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Feel like someone's gaslighting you? A 3-minute test can help you determine if they are.

Gaslighting is designed to confuse, and the signs aren't always super clear.

Photo by cottonbro studio/Pexels

Gaslighting can leave you feeling confused and unsure of yourself.

The term "gaslighting" has become a popular, everyday term, but there's still some confusion about what it means. Part of the reason is that the word has been misused so many times that the definition has become fuzzier. But another reason is that gaslighting itself is confusing for the person on the receiving end. Even if you know what gaslighting is, it's not always clear when or if it's happening to you.

To provide a brief explanation, gaslighting is a manipulation technique in which someone purposefully and maliciously makes someone question their reality. Abusers and narcissists will often use gaslighting to wear down their victims' sense of self as a means of establishing and maintaining control over them.

In a relationship, gaslighting can look like denying that something happened and telling the person they're crazy for how they're remembering it. It can look like flat-out lying about something the victim knows for sure to be true. It can look like invalidating someone's feelings and telling them they're overreacting. It can look like being cruel and then claiming it was just a joke or making the victim believe they're at fault for something the perpetrator did.

woman, gaslighting, confusion, frustration, abuseWoman looking tired and confused.Canva Photos.

Sometimes, however, people use gaslighting to describe basic disagreements or arguing from different perspectives, like simply saying, "That's not what happened," or "That's not how I remember it." Actual gaslighting is intentional in its impact on the victim. People can have different memories of how something happened and disagree vehemently, but if a person isn't purposely trying to alter someone's sense of reality, it's not gaslighting.

Similarly, telling someone to calm down and not take things personally may not be a sensitive way to respond to a person who's upset, but it doesn't automatically equate to gaslighting, either. Gaslighting requires a malicious intent to manipulate and control.

As Dr. Robin Stern, author of the book The Gaslight Effect (2007) describes gaslighting on Psychology Today:

"Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse where one person’s psychological manipulation causes another person to question their reality. Gaslighting can happen between two people in any relationship. A gaslighter preserves his or her sense of self and power over the gaslightee, who adopts the gaslighter’s version of reality over their own."

Gaslighting also isn't confined to a one-time event, but is more a a pattern of behavior. The gaslighter's repeated distortions and denials wear the victim down over time, making them doubt themselves and question their reality. That's part of what makes it hard to spot from the inside, since someone being gaslit is likely to question whether it's really happening.

If you detect an unhealthy dynamic in your relationship, it's important to seek professional help from therapist, especially if you suspect gaslighting may be at play. But having a tool to clarify what you're experiencing and help determine what kind of help is needed can be useful.

Psychology Today offers a 20-question online self-test to help you assess whether gaslighting might be a problem in your relationship. The test takes about three minutes and includes statements like "This person makes me feel like I'm unstable," "This person tells me that other people are not trustworthy," and "I choose my words carefully when I'm with this person." After responding to each statement with one of five answers ranging from Always to Never, the test tells you how likely it is that gaslighting is an issue in that relationship based on your answers. Possible outcomes include no signs, few signs, some signs, strong signs or very strong signs of gaslighting.

The test results page also provides more detail about what gaslighting is, things to watch out for so you can spot it, and tips for what to do if you are being gaslit in you relationship.

"The healthiest course of action, in most cases, is to end the relationship or significantly reduce contact," the site states. "Leaving a gaslighting relationship is challenging but possible. Confrontation is rarely effective; instead, trust your instincts, gather evidence, reduce or cut off contact, and seek help from friends, family, or a therapist."

therapy, therapist, professional help, gaslighting, mental healthTherapy session.Canva Photos.

Find the Psychology Today gaslighting self-test here. (And if you need a therapist to help you with your relationship struggles, you can search by location, insurance, and specialty on the website's "Find a Therapist" database of providers here.)

This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.

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Therapist gives hilarious advice on how to mess with your therapist in session

It's all in good fun

TikTok

Therapist gives hilarious advice on how to mess with your therapist.

A therapist on TikTok is wreaking havoc with his advice to clients, putting out information that could be detrimental to the mental health of therapists everywhere. OK, I'm being melodramatic, but from the comments, you can see he's at least giving them a few heart palpitations.

Jeff Guenther, who goes by Therapy Jeff on TikTok, is a licensed professional counselor (LPC) who not only owns a successful private practice and a therapist directory for clients called Therapy Den, he also creates content on TikTok. In one of his latest videos, his sense of humor is on display, which could be debated by those affected.

It's all in good fun, messing with his global colleagues by telling clients exactly how to prank them. Yup. A therapist is giving away the code on how to mess with your therapist in session and I have to say, as a therapist, my heart would skip a beat or four if a client did any of these things. But then, we would have a good laugh, so it seems like a pretty harmless prank.

In case you were unaware, your therapist probably has anxiety and if they don't, pulling this trick will likely induce it. Guenther tells his 2.4 million followers, "Three ways to mess with your therapist," before listing them off. The first one being to start the session with, "Well I did exactly what you told me to do," before telling his viewers to watch the therapist have an internal freak-out trying to remember what they told you to do. Come on, Jeff. That's just not nice.

Of course, therapists jumped into his comments immediately. One commenter said, "As a therapist myself, please don't do this lol," complete with a nervous smiling emoji. Another therapist chimed in with, "I am a psychologist. I would CRUMBLE." While many comments were fully in support of these hijinks, one person replied, "Sir, my therapist is trying to help me. Only one of use can be unhinged…"

Guenther is clearly trying to create a situation where the client is reminding the therapist how to handle an anxiety attack. Check out his other ways to cause your therapist to panic, below:

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Feeling hopeless? A therapist explains why you might be grieving the state of our world.

Even without seeing tragedies firsthand, it’s still likely that most of us are grieving.

Last Sunday night, my fiancé and I went to an early evening viewing of "Ghostbusters."

We grabbed our snacks, settled into our seats, the lights dimmed, and then the standard pre-movie reminder about "noticing which exits are around you in case of emergencies" was announced. And I felt a wave of panic grip me.

"What on earth is this about?!" I thought to myself shakily.

Taking some deep breaths, I put on my therapist hat and suddenly remembered 2012’s "Dark Knight" shooting in Colorado and 2015’s "Trainwreck" shooting in Louisiana.

Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images.

My panic was tied to a subconscious fear of being in danger at a movie theater.

It was a very real stress response to the seemingly endless violence and tragedy I've been seeing on the news.

And it was especially poignant for me after watching mass shootings on the news in recent years and the past few weeks, many of which have taken place in otherwise "safe," contained environments like dance clubs, concert venues, cafés, McDonald's, traffic stops, and churches.

In fact, scientists now know that this is pretty common. Being exposed to violent news events via social media can cause us to experience symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

According to a 2015 paper from The British Psychological Society:

"Social media has enabled violent stories and graphic images to be watched by the public in unedited horrific detail. Watching these events and feeling the anguish of those directly experiencing them may impact on our daily lives."

This phenomenon is called "vicarious trauma."

It is something that helpers like psychotherapists, social workers, doctors, and aid workers (among others) often deal with as an occupational hazard from being exposed to the repeated violent or traumatic stories of those they serve.

But because of everyone’s constant exposure to terrible events on the news these days, all of us are at a heightened risk for experiencing vicarious trauma, no matter where we are.

So those feelings you have after watching the news these days? The numbness, the apathy, the persistent anxiety, the intrusive thoughts, the feelings of hopelessness and helplessness? Those are all normal. You’re probably experiencing grief.

"Vicarious grief" might look familiar to you because you've probably seen the stages of it in your news feed: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

This five-step process of grieving is sometimes called the Kübler-Ross model after the pioneering grief work of Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D. And now, social media has given us all a way to see and express our individual and collective grief in public.

Photo via iStock.

Here’s what I mean:

Scrolling through our feeds, we’ve all inevitably seen people express sentiments of shock, disbelief, and denial about yet another mass shooting, another incident of police brutality against unarmed black men, another horrific hostage situation, or a frustrating election cycle.

Denial can be seen when hashtags emerge and trend; shock is expressed, and disbelief is shared.

Anger, the second stage of grief, can be seen when a social media wave of anger breaks across our smartphones and laptops. We see and feel anger over someone who was taken away too soon from us, and we feel anger that we live in a world where traumatic news weeks are the norm, not the exception.

Changing profile pictures and banners, sharing and signing petitions, making donations and sharing articles of thought leadership — all of this can allow us to use social media take some kind of action, however small. For many of us, this can help to counter the inevitable feelings of helplessness and hopelessness these traumatic events can trigger. This, in essence, is bargaining — an attempt to take action to avoid encountering bad things again.

And as for depression and acceptance? Perhaps these stages of grief are less visible online. Often, depression can look more like what you might be feeling this week — perpetual feelings of apathy, numbness, and hopelessness. Perhaps depression looks, for you, like avoiding all media consumption. Or maybe it even looks like an increased sense of irritability and weariness in your own life.

As for acceptance, it’s debatable whether or not that’s even possible online or off these days given the never-ending series of tragedies. My hope is that we’ll get there.

Grief — whether online or off — is not clear cut. It’s not compartmentalized.

The people who were present at a traumatic event will experience grief and trauma differently than the rest of us will as secondary witnesses.

But without seeing an event firsthand, it’s still likely that most of us are grieving the tragedy, terror, and loss of direction that is 2016. You are allowed to have, and to share, those feelings.

Plus, grieving online is a new phenomenon: It is complex, multilayered, and often unconscious, and it looks far more like a tangled wire ball than a linear line of conscious emoting.

So what’s to be done, then, about the state of things?

We live in challenging, hyper-connected times. Social media is at the core of many of our interactions, if not constantly in our hands.

What’s the balance to strike when it comes to using social media to stay informed and to grieve in this new digital age while being mindful of how strongly this can affect our own emotional well-being?

As a therapist, I’d like to recommend that you practice self-care, get support from those who love you, seek out help from professional mental health experts when you need it, and remember that watching these events from afar can affect you.

As you work through your own grief, as you make your way toward acceptance, as you take action against the difficult things you’re seeing, and as you scroll through Facebook before bed, please take very good care of yourself, online and off.

Feel what you feel. Share what you need to share. You are worth it.

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