Gaslighting is manipulation based on emotional violence. It is good to use these strong words to describe the phenomena because physical violence has been pushed out of the workplace, but the emotional one is still going strong. One of the reasons we condone it is because we cannot work with our emotions. This lack allows emotional abusers to spread their wings and victims to fall into the boiling frog syndrome. Another thing is that gaslighting is white-glove violence by an abuser whose intent and purpose is to undermine your worth

5 behaviours that should light the red lamp. Gaslighter:

1. Denies the facts – at work, he will bend reality, he will prove that things were quite different than you think. You misremembered, never said it, overinterpreted. Such a person often changes the game rules in the course to make it more difficult to achieve goals. Importantly – he does it consciously.
2. Emphasizes that something is wrong with you – you’re flustered, normal people don’t react the way you do, think about whether you should get help, maybe you’re not up to the job after all – these are common statements an abuser uses to belittle his interlocutor.
3. Listen to you but doesn’t hear – he’s not interested in learning about your arguments, he will let you voice your objections, but he doesn’t try to understand them and doesn’t plan to take them into account.
4. Punish you – any punishment used is intended to make the victim feel inferior, less valuable, or wrong. What might be punishment in the intention of the abuser: being late for your meetings (on purpose, of course, to undermine your sense of self-worth, not answering the phone, and responding to emails with long delays.
5. Isolates you socially – in terms of projects you don’t get and relationships with other team members. Keeps you out of the information loop, omits you from correspondence, and doesn’t engage you in conversations and activities. Often “by oversight.”

The victim of gaslighting gets stuck in prolonged stress and loses confidence and self- righteousness. He begins to ask himself “What’s wrong with me?”, loses motivation and stops engaging. Bad things happen not only at work. General well-being is disturbed, which affects relationships in your personal life. When this kind of violence occurs in a team, it creates a toxic workplace that affects everyone, including those who only observe this kind of violence.

How to deal with gaslighting?

First, know what it consists of to recognize it and be able to react appropriately. This reaction requires awareness and courage.

1. Look for a “reflection” in other people and try to verify your point of view on the facts that the abuser denies.
2. Build a support system among people who are sympathetic to you and can realistically assess your work.
3. Rethink your boundaries, define them and try to set them – in a relationship with your boss, where there is a natural dependency, this action requires courage and the ability to assertively set boundaries, but it is worth the effort.
4. Consider getting help from a specialist and build self-awareness of your strengths. The stronger you are, the less susceptible you are to manipulation and the greater your ability to act constructively in this difficult situation.
5. Get help from HR at the company, and if that is not possible, consider quitting. Sometimes this is the only action to protect yourself.