Gaslighting & Goading
Two of the Narcissist's signature tactics — together a programme of Malevolent Mind Mangling. One rewrites your reality; the other engineers your outburst so you look like the aggressor.
Gaslighting
Gaslighting is a deeply evil attack on another person's senses, thinking, mental stability, self-belief and concept of reality and factual truth. It is a process of breaking the target individual by destroying inner belief and implanting a slave-dependency that becomes entirely controlled and reliant on the Gaslighter. It is brainwashing to achieve dominance.
“Gaslighting = QUICK FORMAT your MEMORY — more pressure than most brains can bear.”
The term “Gaslighting” originates from Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 stage play Gas Light (performed in the USA as Angel Street), in which a husband manipulates his wife into doubting her own perception of reality — most notably by dimming the gas lights while denying any change. The 1944 film adaptation (Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer) brought the concept to a global audience and embedded the term permanently in the psychological lexicon. It is used here with full acknowledgement of its literary and theatrical origin.
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Goading
Goading is a sly, covert means of progressive, concealed provocation — engineered to produce what third parties will perceive as an inexplicable outburst, where the victim appears to be the aggressor. Both Gaslighting and Goading are used by a Control freak to control their quarry or prey (normally a partner), who becomes a trapped, withdrawn, cowed and fearful shadow of their former self.
DARVO — Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender — is the formal term for this mechanism: a perpetrator's tactic of reversing the roles of victim and offender to deflect accountability. The term was coined by Professor Jennifer Freyd, University of Oregon, in 1997, and is used here in full acknowledgement of her original contribution to the field.
Gaslighting is Malevolent Mind Mangling
A forced memory wipe — deep-soil wash, rinse and spin at the highest temperature the brain can bear. Four images, one truth.
Gaslighting = QUICK FORMAT your MEMORY — memory rendered FRAGILE & VOLATILE
The Narcissistic Blueprint origin
How to recognise it
- Events you clearly recall are flatly denied or rewritten.
- Provocation is slow and covert. It feels self-inflicted.
- Onlookers see only your reaction — never the goad.
- Partners can feel foggy, fragile and increasingly reliant on them for “the truth”. [Fortunately Medics are not with this type for long enough to be mind-altered — it is long-term partners or offspring that suffer long-term consequences.]