I Thought Gaslighting Meant Candles. Turns Out It Was Just Foreplay for Psychological Murder

Gaslighting and Emotional Manipulation in Relationships

I used to think gaslighting was when someone made you feel a bit silly for forgetting milk. You know, cheeky manipulation. Like “I told you that,” when they absolutely didn’t. Cute. Harmless. Like foreplay for an argument. But gaslighting and emotional manipulation in relationships doesn’t look like that. It’s not quirky or funny. It is a long con that ends with your life in flames and your sense of reality lying face-down in a ditch.

Welcome to the Horror Story

At first, I thought I was in a complicated relationship. Deep. Nuanced. You know, the kind tortured artists write songs about. In reality, I was starring in a horror film disguised as a love story, and I didn’t get the script until halfway through the third act… which, in this case, was a police station, a charge I didn’t understand, and the soul-warping realisation that I had defended the man who filed them.

He cheated on me. Spent a day in bed with his ex fuckbuddy. I found the jockstraps in the laundry basket, watched video footage from the apartment’s camera, and still defended him when he swore on his nephew’s life that nothing happened. I should’ve slapped myself in the face with a frozen fish for even pretending to believe that lie.

This vindictive narcissist violated a restraining order from his ex. My friends said that was a red flag. I said they didn’t know him. I even wheeled him (yes, in a hired wheelchair) into his probation meetings because he liked the sympathy. He doesn’t need a wheelchair, he just likes pity.

He once popped a pimple on the bathroom mirror, sniffed it and said he liked the smell, then refused to clean it off. That was when I told him to get the fuck out of my house. His reply? “Good luck getting rid of me.”

And somehow, I rationalised every moment. I was the one who needed to be more understanding. More patient, perhaps more loving. Because love is complicated, right? Except it wasn’t love. It was theatre. And I was being cast, rewritten, and directed into a role that slowly erased me. That’s the horror of gaslighting and emotional manipulation in relationships… it doesn’t scream, it whispers, then edits your script until you’re applauding your own destruction.

The Art of Psychological Warfare

This wasn’t “he’s just damaged” or “he has a lot of trauma.” This was psychological warfare with PowerPoint slides, intermissions, and a meet-the-monster twist ending. Executed with the flair of someone who could teach a masterclass in emotional obliteration while smiling like he just made you pancakes.

He didn’t fall in love with me. He studied me. Took notes, figured out what I wanted, like love, safety, healing, and built a costume out of it. And when I bought it, when I said “I love you” to the mannequin he’d stitched together from half-truths and trauma tales, he stepped back and let it burn.

This was a man who weaponised empathy. Who turned vulnerability into a ploy. He’d cry about childhood abuse, then mock me for needing space. He’d tell me he was “broken” and then break my confidence with precision only Google Maps could rival. What I thought were quirks? Rehearsed. What I thought was intimacy? A sting operation.

He turned every accusation into a love song, every manipulation into performance art. If gaslighting was theatre, he was Broadway. He was Hamilton. But instead of inspiring tears of joy, he left me emotionally bankrupt, headlining a one-man show I never auditioned for.

When Gaslighting Looks Like Love

Gaslighting and emotional manipulation in relationships isn’t love. Gaslighting didn’t show up with horns and warning signs. It arrived dressed as devotion and looked like “I made you tea” right after he screamed at me for breathing wrong. And looked like bedtime cuddles laced with silent contempt and “I love you” spoken just loud enough to drown out the accusations still echoing in my ears.

Him laughing while I cried, then handing me tissues so he could play hero in the disaster he started. It looked like intimate dinners followed by interrogation sessions about why I went missing between 2pm and 2:15pm that day. It looked like emotional war crimes committed by a man wearing fake charm and stolen underwear. And yes, I wish that last part was metaphorical. It wasn’t.

By the time I realised I was being gaslit, I was halfway through a police interview explaining a crime I didn’t commit, defending a man who once claimed my therapist was manipulating me. (Spoiler: she wasn’t.)

Coming Back From the Mindfuck

If you’ve made it this far and you’re still wondering whether you were actually gaslit or just “too sensitive,” congratulations. That’s your answer. Real gaslighting doesn’t feel like confusion. It feels like cognitive waterboarding. It makes you question everything, like your past, your memories, your capacity to trust anyone, especially yourself.

Healing after gaslighting is like waking up after surgery in someone else’s body. You know it’s yours, but it feels foreign and you have to learn to walk again and rebuild trust in your instincts while slowly stop blaming yourself for missing the signs that were carefully disguised as affection.

You remind yourself that love isn’t supposed to come with surveillance, with screaming followed by spooning, with being made to apologise for needing reassurance. And to stop pretending you’re overreacting when your gut screams that something isn’t right.

And slowly, you take back the things he convinced you to give up: your confidence, your voice, your clarity. You stop giving benefit of the doubt to people who weaponise confusion. You start spotting the signs, not romanticising them. Because once you’ve been psychologically murdered, you don’t rise from the ashes the same. You rise smarter. Sharper. Less polite. And with a flaming middle finger to the next emotional arsonist who tries to light a match near your sanity.

Because real gaslighting doesn’t feel like a spat or a bit of confusion. It feels like a magician slowly sawing your identity in half while asking if you’re sure you ever had one.

Let’s call it what it is: gaslighting is psychological murder, not just some quirky toxic trait. And once you name it, once you see it, you can burn the script and walk offstage before the next act begins.

Why Isn’t Gaslighting a Crime?

There. I said it. Gaslighting should be illegal. Not frowned upon, not given a passive-aggressive TikTok meme, but actually a punishable offence. Like jail time. Like court-mandated therapy for the victim and a padded room for the perpetrator. Because calling it “toxic” doesn’t quite cover the psychological drive-by shooting it really is. Gaslighting and emotional manipulation in relationships is a crime.

If someone drugged your tea every day until you didn’t know your own name, we’d call that assault. But if someone emotionally drugs your brain with denial, blame, projection, and a sprinkle of “you’re crazy,” that’s just… a complicated relationship?

No. That’s psychological murder, with a smirk and a Spotify playlist.

Gaslighting isn’t just lying. It’s the art of rewriting your entire reality with such precision you start apologising for things you didn’t do. No… It’s not a bad breakup, it’s narcissistic abuse dressed up in artisanal coffee dates and faux-soulmate nonsense. And if you’re unlucky enough to date a vindictive narcissist, you’ll spend more time in emotional triage than in love.

The worst part? Law enforcement doesn’t care. Unless there’s blood, bruises, or a restraining order on sparkly paper, gaslighting isn’t taken seriously. Try walking into a police station and saying, “Hi, I’d like to report emotional war crimes committed by a man who convinced me I was the problem while wearing my underwear.” You’ll be lucky if they don’t suggest yoga and a chamomile tea.

I’m not asking for a full-on Netflix documentary per incident, although that’s in the works. I’m asking for recognition. For the system to clock that gaslighting and narcissistic abuse are real, insidious, and often the gateway drug to stalking, coercion, revenge porn, and worse.

You don’t wake up in jail because you fell for someone complicated. You get there because someone calculated your destruction down to the minute. That’s not love. That’s psychological warfare. And gaslighting in relationships is often just the first bullet.

So yes, gaslighting should be a crime. And no, I’m not done.

Here’s Your Reward for Making It Through This Madness

If you’ve stuck with me this far, congratulations. You’ve survived second-hand psychological warfare, walked barefoot through a house full of narcissistic thumbtacks, and resisted the urge to throw your device across the room. That deserves a reward. No, not a candle. Definitely not a bath drawn by a man who secretly read your texts and called it romance. Something better.

This story, the one you’ve just had the dubious honour of stumbling through, isn’t staying trapped in a blog. It’s too dark, twisted and maybe too real. It’s a memoir and a podcast. And not surprisingly, a streaming series in development that will probably open with me in a police station wondering how my relationship became a psychological thriller. Because let’s be honest, that’s exactly how it felt.

We’re in talks, pitching and stirring up noise. And not the gaslighting and emotional manipulation in relationships kind of noise. The good kind. The kind where people read your story and suddenly whisper, “Wait. That happened to me too.” And for the first time in a long time, you don’t feel like the crazy one. You feel seen.

So if your chest feels like it cracked open just a little, if your gut is replaying scenes you thought were your fault, if your brain is dusting off memories you buried under a pile of excuses, then yes, this hit home. That’s not a mistake. That’s your truth stretching its legs.

The world might not prosecute gaslighting or narcissistic abuse yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t burn it into the public consciousness. That’s what this is. That’s what Good Luck Getting Rid of Me is. A story that refuses to disappear quietly. The podcast pitches are out. The streaming deck is under review. And you? You are now part of the reason this piece-of-shit doesn’t get the last word.

So breathe. Rehydrate. Maybe delete that chat history you still haven’t looked at. And get ready. Because in the final act, I stop surviving and start setting fire to every toxic lie I was told to believe.