some way connect with our own pasts.
This is why it is no wonder that two people can be attracted to each other and later find out that they each have a history of abuse or neglect or other form of trauma that they didn’t know about when they were dating.
There is something that draws people together in this way, call it a spiritual thing.
I think what attracts people with the same sad histories to each other is simply because there is no one else who could really understand them but the other person who has gone through something like it themselves.
This can make for a powerful connection although we don’t know how it works.
The flip side of this good part of the story is that abused, traumatized, and neglected people are hurt. They’re missing love and, as a result, self-love.
So they expect it from their partner.
This makes sense. After all, their partner supposedly loves them so of course they’d give them the love they need.
Except, since the partner never got that love themselves, they may not be able to give it.
Or they may need it equally as much and then there’s a tug of war as to who is fulfilling whose needs. And who isn’t.
Not only that.
The needy, hurt part of a person is generally their inner child piping up every so often. And that inner child thinks and acts like a 6 year old or a pre-verbal infant.
One of the frustrating parts of actual parenthood is trying to read your child’s mind. When the child is just an infant, all it can do is cry and somehow, magically, you’re supposed to figure out why.
Well, when that needy adult grows up, their inner child is still there, crying and expecting their spouse to magically know what they need and want.
This is especially the case if they did not receive the nurturing and understanding that babies and children ought to get from their parents. It’s as if there’s a deep hole that was never filled.
Since they’re thinking and feeling like a small, frustrated, and upset child, they act out when the spouse is not a mind-reader and doesn’t really understand what they need and want.
This is where the gas-lighting comes in.
The adult who is hijacked by their crying, needy, frustrated inner child who is maybe only 3 or 4 will get mad, just the way a child of that age would.
And anger leads to both being totally irrational as well as mean.
Have you seen little kids having a temper tantrum right in the middle of a store? Well, that’s what’s going on when you’re being gas-lit.
Your spouse actually thinks you know what they need and aren’t ponying up.
Why?
Because mothers should know what the child needs and the grownup in front of you has been taken over by a 4 year old who thinks you also should magically read their mind, too.
And that isn’t even taking into consideration that you also have needs that they’re supposed to fill! But of course, that is not possible since they’re about 4 years old.
Now the movie that this term is based on had a murderer for the gas-lighter.
The reality is that any child who is not handled well by parents can learn to lie. Eventually, lying becomes ordinary and normal. So it is possible for a person who is already hijacked by their inner child to also lie and not even see it as lying.
But the likelihood of that person also doing all this consciously, with malicious intent is low.
Low, but not impossible. After all, the angry child in a tantrum might purposely kick his mother or hit her. He will say mean things.
So the spouse who acts mean may very well be consciously aware of it and – yes – doing it on purpose to make their spouse feel like it’s their fault.
But what they don’t get is that they’re completely taken over by the small child within them. They haven’t got a big picture perspective on the situation.
This is why the IFS (Internal Family Systems) approach is so helpful. It recognizes that we all have 2 year olds and other age “kids” within us who often take control of us and we don’t even realize it.
When coached through the program I offer, a person comes to “map” out all their parts and is also able – finally, finally – to get back into their Self energy, not being led by the nose by their inner children.
Furthermore – and this may be the biggest benefit of IFS – when they’re in Self energy, they can heal and nurture all the young children within them so that they don’t have that same neediness anymore.
That is when the two adults can really talk and share. Honestly, I don’t think it’s possible for people to get to that place without therapy such as in my coaching program, if not my full Immersion Experience.
In my 4-month coaching program, mistreating each other is one of the main things I help couples in long term marriages with. We also work on the joy of feeling in charge of our parts instead of being controlled by them, and how to communicate well from Self energy – and get our needs met without the “neediness.” DM me if you’d like more info and we can have a quick chat.
Comments (0)
Add Comment
Login to join the discussion