Is gaslighting a process of dissociation?

[Suassíos]

Hi all,

I’ve been reading more around dissociation recently, and listening to podcasts, you tube videos etc. on this topic.

And also continuing to experience life as partner of someone who is engaging with treatment but continuing with dysfunctional patterns. Insight increases but the continuing patterns I find v difficult.

Something that struck me today, as I try to process a recent experience: is gaslighting something that goes hand in hand with dissociation?

If my partner dissociates regularly, and in doing so enters some kind of dream land, where facts get altered, then when he interacts with me, and I say (honestly it can be about the most mundane things), our son was chatting with my aunt about how  cold the water in the sea was on Tuesday. Then there is a very definite No he did not swim in the sea on Tuesday. Trying to get my head around how he could convince me that I’m wrong, and my son is wrong, and the conversation between my son and my aunt was based on a false premise that he wasn’t swimming, like it’s nuts how could all of these people have it wrong and be having a conversation about something that didn’t happen. And it was my partner who took our son swimming that day, not me. So he wasn’t missing any facts. Eventually he conceded that he was wrong, but he was doing the right thing correcting me when he genuinely believed I made a mistake.

To me it’s all quite bizarre the thinking, well if I had made a mistake then so too would my son, and why even get into a gaslighting situation here there is nothing confrontational going on.

Do does he genuinely believe that his dissociative changes to the story of what happened are real?

And try to convince me that I’m wrong and he is right, it’s always sort of condescending that I would not see things his way.

Or that he is doing me a favour correcting my accurate account to his fantastical account.

Like this is a simple example but the range can be huge including very distressing situations.

So it’s making me wonder if gaslighting might be less of a deliberate abuse and at least some of the time more of a quasi psychosis if that’s what you could call dissociative rewriting of reality….

Anyone thought about this before?

Just trying to figure it all out……

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[Pook075]

Think of it this way.  I look at the sunset and it looks mostly orange.  You look at the sunset and see it as yellow.  Who's right?  Who's wrong?  The truth is that we can be standing side by side, seeing the exact same thing, and we both are right because it's how we perceive it.  That's not gaslighting, it's a different of perceptions of the exact same thing.

For your partner, that's what is happening and they're not trying to rewrite history...they're sharing their version of history.  And yes, sometimes they're disassociated and delusional...but does it make it any less real to them?  Nope.  It's their truth.

To me, the question is not "are they gaslighting" or "are they disassociating" because neither of those things actually matter.  The thing that does matter is whether or not it's worth it to argue over whether the sunset is yellow or orange in the first place.  Maybe we're both right...or maybe we're both wrong.  But is it worth a blowout argument with someone who has mental illness?  That's the real question.

I hope that helps.

[thankful person]

Interesting Pook mentioned about the sunset. Today D3 picked up some jelly in the supermarket, identifying it as orange. My wife corrected her and said, no it’s yellow. Even then I couldn’t be bothered to point out that some people may label it orange and some yellow. In fact my wife and I have disagreed about colours before and whereas some people find these things fascinating, she just finds it irritating, I guess it’s invalidating to her.

My perception of narcissistic gaslighting is that someone is deliberately manipulating a situation to cause another person stress and pain. I have my own story of this. I was working in a special needs school as a new member of staff and had to put the kids swimming clothing and towels away in their bags. When they went to go swimming the next week, everything was in the wrong bags. To this day, I am convinced that a particular member of staff who had it in for me, had moved everything around to upset me and make me look incompetent and crazy. Even my wife doesn’t believe this could be what happened here.

My dbpdw, I do not see as a manipulative narcissist, even though she sometimes behaves as such. When she’s splitting, I do believe she is honestly delusional, by her own admission she dissociates all the time and doesn’t realise it. An example is I come in to change baby’s nappy last thing at night. She used to want me making sure he was awake enough to breastfeed before handing him over. Then she said, don’t worry about it anymore, as he’s getting older and it’s not so important. Then one day she turned on me and had a go at me cos he was fast asleep when I handed him over. Last night he was crying before I handed him over and she angrily asked, “DID YOU WAKE HIM?” I don’t think she is trying to turn me crazy as I believe that nasty member of staff was. I think she is truly delusional in thinking she’s told me she wants things a certain way, particularly since we’ve had babies as I’m an experienced child care professional so she likes to find extra fault with everything I do. It’s almost like she’s saying, “thankful person is going to get this wrong, now what did she get wrong? Ah yes of course it was that…”

[Suassíos]

Thank you Pook and Thankful Person for your thoughts.

Yes I’m totally with you in terms of the malignant narcissistic gaslighting being of much more concern, and this example I’m giving isn’t anything like that, although I’ve also had that experience with my partner.

And I appreciate that it’s not about the label:  call it dissociation or delusions or anything else,, but I think I’m in a better place to help when I understand more. Even if I am trying hard to accept I can’t understand everything.

I suppose in the example I’m giving it’s kind of the process of his burning need to correct me, and to point out that I’m wrong, that even in this non confrontational example I could see might be more about dissociation because I am not distracted by the distress of when it’s more malignant.

like you said Pook why even introduce an argument to such a mundane story?  Which was kind of a light bulb moment, thinking maybe all of these correcting my stories are dissociative in part, even when it’s more malignant.

We were talking about it and he also feels (he is in therapy and does engage when not dysregulated) , which is a bit like what I think happens with your partner thankful person, that he wanted to have a greater role in this story, that really had nothing to do with him, just a chat about cold water, but he felt some need to place himself in the story even if that took the form of correcting me and thus becoming a controller of the story.

His psychiatric team felt over control was a key factor, and He has done a course for those who struggle with over control called radical openness. He thought it was great although not putting the learnings into practice, at least not that often

One of the many crazy things about this, is that all of this behaviour started really suddenly, ten years ago, after a close friendship for 18 years,  12 years cohabitating and 7 years of marriage. As in we are now married 17 years. And it’s been nearly non stop since that day ten years ago, particularly for past 4 years.

Which means I do think if it started suddenly it could end surely?

[FarDrop77]

We were talking about it and he also feels (he is in therapy and does engage when not dysregulated) , which is a bit like what I think happens with your partner thankful person, that he wanted to have a greater role in this story, that really had nothing to do with him, just a chat about cold water, but he felt some need to place himself in the story even if that took the form of correcting me and thus becoming a controller of the story.

His psychiatric team felt over control was a key factor, and He has done a course for those who struggle with over control called radical openness. He thought it was great although not putting the learnings into practice, at least not that often

One of the many crazy things about this, is that all of this behaviour started really suddenly, ten years ago, after a close friendship for 18 years,  12 years cohabitating and 7 years of marriage. As in we are now married 17 years. And it’s been nearly non stop since that day ten years ago, particularly for past 4 years.

Which means I do think if it started suddenly it could end surely?

This is so fascinating to me.  My wife will exaggerate a lot or switch the facts between two stories in order to make herself seem more a victim or more righteously indignant.  I imagine some quiet process in her mind being like, "this is close enough to be the truth, how about we forget the actual truth and go with this better version."  Kind of like when you disagree with some politician, you try to forget when they actually do something good because it's more satisfying to just complain about them like they are 100% stupid.

My wife was always this way, but it increased dramatically after she had a heart attack.  I don't know if it was just the "shame" thing (incontrovertible evidence that she didn't take good care of herself) or if it was the result of the minor stroke that happened in surgery.  What happened on the day this behavior started for your husband?

[waverider]

Truth, delusions, embellishment, exaggeration and outright fibs. There is little boundary between any of them, and their mind wanders between all of these freely without missing a beat. Once a version is cooked up that fits their feelings they convince themselves this is the reality. It becomes a "belief", and beliefs are not necessarily dependant on facts, they just are because they are. Insecurity then puts them on the defensive if anyone seems to contradict it.

Hence the 'hard sell' to consolidate it, which kind of feels like gaslighting, but not in the calculated systematic way the the term gaslighting is used. More a way to be validated by convincing others to see things the same way. They can struggle with different perspectives, you either agree with them wholeheartedly or you are calling them a liar, and that cant be tolerated

[JJ74]

This happens all the time with my wife. If I enter the conversation and in any way attempt to add to her story or make a correction she goes off on how I am always correcting her or invalidating her feelings. I am only trying to participate in the conversation or expressing my opinion. So is it best to just shut up and let it go? I feel like trying to engage in any kind of conversation is such a risky proposition that it is better to avoid it. But it’s not the way either of us would like our relationship to be.

[waverider]

This happens all the time with my wife. If I enter the conversation and in any way attempt to add to her story or make a correction she goes off on how I am always correcting her or invalidating her feelings. I am only trying to participate in the conversation or expressing my opinion. So is it best to just shut up and let it go? I feel like trying to engage in any kind of conversation is such a risky proposition that it is better to avoid it. But it’s not the way either of us would like our relationship to be.

You are getting monologue swamped. This happens to me and is infuriating, as it is no longer a conversation, it is almost like listening to a story teller making up a novel on the fly and any interruption by yourself is just interrupting their train of thoughts and you are regarded as being rude and heckling.

At the end of the day you loose interest and stop listening. Similarly when you try making small talk does she latch on to something make it a segue into a monologue of her own and effectively hijacking the conversation?

The end result is it annoys most people and they simply avoid them, which feeds into the whole abandonment issues they have

[JJ74]

“Monologue swamped” is a great way to put it. The more I read about bpd I get mixed feelings about it. It is very helpful to find support here and to know others are experiencing the same thing. But it is discouraging to find that there is no easy or definitive way to fix or end it. But I am glad to see that others have developed strategies to deal with it.

[Suassíos]

JJ74 I hear you with feeling  discouraged by the forum -  how overwhelmed other people are due to the way  BPD has affected their lives and the lack of an easy route to ending the cycles of dysfunction and all of the pain and harm caused. It’s very frustrating that you experience monologues that are far from the connection that we need from relationships. And connection is enjoyable, satisfying, interesting, stimulating etc. . But what do these dissociative disconnecting experiences gain for anyone, the most frustrating thing I find is trying to identify what “win” the person with these behaviours gets. And they certainly get an avalanche of losses.

In the forum I think There is good support though too, particularly I find seeing how compassionate and considerate some contributors are helps to keep me from going insane myself. When I am in a corner dealing with someone being very difficult it helps me to see that there are people dealing with difficult situations who have resilience and who are supportive and kind. .

Far Drop 77 that is interesting how you also experienced a relatively sudden change in how your partner behaved. In my case it was a bit different: seems that it related to him going on holidays with his parents and siblings, on their own as adults without their partners and the grandchildren. It seems to have resulted in some kind of breakdown, getting stuck in old engrained patterns of behaviour in that family unit, which may have meant re-experiencing or remembering some early traumas, and being angry and resentful for his life, but that being the life he had many years ago, no longer able to see the good life he has now in his own home with stability lovely kids a good job etc.

I guess maybe a life threatening experience might have reminded your partner of times when she felt afraid when she was younger? I think fear in childhood or threat seems to be a factor in developing these patterns of behaviour? Or maybe resulted in her disconnecting from life, not engaging with you or anyone else? Again maybe some kind of protective response (albeit dysfunctional) to avoid thinking about what happened to her and what that mean for risks in the future.

There seems to be some kind of “I just survive this (imaginary) dangerous threatening situation at all costs” philosophy that my husband goes with when he is very unwell. I guess it’s some early childhood survival response from when he was or perceived he was in danger.

I find it hard to rationalise: I have had some near death experiences myself with eg being hit by a car and seeing it coming towards me, and also I have metastatic cancer, but I sort of feel a sense of calm and acceptance about how death comes to us all rather than some insane frantic illogical messy and unpleasant fight for survival. 

But I guess if it’s early childhood responses from what I’m reading then they aren’t accessing the common sense that comes from having secure attachment and positive relationships etc.