How To Turn The Tables On A Gaslighter ⛽💡

The Flex and Rooms Daily Podcast.

Hello un Flex and Frooms, coming to you from our little set.

Our windowless dungeon.

Flex is wearing like meal things that are made out of Teddy Bear. She's wearing wide legged jeans and a skivvy style top with lots of earrings and necklaces that I believe are going to soon go on sale at the flex Wab shop is at flexmummy dot com dot a shopflexmummy dot com.

Stunning.

I'm wearing crocs with little light up things I've got with a pair of Pangaea trackies and a Misfit Minds I.

Love this hoodiety supremacy always.

And a cap from a camp Cove Swim, a great Sydney brand. We're talking about gas lighting, but kind of in a fun way, but then it gets a bit serious. I'm going to tell you how to not avoid being gas lit, but throw the gas lighting back onto the gas lighter. Then I'm going to share a personal story. I'm going to add a trigger warning.

We talk about eating disorders ever so slightly.

Yeah, nothing too triggering, but the youth of the word fatty, Yeah that's true, all right?

For what said twice, maybe even three times let's get to it.

Flex and Frooms.

FLEXI, we are talking about Heartbreak High. This week.

We are on our Heartbreak High set. We've got desks, we got pens.

We talked about the high school. No heartbreak though missed up.

Oh true Heartbreak High.

My heart wasn't really broken in school, so yeah, I couldn't speak to that, but I haven't a made the Arshalt's one of our favorite segments here on the Flex and Froom Show. I'm just going to speak it out. Am I the asshole for auditioning for the role in the school play that my bestI wants?

Whoa brutal.

This one's from Hannah, my brist friend. Laura and I are really into drama and performing. Our school has just announced a new school play and the lead role gets awarded a scholarship to a short course at a really prestigious performing art school.

Holy hell.

Laura has said that the role is basically already hers and will be mad if anyone tries to go up against her for I don't want to fight with her for it, so I told her I'm auditioning for another role. I can't help but feel like she's being selfish, so I secretly auditioned for it without her knowing, and we find out the results next week. Am I the asshole for hiding this from her?

Not buss babe, energy babe, go off quine, Yeah, I mean, do what you want. I love I love a subtle grass cut, but also.

Playing the fire hunt.

Off the jump. I think it's tricky to dib something that is not subject to your control. Literally, so like the friend that DIBs it just might not be good enough to get the role anyway, And then, you know, wouldn't you want it to go to your friend if it's not you? I get that for sure. I think, though, if the friend who has dibbsed it this is like her thing, like she's an actress and she's always liked it, then it seems fair that you just let her have

You're not gonna stal your records. I think she should go for it. I think there's no friends in the drama game.

I applied for.

These ten show business.

I applied for the Year ten play almost like I remember getting to the door and me like, I've got to turn around. This is too embarrassing. I can't do it. Ended up doing it, got into it. Love drama to drama all through school, and it led me to where I am now.

It just plain did.

If I didn't go to the Year ten play, I might not be here where I am right now in this heartbreak high set celebrating the show, directed by Graciotto, with some incredible cast members.

They're great.

But I think I'm correct in this time of the arsehole. But will let Hannah decide what she wants to do?

Oh yeah?

All I think is that go back to what my mum would say, do whatever you want. But if it was done to.

You, what would you like, Wow, that's beautiful, It's okay.

Cool, Maybe don't go for the role. But look, I don't know what I want badly enough that my friend also couldn't play, especially if it's fair game you're auditioning.

Yeah, that's why she should pull her finger out and just let her friend go for it.

Flex and frooms.

Look, I'm a big fan of wikiHow dot com. You Are is a website that provides advice on how to do very rudimentary things such as kiss, hug, be more confident, and it's accompanied by illustrations that are definitely very terrifying. I have found this wiki how, which I think could be quite interesting for me when I'm communicating with you. A known gas lighter?

Is it gas light? If you just forget you know what I'm saying, Like, maybe I remembered it differently.

It's giving manipulative good. Anyway, here is what to do. Number one, ignore their tactics.

We've got to start with what a gas lighter.

Is, though I'm not sure do you want to find.

A gas lighter is? A gas Lighting is a manipulation tactic people can use make you question the credibility of your own reality, so that might be. They could lie to you consistently, and then you might not believe your own truth. Or they could make you feel insane about things that are quite obvious, Like right now, FRUMI is wearing a green top. I could say it's more gray. Don't you think it's actually more all of more gray? Anyway? Please tell me how can we flip the tactics back?

Number one, Let a gas lighter's lies go in one ear and out the other and out smart them. Also consider deleting or block in the number so they.

Can't reach you.

That's a very strong one.

Step one, okay, shrug walk away.

Number two.

Establish boundaries with them. Draw a line with the gas ladder that they can't cross it without consequences. For example, you may set a boundary that if the gas slatter tells you you're too sensitive one more time, you'll end the relationship.

Wow goo, threats and ultimatums. Personally, I won't go into it. I was going, I'm ready to hear it. You're safe here, babe.

Not yet.

Three Collect proof of their behavior. Store some receipts in a pass code locked file. I use one password the software.

Yeah.

Four, Keep track of the lies they tell in a journal. Again, a lock journal would be ideal. Five ask them about to explain their reasoning, which I don't think that's a good tactic because there are already one step ahead of you. Point out their lives, catch them lying again. You've got to be quite strong to do that one. Hide your emotions now, this one really does interest me. Try not

Tell emotional suppression. My therapist would disagree.

Use a calm and even tone when communicating. Now, definitely, I'll go more shrill and feeling backed into a corner.

I want six octaves up if we're fighting, let's fight.

Get the yeat vibration, avoid falling for their love bombing tactics. Apparently that's a big thing. Gather ust system and stay true to yourself.

Are those steps or just options like are we doing an insequential order or just considerations how to approach it?

Yeah?

The final two leave the relationship and talk to a therapist, which I think is great. Have I been gas lit in my life?

Yes? Every time I come to work and face with you as as a setup.

I'm going to think of an example that doesn't incriminate me or the person that.

I'm talking about.

But oh, okay, there was a time in my life where I was going through some changes coming out of neat disorder, and I was gaining weight and someone that I knew would jokingly call me fatty. Like I remember it was like Christmas time at home, and like I went to the to the fridge to get more food because I eat a lot. Yeah, okay, I'm coming out of something I'm consuming.

But also you're the kind of person needs food to function like most people. But we often talk about how I often associate food with relaxing. So I'll power through the day, stomach ignoring at me and my Baby's not time we can relax is seven point thirty, so we'll have our big meal. But you need the food to keep powering on. It's what's fueling you, which is smart and healthy.

Yeah, I do. I eat at regular intervals.

That's also something you learn when you go through eating disorder treatment. You have to well, I have to eat every three hours. So if someone's like, let's I have got a lunch at like two pm, too bad? I've got to eat before then and then come not hungry. You know, I'm doing it by the book, and I quite like that. Anyway, this person would jokingly call me fatty.

It happened once.

Then it happened in another scenario. Again they're completely not like they know what I've gone through, but they obviously don't think it's serious.

They don't think what you've been through is serious, but they've decided this is the perfect time to refer to you as fatty. Please stop it, please, I want to go home, so home.

The first time I happened, I had a tourst chat like an hour later being like, look, you said this thing. I know it's a joke and I'm going through this thing.

It's not on.

You really can't do it.

Don't joke around me.

And at the time, like I had real bad body dysmorphia, so I fully thought that I was in quotation marks fat little do you need no.

I was underweight.

Yeah, so the batter was doing brain tricks. And then yeah, they did it again, and unfortunately I had to end a relationship. Yeah, a friendship had to go down the.

Toilet, because realistically, it's really frustrating when you have to be extra emotional for someone to take you seriously, just hear it for what it is. Let's just take it for what it is. I don't have this conversation. You don't want to hear it, so let's act accordingly.

Literally, let's throw it out. But yeah, I think definitely when it comes today.

When you address it the second time, were they kind of like, oh, come on, now, you know it's a joke or oh, what do you mean, like, relax, it's a bit of fun. How are they approaching it?

Well?

It got quite upset.

I kind of was like, this is a priority. We need to sit down at the cafe and explain this

You're eating junk food?

Like the deal so bitch, I was eating with Donalds the whole time. Yeah, shut it, shut up.

So, yes, I've been gasled in that way. It's kind of hard as well when I don't think people necessarily gaslight in a manipulative or a male adaptive, malicious.

Way all the time.

Like sometimes I think it's subtle and they don't realize they're doing the.

Power of it.

Though. Yeah it's a subtleties, it's.

A subtlety is But yeah, I have gotten over that. I I have reignited a relationship with that person where friends. Again very very civil, but unfortunately I had to cut the tire because I just not in the space to be able to hold space that person where I was.

Sometimes civil is all you can give though, But to your point, I think, yeah, sometimes it needs to be a distinction between when somebody is actively gas lighting you and just so happening to be like passively gaslighting you. But my thing is the outcome and the impact is still the same. So unfortunately must painted with broad brushstrokes.

You've got to go, You've got to goo. So that's a little lesson. Never call somebody fatty, even if it's a joke.

Yeah, I had a friend in high school. Her nickname, her family would call her that, and it was like something that she wasn't fat, she was very thin, but it was very normal in the context of her family structures. And we all came over as friends. We were like, oh, this is really odd, and now we notice you have a really weird relationship with food and eating and hunger. Do you not think it's connected? And she's very paranoid

It's too real.

We bucome what we are saying at Sometimes if we don't call it out one.

Hundred percent, nip it in the bud. I say, and that means sometimes you're having the same conversation over and over again. But I try not to assume it's gas lighting if it's just that someone hasn't come to my understanding. When I've understood it, I think I know what you mean. So for example, like let's say I'm telling a friend, oh, like, you're not really agreeable. Every time I want to do something fun, you never want to come, but I'm always

This is flex and frooms on KEDA.

A couple years ago, maybe closer to two years, I swore off giving advice to people online because sometimes the stakes aren't as high as I realized, or they're too high, and I've overinvested or underinvested, and it's just a lot of literal emotional labor for me to carry. I'm just one woman. I can't do it on my umble woman. But if you catch me at the right time and the request isn't too demanding.

I just might.

Literally seconds ago somebody sent me a DM which I just happened to open, and it's more so for through me, so I'm happy to pass on that labor. They've said, flex, I have a topic you need to discuss with frooms. I've reached out and asked for advice on my stories because I never seem to properly portion dry pasta, so when I cook, I always end up cooking the whole bag and having so much left over. I'm there with you, So anyway about twenty people or message me saying do

What do you think? Wow?

In the previous life, I would have said use the portion that is said on the packet. So if it's like a thing of spaghetti, it says serve six, get sixth amount. But I don't actually believe in portion sizes. I think sometimes you have to go with your gut and your emotional feeling. If that is eating half about half a bag of pasta. I'm gonna eat half a bag of pasta. That means putting the whole thing in. I'm probably gonna eat every single pasta.

Sometimes we need to do that.

But I agree, if you're going to make a sauce that's like serve six people, then use the whole pasta. Personally, I don't mind eating pasta all week. It's very cost efficient. But if she wants to use the whole portion thing, I do know a trick, and that is to use the colander that you use you get like past out with and you put it in the middle.

Can't remember how that works?

Yeah, what's the trick?

That's like the right the pasta colander, that's like how much past you should use.

But I think if you're questioning, just go with your gut. Hunh.

I personally do not believe in cooking. But number two, I have never in my time of cooking pasta been a whole bagger because I too don't want to eat leftovers or three days worth of a meal. I just don't know what I'll feel like the next day, and then you have did you know?

Also part of it it's not time for you.

It's not time for you.

It is a really important fact, okay, go The amount of leftovers that Australia makes every year could fit in the MCG ten times over. So it's good that you're not having leftovers and throwing them out.

Its sustainable, Queen. I do also struggle with the portion thing, because I always think you need less pasta than your eyes tell you. Probly, so your eyes tell you, oh you like fiell the little pot up till it's about halfway, and then you have too much, of course, So what I would then do is say I'm allowed to cook more sauce than I need because that'll last. Okay, I can go back to that in a week's time. But

That's really sad. I'm glad we gave her to optionally sad. She can choose what she wants.

That's a pleasure, women of the people.

This is flex and frooms.

We're currently trialing what it feels like to have non monotone voices.

I believe when you become a woman things are expected of it.

Monotony and cackling.

You have a lobotomy.

Okay, I got this message just ten minutes ago. This person says, I don't know if this is something you may have covered before, but can I please ask this favor of you? Hected to receive. I was probably gonna screen it, but it was fairly easy for me to help out. Then they said, embarrassing early send sorry because I saw it. Yeah right. My actual question hopefully won't be too long. Have you ever broken up with a friend.

Oh.

Now, obviously friendship breakups are quite nuanced. But for the sake of this person getting an answer asap, would you prefer to be the friendship breaker upperer or not? And if you were on the receiving end, do you want the clean cut and dry out or do you want to be soft.

Ghosted self ghost? And I've had both.

The hard cut really cuts you for years, and then you might catch up them later and be like, oh, we wasn't that bad, but you like villainize.

Them in your mind.

So I prefer a soft ghost because then it's not on me. Maybe they're just busy, you know, but what about you?

Yeah, I feel like I used to do this thing when I was a capital E extrovert where I would make a lot of friends and assume that it's a very casual encounter. But then they would latch on quite heavily and I wouldn't set a boundary and be like, hey, I actually like this is a chill thing for me. And so I was finding myself having to figure out do I cut someone so they don't think I'm being

Wow, retrospective.

I like that.

Flex me too.

You're listening to Flex and frooms on Kada.

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When flex world goes under.

He's pivoting. I think I could be a sick midwife.

A midwife.

Yeah, that's gonna be any healthcare practitioner. Be it anesthesiologist obviously if the coin if not a midwife.

Bit too much pressure to a dueler.

Actually, I don't want to have to go study, but I'll be there for vibes, help me push.

You should be a death dueler.

Yeah, see it's a bit grim and I'm a bit in denial about death.

Oh god, do you know that? Hunt?

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