Gaslighting: What It Is and How to Recognize It

Gaslighting is not an abstract concept from psychology textbooks. It is a concrete mechanism of influence that almost everyone encounters — from an individual, a group, or even a state institution.

What Happens During Gaslighting

Gaslighting begins when someone — deliberately or not — undermines your own assessment of reality. You are told that you remember incorrectly, feel incorrectly, or misunderstand what is happening. Gradually, you begin to doubt yourself — not the other person, but yourself.

Dr. Saulitis describes it this way: this kind of influence "activates the reactive system" — the nervous system shifts into a mode of reaction rather than conscious choice. You stop being the one who evaluates the situation and become the one who simply responds to it.

Where Gaslighting Comes From

The source can be:

• A close person — a partner, family member, or friend
• A work environment — colleagues or management
• Social structures — cults, ideological groups, or state institutions

Importantly, gaslighting is not always intentional. Sometimes a person transmits it out of confusion, anxiety, or their own fears — with no malicious intent. Other times it is fully deliberate. This distinction matters when you are assessing your situation.

How to Recognize Gaslighting

The key sign is that after an interaction you think worse of yourself than before it, even though nothing real happened to justify that shift.

Concrete markers:

• You are told where "not to go" and who "not to talk to"
• After time with this person your head feels foggy and you feel as though you are to blame for your own situation
• You stop trusting your own perceptions and start seeking confirmation from the very person who confused you
• Old memories and inner voices surface and begin gaslighting you from within — especially when you are tired or depleted

The First Step Toward Resilience

Dr. Saulitis emphasizes: as long as you are the one evaluating, asking questions, and making your own decisions — you remain inaccessible to this type of influence. Resilience does not begin with fighting the gaslighter; it begins with maintaining your own position as observer and assessor.

The first practical rule: name what you see. Once you recognize gaslighting, give it an internal label. Dr. Saulitis uses a deliberately blunt image — "this is syphilis" — meaning something you simply do not engage with, do not argue about, do not "buy into."