Power Is Two-Faced: Gaslighting in Intimate Relationships

ABSTRACT: Victims often describe gaslighting as having a "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" quality. In this essay, I explore victims' descriptions of the two-faced nature of gaslighting, showing how they come to feel caught between two irreconcilable realities in gaslighting relationships. They describe gaslighting as creating a fracture between themselves and their broader social environments; they describe feeling that their gaslighter was able to identify something true about them and wrap it up in lies; and they describe their sense of self becoming "lost." I argue that these findings should push us to think about how broader systems of power and inequality, like intimate experiences of gaslighting, also have a two-faced nature.