I have been forced, over the last couple of years, to accept that there are people utterly incapable of compromise. When you are in a relationship with one of these folks, often called narcissists, and find yourself in any kind of conflict with them, your choice is accepting their blame-shifting terms, and all blame, or getting the hell away from them. Many of us have come to recognize and understand this destructive personality type in recent years. They see the world in black and white, win/lose, and are compelled, by a gnawing terror of humiliation, to act as they act. They are incapable of real self-knowledge, vulnerability or change.
As a result of constant bombardment by an angry, entitled, mentally unstable, destructive MAGA president, and his hand-picked loyalists, we have all learned, along with the dark, neutral, meaning-obscuring term “transactional”, the term “malignant narcissist”, a psychologist’s post-World War Two explanation of evil. Though a diagnosis of malignant narcissism is not found in the DSM, psychiatry’s bible of diagnostic categories, its workings can be easily observed in the real world. It describes a megalomaniac so intent on dominating others that they will do anything, including violent intimidation and mass murder, to be the most important human on the planet.
In 2022 “gaslighting” was Merriam-Webster’s (famous longtime dictionary) word of the year. It was the word of the year because it described what is being done to the American public, constantly, by a powerful group intent on absolute power and completely unbound from any sort of ethical restraints. Gaslighting is, according to Merriam-Webster:
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
But in recent years, we have seen the meaning of gaslighting refer also to something simpler and broader: “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone, especially for a personal advantage.” In this use, the word is at home with other terms relating to modern forms of deception and manipulation, such as fake news, deepfake, and artificial intelligence.
When our president and his acolytes practice this technique, and demonstrate every other trait of the narcissist, and no consequences befall them, it empowers anyone inclined to act this way to pull out all the stops. Destructive behavior is normalized, as we say, and suddenly angry drivers feel free to blow through traffic lights as civility itself becomes a vulnerability.
Gaslighting is a major technique of the narcissist. You can’t be right because I have a perfectly good explanation, very convincing, for why you are wrong, insane, deluded, crazy, dangerous, a threat and I am your innocent victim, who loves you very much. Narcissist, I think, was also a recent word of the year, I may be wrong but I’m too lazy to keep searching. There is much on-line opinion that the term is overused. In any case, narcissism is the new N-word. It describes a person so damaged early in life that they construct a superficially confident, brittle, grandiose public persona that can never be wrong, attacks when criticized, blames others exclusively and will fight to the death over any conflict. One of their chief weapons of attack is gaslighting.
Our best hope as humans is avoiding assholes who act this way and practicing mutual vulnerability in our personal lives. This allows us and our loved ones to make human mistakes without immediately hunkering down into kill or be killed mode, as is the narcissist’s reflexive reaction. It is an open question how long it takes to recover from a narcissist’s abuse, full recovery may be elusive if you’ve been subjected to it long enough. On the other hand, the only way forward is through healing, and part of healing is learning to protect yourself from this type, once your antennae is attuned to the clear warning signs of someone who is so perfect that they will kill anyone who says otherwise.
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