Reflection: Gaslighting

The word gaslighting comes from a story where a man dims a lamp and tells a woman nothing has changed. The act itself is small. What matters is not the light, but the denial of it. By insisting that what she sees is not real, he begins to replace her perception with his own. In the story, the man gaslights the woman to hide a crime. But beneath that, there is something more unsettling. He does not only want her silence. He wants authority over reality. If she no longer trusts her own eyes or memory, he no longer needs to argue, explain, or justify himself. Reality becomes something he controls.

Gaslighting so often targets women because they are perceptive. The manipulation begins with small things a light, a sound, a conversation denied, because once the small truths are destabilized, larger truths follow. Gaslighting works through repetition and calmness, not force. The goal is not conflict, but dependency. Over time, the woman learns to look outward for confirmation instead of inward for knowing. What is taken from her is not sanity, but trust in herself.