Do you have a toxic family member who habitually dismisses your experience or recollection of events? That’s called “gaslighting” — a tactic used by emotionally abusive people to rewrite history, avoid accountability, and make you second-guess yourself.
Who Is the Gaslighter In Your Family?
It could be your parent (gaslighting is typical of female narcissists), grandparent, sibling, or even your child!
It could also be a friend or some other person in your life. But I find that gaslighting is particularly rampant in families, especially ones where one or both parents have features of a narcissistic personality disorder.
As a result, one child (the “scapegoat“) will usually be the target of gaslighting and other forms of emotional abuse. At the same time, another child (the “golden child“) will be put on a pedestal to be praised and spoiled.
The golden child will occasionally also be a victim of gaslighting. But they will be more inclined to go with the parent’s story rather than confronting them.
The scapegoat, on the other hand, will try to restore justice by confronting the gaslighting parent. Alas, all efforts to make them take accountability will be futile.
How Do You Know You’re Being Gaslighted?
Like with most cases of emotional abuse, it might take you a long time to figure out that you are being gaslighted.
And even then, you’ll continue questioning your judgment, and even sanity! That’s how damaging gaslighting is.
I’m here to tell you that you’re not crazy. You’re not being a baby. And you’re not making this up.
Gaslighting starts small.
It starts with seemingly innocent, slightly distorted information that slowly erodes your sense of reality, and makes you accept their reality as yours.
Say, your favorite cartoon growing up was Magic School Bus. Suddenly your mom says you never liked that. You only watched Scoobee-Doo.
Even though you’re sure you were all about Ms. Frizzle, you’re not sure anymore. Before you know it, you’re thinking: Maybe she’s right. Maybe I mixed it up.
This example is hypothetical, to illustrate the mechanism of gaslighting. In reality, a gaslighter will not invent some random detail for no reason. It’s more intentional than that.
Rather, they aim to rewrite history to fit their agenda.
Say, your narcissistic mother believes that she was an outstanding, caring, self-sacrificing parent. It’s a big part of her public persona. But you remember your childhood differently. So when you bring up any occasion of abuse or neglect, she says it never happened. Then she adds that you were a very imaginative child.
Since you were a kid when it happened, you might naturally jump to the conclusion that you remember it wrong.
And the seed of doubt is planted.
Then the lies get bigger. And before you know it, you can’t tell what’s up and what’s down, what’s black and what’s white. You completely lost your inner compass, and you just don’t trust yourself anymore.
What Gaslighting in the Family Sounds Like
When you’re dealing with a gaslighter, you can expect them to say things meant to undermine you and make you doubt yourself. Here are some examples of gaslighting language.
- I never said that.
- You always exaggerate.
- You must have imagined that.
- You’re crazy.
- That never happened.
- Don’t be so dramatic.
- It’s not a big deal.
- You’re too sensitive.
- I was just kidding.
- Don’t take things so personally.
- Everyone thinks you’re […] (making you feel like people are siding with the gaslighter)
- You said […] (when you never said that)
- I only did that because […] (making you feel like what they did was your fault)
When Are You Most Likely to Be Gaslighted By a Family Member?
You are most likely to be gaslighted when confronting a toxic family member about their questionable actions or some inconsistency in their story.
Because gaslighting is essentially a cover-up operation, it’s designed to confuse and muddle the facts so nobody knows what really happened.
It’s a classic “he said-she said,” only the gaslighter knowingly lies to hide or justify their actions.
How to Handle Gaslighting in the Family
There isn’t an easy solution or method you can use when you’re dealing with a gaslighter.
By definition, a gaslighter is someone who’s trying to make you feel crazy.
They will do and say outrageous things to make you feel confused, and doubt your memory, your decisions, and your very sanity. And because it’s a family member, you don’t see it coming.
So what can you do against such a powerful attack on your very being?
Here are 7 ways you can protect yourself against gaslighting.
1. Trust your version of reality.
As hard as it is to withstand being bombarded with the denial of your truth, hold on to it as your life depends on it.
Trust your memory, listen to your gut, and believe your own eyes. That’s the only way to ground yourself against gaslighting.
But how do you know that your version of reality is the truth? After all, how we perceive reality is highly subjective, colored by our experiences, feelings, and beliefs.
How do we reconcile trusting ourselves with the fact that we’re not infallible?
While this is true in general, when you’re dealing with a toxic or narcissistic relative, gaslighting comes with the territory. So if you know your family member to be a self-centered pathological liar, you have no reason to trust them. But you have every reason to trust yourself.
It might be hard at first. Give it time. Trusting yourself after years of gaslighting isn’t an overnight transformation. It’s a process that might also take years.
2. Write about it.
I’m a big believer in writing about difficult or traumatic experiences in our lives. And that includes dealing with toxic people.
Here is a post where I talk more about the therapeutic value of writing in these challenging situations:
How Writing About My Toxic Mother-in-Law Changed My Life
Writing allows you to not only mark the experience but also to make sense of it. It helps you make order out of chaos. And toxic people are all about chaos!
It will also lend you more confidence and allow you to ground yourself in your reality. Because when you’re grounded in your reality, the gaslighter is powerless against you.
3. Talk to someone.
Talk to someone who understands what you’re going through.
It could be someone in your family who’s witnessed the gaslighting, or just a sympathetic friend. The point is to find the emotional support to help you feel validated and sane.
It might also be good to have another perspective on the situation. They could help you see another side of the story, or offer valuable insight.
Although that can be useful and even therapeutic, it shouldn’t be a habit of yours. Never seek validation from other people, even if they’re good people who have your best interest in mind.
The only true validation is trusting yourself.
4. Don’t confront.
Confronting a gaslighter is not only futile, but it can also backfire. Trying to prove something to a gaslighter is very frustrating because they will lie to your face with incredible conviction. So at some point, you are likely to lose your cool and snap.
When you do, the gaslighter will act hurt and confused, and might even gain the sympathy of others!
So the gaslighter wins when you get into an open confrontation.
5. Document it.
Whenever possible, or whenever it feels important enough to you, make note of the abusive or disturbing things the gaslighter does or says.
You can take notes, save emails or texts, or even blog about it (hello!)
Because chances are, they will deny that it ever happened later, and you’ll be the one looking crazy, or second-guessing yourself.
Related: How to Start an Emotional Abuse Recovery Blog
This type of “evidence” isn’t to prove anything to the gaslighter… But it can come in handy if a toxic family member ever takes you to court, or attempts a smear campaign to destroy your character or credibility.
6. Let go of the need to make the gaslighter accountable.
You may feel that if only you could prove it to them with logic and facts, they would immediately apologize and acknowledge your point of view.
In a sense, that keeps you powerless against the gaslighter! Because using logic or reason doesn’t work with people like that. They will never EVER validate your reality if it threatens their ego in any way.
So seeking that validation will not only keep you emotionally entangled with the gaslighter, it will also poison you with anger, frustration, and absolute agony.
Accept that this is not going to change, and you will gain freedom, self-respect, and emotional distance from the gaslighter.
7. Educate yourself.
I’ve been saying it for years: you can’t gaslight someone who knows what gaslighting is!
The more you know, the harder it is to manipulate or control you.
You wouldn’t believe the hateful comments and messages I get sometimes from these individuals who hate that I’m writing about them!
Narcissists and other toxic people don’t like being exposed. Even though they’ll never admit any wrongdoing, they still hate when their “tricks” are being discussed.
Have you ever seen a magic show? A talented magician will make you feel like you’re witnessing magic. But if you were to be told how each trick is performed, the effect would be gone or greatly diminished.
Emotional abuse is like that. It only works if you don’t know what’s behind the veil.
So learn as much as you can because trust me, your toxic family member isn’t the last toxic person you’ll encounter in your life.
These are valuable skills to have, whether you’re dealing with a gaslighter or any other emotionally abusive person.
How do you feel about gaslighting in the family?
NEXT
Stuck at Home With a Toxic Person: 7 Proven Ways to Keep Your Sanity
thanks for info
Most beneficial article from first page of Google for me. I find out by accindent (my wife told me/send me a link to first article) that i mind be under “control” (read: “abuse”) of my mother gaslighter. After reading this particular article i get anxious that this will never end. It’s 2 late and no change. “Sh** is gonna get real.” I don’t know how, but i’ll say **ck off to my mother.. I’ll be so long sorry about it.
Thank you for your article, great writing and job done!
Thankyou for this article. I want to speak especially to those CSA survivors like me, who have healed from the initial abuse but who may be still coming to terms with and healing from ‘secondary abuse’. Often this invalidation from family of origin, can be more hurtful than whatever happened to you as a child. Typically it takes 22 years or more for a CSA to speak up if they ever do, as many carry this burden alone for a lifetime, our society having the deficiency of care and support to survivors as it does. Gaslighters are expert manipulators, I’m convinced and I have learned to disengage and let them tell anyone else what they want. You can’t control another’s actions only your reaction to it and by doing so safeguard your mental health, wellbeing and boundaries. I’m also convinced in toxic family systems, where you are the truth teller, it’s fruitless to attempt to ‘wake someone up’ to the truth; I think some gaslighters are psychotic to the extent they truly believe their own version of reality rather than face facts and begin the raw and painful journey of healing themselves. Anyway some phrases that I’ve had that may give others the scaffold of lightbulb moment that ‘it’s not you, it’s them’:
“I think you’ve believed this so long that you don’t know truth from fiction”
(Sister)
(Ermm okay, but I was there and experienced this and you did not lol )
“He would never do that, how can you say that?” (Sister)
(Okay, but he did because again…I was there)
“She’s just a drama queen don’t listen to anything she says” (father)
“But why do you have to keep going back to the past?!” (Mother)
Gaslighters with a lot to lose in their own minds (those who wish to stay in denial rather than heal) such as my sister, will also attempt to character assassinate you to others to further convince onlookers of their reality:
“There’s always been something wrong with her. Mum and dad have tried to help, but hmm well…”
She told nurses at the hospice where my mother was spending her last weeks that “I needed to be supervised around my mother because I had been aggressive in the past” and I overheard one of the nurses calling me a ‘psychopath’ because of this,
She would send me ‘sickly sweet’ cards with pics of me and her as kids and promote the whole persona of the caring older sister…until I stood fast to the truth of what happened to me and then she would turn suddenly and become emotionally abusive blaming everything on me.
A few years back my niece sent me a Facebook message asking me of any instances I’d had of gaslighting or control etc from my sister so I told her the truth. She was reaching out for help and validation that, yes her mum was gaslighting or attempting to control her. Sadly the ‘family unit’ has its own kind of toxic glue and whoever’s ‘right’ never matters over blood ties it seems?
‘Acceptance’ in a toxic family system is conditional; ‘if you go along and be quiet and not speak up’ everything is rosy. If you grow into your own person and speak out, well ‘beware’!
It is hurtful, excruciatingly painful, lonely and confusing to be a scapegoat and/or truth teller but if you ‘suffer well’ do your healing work and grow you will become a person of integrity that can hold fast to what happened and help others who are also struggling in this.
Give up ‘trying to make anyone see’ as I also did for years. There’s a reason abuse survivors don’t speak up; we are not believed and even if those who listen suspect we are speaking the truth, they rarely will care anyway: thus is the state of the society we live in: it’s a fallen world and abusers use this to their advantage. Still speak out, speak up for yourself and especially for others but know by doing so you live a life standing in the truth but often alone.
Also disregard some of what ‘modern psychology’ says about memory. I remember everything that happened to me in detail and my memory has always been good. Maybe not as severe as others abuse (although it is relative and we shouldn’t make comparisons) I understand some may have experienced disassociation and memory loss/repression concerning some memories. But survivors know what happened to them all too well and how it has affected every aspect of their adult lives. We don’t need the added collective societal impact of telling us our memories are misplaced.
Learn to be happy alone: not in a morose way, but in the way that your soul delights in God, pleasing not people but Him. Be reassured that He knows the truth even if not one single other human being admits it.
God has been my saving grace, too. my father did not have a. father in his home, so no role model for intimacy with a wife was there for him to learn from. Therefore, my only brother only saw Dad provide well for his family, and my brother did well in that area when he was married I married someone who grew up with a father who could not how affection to his wife and children, so my husband had no role Model for how to treat me affectionately, but because his mother was the breadwinner and ta he could confide in her, he saw her in me when he met me and observed me teach my students and show kindness. He saw me as the breadwinner to take him under my wing and bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan. I watched my Dad hit my Mom. and when my first husband hit me, like his father hit him. I figured that I wouldn’t tell anyone, just as my mother told me not to tell anyone what my dad did to her. Dad only hit Mom when he was drunk; my husband hit me when anything exerted pressure in him. I would be standing somewhere and if he was mad about a barber from his dad, he would find me and hit me. when our baby cried. he slapped him. when I found a way fo leave his dad and provide a new start with no abuse, my son bit me in my shoulder, and when his father moved out he shoved me into the bathtub, and his bullying began. my married again and my son liked my present husband. my present husband found me when I was vulnerable, but strong. his dad had hit him plenty, but after his mom disappeared one day with his father not explaining why, that permanently planted the idea in him that every woman would leave him, as his 1st wife decided must be done. my son was excited to have a gentler stepfather, but my 2nd husband did not know that a father needed to be a superb role model for a boy who was 13, but he did not know how to talk to him, plus he was jealous of me and my son and our bond, so he often painted the worst part of my son, and not the best. he was a lenient disciplinarian. Now my son is the gaslughter.. talking to god us so helpful!
Finally ended relationship with sister who is toxic, nasty and has tried to gas-light all of the siblings. Dont miss her, sorry it has to be this way and dont expect to be in contact with her ever again. She has gotten worse as she has retired, or maybe because we all had more time with each other. I dont apologize or explain to anyone the why’s just that I am done. Healthy place to be. Agree with article that there is no reasoning with her, no truth she can acknowledge unless its her own and the fabrications are truly unbelievable. If she could take out full page adds about how dysfunctional she thinks our childhood was she would. She has no real idea what dysfunctional truly is-every family has its issues and I have yet to meet a grown person that didn’t have something from their childhood that bothered them. Thanks for the article.
Great article. I have been gaslighted my whole life by my dysfunctional narcissistic mother. Unfortunately she has tainted the minds of my siblings and their families. I was the black sheep. The crazy one as she would say. I was even told by one family member that I was the ‘bad seed’. They all learned well. I never felt a part of my family. Always odd man out. The hurt is immense. Very sad.
I have a gaslighting son and sister. All contact has been ended by me, my sister is a compulsive liar and has been to prison because of it. Wakefield for 3 months then an ankle monitor. My son started gaslighting me when I lived abroad, he managed to poison my reputation
and as a result I returned to England, now he has done the same damage in a retirement home I live in.
I am 81 yrs old and becoming increasingly unhappy and depressed. I really don’t know what to do.
Can anyone please help or advise me?, I would be so grateful,
Linda Chapman
I was exactly where you were when you wrote your letter and said you were very depressed, but today I feel better. My son inherited some rotten dna, watched 4 primary male role models gaslight the 4 primary female role models he loved and trusted. He saw the males in our family do this, because, at times he can become lucid enough, but a boy wants a father so badly that he will choose his father’s lies over his mother’s truth. Be comforted that a large part of why your son may be gaslighting you is because of a narcissistic personality trait within his dna, learning his whole lifetime from his grandfathers fathers and favorite uncle that the women “caused” them to hit them, caused them to fall short of their goals, caused them to start drinking…….sons are extremely confused about their mothers because their mother, if a good one like you are & I are, ever leaves them for any reason then they, too, could fall victim to their father’s abuse, because abusers have to abuse someone. Love your son despite his cruel, paranoid, and seemingly unloving behavior because he does love you. NOT having a good, solid, trusting bond with a Dad can make a big feel very weak and lonely….losing you and me, their mothers, then our sons may really fall apart. .
I am 73 years old and only learned what gaslighting is the last 2 years. . All of my childhood I was told I was too sensitive. I would cry when being accused of someone else action toward me. My daughter and son have been in a heated confrontation for a couple of years with me. They would say things that I did not say and make me out a lier. I understand now what was going on
and feel somewhat vindicated. It doesn’t happen very much now since I pointed it out and explained what it meant I appreciate your article because my father was a master manipulator and narcists. My sister ignores me and crosses her arms and never looks me in the eyes when I am trying to have a conversation with her. I am in therapy learning how to cope
Goodness this explains my life. My sister was an only child for 5 years then I came along. They wanted a boy. Then the boy they wanted came 3 years after me. I had to deal with jealousy from my sister and the brother was such a sweet little boy he would never do anything wrong. He is and was just a golden boy. He is so wonderful he thinks he can tell everyone what they should be doing.. He is a most obnoxious and extremely cheap person. He has friends you can count on one hand. Then I was told oh you are trying to claim middle child syndrome; well that’s a bunch of BS.
I have been reading about toxic family members and gaslighting of siblings and this has been going on for years. I blame my mother for believing lies about me. I am 71 years old my mother died in 2010 and in 2005 she introduced me as the black sheep of the family to her health aid and thought it was funny. Now I look at it as a badge of honor that I am not like my family. I am stronger for being different. My gaslighting sister and husband took care of my mother for a few years and in those years at their home mom learned what my life was like . My sister was mean and cruel. She was even gaslighting my mom to me saying mom was difficult because of her medication. That was BS and I knew because when I took care of her she was fine and acted as she always had. It was too late in life for me to have the mother my siblings got but the last few weeks she was alive , my mother understood the hell that I lived. and asked if that was what I had grown up with. I told her”welcome to my world” It is compensation to know that mom finally knew it was my sister who was truely the black sheep. I did help take care of my sister and I was with her everyday for her 2 weeks of hospice care. Her last 12 years she was a paraplegic I went to sit and visit with her every week. We had totally different political views. We watched different tv shows and I suffered through all of it listening to things I disagreed with but never said a contrary word. If occasionally I did it was met with snarled voice and bared teeth. She was like a viper and could strike at a moment’s notice.. She died this year and I have to say it is a relief to not have to pretend anymore. I have no more obligation to be a good sister I have her lying husband but I don’t contact him much. She did not like that I laughed alot. She did not like my husband. She said she loved my sons but not once ever sent a letter or card or call them. I send her children Birthday cards and gifts every year buy Christmas gifts for them and their children. I love them. I send cards to everyone in my husband’s family. I send cards to all my friends, my chosen family.
My sister was TOXIC and the poor girl died of kidney failure and brain cancer. A sad way to go. But I cant say I miss her. I sometimes think what happened at the pearly gates. Did she make it there? I hope so. Her life had to be difficult trying to cover her lies and misdeeds. After a while I think she convinced herself she was right and did nothing to hurt me and she was my victim. I have three friends that I call my chosen sisters. They are loyal, loving and supportive and we laugh and have fun together. I wish and miss that my own flesh and blood could not be that. I am saddened too my mother went along with it until she was the recipient of her daughter’s tactics. I lost a lifetime of a relationship with her. I was the one in the hospital with my mother as she breathed her last breath. A moment I did not have to share with my siblings. Just the two of us. It was my gift from her. At least that is what I believe.
Now I feel I am a grown up. I can heal all the hurt. I write it all down and get it all out saying someday when someone reads this they will know and understand. I know they won’t. It would only be my sons and her children., maybe. But I throw the writing’s away. I would not want her children to know or try to change their feelings about their mother. My sons know. Their lives were affected by their aunt’s behavior. Mom spent most of her time with my sister’s family because they drove us away. I had to take mu children away from it all so we joined Boy Scouts. and went camping at different places other than the family camp. That was the ultimate goal for my sister her husband. Move us out of the picture and the family camp would go to her family. It is on a lake with only boat access and her wheelchair was 400 pounds and could not get up a rocky hill. In the end my perfect brother told us he bought mom’s house and all the contents so everything was his. Mom left the camp to the grandchildren upon his death.He let my sister and her husband use it but ultimately they bought another that she could get to by car.It is all so ironic.
Women in general are gaslighted almost since birth by the men in their lives, merely by the underestimation of their potential. Wide misconceptions of the superior reasoning ability of men and the emotional irrationality of women, perpetuated by religions and patriarchs the world over, objectification and infantilisation of women is so common as to be tedious, the control of choices and limitations of freedom that is assumed to be the right of a husband is problematic and underlying much of the domestic violence that harms and kills and makes childhood so damaging for so many.
Singling out narcissistic women for this transgression, with no mention of the systematic gaslighting that is part of the coercive control that underlies so much domestic violence, and behaviour learnt implicitly by men as a method of claiming and maintaining superiority of position, is endemic. To single out narcissistic women and to not even mention men in that context is a perfect illustration of the misogynistic gaslighting that infects the self esteem of woman and is the only logical explanation for statistics that show women are diagnosed with mental illness at about twice the rate.
I think you make a great point about the systemic gaslighting of women but I disagree with the assertion that this article somehow supports the misogyny and singles out women to be the problem. I’ve used a few examples of women narcissists but the article is not gender-specific. Gaslighting is not gender-specific although an argument can be made that women are more often the victims of gaslighting.
If you only cite examples with females and follow it by 7 tactics of 100% non gendered language it accidentally comes off as “7 ways to deal with a toxic female”. You can see clearly that you make an effort to keep the language neutral in the 7 points, but the introduction is so heavily gendered and informs your 7 points.
This. All this. I 100% agree with this comment. I’ve been supporting a friend through toxic gaslighting from her father who spent her lifetime controlling and gaslighting her. If she spoke up, he would deny her basic needs until she apologised and then when she did apologise, he wouldn’t accept the apology. I found this blog searching for ways that illustrate the dynamic she has with her father and was frustrated by how gendered toward abusive mothers it was. Your comment is so insightful and well put.
I forgot to ask if it’s normal for a narcissist to research narcissistic personality’s and use that to prove she is not or convince you that she is not? My daughter has been discussing this subject with me a lot which is why I’m researching it as i find it interesting and through all of my researching I’m realizing how much she is this way. It has been eye opening and I’m hoping i can figure out how to handle her in the future. She does use her child to get on my emotional side because i love and care for him and his well being. How do you cut off someone and not cut off the child?
Hi Rose,
hm, this is interesting. Who first brought up that your daughter might be a narcissist? If you brought it up or flat-out called her a narcissist, that probably made her defensive, so she wanted to prove that she’s not. If someone called me a psychopath, I’d look it up!
Now, narcissism is a spectrum. So not all narcissists have a diagnozable narcissistic personality disorder. It’s entirely possible that your daughter has some (or many) narcissistic traits without necessarily fitting the clinical definition of NPD. Either way, narcissists typically don’t think of themselves as narcissists, and they are unlikely to seek help. So even if your daughter is a very obvious narcissist, she will not admit it no matter how many sources you cite.
About your question, many states have the so-called grandparents rights, which is the right to see their grandchildren when the parents are against it. In some cases, grandparents’ rights can trump parental rights. Typically, it involves proving in court that the parents aren’t capable of caring for the child, are hurting the child, etc. If you want to cut off your daughter but keep contact with your grandson, you would need to consult a family law attorney licensed in your state.
Sincerely,
Lana
I’m just realizing that my adult daughter has been doing this to me and my elderly mother for years. My mother in particular is out thousands of dollars to “help” her out of her so called tough situations.
I’ve just recently started to internally question her motives. She lies constantly and even told me that she has a problem lying but only with little things, the problem is that she lies about everything, even things she doesn’t need to lie about.
I could go on and on but what’s the point. I’m just thankful for this article to help me better deal with her in the future. Thank you
My father was born in Germany in 1930; raised steeped in Hitler’s Nazi Family Policy which had very specific notions about women as wives, mothers, and church members, nothing more. He brought those Nazi-informed values with him when he immigrated to the US as a young man in his early 20’s.
Needless to say, with me as a daughter of the 1970’s American Women’s Movement, we struggled mightily without any common ground between us. The multi-generational family patterns I inherited are twisted on an epic scale. I choose to educate myself about factors contributing to the chaos and I strive to develop a perspective of mindfulness.
Intergenerational patterns of survival coping behavior are painful and often deeply rooted in some sort of historical trauma. Name-calling, labeling, and estrangement only perpetuate the problem. Cultivating a perspective of loving-kindness heals: https://www.mindful.org/this-loving-kindness-meditation-is-a-radical-act-of-love/
It is not necessary to directly interact with problematic people -and- it is good for all involved to aspire to an attitude of compassion, care, and a general attitude of loving-kindness. Twelve step recovery groups have a saying: “Resentment is a poison I swallow hoping it will hurt someone else.” Loving-kindness toward our common humanity can be an antidote to the poison of resentment and a beacon by which future generations may break “toxic” patterns rooted in the necessity of trauma survival.
So from this article I’m hearing that I’m not supposed to confront the toxic person who gaslights me. Im having a difficult time coexisting with a verbally abusive parent who also gaslights me and I’m supposed to just let him say what he wants? Really?
Thank you so much for this. I have come to understand that my brother is gas lighting me it is devastating.He has used me as a Scape goat for all that has gone wrong in his life I realise that I can’t change him.So sad to have to let him go. .
Hi
Thank you for this article, I’ve found it enlightening.
How can I best help my son. He has a narcissistic girlfriend who has gaslighted me, my husband and daughter from the beginning. She has progressively tried to detach him from us and the rest of his family and friends. He doesn’t see his friends without her, and he is currently believing that he doesn’t belong in our family.
This is his first girlfriend and it seems like she and her family are grooming him. He comes out with statements like ‘this is how relationships are’ and ‘my girlfriend is my top priority’. He either cannot make plans with friends and family without checking with her first, or goes back on plans at the last minute because she is not happy. Even when he does spend a little time with us, she will phone several times.
I’ve received texts from her stating that it’s my fault, that any effort I make to spend time with her ‘just doesn’t cut it’ and it’s ‘too little too late’. When I stated that was disrespectful, I was told by her that I was misinterpreting her texts.
I’d be happy to have no contact with her, but how do I do that and keep contact with our son? Is there any way of helping him see what is happening? Our daughter is heartbroken as they used to be such good friends growing up. I understand relationships change – but surely you can have a girlfriend without having to detach from your family?
Hi Kate,
unfortunately, we can’t make other people see what we see. If your son’s girlfriend is truly a gaslighter with a narcissistic personality, he will see it in his time, but not sooner. It is his journey and he has his own lessons to learn. All you can do for him is to continue to love and support him, and give him the freedom to make his own decisions and conclusions. If you continue to speak negatively about her, it will only make him more defensive.
Sincerely,
Lana
Thank you Lana. I really appreciate your reply. It’s sad that she seems to have successfully detached him from his family.
I will continue to love him and always leave the door open. Should I keep reaching out to her, or best to just leave it?
My sons girlfriend has clearly GASLIGHTED ME F YEARS N SUCESFULLY TURNING MY SON AGAINST ME. He calls me A ugly ETC. Also my other 2 grown up kids r gas lighters on me F DECADES! Still today. THEYV BROKEN MY BONES REGULALY. Smash my windows n lie about me in my community. They DO NOT LIVE WITH ME OR NEAR ME BUT BEFRIENDED (when??). Few neighbours that have turned HOSTILE. Etc. TC, All 3 have DIFFRENT versions ov my life all lies and even NEVER TOLD ME MY MUM DIED N WER SHE RESTS ??
My Gaslighting father once told me that it wasn’t his fault for being a bad father because he didn’t know how to be a good father, because his own father wasn’t good to him. I responded back that I have 2 daughters of my own who love me and everyone I know around me says that I’m a good father, so his excuse was full of crap, since I had a bad father too. That’s how you deal with Gaslighters. Be better than them.
Gaslighting father here too. Made me crazy as a child and impossible to communicate with. No matter how much you can prove it. If you have proof he will not see it or hear it or let it be presented to him. It’s a lost cause. He’s in his 70s now and still up to the same alternate reality. He lives in front of a TV for up to 16 hours a day and then goes to bed and sleeps with it on all night. Huge Trump loyalist needing somewhere to belong because virtually no one in the family has anything to do with him. Three wives had enough. I know he was severely abused by his father and I always felt sorry for him but, like you, I was able to see the toxic nature of it and break the cycle. He feeds on sympathy and lives in these self-created realities. I’ve tried every path I know to try and help him but he is far too self-damaging proud. He gets defensive to the point of rage but pride is all he has, which is sad. Tried to get him to go to church with me but he refuses. Lost cause. Leave it in God’s hands.
My family and I have a generally pleasant relationship but sometimes, I could be taken off the edge when my parents and I argue. Little do I know that I might be a victim of gaslighting as the things I read here, such as them denying the truth when confronted, could already be a sign. I really want to make peace with them and heal whatever trauma we have experienced so I wonder if a therapist could be an option for us to try.
Chances are they won’t go to therapy because the therapist may expose their issues and they cannot deal with that.
My brother passed away in 2000 leaving my sister in law a widow. Since then she was demanding that my father make sure she got my brothers share of my parents estate. My father died in 2016 and since then she has been using my love for my father and brother to make sure that my mom does the same. She has demanded financial records and when I would not do that she started gas lighting me. How both my father and brother hated me for treating her so bad. My father did tell her things to make her happy. My question is did she also gas light my father all those years. I know she has no legal right to demand anything. She is on the will but she wants to know now what she will be getting. I have cut all communication with her is this the right thing to do.
I went thru the exact same situation when my mother passed last year and my brother instantly started going after me thinking I was in some way or another going to “screw him.” My recommendation, have whatever the estate situation is go supervised versus unsupervised when that time comes if you are still in that situation. Some may advise against this, however if you have a situation where there is animosity and legality of what is being split is possibly in question, it’s worth it in my opinion. Then there is never a question as a judge oversees everything as it is split. I even went to the extent of waiving my executorship to an unbiased cousin who was listed as optional so that the gaslighting would stop and could not continue. That proved fruitful and immediately stopped all accusations, etc. because he surely wasn’t going to do that to my cousin and show his true colors.
Good luck to you. And yes, if she is reacting that way all of these years later still, then I agree that stopping the communications is best.
My name is Brad. I am now 51 years old, and have spent my entire adult life overcoming abuse from both parents. My father was horrifically, physically violent, and my mother’s abusive schema can be characterized as a hybrid pathos comprised of elements of narcissistic personality disorder and what has been described here as the gas lighting , martyr complex. I would even venture an added trait, histrionic tendency. Of course, I have confronted them , to no avail, and have learned to initiate a painful, but necessary process of severance from them. I have confronted my father, only to be bombarded with guilt by my mother, who, in classic fashion, gaslights with archetypal responses such as “you’re misremembering that”, “You had a great childhood”, “We have done everything for you”, and, my favorite one of all… “You need to blame yourself for your mistakes. I am above reproach.” This was perhaps the most destructive statement in my mother’s arsenal of gas lighting statements. It turns the locus of responsibility of the abuser — the physical and psychological violence of the abusers, onto the child, forcing the child to take accountability for the parents’ abuse, and accepting fault. A kind of psychological transformer mechanism whereby the parent is sanitized, and the victim becomes the offender, and the cause of his/her own pathos. It is in a sense, the final transgression an abusive parent is capable of inflicting. Of course, I have sought refuge and solace in my brother, who is six years younger. He escaped the abuse, as the culture of abuse and mechanisms for reporting it came under more scrutiny during his vulnerable years. He has, unfortunately, refused to offer acknowledgement and has, in fact, defended my parents saying that they were wonderful people–statements undoubtedly incubated in the abusive parent/ golden child echo chamber. So, after much pain and many mistakes, I began a phased,conscious withdrawal from my family, and those activities falling within the purview of their eco-spheres- social media, e-mail contacts, and so on. It has not been easy. It has been the hardest and most heartbreaking thing I have ever had to do, because I have had to contend with feelings of guilt, and notions that I am an ingrate and that I am the one who is unreasonable, immoral, crazy, and heartless. But I feel a freedom that I should have felt decades ago- the freedom to feel that my choices, good or bad, are predicated on my experiences, and the confidence in myself to be independent. My personal emotional, cognitive and spiritual efficacy is not
tethered to the approval of people who do not love themselves. It is the courage to love myself in an honest way, and my strength to defend myself against the kids of abuse that have lead me down an unnecessarily long and painful road. I have built within myself the coping style tools to stand by myself, and come to terms with the reality that my parents were deeply flawed people, but their flaws are not mine. I shed them. I don’t want them anymore.
Brad, thank you for sharing. All the results of gaslighting by parents you have described, I too have experienced. It is as you descibe the hardest, most heart breaking experience. I am still working through grief. Chronic invalidation of past neglect and abuse though ‘sanitising the abuser and making the victim the offender’ is “the final transgression an abusive parent can inflict”, lack of accountability and making the other carry the responsibility.
ALL of THIS!!! Your words resonate with such clarity the experiences I too have had. So thank you for helping others not feel so alone in this.
Wishing all of us who have such experiences all the best as we move forward, letting go of the bag of wrongdoings and twisted identities we were made to carry in order to protect others from seeing themselves. I truly burned out mentally, spiritually and physically from protecting them by carrying it, no more. Your post helped me see all the responses to those behaviours are normal not bad, weird, defective, unforgiving etc. Shedding indeed.
Peace to you.
Hello
I see alot of your commenters are talking about mothers who gaslighted. I would like to say that someone should speak up about grown children who gaslight their parents. I believe thot my son has been doing this to me for a while now to get me to stay distant from him, to control my level of closeness to him and to control me as a grandparent as well. I work with young people who experienced child abuse and I do not fall into the category of being an abusive parent. I am not perfect by any means but the way I am controlled through his words and contact restrictions has me feeling like I was the most abusive neglectful parent ever. So please keep in mind, children can also do this to their parents.
My grown Son has also been doing this to me for years. He has gone so far out of his way to make me feel like I am losing my mind, that sometimes I think maybe I am. But for the first time I have caught him in his own trap. He comes to my home and takes things like certain food, or the most expensive cut of meat or fish form the freezer, this may sound crazy, I know but its going on. He puts my medication for blood pressure away, after I have filled the medicine box, He has done to many things Its hard to cover them all, I know in my heart that its not me, its him and I feel so sorry for him and ask myself what did I do to make him do and act this way. I pray for him and want to help, but, I guess the best thing to do is to just leave him alone and do my best to keep the house locked up. I know I should stay away from him but he is my only child and I love him and want to have a good relationship, I dont think he will ever stop, its been going on for twenty years.
My wife has a narcissistic gaslighter as a mother and it has basically destroyed our marriage.
It finally reached the boiling point where she accused me of physically abusing my 3 year old son and wife.
I cannot say how completely insane this is as I haven’t ever even spanked my child and I’m never abusive either physically, verbally or emotionally to my wife.
The worst part was that she made the allegations to my 79 year old mother… who then felt it was her duty to ask her son if it was true. (I’m glad she had the strength to ask me as that’s what she should have done). Man oh man did that hurt my soul answering her questions about whether I hit my child and wife.
Now I feel like I’m being set up so I won’t be able to see my son.
I’m absolutely lost right now.
Please get away from her. Just stop all communication with her. Put a harrassment order on her if you have to.
Hi there, thankyou for the informative article. This is what’s been happening to me by family members for a few years and who knows, probably alot longer before I realized. I have made the mistake of trying to call it out and make things better, but unfortunately it makes things worse in some ways. I feel so alone because of it, and feel I can’t speak to anyone in the family about it. Things get swept under the rug and it makes you suffer in silence.
Thanks again, reading things like this help me to know that I’m not crazy.
Have a great day ☀️
Hi matt I don’t know if you are the Matt jukes of South Wales police department but yes I only noticed it happing to me a lot online and in the work place it’s had thing to talk about I do think it cost me my last two jobs, I did get the feeling I was never wanted around maybe it’s just me, mind you surviving my last nighbour who practly traumatized me in his own way I think I feel down the rabbit hole there I Never knew who far this goes maybe it was my own fault in many ways but that nighbour didn’t help so I moved away from sarn hell site, new fresh start away from there I tried to cut the ties but it seems it has followed me around I believe it is sexily related in its manner I often wonder is someone trying to shut me up from speaking my truths who ever was responsible knew my buttons very well at the moment I just got take the hurt I know and walk away as the victim an the villian I don’t ever see me settling down I often wonder was my child hood to blame I feel so broken I just don’t know what to do anymore but just cope with it..
I met a couple of good people along my journey but is it all a mask?
RE: Carol & Susan,
Well my grown daughter has been gaslighting me since she was a teenager. Been going on for last 20 years. She actually admitted her step father (my ex 2nd husband) manipulated sexually and emotionally abused her, as I had suspected back then before i divorced for many narcisstic abusivive & gaslighting reasons then. Now my daughter participated in stalking me with even Halloween masks/ninja/gillie suits in my rural backyard at night time for 3 months during my divorce from her step father. I had s security camera system they knew the layout and range. Needless to say, I have two children that participated and lied during these traumatic times. But have only once a year contact now with my son who has always been a pathological liar, obstinant defiant person. Do not depend on your children to pick you up from the hospital or visit. They will change their mind and say their family time is more important. Yes, they will make excuses for grandchild visiting time and renig on agreed schedule of dates. Yes they will mess with your weekly pill box (even caught my own mother doing it to me). I have an entire family of narrcists and I was their scapegoat. They learned by watching how my parents treated me. There ya go, they learned how to treat you. My siblings did the same type of crummy betrayals.
Lana, I appreciate your article. Especially about writing the betrayals out. Of course they have never admited to any of the gaslighting lies and abuse. But I do have police reports, Restraining Order depositions and minutes of my awesome divorce court minutes typed out all nice that I paid the court for copies. Maybe I shall write a horror story of it. Oh I forgot, my ex cut my brakes 5 years before my divorce. Wheelchair, learning to rewalk, pain meds for nerve damage, experimental crushed, dismembered foot salvage surgery form that truck/tree accident. (Not the 1st woman he cut brakes on and got away with it). Thank you Lana, I reviewed some of my writings today from 12 years ago, due to my daughters recent gaslighting has returned, fiercly. I tried to never mention it, but it seems the more I let her get away with lying to me to control my grandchild relationship, the more meaner and aggressive she gets. I tried to tiptoe around the fact that she betrayed me, and be loving. I can not take it anymore and let her know that its her molestation she wouldnt tell me about when she was young and I repeatedly asked her, and she had denied it. They all called me crazy, “Dont listen to your mom, she’s crazy.” So now I let my daughter know its no contact unless she can be decent. I dont think I will ever let her inside my house again. She will have to meet me at a restaurant for if and when ever we shall meet. Ive had it. My family is scum.
I absolutely agree with this! Adult children DO daylight their parents.
They try and convince their parents that they are old and their memory is NOT as good as it used to be.
What a bunch of crap!
I have worked as an Executuve Recruiter (Head-Hunter) for over 20 years and I still remember names if client’s, companies, where I’ve placed who and in what position.
I’m sure there are many coherent and capable grandparents out there who unfortunately get underestimated and misrepresented.
Abuse can go in any direction, and usually does. There are rarely “true victims” once we reach adulthood.
My apologies for the typo(s) I was typing in my phone and it has a very insistent spellcheck!
Please except my corrections.
Daylight to say “gaslight”
If should be “of.”
Gosh!
Traci
Thank you
I was alway sure for awhile I have been gaslighted by my evil twin sister for almost 3 decades now. Your article was extremely helpful in helping me to understand how and why this is happening. I would always ALWAYS confront her now I see that was a big mistake. It has gotten so bad lately that my twin sister is working to turn my adult daughter against me. This betrayal hurts the most. I always thought I had loyalty and trust at least with my own child! But my twin is very cleaver and sneaky in her tactics of brain washing my daughter and playing the victim. They both together ruined my 47th birthday recently. I’m so heartbroken and devastated my own daughter has been tricked into siding with my abuser. I just don’t know what to do anymore and now I’m completely all alone in dealing with this. I’m use to my sisters actions but the betrayal from my daughter is a new kind of hurt and pain. On my birthday it’s like they were both tag teaming and working together to ruin my special day. I absolutely have always hated being a twin because my sister acts like a cold blooded enemy. A raging alcohol since she was 18 yrs old. I’m feeling so defeated and mentally drained right now by all of this 😞
Try to understand that its not you, You should distance yourself for awhile, I know how hard that can be because you dont want to let your Sister steel your daughter from you. She wont be able to in the end all of the truth will be revealed, just take a step back and put the situation in Gods hands, trust me he knows. Pray for your Sister and your Daughter, then get busy with your life .
It will all work out, and I am praying for you too!
I’ve been dealing with gaslighting since childhood. I did write things down, in a diary when I was a child, but my abuser made me burn it in our outdoor grill. So much of what you wrote about resonates. I tried to confront her so many times growing up and was always told that I was remembering it wrong… or that I had done something to deserve it (“it” being a much more low key punishment.). At 40 years old I finally decided that I needed to remove that toxicity from my life. I didn’t realize how toxic it was for me to continue to fight for some kind of “good family” that never existed in the first place. I mean, if I had been as big of a liar as that woman tried to make me out to be, don’t you think that they should have had me in therapy or something? I wasn’t in therapy.
Yes I do think i been set up for many years, I do feel like the joke the target, yes I been bullied all my natural life, but i never knew how deep of a rabbit hole I was untill I found out the truth it provocative intreeging intresting it has but my very humanity to the test but no one is listening, I have no one to turn to not even 101 or 999 not even my good friend Howard?
Very helpful, Lana. Both the article and the comments and questions…
it’s saddening to realize gaslighters almost never change…
but acceptance of this makes coping easier.
At the risk of de-humanizing my loved ones,
I sometimes think of them as muppets,
or followers of Zontar, the presence from Mars (from an old sci-fi movie… and then from an SCTV skit).
Kinda childish, but it sometimes help inject a bit of humour…
The Zontar reference is maybe built on my acknowledgement of the different reality they have built their
understanding of the world on… it’s not specifically aimed against me, so I try not to take overly much offense.
I see how costly it would be to accept challenges to their world view, which gives them their place in society.
I’m just collateral damage.
Very interesting article. It’s sad to recognise that these people will never change, but recognition of that fact does give you back some power. Im still learning to develop strategies to deal with this toxic behaviour among my family,.
I like John’s comment about seeing these people as muppets. It’s a way of removing their power and understanding the ridiculousness of their behaviour. If nothing else, it will give you a laugh. I like to play the muppet theme song in my head when I see certain people. It helps me manage anxiety. I’m too busy laughing at them that it delays any sense of anxiety for me.
Anyways, keep up the good writing!
I appreciate this article very much, except that the author starts out at the gate skewing the behavior against females. In my case, it was my father who fit the description of a gaslighting narcissist and it was upsetting to me to see an article predispose a prejudice against females/mothers. This behavior is not gender-oriented at all, and it’s unproductive to speak about this problem while almost suggesting an evil woman stereotype. That might have been the author’s experience but incredibly misleading and irresponsible to editorialize.
Hi A. Gould,
I appreciate the feedback, however, I have to disagree with you there. The entire article is written using neutral gender pronouns. And although I did use a few examples of female gaslighters, I did not state anywhere that this behavior is exclusive to females. I would say it’s more typical of females but anyone can be a gaslighter. Anyone with the traits of an emotional manipulator, that is. So to say that the article is “incredibly misleading” is…inaccurate. But I agree with you that this issue transcends gender.
Sincerely,
Lana
I think it’s interesting how you wrote about people that comment angrily at your article- it was frustrating to read because even if you are a parent with some of these tendencies, there is nothing suggestive that this person could get better or even tips and pointers to avoid gaslighting someone. It comes across like hate speech against parents who are just doing the best they can without the how to journal on raising kids. I would like to get better about this so it’s disconcerting to hear folks say that these people will never change.
Gaslighting is not “doing the best you can.” It’s extremely manipulative and harmful. My goal with this article was not to give tips to the gaslighters (parents or not) but to help the people affected by gaslighting to recognize it and have some tools to deal with it. I’m sure there are plenty of other sources online you can consult about how to get better if you have gaslighting “tendencies.” Cheers,
Lana
Absolutely. It was a shame because the article made some great points and had helpful, supportive and pragmatic advice. Even though most terms were gender neutral, the article began with examples of toxic mothers and said gaslighting was common in “narcissistic females”, so when the only gender you cite is female, everything written after that doesn’t seem particularly neutral. Like I said, a shame because if it was able to even acknowledge male on female gaslighting I think it would reach a lot more people and be a far better piece. Even as someone that’s experienced female narcissistic behaviour, I found the editorialising aspects of the piece unhelpful and (as you say) dangerous.
I never realized it, but I’ve been gaslighted my whole life. I didn’t really understand what gaslighting was just the basic idea of it. I was recently kicked out of my home and a few weeks before this my brother was also kicked out. I now realize I’m the scape goat. When ever I argue with this parent and bring up facts I was sure of, I always get the responses “No, I never said that! You’re a lair.” “That never happened you like to exaggerate” “Maybe you should be on medication” “no what I say goes your my child you are below me.” I have no respect and I don’t feel loved. I wanted to run away for awhile but what would I do after that? I’ve been convinced my whole life I’ll die with out this parent taking care of me. I’m not sure what to do about the whole situation.
Hi Rosaline (beautiful name),
so sorry you are going through this. This is why gaslighting is so damaging — it’s the denial of the reality, denial of the abuse, denial of the pain you went through. It’s so easy to start doubting yourself. Don’t. Don’t let your parent ever make you feel like what happened didn’t happen, or that it wasn’t a big deal, etc. You probably won’t convince them of anything, but it’s important that you stay grounded in your truth no matter what.
Sincerely,
Lana
Hi there Lana,
Thanks very much for this article. I’ve been gaslit by my mother for as long as I can remember (I’m 26 now) and am at the end of my tether. It happens several times a week and the worst is, I don’t know if she knows she’s doing it or she’s so clever and manipulative that this is part of her tactic.
Your article is very helpful but, like some of your other commenters, I have problems with Point 6 – I really need some tools as to HOW to actually let go. As someone rooted in logic and facts, this is incredibly difficult for me, and I feel even more annoyed that the gaslighter feels like they’ve gotten away with their version of events as being the correct one. How is it best to combat this?
Thanks again!
Hi Nadia,
you’re welcome, and that’s a very good question! How do you actually let go of the need to make the gaslighter accountable?
This is the tricky part because you feel like by not holding the gaslighter accountable you’re letting them “get away with it.” But you’re not.
Think of it this way: the gaslighter only succeeds when they make you question yourself, your version of reality. If you are staying grounded in your truth, it doesn’t really matter what your mother says, does it? She’d failed. She can’t pull wool over your eyes anymore. You know it. She knows it, too.
Letting go of the need to make the gaslighter accountable is just you recognizing the fact that your mother will never validate your reality. Never. No matter what you say, never mind your facts and logic. When you acknowledge and accept that fact, you can stop wasting your time and energy trying to get that elusive validation from her. Because again (spoiler alert!), it will never happen. Such is the psychology of the gaslighter.
And yes, I do believe that on some levels gaslighters know what they’re doing, but at the same time, they don’t consider it lying or gaslighting.
Anyway, to sum up, the only way to “let go” is to change how you see the situation, change your perception. Like any kind of change in life, it starts in your mind.
Hope that helps!
Sincerely,
Lana
I empathize with Nadia. My mother is a covert narcissist, passive-aggressive manipulator who likes to subtly push people’s buttons to start an argument or get them angry so she can feel like a victim. Gaslighting is one of her tactics. Out of nowhere, she’ll bring up some painful incident from the past and mischaracterize it in a way that is very different from the truth we both know. You have the choice of stopping and correcting her, which will inevitably get emotional, or letting it go, which feels like letting her version of events stand. It’s very difficult to keep silent and not take the bait. Until you realize that provoking anger was her whole purpose in the first place. Not giving her what she wants is the way you win. I’m 53 and my mother is 87. Wish I’d had this insight in my teens, 20s, 30s…
Thank you so much for this. For years I have been so confused about the awful things said to me by my family – recently escalated into being yelled at that I have mental problems and need help. There’s never apologies or resolution, and if I bring it up and try to explain how much these things hurt and impact me I am told to get over it, to move on or there’s rolling eyes and deep sighs. It can be abuse one day, and then kindness the next, and then abuse again. I am definitely going to see a counsellor about how to manage it better, but reading this article is so helpful because for years I’ve been told there is something wrong with me and I am a bad person. But I’m not a bad person, I would just like to be loved.
I still hate my parents for what they did to me and I hope they get punished. No one should be allowed to abuse their children in any way and get away with it without suffering consequences.
Hi Britain,
I agree, no one should get away with abusing or mistreating children. But let’s not cross into “hope they get punished” territory. I think people like that are already punished in a sense. Their actions inevitably alienate them from other people, their closest family included. So while they may not be aware of it, they’re punishing themselves every day of their lives.
Lana
Thank you for this article.
I just realized a few minutes or hour ago from Twitter that maybe im being gaslighted by a family member. I would always feel the need to be validated by her and everyone else in the house. Trying to prove myself worthy of being alive and living in the house. I’m 21 years old and i still don’t know what I’m going to pursue in the future, so that really added the stress that im going through. I was once told that im just too sensitive and since then I started asking myself am I normal for behaving like myself and feel what I feel. I would also feel the need to apologize first eventhough sometimes in several arguments I know I’m not the one at fault. (that family member will not apologize back). She also likes to control people and have things only her way. One random thing I realize about her is that she won’t look for a manual on how to assemble things like chair or a desk because she got it in her head. And when she couldnt do it, she’ll begin to be frustrated and start to get angry.
But still, i love my family (yeah love is so stupid) and I think I’m just going to accept that nothing could change that – either the toxic behavior or the emotions that I have.
From now on I’ll try to do things on my own accord and from what I feel like to do.
Sincerely, a reader from Malaysia 🙂
Good to hear from you, Hafsah!
I love what you said: “From now on I’ll try to do things on my own accord and from what I feel like to do.” You’re absolutely right. The behavior of a gaslighting person doesn’t have to affect you in some negative or devastating way. Yes, it’s frustrating and maddening sometimes. But at the end of the day, you need to live your own life according to what YOU believe. And nobody else.
Sincerely,
Lana
Thank you so much for this article! Lots of helpful tips and insights.
I’m wondering tho, I feel like my dads a gaslighter but I’m not really sure if he actually is or I’m just overreacting a bit. I do know I’m a terrible overthinker and my dad’s the complete opposite, doesn’t seem to have any empathy. So I was wondering to hear your view on it.
Everytime I ask my dad something (sometimes normal, sometimes slighty annoyed) like if he can please not talk/shout while im on the phone, if he minds shutting the door of the room I’m in when he’s leaving, if he minds turning the tv sound down.. just anything really, he always gets mad at stuff that ‘I’m always doing’ and he starts pointing out my wrong doings. Everytime I ask or confront him about anything he somehow always makes it about me, in a negative way, without acknowledging what I’m telling or asking him. Over the years it’s really started to get to me how he’s always looking down on me and thinking about it I feel like it’s really effected how I look at myself and how I feel about the things I’m doing in life.
I’ve started to feel like every person I come across looks at me the way my dad does and I can never be good enough in anyone’s eyes. (Not just romantic partners but everyone, work partners, friends, family, clients at work) It’s feels like everybody is constantly looking down on me and thinking about is I’ve felt like this for as long as I can remember.
So I was wondering, am I actually overreacting and is this actually a normal way of handling confrontation and do I just take it way too personal or is this gaslighting and very slight emotional abuse?
Thanks for this article!! With COVID, I’m stuck in a house with my abuser (older sister) and her enabler (mother). I should be financially independent soon, but I’m still in college and very broke, unfortunately. I was abused physically by my sister as a child, and my mom would blame me for provoking my sister. She would insist that I should continue to be nice to her even after she’d left me bleeding and bruised, and if I did anything less, I was the problem. She even convinced the other kids to get behind this interpretation sometimes. The worst part is, she still refuses to acknowledge this. And the more we discuss it, the more entrenched her gaslighting becomes.
She starts by saying, “That’s bullshit,” when I point out that she was emotionally abusive when I was younger. (She tried to get a therapist I was going to to say I had narcissistic personality disorder, which I just…don’t (she has a hobby for psychoanalyzing people and it can get malicious). And she used the term at home, along with saying I’m a terrible, angry person. But it gets much worse than just denial. She makes up entire stories and narratives to tell me how I’M actually the abusive one. Normally it’s things like, she called me a narcissist so I called her a loser, and she’ll latch onto the “loser” comment and say that I, in middle school, was verbally abusive to her because I retaliated. Or that I hit my sister once when she was screaming at me (while my mom egged her on) and wouldn’t let me leave the room. She’ll make this into a complex narrative to fit her belief that I’m the abuser when I hit my sister once, compared to her hitting me 100s if not 1000s of times. I told her she was gaslighting me, and a week later she started using the term against me, saying I’m a gaslighter. It’s frankly ridiculous. She’s going more and more off the deep end.
I wish I could escape, but COVID. I have nowhere to go, not nearly enough money, and no way out…
My sister treats me like sh*t and my mom attacks me for drawing a line. My line is: if you’re terrible to me, I’m not going to be friendly to you. That’s kinda it. My brother and dad have no idea what to do about it, and I think my brother sometimes gets caught up in the gaslighting.
Oh and when I video record something or screenshot it, she loses her mind. If I point out that she made something up, she yells at me for being disrespectful. She never pauses to consider that **maybe** she shouldn’t change her stories like that.
Anyway, I have no clue what to do. I just needed to vent about this situation. We talked about going to therapy together, but last time we did, she gaslighted *again* and we didn’t get anywhere. I wrote up detailed descriptions of events and things that might come up so I can refer to them as the conversation goes, thereby giving her a little less power, but I highly doubt it will fix anything. Like you said, confronting gaslighters just makes them worse & I’ve noticed that too.
What should I do?
Hi,
I have an impression from your comment that you’re very intent on making your mother (and sister) accountable for what they’ve done (or do). I think that’s where the trouble is. Or at least, that’s what makes it worse. It would seem that using logic and common sense (and sometimes recording devices!) it would be possible to confront the gaslighter with undeniable truth and make them admit some wrongdoing. But it’s just not the case.
I know it’s super frustrating when your mom accuses you of the very things she’s guilty of. But that’s just her way. Deflect, deny, twist. This is classic “crazy making”. The only thing you can do is try to pay less attention to her words or the crazy stories she’s making up. The more you react emotionally, the more power you relinquish to her.
Wishing you well,
Lana
Great article. I sometimes fear that I am going to turn into my mother. We already share so many physical traits with how we move, laugh, sound, eat…and especially look, etc, etc. I never knew any of this until I started questioning all the “why’s” in my relationship with my daughter’s father, and searching for some understanding …and maybe people who may have been through what I was. Because I didn’t know what to make of someone who was supposed to love you and what embodied the idea of love…not hate and torment. Well the rabbit hole took me pretty far with knowledge and thank god we are alive today to have been able to make it this far in studying and understanding this truly dark and complex thing.
Anyway, more and more, I realized that this was much more comolex than that of a toxic, controlling relationship with your partner…it’s so much closer to home. More and more, I see the little things that have neber been the little things. And Inhave been reflecting so much on my life. The things that have happened (and continue to happen), all my choices, my anger and frustrations, my sadness….all of it, that how can it possibly be? And no ammount of communication no matter how I try it, they come at me. And what’s worse is, they use my children to do it. Doesn’t help at all that I exhibit consistent behavior when it comes to my mother. I don’t do it because I am afraid of being alone. Gods no! I do it because I am afraid of putting her out like that. I give to everybody…and yet as strong and independent as she is, I still do so much for her. That’s not to say she doesn’t take care of my kids, like cooking and laundry…but that doesnt seem to outweigh the b.s. Growing up, she wasn’t there much. She’d leave for weeks at a time with a man. Months even. Been many years I grew up with my Aunt, and her kids (who weren’t any better), and Grandmother…and much of that was by choice. The man we grew up with was a nasty individual and he did the things she couldn’t…and then some. And she didnt say or do anything about.
And I definitely heard and felt that about how there is always a scapegoat and a golden child. My older sister was definitely that. And even to this day, she is never wrong how she drank all the time. Partied and inviting boys over, having sex really young. Slapping her child leaving welts because it was justified (she smoked in the house just like her mom did) and yet I cant tell my daughter she was wrong to do something and place her in timeout (on the couch) for being naughty and my mother puts it in her head that I not only was wrong for doing so, but also a mean scary monster. “Mommy’s scaring you, isnt she?” “Mommy’s scary!” To, conflicting my parenting and allow her to walk all over me and not listen to what she is told like homework and meals and getting along with her little sister.
Idk…I could write a whole book on this. I only came across this article on how not to be triggered by her attempts to gaslight. The shitty thing tho is that she does it in a way for my kids to be impacted by it in the most contradictory parenting ways. I can’t parent right no matter how I do it on any end of any spectrum and she doesn’t hesitate to remind my children. Yet she can do these things and worse and I have to sit idly just minding my own? I have recorded a couple of things regarding her behavior…but even if I did show her, she’d tell me my daughter deserved it and turn it all on me. Denies her part in anything. And when I step up and stand up for it, she just turns around and says “I know, I’m worthless.” “You always say I am.” I have admittedly in a triggered rage only because I was tired of hearing her say that….and of course, now she says it was truth as if I said it to begin with. Doesn’t mean I don’t feel that way tho. I was once ashamed to be like this. I am numb any more. I am so fckng numb its unbelievable. How did I let this happen? I never thought at all….EVER, in this world, that I couldn’t trust my own mother. Has she been like this this whole time? The older I get, the more I realise this. And I don’t want to repeat the cycle in my own children. But I’m afraid it might already be too late. She is 6 and so hard headed already….and with the added ideas laid upon her that she doesnt deserve any consequence to her actions …I want to fold so badly. I want to throw my hands up and be crushed by a boulder. But I can’t. Because I still want whats best for them. I want them to succeed. Because I won’t always be there. They’re going to have to lead their own lives, and without me. I wont just toss em to the wolves. But how do I get away from th wolves? I’ve let them feed off me for so long, it’s hard for me to see the world differently. But I have a fight in me and I won’t just take it lying down….but in doing so, I forget my children live in the same sphere and I need to stop the cycle. They deserve so much better. *I* deserve so much better.
…anyways, thanks for listening lol. I didn’t mean to load off. The movement of my thoughts and thumbs. I have a lot to say. I have a lot to feel. But Despite it all, its all a work in progress. The first step is recognizing. We’ll all get there eventually. Thanks…✌
Any time!
I like when you said: “Because I didn’t know what to make of someone who was supposed to love you and what embodied the idea of love…not hate and torment.” That’s exactly it. It’s a deeply confusing, bewildering, and destabilizing experience to have a parent, especially a mother, who is rejecting and punishing. But like you said, now we know more about these issues than ever before. We’re all learning, growing, and recognizing what’s been done to us, and in what ways we may be reenacting these childhood experiences. It’s all a work in progress! But you’re on the right path 🙂
Great article. How do you recommend dealing with gaslighting relatives, particularly parents, as an adult? Short of no contact can you suggest any strategies for positive or constructive interactions? What about in cases where most of the family is on board with the gaslit version and you’re mainly on your own but when you still want to have some connection? Thank you.
Hi John!
Thank you. I think the strategies described in this article apply to gaslighting parents or any gaslighting situations. Additionally, for positive and constructive interactions, I recommend acceptance and humor.
1) Acceptance because, as I mention in this post, confronting the gaslighter doesn’t work and they will never accept your version of events. They will fight to the death to prove that you’re wrong and/or remember it wrong. Accepting that will enable you to have that connection you want without feeling the need to prove something. Now, mind you that acceptance isn’t accepting the “gaslit version.” It’s accepting and recognizing that your parents are unable to acknowledge the truth, and there’s nothing you can do to change that.
2) Humor because it’s a positive coping mechanism and that applies to this somewhat absurd and comical situation where grown people are denying the reality of what happened or trying to convince you that you’re crazy. You’ve got to laugh at that!
Hope that helps.
Happy new year!
Lana
Thank you so much for posting.
I learned about the term gaslighting and it’s definition a couple of years ago which after years of torment from my mother finally gave me the knowledge to truly understand that I was not infact insane.
I particularly appreciated the list of things a gas-lighter will say to you to discount your memory of past events. The list was like a recollection of my whole life with her!
Thank you so much for sharing this post! Now, after reading it, I’m pretty sure that my mom is a gaslighter.
Two days ago I had some kind of breakdown and I told her how I actually feel about her judging me for a style, taste in music, making me feel like some kind of villain just because I can’t give her my Bluetooth headphones(they were charging, so it was impossible to use them and still she said it’s my fault and that I’m a horrible person) and so much more. I told her that it really hurts my feelings. As an answer, she said that I’m being too dramatic and that she doesn’t care that I’m a sensitive person and that it’s my issue.
I’m not telling that she’s a bad person, I would never, I just can’t handle this anymore. She’s making me being confused about myself. I have no idea if I gaslight myself or just being honest with myself because now everything that I can think about is that I’m a horrible person. She said that it’s just because I’m a dumb sensitive teenager. Maybe she’s right tho.
Hi Ainara,
it was definitely wrong of your mom to dismiss your feelings and to call you “dramatic” and “a dumb sensitive teenager.” It sounds like gaslighting language to me. You should never feel ashamed of your feelings or inadequate for expressing them. I actually think it was really brave of you to tell your mom that her judging comments are hurtful. Don’t doubt yourself. If something feels wrong or hurtful – it is.
Sincerely,
Lana
Hi and thanks for your posting!
I am eagerly searching for help in my situation with my spouse.
She is a gaslighter, been with me almost 15 years.. *facepalm*
And yes, I am suffering and really don’t know what to do. We have a child also which makes things very complicated.
Now when I do know about gaslighting, I can see pretty far away right into the beginning of our relationship which included for example cheating from her. I gave her 2nd change and now I am here in this really terrible situation…
Any advise? :’/
-Hank
Hi Hank,
I hear you. Being married to a gaslighter is very challenging. There are no easy solutions. And it’s certainly not good for your emotional health. the one thing I know is, gaslighters don’t change. Even if you catch them redhanded, they will still come up with something to deny it, or find a way to blame you.
Beyond the strategies outlined in my post, I can recommend a great book called “Gaslighting” by Stephanie Sarkis. My advice is: read it 🙂
Lana
Thanks for sharing this post ..it really hit home for me… N I love the bit that says if u know more about the type of abuse then it has Les control over u
You’re welcome 🙂 I do believe it with my whole heart. Before I knew about all these tactics and forms of abuse, it was all just happening *to* me. But now I feel like I have a choice whether it will affect my reality. Thanks for reading, and for leaving a comment. Sometimes writing about this stuff can be kind of taxing, emotionally. It’s good to know that it helps someone.
Sincerely,
Lana