salamanderinspace:

onceuponadreamgirl:

ok this is important to me. gaslighting is not a synonym for lying. it’s a type of lying. if someone says to you “the sky is green,” that’s a lie. if you say “the sky is blue” and they respond “no, it’s green, you’re wrong, your eyes are playing tricks on you” THAT’S gaslighting. the crucial requirement is that they try to convince you not only that you are wrong but that you shouldn’t trust your own senses. that you’re imagining something/hallucinating/dreaming. the abuser is trying to make themselves more of an authority on reality than your own mind, often with the goal of making you reliant on them to tell you “truth” from “fiction.”

also a crucial part of gaslighting:

the gaslighter has to know they are giving you incorrect information.  they have to know, on some level, that they are manipulating you.  If someone is giving you bad information because THEY have bad information, because their eyes and ears and perception can’t be trusted, it’s important to know that.  That’s not gaslighting, it’s just the other person being wrong.  It does happen.