Gaslighting: Cruel Psychological Abuse

Do you know what the word of the year for 2022 was? According to Merriam Webster? Guess? Right now, what do you think that word was?

I would have guessed narcissism or narcissist. Those two words are flying around everyone right now. Nope! Not those words, but yet still a word that we all know all too well.

The word of the year was gaslighting! I wasn’t surprised when I read this. All of these words are getting thrown around an awful lot. Gaslighting is certainly one of those words. As popular as the word narcissist itself.

So what really is gaslighting? Gaslighting is an attempt to destabilize someone and their sense of reality. It is a form of psychological abuse that causes you, the victim, to question your perception of reality. It is psychologically manipulating someone into questioning their own sanity, according to Oxford Dictionary. It is those crazy-making words, "That never happened," among many other phrases.