Someone recently told me that they sometimes feel gaslighted around me because I effortlessly make them question their beliefs and feelings. Hearing that didn’t sit well with me, especially since I’ve been pondering the question in the title for quite some time.
I’ve always been quite critical of myself and don’t consider myself a very nice person. When I discover that someone doesn’t enjoy being around me, I don’t blame them one bit. It’s not like I’m intentionally mean or abusive; quite the opposite, actually. I have very strong morals. However, this includes things like not lying, which means I always speak the truth, even if not everyone likes hearing it. I don’t conform to many social norms expected of me.
Despite all of this, I have deep relationships with several people and especially the elderly and for example the parents of my past girlfriends have all liked me a lot. But I can’t help but wonder why they don’t see me as I see myself. I worry that I’m hiding the true me so well that people don’t actually like me, but rather the facade I unknowingly maintain. Then again, a true psychopath probably wouldn’t be second-guessing themselves in this manner.
As people are saying, a true psychopath might not even question themselves. That said, it is probably a spectrum and we all may have such tendencies - and I mean like 100% of the population, as a shared human condition, to lie somewhere on that spectrum. It seems a good thing to me to examine myself in that manner and maybe dial down, or perhaps even dial up, those things. Especially when others misuse the words, twisting them to suit their own perspectives - e.g. calling someone “unstable” if they want to escape them, the abuser.
Also there are generational differences, and even generational (and other) traps - e.g. a lot of older MAGA parents in the midwestern USA have been abandoned by their children, who want to do things like “take the vaccine” (which I chose to highlight the discussion since it is a decision involving fully literal life-and-death consequences, plus also likelihood of permanent brain damage, which is what we now know long-covid to be), so in such cases is it truly the children who are being “unstable” and “aggressive” to leave, or rather the fault of the parents who attempt to force their christofacist belief structures onto their children, leaving no room in the latter to have their own thoughts or desires?
These are complex, weighty matters, and won’t be resolved quickly, but are good to think about regardless.