Recently I did a series of small videos on one of my sites dealing with alienation. In putting together the presentations it occurred to me that alienation and gaslighting share some common features.
In both of them, lies, deception and misdirection are used in creating a reality that isn’t real. Although that reality feels real, its merely the product of someone’s fantasies.
It traps you in a world of make believe, where you’re not sure what to believe and what’s true.
Both alienation and gaslighting are destructive to your marriage. The world they create is disruptive to relationships. They use techniques designed for destroying trust and security.
Once the trust and security are destroyed, fear takes over. Fear has ways of exaggerating and catastrophizing. It takes simple events and twists them into something horrific.
One of the few differences between them is that gaslighting focuses on one person, while alienation turns all the surrounding relationships against you. Either way, you feel like you’re losing your mind.
They have you living in fear. That fear brings torment on an emotional and mental level. Fear triggers panic reactions and narrows your perspective on what’s going on around you.
You don’t see everything and what you do see you’re unsure about what’s real. It gets to the point where you don’t trust yourself or anyone around you.
Sadly both gaslighting and alienation are weapons used by spouses against each other. Unlike unkind words, these weapons undermine your ability to trust the world you see around you. They destroy your marriage from the inside out.
If you’ve been the victim of either, your ability to trust has been undermined. The foundation of your marriage, which is trust has been damaged. If there’s to be any hope for your marriage, hope will need restoration.
In the video “How Can I Trust You Again?” I give you the trust formula and a plan for rebuilding the trust in your marriage relationship. The damage done by malicious gaslighting and alienation can be healed.
You’ll need that healing in order to restore your confidence, your ability to trust and have any hopes of returning to semblance of a functional marriage.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
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