The origins of the term “gaslighting” derives from the 1944 psychological thriller, Gaslight, which depicted psychological abuse where a husband made his young wife doubt her perceptions, memories, and sanity. Gaslighting is rampant in today’s society and it’s alive and well coming from young whipper-snapper’s toward older adults.
Working as an older adult certainly adds color to my life, when it’s not making me crazy. I surely glean material for my essays from my “work-life balance” or imbalance, as it were.
For example, last week, after I had relatively quickly solved a massive glitch in our account with one of the biggest retailers in the country if not the world, I had a new and menacing issue with our paper supplier.
In fact, when I was literally in tears, so intense was my frustration with an invoicing clerk, I remembered something Gwyneth Paltrow of all people, once said, “Sometimes I’ll get an email or some work thing or there’s a problem or an issue and I really take it like it’s sort of a slap in the face, so I would really like to rewire myself so that medium or bad news doesn’t feel so terrible.”
Paltrow’s frayed nervous system and disrupted peace of mind at some work challenge, felt pertinently descriptive of my work days, ever so frequently these days. I already feel from time to time, am I too old for this stuff? I mean, is work these days just immensely stressful, or is it me, too feeble mentally and emotionally, to take it?
My partner and I work at this advanced age, because we want to. We “still” meaningfully contribute to society, and to our chosen industry. Our work adds structure to our days and it stimulates our brains, when it’s not stressing us out and attacking said neurons, destroying a few thousand of the billions that remain.
After some contemplation about aging and work, I concluded that maybe it’s not my age, it’s our culture which seems prone to gaslighting anybody who challenges “the way things are done.” That chick at the paper supplier, gaslit me and I noticed.
Not one to take things lying down for long, I stood up to her. It reminded me of many years ago at a convention of one of our major professional societies, an older couple, a mom-and-pop sheet music retailer, precursor’s of me-and-mine, waiting on the loading dock with us to gain entrance to unload the contents of our booth, declared, “we don’t need no stinkin’ badges.” They rebelled against a newfangled and cocky system that acted too big for its britches. We’ll never forget that couple.
Gaslighting, by the way, is a psychological technique of manipulation which intends to undermine one’s confidence and instill fear into its victim. It’s intimidation, on steroids. You may have started an interaction with someone fully confident that your position is accurate and makes total sense. But by the time you’ve been fully gaslit, you question your ability to reason or think properly, as well as the validity of your original position. “Am I wrong?”
That paper supplier invoicing specialist, told me point blank that I was wrong about a series of invoices they had sent to me, and I had paid. She pointed to a couple of check numbers to which I admittedly sort of timidly replied “I think that’s incorrect,” and before I could find the evidence to prove my point, cut me off with “no, those are the correct figures.” I hung up the phone feeling that the old lady had been firmly put in her place. And, I am not easily intimidated.
Then, I recovered, and doubled down with my paper invoices, including hand-written check numbers, dates, and highlighted Invoice dates, etc. It took me some time, but I created a sort of rudimentary spreadsheet which proved that I was right and their newfangled system had glitched. The old lady conquered the new system, and ended up with a small refund.
Gaslighter’s, often narcissists, use their own lack of self-confidence, and inferiority, to attack someone with whom they are extremely jealous. Is it possible that there are some “younger” folks who feel inferior to the wisdom of age, and they lash out?
Then, I asked myself, “what can I learn about gaslighting that will make it easier to take next time, because there will be a next time?” And, the answer was, “you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”
As it turns out, when I sent all of my evidence and was vindicated by my invoicing czar from the paper company, I accompanied the paperwork with an email. After laying out all of the evidence, I decided to “sweeten the pot,” so to speak. I joked that I hoped we could figure out this “squirrely” mess, together, and get past this glitch in their new system. It wasn’t the most professional way to end the email, but I felt it was best to feed the czar a bit of honey.
It seems that kindness, politeness, and a touch of lightheartedness are much more effective at winning people over, getting what you want, and settling a fight, than is the rudeness, harshness, and manipulation of gaslighting. The old lady learned a lesson.