Several years ago 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 to create a reality that isn’t real. Although that reality feels real, its merely the product of someone’s fantasies.
Both alienation and gaslighting are destructive to your marriage. The world they create is disruptive to relationships. They use techniques designed to destroy trust and security. Both of these tactics are abusive.
Moreover, both alienation and gaslighting stem from a deep-rooted insecurity within the perpetrator. They use manipulation tactics to control and dominate their victim, feeding off of their power and control over them. This can lead to long-term emotional damage in the victim, as well as strains on personal relationships.
Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse, as the victim is made to question their own reality and sanity. The perpetrator may even use gaslighting to isolate their victim from friends and family, further exacerbating the damaging effects.
Similarly, alienation involves manipulating the perceptions of others in order to turn them against a certain individual. This creates a sense of isolation and loneliness. The victim is left alone in their pain.
Once 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. It gets to the point where you don’t trust yourself or anyone around you.
Sadly both gaslighting and alienation are used by spouses against each other as weapons. Unlike unkind words, these weapons undermine your ability to trust the world you see around you.
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 to restore your confidence, your ability to trust, and have any hopes of returning to the semblance of a functional marriage.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
