What It’s Like to Look in the Face of a Gaslighter

When I look back at the old photographs I keep in a neatly organized box in my basement, I see a little girl who was always smiling. My face in those images is in stark contrast to the reality I lived through and, at times, leads me to question whether my story is one of fabrication. Often, I ponder on this topic. How could I have had it so bad if there is a collection of physical proof that shows just the opposite? That little girl always looked so happy — it could not have been as bad as I think it was. But I am wrong. As I carefully navigate intense therapy I am beginning to unravel a term that hits home: gaslighting.

The Oxford Dictionary defines the word as: ” to manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity.” Kind of a big deal, right? Still, so few have a grasp on the gravity of this single verb. It’s not a term thrown around lightly, and often children of trauma have never heard it used before. I know before reaching out for professional help, I was just another face with no idea what that one abusive and completely destructive tactic was. I was clueless to the weight I had been carrying on my shoulders for nearly two decades.

As I sit down and begin dissecting the laundry list of traumas throughout my life for my book, I am finding a disturbing pattern in the abuse cycle my parents perpetuated. After nearly every instance of physical or emotional harm to my person, they would both immediately deny any and all allegations I brought forth. I was a child with a vivid imagination and a deep understanding of the world at a delicate age; they used this fact to manipulate me in to doubting their heinous deeds. Like a moth to flame, I would blindly come back for more, rather than flying to a sense of freedom. My wings were so badly burned.

If the fact of their misdoing was brought in to question by my curious self, it was immediately denied and that weight was saddled on to my back. I would frequently be told the harmful instance was merely a product of my busy and growing mind. In so many words I had constructed the incident to garner myself attention. In my youth I believed their words and it nurtured a seed in my heart that I was unstable, forgetful and in desperate need of someone’s pitying gaze. They did not care that I was spiraling in to a web of self-doubt that would inevitably lead to many failed suicide attempts. Neither had the capacity to feel such a thing for their own flesh and blood.

Both my mother and father had mental health issues. That toxic combination led to more frightful encounters than I like to dig up, even in  therapy. But ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. I have to face that I was consistently threatened with my mother’s suicide over the smallest of infractions. I have to learn to cope with the fact that my father watched on as she tore at my fingernails using sewing needles. I need to face the grotesque amount of animals she either shot or suffocated in an attempt to punish me. I have to stare down my rape and molestation that my parents turned a blind eye to. It must all be addressed because it was real and it did happen, regardless of what they may have said otherwise.

These points were always ignored or handed over, much like the other abuse that was given out with glee. I was told it was “all in my head.” I was “an attention whore.” I needed validation from people because I was “weak.” None of these things are true. I was never weak and I did not once deserve the beatings, threats or violence. I was a child meant to be protected and my mind didn’t fail me: they did. My parents were the monsters under my bed, not my own sanity. It took me a long time to understand that it wasn’t some dream; my horror movie of a life was real. The trauma was there. It was my reality. I had to validate myself in so many ways.

After my father’s early demise by car accident, I was left in a world of suffering by my mother’s delusions. I was 17 years old. Often, she would scream across the house and beg me to help him bring in the groceries. He was long turned to ash, so her ramblings were all hallucinations. Her denial of my childhood really ramped up after he died. She constructed a world in her mind that had her in the starring role as the perfect mother. This much she clung to, and to this day, she still hisses her vile accusations on to me. To her, I have fabricated my own misfortunes and she reminds me of this often. I always waver and question myself when she does. What if I did just make all of this up? What if I am “crazy,” just as she claims?

Abusive, neglectful and narcissistic parents utilize this tool to foster a sense of instability in their children. It keeps them on their toes and the blame placed wrongfully on the child. Such a parent, in their mind, can do no wrong. Gaslighting is a force to be reckoned with, and ruins that already fragile bond. It’s a form of abuse that so many love to play on to get people to move to their tune. It’s the strings a sick puppeteer uses to guide their puppet in to any situation they see fit. They simply cannot or do not want to face what they have done that is so wrong. It is far easier to say the victim made it up or has a faulty memory. This serves their purpose and keeps the control in the palm of their hands.

When I speak of my traumas, the deep wounds left on my soul, I don’t do so to seek some sense of a nod from someone. I do it to remind myself and cement in the reality that was my childhood. It is a way to regain control of what I have survived. Some may recoil at the depth of pain I have suffered at the hands of my parents, and some may not believe me. That’s all OK. No one has to believe me for it to be real to me. Not everyone will have faith in the wild ride that was my youth, and I can sleep easy with that fact. I didn’t live through all of this to shower myself in pity and to be taken at face value, and neither did you. We lived for some stronger reason, no matter what that may be.

It doesn’t just end with parents; this sickness infects so many. Their need to control is stronger than the truth. So to you I say, look that lighter in the eyes and never doubt your own sanity again. You know your story better than anyone standing on the outside. Do not allow their manipulation to string you into that horrible nest of doubt. What they’ve done to you cannot be erased. You are not remembering incorrectly. You are not “crazy.” What you felt was valid, and that cannot be taken away by a vile tool of manipulation. I want you to see the situation for what it is, a ploy to lull you in to their grasp. Take your own truth and find freedom in it. It may hurt, but we’ve made it this far — what’s a few more steps in the right direction.

Follow this journey on the author’s blog.