33 Gaslighting Quotes to Help You Understand What Gaslighting Is

Gaslighting is when someone manipulates you in such a way that you begin to question the way you feel or react to situations. It can convince you that you remember something incorrectly, even though you’re not.

It is in fact a form of psychological manipulation and emotional abuse that takes you to a point where you doubt your own sanity. If someone clearly denies what you say or downplays your feelings, they’re gaslighting you.

Here are a few gaslighting quotes that can help you understand what gaslighting really is. Look out for people who gaslight, and stay away from them to protect yourself.

Here Are the A Few Gaslighting Quotes to Expand Your Understanding

1. “Gaslighting is mind control to make victims doubt their reality.” — Tracy Malone
2. “It frightens me because I feel vulnerable to attacks, an easy target for gaslighting. Phrases like ‘No I didn’t say that!’, ‘You don’t remember,’ and ‘You must have forgotten,’ start rattling my brain and making me jittery.” — Ankita Sahani
3. “Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation and emotional abuse. The Gaslighter avoids responsibility for their toxic behavior by lying and denying and making you question facts, your memory, and your feelings. Basically, the Gaslighter makes you feel crazy and confused.” — Karen Salmansohn
4. “Gaslighting is a slow unconscious loss of reality.” — Tracy Malone
5. “Playing the victim role: Manipulator portrays him- or herself as a victim of circumstance or of someone else’s behavior in order to gain pity, sympathy or evoke compassion and thereby get something from another. Caring and conscientious people cannot stand to see anyone suffering and the manipulator often finds it easy to play on sympathy to get cooperation.” — George K Simon
6. “Narcissists are consumed with maintaining a shallow false self to others. They’re emotionally crippled souls that are addicted to attention. Because of this they use a multitude of games, in order to receive adoration. Sadly, they are the most ungodly of God’s creations because they don’t show remorse for their actions, take steps to make amends or have empathy for others. They are morally bankrupt.” — Shannon L Alder
7. “Gaslighting is a subtle form of emotional manipulation that often results in the recipient doubting their own perception of reality and their sanity. In addition, gaslighting is a method of manipulation by toxic people to gain power over you. The worst part about gaslighting is that it undermines your self-worth to the point where you’re second-guessing everything.” — Dana Arcuri
8. “Remember, someone that does something bad to you, will always try to control the narrative, and they generally get out there first and spin the story to anyone who will listen. I always like to watch the quiet one. You are not alone.” — Maranda Pleasant
9. “Gaslighting is the systematic attempt by one person to erode another person’s reality by telling them that what they are experiencing isn’t so — and, the gradual giving up on the part of the other person.” — Robin Stern
A girl sitting alone feeling upset

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10. “Gaslighting can be subtle and unintentional, but as feminist writer Nora Samaran explains, it is particularly insidious because it undermines people’s trust in their own capacities: ‘If you think of the power, the strength, the capacity to effect change that women who trust themselves are capable of, what we are losing when we doubt ourselves is an indomitable force for social change that is significant and therefore, to some, frightening. In other words, our capacity to know ourselves is immensely powerful.’ All forms of oppression seem to have this tendency: racism, heteropatriarchy, ableism, ageism, colonization, and other systems of oppression contort people’s insights, experiences, and differences into weaknesses or deny them outright. For this reason, the emergence of trust can be a powerful weapon, which is being recovered all the time through struggle.” — Carla Bergman
11. “Someone who gaslights you is trying to talk you out of your experience to alleviate their shame and responsibility to an issue. It’s a tool to control and manipulate you.” — Dr. Henry Cloud
12. “Gaslighting is when you don’t remember things the same as they do.” — Tracy Malone
13. “Gaslighting is confusing because they switch to intermittent concern.” — Tracy Malone
14. “Some people do Oscar-winning performances to gaslight your good heart. Do not forget what they are.” — Dinakar
15. “Whenever someone is not seeing, accepting, owning and expressing their actual personal truth, it will automatically become a gaslighting situation.” — Teal Swan
16. “Toxic people be like, ‘How dare you set boundaries and not allow me to control and manipulate you?’” — Wingheart
17. “Emotional abuse is designed to undermine another’s sense of self. It is deliberate humiliation, with the intent to seize control of how others feel about themselves.” — Lorraine Nilon
18. “Gaslighting, brainwashing, cults, hostage situations, and totalitarian propaganda have a common basis. They use similar techniques to confuse, intimidate, and disempower people. These methods are used by abusers of all kinds for the purpose of controlling other people, and promoting the abusers’ interests.” — Linda Hatch
19. “Gaslighting, at its core, is a form of emotional abuse that slowly eats away at your ability to make judgments. Essentially, a Gaslighter spins their negative, harmful, or destructive words and actions in their favor, deflecting the blame for their abusive deeds and pointing the finger at you. This is often done by making you feel ‘overly sensitive,’ ‘paranoid,’ ‘mentally unstable,’ ‘silly,’ ‘unhinged,’ and many other sensations which cause you to doubt yourself.” — Aletheia Luna
20. “Quitters always believe the lies they tell themselves because delusion is easier to live with than the reality that they settled for an easier path.”— Shannon L Alder
21. “One of the first steps in freeing yourself from a gaslighting relationship, is to acknowledge how unpleasant and hurtful you find this emotional apocalypse.”— Robin Stern
22. “People who harm you will blame you for it. Remember, an abuser will generally always play the victim, spin a story, tell everyone and they generally call you crazy.” — Maranda Pleasant
23. “Invalidation is crazy – making, and it is also at the root of gaslighting, where victim’s feelings are purposely denied or manipulated in order to make them question their sanity.” — Smantha Rodman
24. “Gaslighting is the systematic attempt by one person to erode another person’s reality by telling them that what they are experiencing isn’t so – and, the gradual giving up on the part of the other person.” — Dr. Robin Stern
25. “The aim of gaslighting is to make you feel bad about something you need not feel bad about. Gaslighting is emotional abuse… happens in the real world and on social media, too.” — Vikram Karve
26. “Gaslighting qualifies as a form of emotional abuse that involves denying a person’s experience and making statements, such as ‘that never happened,’ ‘you’re too sensitive,’ or ‘this isn’t that big a deal.’” — Ramani Durvasula
27. “Let us not get scooped up by gaslighting manipulators stealing our emotions and taking possession of our inner child to carry out their dark agenda. Let the light of our intuition guide us subtly and wisely along the path of trust and suspicion.” — Erik Pevernagie
28. “Gaslighting: These predators prey on susceptible individuals who believe in their false altruism, affection, and promises of protection.” — Ross Rosenberg
29. “Gaslighting can be subtle and unintentional, but as feminist writer Nora Samaran explains, it is particularly insidious because it undermines people’s trust in their own capacities.” — Carla Bergman

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a woman standing with her hands on her face
30. “This doesn’t happen in all instances but it is remarkable the lengths these malicious individuals exceed to trash you, put you at fault, and lead others to believe that you are “crazy;” you need immediate psychiatric help, you have always been unstable, etc.” — Linda Martinez-Lewi
31. “Gaslighting their partners into believing the abuse isn’t real by denying, minimizing, or rationalizing the abuse. This includes deflecting any conversations about accountability using circular conversations and word salad in order to avoid being held accountable for their actions.” — Shahid Arabi
32. “The malignant narcissist has a split persona. They are like Jekyll and Hyde. One minute, they are sweet as sugar. The next minute, they fly into an uncontrollable seething rage! The narcissist loves playing mind games with you. They are clever to conceal who they are. Wherever there’s a narcissist, you can find a false mask plastered upon their face.” — Dana Arcuri
33. “When you broke out in anger and lashed out at me, for a moment, I believed that there was something wrong with me. Luckily enough, well before the belief turned into self-hatred, it dawned upon me that your anger was a reflection of your own messed-up self. And just then I knew, I was fine. I was alright, but not with you.” — Nagashree KC

a woman consoling another

10 Examples of What Gaslighting Sounds Like

Gaslighting appears to be a word used a lot in the media these days, but what is gaslighting? Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse and emotional manipulation that’s seen in abusive relationships.

People who gaslight manipulate a person by forcing them to question their memories, their thoughts, their reality, and even their sanity. So, how do we recognize gaslighting? Here are a few examples.

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Summary

Gaslighting is a form of emotional manipulation that can have a detrimental effect on your mind.

If you ever feel that someone is downplaying your emotions or trying to make you feel bad about something, then you need to stay away from them for your own sanity. Gaslighting can make your feel miserable, and only you can save yourself.

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