Making someone doubt themselves is a form of gaslighting. But the funny thing is that a lot of the things people do to make you question yourself come from their little jokes or little digs, slowly changing how you feel about your own thoughts.
Here are ten common tactics people use to make you doubt yourself, according to research. Do you recognize any of these?
Rewriting conversations and flat denial
Some people rewrite the details of a conversation because they’re trying to make it seem like the version you remember never happened.
Research has found that gaslighters will insist that the other person said something completely different or that they misunderstood to make them question themselves. Enough repetition makes you wonder whether your memory’s right.
Trivializing your feelings as overreaction
Another common tactic is to insist that you’re overreacting to something. They’ll say something along the lines of, “You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” and doing so makes your emotions the issue, not what actually happened.
According to research, hearing that phrase many times encourages you to start thinking that your reactions are too much.
Quietly undermining you with missing information
Researchers looked into undermining in the workplace, and they’ve found that quite a lot of it happens through missing information, such as not inviting someone to a meeting & making last-minute changes.
When it happens again & again, you stop trusting your own skills. You believe you’re dropping the ball, regardless of whether the missing details were your fault.
Flooding you with affection then suddenly pulling away
“Love bombing” is a relatively recent term, and it’s something that researchers use to talk about people who shower another person with affection, then pull away.
The person cools right off almost out of nowhere, causing the other person to start guessing what they did wrong. They begin thinking that they misread the whole thing & doubt themselves entirely.
Using the silent treatment as punishment
The silent treatment works to allow gaslighters to shut down communication entirely, according to research, because it makes the other person replay everything in their heads.
They try to work out whether they messed something up, and the constant guessing game makes them question their own behaviour. What did they do wrong to cause a communication blackout?
Acting confused every time you give a clear explanation
It doesn’t matter how straightforward you might be with some people, as they’ll always try to play as though they’re confused.
Studies have found that gaslighters constantly claim they can’t follow the other person’s point or that what they said wasn’t clear enough. But it usually is. Such comments make you question whether you’re bad at explaining things that make perfect sense.
Questioning your reactions by insisting there was a “better tone”
There are a few people who make tone the focus every time that you speak, ignoring the message of your words entirely. Studies claim that they do so because they’re trying to make you second-guess yourself.
You wonder whether your basic reactions were okay, as you’re being constantly told that how you said it was more important than what you said.
Acting surprised whenever you express confidence
You may notice that a few people respond to your confidence with surprise, and that’s mostly because they treat your self-assurance as something rather strange. It makes you pause.
Researchers say that when these reactions happen enough, you become unsure of your own strengths & start thinking that you’ve given yourself too much credit.
Treating your certainty as a sign you’re missing something
A similar issue is when people treat your confidence as a red flag by making comments about you being too sure of yourself. They’ll make it seem as though your confidence is a sign that you overlooked something, making certainty feel risky rather than normal.
Studies have found that people start pulling back on decisions as a result, since they think certainty is the problem.
Asking leading questions meant to unsettle your certainty
Questions are an easy way to sow seeds of doubt in someone, and especially when they’re seemingly caring, like “Are you sure that’s correct?” Such questions stop someone from disagreeing with you outright & push you to check your reasoning again.
Studies on gaslighting have found that you’ll start doubting your most strongly held convictions soon enough.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.