What is gaslighting? Other than just the Merriam Webster word of the year for 2022?
This year’s Merriam Webster word of the year, GASLIGHTING, is defined by the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States as follows:
Gaslighting –
noun – gas·light·ing ˈgas-ˌlī-tiŋ
- psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one’s emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator
- the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage
I don’t know about you, but as a kid, I hated dictionary definitions.
Learning new words and their meanings always made more sense to me when I was given a real life explanation.
In that vein of thought, and because my preferred learning style is to be taught a word with real life context, let’s look at what The Hotline has to say about gaslighting.
As stated on the National Domestic Violence Hotline website, an abusive partner will tell you things contrary to what you know as truth to cause you to doubt yourself. They’ll manipulate you into feeling like you are losing your mind.
You’re crazy – that never happened.
Are you sure? You tend to have a bad memory.
It’s all in your head.
They may use a variety of gaslighting techniques including:
- Forgetting/Denial
- Trivializing
- Blocking/Diverting
- Countering
- Withholding
These insidious accusations and behaviors are disorienting. Eventually, the victim begins to believe the abusive partner for her sense of reality. Dependence on an abuser makes it very difficult for a victim to escape a relationship.
My own experience of intimate partner abuse included gaslighting. Dick would say and do things that made me think that everything I thought I knew as truth was a fabrication in my own mind.
I can remember telling my dad that I thought I was going crazy.
I explained it like this:
ME: “The blue sky is so beautiful today.”
DICK: “What are you talking about? The sky isn’t blue!! It’s green.”
ME: “No it isn’t. It’s a gorgeous shade of blue.”
DICK: “You need to have your eyes checked. That’s green.”
Consequently, I’d end up walking away from the conversation wondering what the f^ck was wrong with me.
The sky must be green because Dick said it was.
The term gaslight comes from the 1938 play, Gas Light by Patrick Hamilton.
In the play, a man sets out to convince his wife she is going crazy. He deliberately dims the gas lamps in the home, yet claims that the lights are not dimming. Over time, feeding this misinformation to his wife, she begins to feel she cannot trust her own truth and perception and is convinced the lights really are being dimmed.
Noah Webster published the first American dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, in 1806. In the early 1830’s, George and Charles Merriam opened the G & C Merriam Co. book printing and selling operation. After Webster’s death in 1843, the brothers worked with Webster’s heirs to take over the dictionary’s publishing.
On September 24, 1847, the first Merriam-Webster dictionary was issued.
The Word of the Year is decided each year based on readers dictionary searches over the calendar year. Candidates are determined by how often a word is looked up in comparison to years past. The winning word will have multiple lookups throughout the year.
Runners-up have significant spikes in lookups following a significant natural, cultural, or political event for a period of time during the year.
Merriam Webster says that there was a 1740% increase in the lookups for gaslighting in 2022. And, these lookups showed high interest throughout the entire year.
In addition, the diversity and versatility of contexts that gaslighting can be used in, from intimate partner relationships to medical settings to politics, contributed to making gaslighting Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2022.
In case you are interested, other words that were in contention included:
As always, if you suspect you are being gaslit, you can reach out to a local domestic violence organization or the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788. You can also chat with an advocate at National Domestic Violence Hotline 24/7/365.
