SOMETIMES IN LIFE, THE PERSON WHO GASLIGHTS US THE MOST IS OURSELVES
Gaslighting is the emotional abuse of having your perspective repeatedly questioned by another. It includes denying facts, scoffing at your feelings and twisting the events to shift blame. In turn, this causes the victim to question and invalidate their reality. For example, recently, I had an experience at work that triggered me and took me straight back to my childhood. It made me essentially gaslight myself and the whole experience.
For context, I work part-time at a university in the filmmaking department. I look after all the film equipment and support post-production software. I have been in the post for a few months and was encouraged to book a PDR meeting to identify my training needs. I love my job and get along well with my colleagues and the managers. The meeting took place with my team leader (let’s call him Laurel), and his line manager (let’s call him Hardy).
Sitting in a cramped office, I had my Laurel on one side and Hardy on the other. We discussed my performance since starting the role in August 2022. They were pleased with my friendly approach and helpful, can-do attitude. We identified key areas I wanted to develop to benefit the students and myself.
During the meeting, Laurel said that he’d noticed that there had been errors when I had been preparing film kits to go out with the documentary crews. He said he couldn’t remember what I’d done wrong and how many times I’d done it. The subject had been brought to his attention by another colleague while they were both driving home in his car over a month ago. However, I’d done something wrong, and to make sure, I double-checked my work in the future. It said it would have been helpful to have been told then. I pointed out that besides preparing the student kits, I had to simultaneously cover the tech help desk. It means I may be interrupted to deal with student and staff enquiries at any point while picking the kit list. I defended myself, saying I couldn’t learn from my mistakes if I didn’t know about them. I needed to be told while doing the tasks or shortly after so that so in the future, I’d not make the same errors again. Laurel acknowledged this and that I would be regularly interrupted, but he continued to discuss my mistakes for five full minutes. Straight away, I was triggered and felt like my parents were again telling me off.
When I was a child, some of my earliest memories are of sitting on the living room couch and being told off by my parents. It was a whole three-course character assassination for hours on end.
First, they would start to point out things I did wrong. Then, they would savour every forensic detail of where I’d gone wrong and question why I hadn’t thought of all the possibilities before doing something that led to some awful outcome, like breaking a cup or something equally insignificant. Discussing past events I couldn’t change gave me anxiety as I couldn’t undo my actions. It made me feel ashamed and embarrassed. Stupid me, why hadn’t I thought of all these possibilities before doing something a typical child would do?
After the entree of shame for not having the foresight and intellect of a grown-up, it would lead them neatly onto the next course of complaints, my flaws. My parents would begin a forensic analysis of my many faults, unlike my parents, who worked so hard, and I didn’t appreciate them. They told me having children ruined their lives, and here was proof. I was selfish, didn’t think, ungrateful and useless. I also only cared about myself. I should have known the impact it would have on others. This round would often dip back into the starter of how I did not understand, see, or think the way they did and plan the way adults do. Finally, they finished it with a doom-laden prediction for my future filled with unhappiness and loneliness as I was such a bad child. Predictions included becoming a drug addict or a prostitute, which my dad introduced when I was about 10 or 11 to the rant. This regular event would take around an hour to two hours. I would often drift off and forget what we were doing there while my dad shouted, only to be slapped across the face for not paying attention.
A shamed child is how I felt at that moment in my PDR. After the meeting, I went downstairs to my desk and began to do some paperwork, putting a paper document into plastic files. Laurel came along and asked me if everything was okay. I sat with my back to him and angrily shoved A4 paper into the plastic wallets. “No,” I retorted without turning around, “I can’t believe you waited until my PDR to tell me I’d made a mistake. You need to say to me straightaway, not wait weeks and tell me afterwards. It looks really bad. How am I supposed to learn if you wait until an official meeting to tell me? It would have been no big deal if you’d said at the time. Now I’m only finding out during an official meeting. That’s ridiculous.” I’d finished putting the paper in the file and turned around, ready for a fight. Prepared for the, don’t take that tone of voice with me. You’re so ungrateful after all I’ve’ done for you etc.
I finally met Laurel’s eyes, and he seemed deflated. He apologised and said he’d not thought how it would come across to me. Straight away, seeing his upset, I felt deflated. I felt guilty, apologised, and he was even more apologetic. Finally, he said he’d explain what had happened to Hardy. I felt so guilty for getting so worked up, but I couldn’t help it the meeting had triggered me.
The rest of the afternoon and evening, I felt depressed. I thought I had let myself down before Laurel and Hardy. I wasn’t perfect the way I should strive to be, the way my parents raised me. I ruined my relationship with my boss by showing my upset. I should have been stronger and not acted so childish.
The next day Hardy called me into the office and said he’d heard I’d been a bit perturbed after the meeting. Then, he said something to me that made me feel much better and validated my feelings. He said, “You had every right to feel the way you did. You had every right to be angry and pissed off. You shouldn’t be finding out about a mistake you’ve made weeks after the event in a meeting for the first time.” It was a fantastic moment. So often, if I was upset or angry after my parents mistreated me, they would gaslight and invalidate me, saying I had no right to feel that way. Yet for the first time, here was a manager apologising to me. It felt amazing.
It also made me realise how easy it had been for my parents and others to manipulate me. As someone who constantly feels like a bad person when others have upset me, I have a deep shame that I have no right to feel the way I did. It has often led to me being quick to forgive and forget, often quite toxic behaviour in others. In the future, I need to rely more on my gut instinct and not gaslight myself, retelling my parents’ lies that I have no right to my own feelings.
