I don’t recall when I wrote the piece on gaslighting but it’s such a relevant term today, I need to revisit this topic.  I’m both blessed and cursed with an amazing long-term memory (LTM)—my short-term (STM) has suffered the last few years and I’m not entirely sure if it it’s hormonal/stress related, if I have too much information up there, or if there is some other issue.  Regardless, I’ve developed a habit of questioning myself and my version of events when it comes to my STM and people around me know it.  I will remember enough detail to give me pause about what really went down, but not enough to be sure that something else didn’t happen if people tell me about it.  Like they can slip in an extra detail or switch the words slightly and I won’t be 100% sure that it wasn’t the case.

I bring this up because I can’t stand gaslighting, intentional misunderstanding of direction, playing dumb, people who try to make you look bad, and not being understood—especially those who intentionally misunderstand.  Don’t get me wrong, I partially understand where this comes from because we live in a society where we would rather assign blame or we’ve been blamed for things that legitimately aren’t our fault and then told it doesn’t matter.  While assigning blame isn’t the end all and be all, I am one of those people who believes that we need to know the source of the issue otherwise we’re just band-aiding.  I’m also one of those people who feels like we shouldn’t have to clean up after others and if it’s our responsibility then we need to step up.  No one likes it, I don’t like it, but we are human and learn from our mistakes.  We need to stop holding mistakes over people’s heads.

I digress.  There is a mental component to gaslighting that we don’t talk about: the actual damage to the person being gaslit.  That person no longer trusts their instincts, their memory, or their confidence and we know lack in those areas creates a person who becomes stuck.  I know because I’ve been stuck in an area that I can’t seem to unwind from nor can I make progress forward.  I’ve explicitly been told one area in particular is on life support when I’ve known that area is the key to opening additional doors, and I’ve been told to focus on an area that has needed help from the beginning but I’ve been given no direction on which way to go and then blamed for mistakes.  That is the definition of gaslighting—and even a little sabotage if that doesn’t sound too dramatic.  Living in that state makes any plan I have for the day irrelevant because the focus will immediately shift as soon as I get in—and that’s another tactic, quickly changing focus on someone or making them pivot their plans consistently enough that their plans become moot—and then asking why we couldn’t move forward.

It is SO important to remember your instincts in those moments.  I recently had a meeting with some upper level leadership and in a pre-meeting debrief was essentially told to only highlight my other areas, not the one that I knew needed focus.  I couldn’t do it—I had felt so defeated going into the meeting that I honestly didn’t care what happened so I ended up spilling a lot of information.  But an amazing thing happened: questions came about that area that I didn’t anticipate.  Hope was given because this leadership understood where I was going and I received confirmation that this area had never been mentioned before.  While it was scary, it was worth it.  In the post-meeting debrief I was told I needed to focus more on the wonderful work I’m doing when I had been told by the same person not 30 minutes prior how terrible things were.  Are you confused?  I sure as heck still am.          

Ultimately what I took away, however, was that had I not listened to my instinct in that meeting, I wouldn’t have gotten the information I needed.  I wouldn’t have showcased what needed to be shared.  I wouldn’t have demonstrated my talent and I wouldn’t have opened a conversation about potential.  We can’t allow people to make us question who we are.  I’m not saying there isn’t a time for debate because none of us knows the answers to it all, I’m not saying there isn’t a time when discussion is warranted.  Discussion, not someone being so critical they undermine you.  That’s the mark of an insecure person and they often disguise it as being helpful.  Always trust your instincts and don’t allow anyone to make you feel less-than because you feel differently. Keep tight to your knowing and trust yourself—you can still be open to input/feedback, but don’t diminish your ability to discern the situation.