Gaslighting

[commie]

59 minutes ago, tsuki said:

I'm guessing that it's because men are more likely to lash out physically against women and bruises are easier to prove, so women are automatically called the victims of oppressors to close cases. In my experience, no more lethal force exists than a woman that knows your triggers and is dead set on making you feel miserable as a man. This is all I'm willing to say before people get triggered.

Rest assured your first post in this thread had already triggered me. By the time I had reached this paragraph, there was nothing you could have said that could possibly trigger me more. I hope you can find help somewhere.

[tsuki]

@commie I will take your words in good faith. All help much appreciated.

[Surfingthewave]

@commie

Sorry if you've been triggered 

@tsuki  A good analogy thanks. There are also other ways children /people can process psychological traumas in relationships as well as denial (mental health/self esteem difficulties etc). 

It's hard to provide evidence for emotional abuse though when we're talking about the judicial system. I think women can feel not heard /etc nothing to do with victimhood and more to do with society today. Seemingly this is getting better though. 

 

Edited February 4, 2021 by Surfingthewave

[Keyhole]

I liked tsuki's answer and response to Preety pertaining to needing reassurance.  This is the first time in all my years here that I have not seen someone act like an emotionally retarded idiot when it comes to what trauma survivors are looking for.

Gaslighting has a certain flavour...

If you are around it too much it will give you a nervous breakdown.

I had an ex who gaslit... he would lie, move objects around the house to signal certain things he wanted to say, used my money, tried to get me kicked out of my home, I have graffiti outside of the for sale sign on my place that is too specific to have been done by a stranger, he would record me on his phone and make up lies to send to the cops when I tried to kick him out and he would make up stories in these to refute, beat his ex with a hammer, recorded us having sex when I was too drunk to consent, used my money on drugs, lived off of me for free and when I tried to kick him out threatened me, and made me feel alone by making me out to be the problem, ect, ect, ect, I'd listen to his childhood sob stories for hours but he never got to know me - I was under the impression if I just changed myself that he would love me so I created a false image of him to fantasize about while dealing with the harsh side.

He did drugs once at my place and talked about his father, turned over in the chair to sit away from me and I could tell he was acting and then the truth hit him and I saw he was just a wimpy little boy - a pitiful little shrimp.  He went into the bathroom and picked at a zit for three hours...  I lost respect and the spell was broken.  Huzzah... I am emotionally upfront and honestly vulnerable - it hits a nerve when I see people play acting.

I'm over it, but that is run of the mill gaslighting behaviour.  I've dealt with it a lot.  What I have noticed is that two people usually gaslight each other.  One is often very subtle, the other then becomes outwardly 'loud' about it, and it goes on in circles.

I don't believe that most people are exempt from these behaviors.  I think that people just lie to themselves and pretend like they don't do it and everyone else does.  And that's why you have like, everyone in the world claiming to have dated a narcissist even though it is a super rare mental disorder, and so many other ones overlap - both in personality disorder and psychotic disorders.

That said a lot of people do gaslight on this forum and the reason for it is that this is a marketplace for people to share ideas with the hopes it will infect another person's mind with something.  Most folks don't want to learn, they just want to teach - and so you have a bunch of folks vying for the spot of being able to be the one to get another poor sob to "see the light".  I can't tell you how many times I have run into "you're doing it wrong" after having a paradigm altering awakening.  Or coming back from a flashback to find it being scrutinized when repressed trauma coming up is the norm for this journey.
It's annoying.

The problem with this place is that people here have issues with vulnerability.  Really.

[tsuki]

1 hour ago, Etherial Cat said:

I don't think I have made in this thread any comment related to gender wars. My description of gaslighting was supposed to be applied to all cases where gaslighting can occur.

But if you let me comment your stance on my predisposition to bring "gender wars" on the table, I would like to precise something: I don't chose to bring gender war. Gender war is what occurs when I talk about my experience, my feelings and my perspective on thing and this perspective is fought back and sometimes strictly denied/invalidated. (Emphasis added)

The emphasized portion shows why I felt that bringing gender wars up was appropriate in the context of gasligting. The paragraph that I quoted previously did not mention gender wars explicitly, but I connected it nonetheless. 

2 hours ago, Etherial Cat said:

Gender war to me is also a misnomer, because I don't think the word is broad enough. The confrontation seems to me like the reintegration on the meta level of the repressed Divine Feminine energy in the Divine Masculine energy, which translate into you and I talking about how we can respect the integrity of both duality through its diverse manifestations.

I remember that you posted in the last months a very interesting video about toxic masculinity, which tells me that you have experienced youurself how stuff commonly perceived as feminine are generally disagarded or perceive as inferior in society. Which is why people tend to have a bias toward assigned masculine behavior.

This is the energetic flow I am talking about.

My experience of the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine is limited to my own efforts to become a whole, integrated, person that has a broad spectrum of human possibilities. I do not understand it on a meta level, so I do not know how it relates to the phenomenon that I previously called gender wars. I have not studied the feminist theory, so I don't know the extent to which culture suppresses femininity. I view this repression more as a personal dynamic that exists within many or all individuals, also due to generational trauma.

I know from my own experience that the lack of a proper relationship with my mother has negatively impacted my ability to connect with my feminine energy. This is why men are hyper-masculine and display aggressive dominance. I am not a women and I know this only theoretically, but the same dynamic exists in women, where their relationship with their fathers would impact their ability to connect with masculine energy. Given that Boomers are pretty traumatized, it is not all that uncommon that both of the parents are terrible at raising children. This gives a reason for the dominance of the masculine over the feminine that we see today: overly submissive, dependent, women and overly dominant, childish men.

In all of this, I am kind of skeptical of this theory because it seems to explain too many things too neatly. This is why I also want to hear your story and how you see the current situation via your meta-lens.

2 hours ago, Etherial Cat said:

But when it comes through uncivil actions (no matter how they developed in the first place), we reframe them through a specific, practical, analysis framework. And this canvas gives us labels ; perpetrator and victim. I just think we need it for practical reason.If we would look at the world through such a meta analysis, I do think it would be counterproductive.

Because what you need to do to decide who is a victim and who is a perpetrator in a specific dynamic is to gauge who has more power over the other at a T time and is abusing it to the point that it disturb the other's ability to function most.

But I also agree that most of the time the victim will also abuse the perpetrator as well in some way. I just think in most case it's rather marginal

My personal experience seems to contradict yours, but I have not studied the world at large so I may be biased. I think that ambivalent abuse is at least as common as the definite one and introducing absolute labels creates more confusion. This is fine, I appreciate your input.

2 hours ago, Etherial Cat said:

That said,  I'm not so sure of your stance about women being "automatically labeled victims and men oppressor". To me, this particular sentence is an exaggeration and translate more of an impression than a fact.

Mind you, I have taken a criminology lecture as part of my curriculum and when it came to infractions, male are perpetrator to nearly 80-90% of the criminal and delictual activity reported. This probably comes from emotional suppression, the encouragement of more aggressive behavior, the pressure of being made the provider and stuff like that.

When talking about women being labeled as victims, I was referring to divorces. It is true that it is not a fact but an impression, I have not gone through a divorce and have not studied them too much.

I am not denying the fact that men are more violent and commit more violent crimes. I may have overreached in giving my opinions here.

2 hours ago, Etherial Cat said:

I can appreciate the talent you have for bridging deep psychological mechanism/analysis to their outer manifestation in terms of politics and power dynamics. This type of interdisciplinarity should be used more often by academics and political pundit because they are particularly useful for putting causality back into perspective and soften the resentment which fester from conflicts. 

I'm glad to hear that  I'm pretty self-conscious about giving my opinions on politics. I find that people are rarely willing to listen when presented views don't reinforce theirs. 

@Surfingthewave Thank you for starting this topic. This is one of the best discussions that I participated in on this forum.

[Surfingthewave]

12 hours ago, Keyhole said:

I had an ex who gaslit...  I have graffiti outside of the for sale sign on my place that is too specific to have been done by a stranger, he would record me on his phone and make up lies to send to the cops when I tried to kick him out and he would make up stories in these to refute, beat his ex with a hammer, recorded us having sex when I was too drunk to consent, used my money on drugs, lived off of me for free and when I tried to kick him out threatened me, and made me feel alone by making me out to be the problem, ect, ect, ect, I'd listen to his childhood sob stories for hours but he never got to know me - I was under the impression if I just changed myself that he would love me so I created a false image of him to fantasize about while dealing with the harsh side.

I'm over it, but that is run of the mill gaslighting behaviour.  I've dealt with it a lot.  What I have noticed is that two people usually gaslight each other.  One is often very subtle, the other then becomes outwardly 'loud' about it, and it goes on in circles.

I don't believe that most people are exempt from these behaviors.  I think that people just lie to themselves and pretend like they don't do it and everyone else does.  And that's why you have like, everyone in the world claiming to have dated a narcissist even though it is a super rare mental disorder, and so many other ones overlap - both in personality disorder and psychotic disorders.

That said a lot of people do gaslight on this forum and the reason for it is that this is a marketplace for people to share ideas with the hopes it will infect another person's mind with something.  Most folks don't want to learn, they just want to teach - and so you have a bunch of folks vying for the spot of being able to be the one to get another poor sob to "see the light".  I can't tell you how many times I have run into "you're doing it wrong" after having a paradigm altering awakening.  Or coming back from a flashback to find it being scrutinized when repressed trauma coming up is the norm for this journey.
It's annoying.

The problem with this place is that people here have issues with vulnerability.  Really.

Thanks for sharing. I can relate to your story, it was 15 or so years ago but I remember having this real sense of fear on leaving. This was before I started all the consciousness work. 

I've started to realise the importance of breaking down and removing labels. Who are we to judge who's  narcissistic/had mental health problems / trauma or not. Part of this work is the self realisation we are all just an assortment of feelings, thoughts, sensations, stories and memories, some memories are so traumatic it can seep into how we express ourselves and connect with others in relationships. Often intergenerationally as @tsuki describes. 

I agree with you about the forum which is why it needed calling out. I also feel there are some real enlightened folk on here so it's knowing the difference. Who wants to be right all the time? The world would be boring if we all were! But it's about knowing and self reflection. Lots of folk like the sense of self and feedback you can get from teaching others particularly when going through difficult things yourself. 

You've nailed it when you talk about vulnerability. It's hard for a lot of us to be vulnerable but there is so much strength in it and it is a massive part of this work. Have you heard of the work of Brene Brown? She is making waves in the world of expressing vulnerability. 

Edited February 5, 2021 by Surfingthewave

[juni]

such a great and well taken conversation. thank you all - my heart is shining.

free flowing and not-sustaining emotional and mental states in relationships are huge spiritual work. it is a vibrational, senseful navigating between I-identifying and we-identifying. both go hand in hand, radically relating all surroundings and environment to oneself by initially loosing the unconscious chain of thoughts. new beginnings are the key word.

when there is consciously no conscious beginning of thoughts to this recent moment known and memorized, there only remains a necessity to switch in re-identification and self-realization. it is raw and compulsive in a releasing sense. action appears.
my initial point to ground in this vibrational navigating, is to know that all thoughts are really existing and are also imagining reality right now. how stupid. then there is always the clear sense of knowing that both of us in relationship are just one emotion. by taking this emotion as a seed of new beginnings the surroundings are spontaneously and automatically recontextualized and truly recognized - the persons, the room, the time. a huge spectrum of possibilites and true necessarities opens. 

just talking out of subjective experience.

[Surfingthewave]

16 hours ago, juni said:

free flowing and not-sustaining emotional and mental states in relationships are huge spiritual work.

then there is always the clear sense of knowing that both of us in relationship are just one emotion. by taking this emotion as a seed of new beginnings the surroundings are spontaneously and automatically recontextualized and truly recognized

@juni Absolutely. Thank you for your beautifully written words. 

This perspective is very loving, harmonious and ultimately the basis of enlightenment. 

Yes rather than the view- "what can I get out of this relationship" the more conscious you are it hopefully should be how can we conquer this precious world together with this powerful love we hold. 

Edited February 6, 2021 by Surfingthewave