Someone I love asked me to write about gaslighting, so I will. Gaslighting, I think, is a defensive or offensive action depending on the intended outcome of the person who is doing the gaslighting. The perpetrator or the person who is gaslighting as an offensive action can be doing it as a form of control over another human being. The person who uses gaslighting as a defensive action is usually trying to hide some aspect of themselves or their behaviour from their partner or themselves. But again both rationales for gaslighting are to control the reality of another person.