Interview with a Gaslighting Victim: The Rhonda Parkinson Story

Wikipedia defines this little known evil as such: "Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse. It uses persistent denials of fact which, as they build up over time, make the victim progressively anxious, confused, and less able to trust his or her own memory and perception. A variation of gaslighting, used as a form of harassment, is to subtly alter aspects of a victim's environment, thereby upsetting his or her peace of mind, sense of security, etc."

The term is coined from a 1940's film, Gaslight. The character Gregory lights the gas lamps in the attic, causing the rest of the lamps in the house to dim slightly. When his wife, Paula, comments on the lights' dimming, Gregory tells her that she is imagining things. Paula believes herself alone in the house when the dimming occurs. She is unaware that Gregory has entered the attic from the house next door in order to search for jewels he believes to be hidden there. The sinister interpretation of the change in light levels is part of a larger pattern of deception to which the character Paula is subjected.

Since first writing the article "What Is Gaslighting? The Extremes of Emotional Abuse," I have received numerous emails from victims, many of whom had no idea that they were being subjected to emotional abuse. These victims actually believed they were insane, continually blaming themselves for the problems within the relationships with their abusers.

A middle-aged, Caucasian female from the Western United States contacted me in November of 2007. Currently undergoing therapy with a doctor in her area, Rhonda wants her story to be told. She wishes to help other victims of the cruel gaslighting techniques which seem to be unknown or even overlooked in our busy society.

RP: I was married for ten years to a man who I thought was, you know, "a great guy." We had a son in our second year of marriage, a nice home, and my husband owned and operated three convenience stores. We were happy.

JSC: What happened?

RP: I started to think he was having an affair. There was a long-distance call charge on our telephone bill that we didn't make, but I couldn't convince the phone company that this fifteen dollar charge was not made from our home at 2:15am on a Wednesday. They wouldn't take the charge off my bill. It started with little things like that happening, and then he started coming home smelling like cigarette smoke. Neither of us smoked cigarettes. The third time it happened, I asked him why he had been coming home smelling like cigarette smoke, especially since his stores had a "no smoking" policy for customers and employees alike. He said he didn't know what I was talking about. But I knew I smelled it.

JSC: Did he ever truthfully explain why he smelled of cigarette smoke?

RP: No, he never did. He always said it was just something in my head.

JSC: And there were other things?

RP: Yes, there were instances when the phone would ring and when I answered, the caller would hang up. Then one time, I returned home with my son from the grocery store and my husband was on the phone in our upstairs bedroom. The bedroom door was closed but I know I heard him say, "I love you." He claimed it had been a business call. The caller ID read "unknown caller," and I think now that the woman who had called him had dialed my number by pressing *67, in order to keep her caller information unknown.

JSC: Did you press the issue about the business call any further with him?

RP: Well, yes, and he insisted that I had misunderstood what he was saying. He would act hurt that I was inquiring about a phone call. It was as if I were in the wrong for questioning the sanctity of our marriage, or something. He would respond, "You were listening through a closed door, Rhonda!" He made me feel like it was my fault for questioning his actions and made me feel stupid for trying to eavesdrop. He would say, "If it was me thinking that you were saying something inappropriate on the phone, I would have busted up in there and found out what was going on." I was suppose to believe he would have said the very same thing in front of him if I had gone ahead and turned the knob to go into the room instead of listening outside the door! Now I have learned that he was not only covering what he was doing by flat out lying to me, but he was side-stepping the whole issue so that I would not investigate the call further. He kept me dwelling on the wrongs and rights of questioning your spouse's actions instead of seeing that the action was innocent. I know I heard him tell another woman he loved her over the phone. I know I heard it! At that time, at least, I hoped it was a woman he was talking to! Everything goes through your mind. Even the craziest notions seemed possible. My world was rocked to the core.

JSC: What happened after that and how did you cope?

RP: Well, once I realized something secret was happening with my husband, I began realizing small things that I had formerly overlooked. When we talked about it, the "talks" turned into arguments, and eventually he claimed that my paranoia about him having an affair was the very thing that was causing the problems between us. I would even tell him that if the roles were reversed, I would have no problem whatsoever in proving to him that I loved him and was continually faithful to him. To strengthen the trust between two people is something a married person should take honor in doing. It isn't a dreaded task or a thing of shame to undergo, you know? If your soul mate needs additional comfort in the fact that they are not being betrayed, is that not something a person should want to do for someone they love?

JSC: Indeed it should be.

RP: After a while, I eventually told myself that maybe there was really something psychologically wrong with me. He had said I was paranoid, so I started researching paranoia on the Internet. It led me to finally reading up on psychological abuse situations and then, thankfully, gaslighting and the different gaslighting techniques people use to hide things from another person.

JSC: Did you confront him with the newly found knowledge?

RP: No, I was still uncertain and confused. At that time, I still wanted to believe that our vows and the beautiful relationship we had really meant something to him. I wanted to believe that it was all in my head. My marriage and our life together were that important to me. I would have rather learned that I had a hopefully treatable mental disorder than to find out that my man was cheating and then abusing me in order to keep on cheating. We also had a child together. I didn't want to break up his home. So many things go through your head. Had I been exposed to a sexually transmitted disease? Did he still love me? Did he love the other woman more? These things were so painful for me to face that it was truly easier to face the possibility of having a chemical imbalance or mental disorder!

JSC: What finally led to your divorce, Rhonda?

RP: Our relationship had become so different. At times, I have since learned, I was doing things to make him love me again, which now seems so pathetic to me. I loved him completely, and did not realize that true love does not allow someone to treat another the way he was treating me. He acted as if there was no returning to the point we were once at, the point where we loved each other as man and wife, because I had chosen to believe that he was hiding something from me. He could not solve the whole problem by proving his faithfulness to me because the real wrong had been done by me when I chose to question him in the first place. It was insane! And I put up with it for another year, choosing to believe I had misunderstood the many strange scenarios, and him cheating on me with another woman the whole time.

JSC: But finally you gave up hope and filed for a divorce.

RP: Yes, finally. I was at a point where I felt like I had to have the answer, no matter what it was. An answer to all the confusion and crazy excuses and the pain over his strange cruelty toward me - he didn't care to ease my mind and, to me, that in itself was cruel. The unexplained phone calls had increased and we argued about them one Friday evening. I thought that if I told him we needed a little time apart that it would frighten him into an explanation of some sort. Instead, he took the opportunity to have a weekend in a hotel room with his current fling. I caught them together. I was so angry and hurt, even though I had known deep down somewhere that I had been right all along. No one would come to the door of the hotel room, so I left him a message on his cell phone not to come home again.

JSC: Did he try to move back home?

RP: Oh, yes. And he had an excuse for having been there with another woman, too. He tried to tell me that since I had continued to accuse him of having an affair, he had decided he may as well go ahead and have one. What a monstrous thing to suggest to someone you supposedly love! "Since you are going through the trauma of believing I am cheating on you, I will not ease your mind, but rather, I will go and do the very thing you fear the most, since you choose to fear it in the first place." Of course, that was so easy to classify as "wrong" on his part, that he wasn't able to use that claim to be able to move back home with us. I filed for a divorce later that month. It was easier to do that than I thought it would be.

JSC: Why do you think it was easier than you had thought it would be to divorce your husband of ten years?

RP: I think it was easier than I had thought it would be because I was finally able to see who he really was - not the fake person he had been showing me. And he had allowed me to go through the worst mental and emotional trauma that I had ever been through. He had chosen to do that to me instead of clearing things up between us. Even worse, he continued to cheat and continued to cover up his actions by telling me that there was nothing going on and that I was crazy for thinking there was. If someone does that to another person, they do not love them. Maybe he didn't know how to love another. The thing is, by then, I didn't want to work things out and show him how a wife was supposed to be treated. If he didn't know how to treat his wife, he was a sorry excuse for a man, and a waste of my time.

JSC: You seem like a very strong woman, Rhonda. You don't seem like someone who can be taken advantage of in that way any longer.

RP: Everything happens for a reason, Jeanne. The strength I have now was well earned. And he gave me a son. All was not a waste. We did have some wonderful years together. But I will not be treated badly again, ever. And there are many women - and men also - who are emotionally abused every day. I hope my story helps them.

JSC: I believe it will, Rhonda. Thank you for sharing your story with the world and I wish you the best for your life.

RP: Thank you.

Wikipedia Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

For more information on gaslighting:
What Is Gaslighting? The Extremes of Emotional Abuse
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/109220/what_is_gaslighting_.html