Gaslighting appears to have its origin in the play “Gas Light”, and the film “Gaslight” — wherein the antagonist deliberately alters the lights unpredictably to make his wife doubt her senses, and thus her sanity.
Based on what I’ve seen, both as a (now former) consent activist, and in the later light of the “Jeff Mach Allegations”, I’d like to suggest a related idea: “Dimming”:
It’s when a person, presumably someone close, locks you out, changes the amount of information to which you have access — and doesn’t tell you. All you know is, you’re suddenly stumbling when once you were walking. You’re unsure and confused. You doubt the evidence of your senses. You doubt your memory.
Sound familiar? I’ve seen it happen many times. I write it because while we recognize “gaslighting” as generally being an act of malice, we’re not as shocked when things go dim.
After all, that’s part of a loss of trust, isn’t it? Once you feel less able to share yourself with another person, it’s natural that you’d give out less information. You’d “emit less light”. You would dim the world between the two of you.
Dimlighting isn’t always a direct, visible act of aggression.
Not only can dimming be subtle, it’s insidious. If one person, in response to dimming, seeks to shine a brighter light, the person seeking the shadows might be alarmed, might run away. They’re trying so hard to protect themselves through invisibility — visibility is a threat.
It’s ugly. And it’s very real.
We talk about the need for communication in relationships. We can modify that thought: Sometimes, people need a break, need space, need less communication. But ironically, to get to less communication in a healthy way, you need to communicate that transition. Remember, the clear vision of your relationship is now obscured by fog and diminished luminosity. The other person might not know. They might simply think their own sight is failing — which, in our analogy, means coming to the conclusion: “Why do I misremember how we communicate and interact? Why isn’t it working? Is there something wrong with my mind?”
“Dimming”, like “Gaslighting”, isa term to be used with caution. Humans are always trying to convince each other of things; that doesn’t mean their motivation is purposeful manipulation of another’s head. But it is still manipulation, if you don’t break the darkness long enough to explain what’s going on.
If you’re dimming, and you’re not seeking to mess with someone’s brain, if you just want to protect yourself, consider this simple step: tell them.
Or: Leave them stumbling in the dark. But in those stumbles, they’ll trip, they’ll fall, and they’ll lose their confidence in their footing, in their movement. In, perhaps, their sanity. And it doesn’t help if, sometimes you light up, and sometimes you go darker; you only destroy their night vision, and leave them, stranded, trying to interpret the few glimpses they saw when their vision was (temporarily) clear.
“Dimming” isn’t always an act of aggression. But it’s an act which will create all the fear and panic of sudden darkness — unless you become conscious of your actions, unless you speak up and say, “I need to be dimmer right now; move slowly, and let’s both be careful”. Otherwise, you can’t expect someone to find you safely in the dark; all you can expect them to do is trip, and fall, and hurt themselves.
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(End Notes:)
This was originally published, in somewhat altered form, on the social network “Fetlife”, and under my handle — which, rather unusually, was simply “JeffMach”. My own social ouster came about soon thereafter, and I’ve never known it was adopted. If not, it was their loss. I’ve been dimlighted, and it changed my life — in ways which, at the time, were incredibly painful and malicious. Have you been dimlighted?
(If you want, you can see more of my work, mostly fictional and largely the subject of villainy, over at jeffmachwrites.com. Theory: if you dim someone on purpose, and you do it with success, you do it so well that you make the other into, not just someone with whom you’re personally incompatible, but a “villain”. See someone described as ‘tone deaf’ or ‘unaware’ of actions around him? This person might not know what people are saying around him; he’s been Dimmed, and information no longer flows into his hands.)
~Jeff Mach
(Jeff Mach is the author of “There and NEVER, EVER Back Again: A Dark Lord’d Journey” and the creator of Evil Expo.)