Last week we talked about how to hold a grudge, and crazy making behaviour is definitely grudge worthy. Gasligting is crazy making behaviour by another name, and it’s what this week’s book is about. Here I tell about what’s good, what drove me up the wall, and my take on Sarkis’ strategy to document, document, document in her book Gaslighting.

The Good

Through Gaslighting by Stephanie Moulton Sarkis, you will learn in broad strokes what this popular term tends to mean.  You can use the tactic descriptions and case studies to identify ways in which you might be subject to gaslighting or you may be using it yourself.  You will also get a sense of the extent of damage it can do.  Know that you are not alone, that there are ways to talk about it, and measures to take whether you are on the giving or receiving end.

If you have been around people who serially gaslight, you may already have a good sense of the strategies laid out in the book.  You may be so used to it, though, that you see it as normal.  Sarkis explains how this happens.  She outlines what, how and why it constitutes abuse and is clear that abusive relationships do not improve over time, but rather escalate.  Having experienced the destruction wreaked by these behaviours, you may have decided to never practice them yourself!  But have you decided to protect yourself from people who do this to you?  There are many ideas, recommendations and resources in the book to do just this. 

The basic message of the book is to get out of an abusive relationship.  Sarkis helps the reader identify what both healthy and abusive relationships look like.  She is very clear that getting out is almost impossible to do alone.  Getting therapy, along with support and protection from family, friends and the justice system is consistently recommended.  A chapter is dedicated to different types of therapy so that you can select the one best suited to you.  There is also an extensive resource section at the end of the book.  It will be necessary to extrapolate the gist of what she recommends to your local context if you do not live in the US.

Sarkis is careful to avoid victim-blaming.  The experience of people who have been repeatedly gaslighted is also normalised.  This is a great antidote to the chaos and lies sown by someone who emotionally abuses others on a daily basis.  

Another great antidote to judging yourself, victim-blaming, and the paranoia that arises from being gaslit is Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Talking to Strangers.  In it he covers 3 effective human communication strategies that occasionally get us into trouble: default to truth, expectations of transparency, and coupling.  He concludes, “Those occasions when our trusting nature gets violated are tragic.  But the alternative – to abandon trust as a defence against predation and deception – is worse”.

Many of the articles found on-line, or videos available on YouTube, address gaslighting on an interpersonal level.  Looking at it on a collective level is what Sarkis’ book adds to the conversation.  The discussion shows how it plays out in politics, the media, the internet, cults, and destructive groups like gangs and terrorist cells.  Here again, the importance of strength in numbers is highlighted.  

The Bad

Sarkis has been criticised for using a term that does not appear in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and she is the first to admit that.  She is a seasoned psychologist whose work regularly brings her into contact with this kind of behaviour.  By not using a DSM term, she removes the temptation for her readers to make an unqualified clinical diagnosis of Cluster B personality disorders (like narcissism) while giving the reader language to name and describe what they are experiencing or doing

In the introduction Sarkis explains how the book is structured and urges readers to read all chapters because they each have something useful no matter your situation.  This is true.  However, by structuring the book according to arenas where gaslighting plays out, the reader is invited to skip to the chapter that talks about the context they are in.  I would have found it more helpful if it were laid out according to tactics/strategies that comprise gaslighting.  This would have provided the intellectual space to deal with them in a more complex and nuanced manner.  Each chapter could then include case studies and examples from different contexts to illustrate it more, followed by strategies for dealing with the behaviour in question.  Also, the tactics could be arranged in a way that show how they build and escalate into something surprising, unbearable and abusive.  The information about what healthy relationships look like could be a chapter on its own.  In addition to their modus operandi, a chapter on the profile of why gaslighters (sic) do what they do would be useful.  The creativity in applying gaslighting tactics is as endless as we are unique.  Once we understand what motivates a person to use these strategies along with what they hope to achieve, we will better be able to see through this creativity.  It’s not that this information isn’t in the book.  It is.  It’s just that it is scattered all over the place.

Chapter 1 is a catalogue of behaviours that can be considered gaslighting.  The sketches are caricatures, emphasising one aspect and ignoring or downplaying others.  For almost all of the behaviours mentioned, I could think of a more complex, subtle and nuanced way that I have seen it played out.  I once supervised a twenty-something person whose boundless creativity with employing these strategies was impressive to behold.  

I experienced this book as a relentless onslaught.  The book feels vitriolic.  Although the author admits in passing that we all use gaslighting tactics from time to time, there is little if any compassion for people who do it.  She employs splitting and stereotyping:  people who consistently gaslight are given a label, gaslighters, and they have no redeeming qualities while the people on the receiving end are victims.  Life is much more complex than this.

It seems that her intent is to help people who are victims get away.  By the time I got to the end of the chapter on families (halfway through the book by the Kindle meter) I got the sense that everyone who gaslights is a  psychopath waiting to happen and that extreme measures are warranted always.  Bombarding readers with so much overwhelming and catastrophizing information may just paralyse them more… or make them put the book down and miss some important information.  She talks about how the abuse ramps up over time and that it can end in violence and quite possibly death.  I don’t doubt this in some cases.  It is ironic, then, that Sarkis seldom makes explicit the dangers inherent in taking the actions she lists in the book. 

The How To

Document, document, document — this is one of the strategies that Sarkis is emphatic about.

From personal experience, documentation can be a declaration of war.  This is because documentation belies both the personal image and narrative that are so important to people who gaslight.  I do not recommend using it to hold someone like this accountable on a daily basis. 

Documentation is important first and foremost because of what it does for you:

• It gives you something to refer back to as proof that you are not crazy!  
• The pattern(s) will begin to emerge as you flip back through all the incidents that you have written down.
• You will be able to identify how many qualities are present and how persistent they are.  
• It will reveal whether you need to take steps to protect yourself, and which ones.  
• It will give you material to work with in identifying your beliefs and values, and affirming that you deserve to be treated with dignity, kindness and respect. 

Sophie Hannah’s process for How To Hold a Grudge is a great way to document what is happening, assess the seriousness of it, identify the right thing to do, and affirm your worth while acknowledging that the person who is harming you is a human being worthy of compassion even as they are to be kept very far away.  (You can read my review of this process here).

There are times, however, when you will want to take legal or disciplinary action, and then documentation following the correct format is required.   Writing down the incident as soon as possible is best since memory plays tricks on us later and is influenced by conversations with others.  A very helpful app is Talk to Spot, which will walk you through all the categories that protect you in a court of law.  As a supervisor, I learned the hard way that any old documentation is not good enough.  It has to contain certain key information to stand up to legal challenges.  As such, your HR department won’t allow you to let someone go if your documentation does not make the grade. 

All written communication is a form of documentation.  It is a good suggestion to communicate as much as possible in writing with the person gaslighting you.  Take screenshots of your electronic chats so that they cannot be deleted by the other person.  If this is occurring in a work context, be sure to send screenshots and copies of e-mails to your personal e-mail account, or store on a personal usb device.  Again, seeing the pattern is what will free you to take the next steps you need to and confirm (or not) the extent of what you are experiencing.  If you do have to go to court, then you also have evidence to back you up.

Conclusion

“Educating yourself is one of the most powerful steps you can take to combat gaslighters and their harassment”, so says Sarkis.  I couldn’t agree more.  There is a lot of good and helpful information in her book, Gaslighting, that you can use to educate yourself.  Despite its redeeming qualities, I got bored and annoyed and overwhelmed and had to force myself to read to the end.  At times it feels like all the author’s experience and information was slapped together as quickly as possible.  This may account for the higgledy-piggledy information that you have to wade through all over the place to find what you really need.  There is little acknowledgement of degrees; degrees of gaslighting and degrees of the measures to take. What can happen when you take the recommended steps to put a stop to gaslighting are also hardly dealt with.  She seems to deal in extremes.