Netflix
When a Wharton-educated, self-made restaurateur stole nearly $2 million from her investors and employees, it was hard to imagine she'd been the victim of a con artist. But that's what Sarma Melngailis, the founder of the New York City vegan restaurant Pure Food and Wine, said happened to her.
The Netflix documentary "Bad Vegan" tells the story of Melngailis and her then-husband, Anthony Strangis, who she says duped her into committing fraud through years of emotional abuse. In the documentary, Melngailis says that she believed Strangis when he told her he needed the money to fund a complicated plan to make them, and their dog, immortal.
Melngailis said that at some point, she knew she'd been had, but by the time she understood the deception, it was too difficult and shameful to acknowledge the loss of her "happily ever after" story.
Melngailis says in the film that that she was a victim of gaslighting, a form of emotional abuse used to gain power over another individual. The American Psychological Association defines it as manipulating another person into doubting their perceptions, experiences, or understanding of events.
Gaslighting often overlaps with other forms of abuse, including physical, verbal, spiritual, sexual, and financial abuse. Victims of such abuse can be brainwashed into committing unethical or illegal acts, according to sociologist Evan Stark, who studies intimate-partner violence and is the author of "Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life."
To better understand the powerful impact of gaslighting, Insider spoke with three women who, like Melngailis, say they were gaslighted into committing illegal or unethical acts.
They say their experiences led to prostitution, drug use, theft, and unethical patient abandonment, highlighting the powerful effect that gaslighting, coercive control, and other forms of unseen psychological abuse can have over a person's life.
One woman, who asked to remain anonymous to protect her family's privacy, told Insider that she was gaslighted by her boyfriend into using illegal drugs, stealing, and committing identity theft.
"I can't explain the ways he would manipulate me to do things against my morals, like methamphetamine. He started doing it in front of me, and I was already in love. Sex was amazing while he was high. That's how he got me. It was something we could do to be more intimate," she said.
Once she was hooked on drugs, she said that her boyfriend made her feel "so scared of the dope world. I needed him to protect me from it."
Her boyfriend, who had just gotten out of prison when they met, started breaking into women's cars at the gym to steal their purses, she said.
She said she worked at a merchant-service provider, and her boyfriend asked her to show him how to use merchant accounts to make transactions for fraudulent refunds using bank accounts he'd opened with the women's IDs. "I don't know how he started doing it, but it became me, too," she said.
The couple were pulled over for a traffic violation, and the police found a duffel bag full of stolen IDs and fraudulent gift cards. The woman was charged with aggravated identity theft and served seven years in prison.
Now sober and in the process of rebuilding her life, she said, "I can't explain the hold he had on me in one of the sickest mental ways imaginable."
Gaslighters often use their power to deplete a victim's feelings of self-worth.
One woman who spoke to Insider was 19 years old and working in a restaurant when she had her first baby. The woman, who asked to remain anonymous to protect her children's privacy, said her husband slowly wore her down with insults, convincing her she couldn't hold down a regular job. She found herself working in strip clubs and as a sex worker, a choice she said she would not have made in the absence of her husband's manipulation.
"My husband would tell me things like, 'You know you can't handle a real job. Don't even try. It won't work.' He called me too stupid," the woman said.
On top of mental and verbal abuse, her husband repeatedly cheated on her, but she convinced herself it was all her fault, she said.
Even though she left her abuser, she said she's still dealing with PTSD. "I'm in survival mode, but I feel like I gained a certain type of self-esteem. I feel like my experience has lied to me — like a victim that is thankful for the abuse. It's confusing sometimes," she said.
No matter the goal of the gaslighter, gaslighting always involves manipulation tactics.
Insider spoke with a Stanford-educated physician who said she was gaslighted into unethical behavior by her life coach and spiritual mentor of 31 years.
The doctor, who asked to remain anonymous because a loved one is still under the mentor's influence, said the mentor used a theory from Jungian psychology called "shadow" to manipulate herself and others. The "shadow" represents the unconscious mind, composed of repressed ideas, weaknesses, desires, instincts, and shortcomings.
"If someone questioned her or left her coaching, the mentor would say, 'They're in shadow. Don't associate with them anymore.' If you associate with that person, then your growth, your development, your spiritual evolution is not going to continue," she said.
The doctor and life coach sometimes had patients in common. When a family they were both working with decided to cut ties with the mentor, the mentor coerced the doctor into doing the same as a form of retribution toward the family, the doctor said.
The doctor said she believes it was also a play to isolate her from the family as well as prevent her from understanding the family's legitimate concerns about the mentor.
Years later, the woman told her mentor she wanted to leave. The mentor said she was resisting her spiritual growth, and tried to convince her she had early Alzheimer's, insisting the doctor undergo a neuropsychological evaluation.
The psychologist who conducted the evaluation determined the doctor's relationship with the mentor was one of "undue influence," and referred her to specialists in cultic relationships, the doctor said.
"In one moment, I realized a person I loved and trusted was not who I thought they were," she said. "My entire spiritual belief system earthquaked in on top of me. I thought I was serving the world and making myself a better person. But really, I was being abused."
A gaslighter may distort reality by telling a person that they're being overly sensitive or irrational. They may say things like "You're crazy" or "You're just overreacting." The gaslighter might lie outright so that a person doubts their version of events, according to Robin Stern, cofounder and associate director at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and author of "The Gaslight Effect: How to Spot and Survive the Hidden Manipulation Others Use to Control Your Life."
When gaslighting occurs along with other forms of abuse — whether psychological, physical, sexual, financial, or emotional — it becomes coercive control, Evan Stark said. While it can happen to men, Stark said women make up the majority of cases he's seen.
A woman may realize something is off or that her abuser is playing mind games, Stark said. But admitting that she is being manipulated is too frightening to accept, because it conflicts with her belief that she would never allow herself to be taken advantage of.
Gaslighting and coercive control are forms of abuse that can happen to anyone. The true extent of what happens behind closed doors almost never gets out, said Stark.
Several states have adopted legislation to make coercive control illegal, though no federal laws exist that address this form of abuse.
