Postmodern Concepts in Toxic Relationships - What is Ghosting, Love Bombing, Gaslighting?

Although the title directly points to toxic relationships, the concepts of "ghosting", "love bombing" and "gaslighting" may also be used to inject toxicity into today's fast-moving consumption relationships. For this reason, we can say that it is necessary to understand these postmodern concepts and digest this new vocabulary thoroughly. It seems that it would be much more rational to look at the concept of toxic relationship and evaluate its relationship with these three new concepts. Because all these concepts have just entered our lives and still have not been fully formed. Although the way these concepts are used in social media proceeds through a certain pattern, it is quite possible that different results will emerge when we look at the details.

Along with the changing and complex world order, it also brought a postmodern cultural movement. Social media has a great impact on our rapid familiarization with the concepts brought by postmodern culture. As a matter of fact, the support of social media dynamics and postmodern concepts has affected all areas of life as well as human relations. When we go into the details of human relations, we see that the most affected type of relationship is love and love-based relationships. In other words, the simple meaning of dating and togetherness approaches could not go beyond social media and today's culture. Although this is not a correct orientation, it is necessary to know and see that it is inevitable for people to come under this influence collectively. Because it should not be forgotten that the purpose of such general influencers is aimed at the whole society.

As for the concepts of ghosting, love bombing, and gaslighting, it is claimed that these concepts are three steps of toxic relationships. When we look at the details of these concepts, which are characterized by the common language of the whole world, it will be possible to understand a little bit whether social media and postmodern culture pushed us here or whether really toxic relationships are characterized much more clearly by these concepts. For this reason, we wanted to take a look at the details of the concepts first.

What is Love Bombing Concept?
The concept, which is expressed as “love bombing” and its Turkish equivalent is love bombing, is considered the most dangerous among these three. We can say that “love bombing” basically means that the partner who has a narcissistic tendency shows excessive affection towards the person with whom he is in a relationship at the beginning of the relationship. The person who is exposed to excessive attention by his partner begins to feel himself in a world above the clouds. The narcissistic partner can make you feel that there is no one else in the world but the other person. He can show constant attention, want to see you all the time, smother him with flowers and gifts, and make the other person dependent on him. As a result of this frenzy of interest, the partner, which we call normal in quotation marks, has become addicted to this relationship and may find himself in a rosy world. When we look at the toxic relationships in which “love bombing” occurs, we see that almost all of these possibilities come true. That's why the concept of "love bombing" stands as a very strong argument before us.

When you say "love bombing", which we define as an explosion of interest and love, ends, all this bombardment ends when the other partner of the relationship becomes fully dependent on the relationship. As such, the person who has not yet realized that he has been subjected to a narcissistic attack begins to feel guilty when this interest ends and the situation deteriorates. Thus, the person creates his own depression. While the narcissistic partner consciously or unconsciously applies this to the other party, he withdraws and leads a very comfortable life in his own world, while the aggrieved party finds himself in a deep loneliness and deprivation. The narcissistic side, on the other hand, sees every step taken during “love bombing” as an event that shines its own light and thinks that it elevates his personality. He also thinks he is building a relationship that is dominated by him.

The indifference and withdrawal after “love bombing” leads to another toxic concept. This concept is called “gaslighting”. Before we look at the details of the concept of “gaslighting”, we would like to convey to you an issue where experts warn people not to be exposed to “love bombing”. Experts advise not to put anyone at the center of your life and not to develop a dependent relationship in order not to be in a “love bombing” situation. At the same time, he suggests that the person who realizes that they are in "love bombing" should leave that relationship immediately without being exposed to other steps. Now we can move on to another toxic relationship step, gaslighting.

What is Gaslighting?
The concept called “gaslighting” is also attributed as very dangerous, just like “love bombing”. We now know that these concepts, which are already complementary to each other, lead to a great toxic situation in total. “Gaslighting” can be briefly defined as making the other party feel bad and humiliating, so to speak, in order to gain control over the person in front of the narcissistic partner. In other words, “gaslighting” can also be seen as a complementary link to a kind of “love bombing” situation.

The detailed explanation of the concept of “gaslighting” by experts is “psychological manipulation that causes the victim to question the validity of his own thoughts, perception of reality and past memories, leading to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, and dependence on the person who imposes this concept.” appears in the form. It is known that a theater play was effective in naming this concept "gas light", which means gas lamp in Turkish. The male character in the play "Gas Lamp" tries to convince his wife that he is crazy. While the man will be fully successful in this, the gas lamp goes out and the woman realizes her own existence and she understands that she is not crazy. From this example, we can easily see how “gaslighting” is applied.

We know that “gaslighting” often has only one purpose. We can say that the partner with narcissistic personality disorder does not want to lose the source that will feed him spiritually and physically and make him feel perfect. If you feel that you are in such a situation, experts advise that you should quickly get away from that relationship, just like in the "love bombing" stage. If the toxic partner does not admit their own faults, constantly tells you that you are wrong, and constantly compares you to others, you are likely to be “gaslighted”. The solution to this, as we have just said, is to quickly move away from that relationship.

In toxic relationships, "gaslighting" is followed by "ghosting". According to some experts, it is said that the "ghosting" incident took place after the "love bombing" situation. Since exactly which situation and which continuation cannot be fully covered, we continue on our way by seeing “ghosting” as the last stage. We already know that the course of events is more important than the order in these concepts. Well, what is "ghosting", the last step of these relationships, let's take a look at it.

What Does Ghosting Mean?
The concept of "Ghosting", as the name suggests, can be defined as a kind of ghost syndrome or the state of being a ghost. Although it does not have an exact equivalent in Turkish, the word "ghosting", which means ghosting, indicates a situation just like the word equivalent. The partner with narcissistic tendencies in a toxic relationship disappears after "love bombing" or "gaslighting" and pushes the other person to think that the relationship has ended for no reason. In this case, the party exposed to "ghosting" may fall into a severe depression, thinking that the problem is in the end of the relationship. The narcissistic side, on the other hand, decides to continue on its way according to the return from the other side during its disappearance. That is, if a plea and a request for return comes from the other side, he will satisfy his ego and.

“Ghosting” sometimes also refers to a situation of appearing and disappearing. In this case, the party exposed to dating violence is completely confused and does whatever it takes to prevent the relationship from ending. He loses his self-respect, compromises his self, and completely disregards his character. This is truly one of the worst things that can happen to a person in a relationship. The "ghosting" situation, where there is an event of appearing and disappearing, can take the relationship back to the "gaslighting" stage. So the cycle gets too long and the parties to this toxic relationship wear out in every way. Even the narcissistic side can roll into a crazy psychology after a while. We can say that there is no need to even discuss the great destruction experienced by the aggrieved party.

We can see that the only thing we have reached as a result of these three postmodern concepts is the situation called dating violence. The concepts of "love bombing", "gaslighting" and "ghosting" are all described by experts as steps of dating violence. However, it is still open to debate whether these concepts are imposed on us by social media and the changing world order, or whether they teach us the situations that already exist. While this discussion continues, we ask, “Why do people suffer dating violence?” Let's continue with the question.

Why Do People Suffer Dating Violence?
It is known that the biggest reason for the emergence of dating violence is the psychological problems that people live and are aware of or not. The definition of dating violence is generally; It is the violence against the physical integrity, mental integrity or social life of the individuals in a relationship by their partner. This violence can take place in any environment and it is possible to be exposed to violence at different rates under all circumstances. When this violence is low, it sometimes goes unnoticed and causes people to question themselves, look for the fault in themselves, and lose their self-esteem. As the rate of dating violence increases in the relationship, much more serious consequences can occur. Unfortunately, these serious issues can even result in the death of one party.

Other reasons why people experience dating violence include; low self-esteem, low self-esteem or esteem, and negative cognition are said to be effective. In conclusion, it should be stated that whatever the situation is, violence of all kinds is an unacceptable issue as it will cause serious harm to people. For this reason, we condemn all forms of violence and hope that people do not inflict violence on each other for whatever reason. We hope that we will continue on our way by taking steps towards a world where we can establish healthier relationships with each other…