What if it’s worse than lying?
What if it’s gaslighting?
I’m writing this on what is Mother’s Day in Australia. Like Mothering Sunday in the UK, it’s a day that evokes mixed emotions for many. For me, it’s a day where I say bullsh*t a lot as I peruse posts claiming all mothers are “fantastic!!” because I find it a lie.
Sadly, not all mothers are great.
In The Damage of Words, which is out very soon, I share how I picked a harmful mother!
In my memoir, I also detail the healing and shadow work that I have done which means I can call BS on “overly optimistic” Mother’s Day posts without feeling any negative emotions; I just acknowledge the lie. I do it in empathy for all of the other children of narcissists.
As a covert narcissist, my mother manipulates the truth and does it without empathy, remorse or regret. She lies constantly and when called out, switches to gaslighting.
A liar called out on a lie will usually acknowledge it. A gaslighter will crazy make.
For example, long before I started the work of peeling the layers off my childhood trauma and healing my shattered self-worth and deep-seated insecurity, I was receiving a stream of vile emails from my mother. Often sent after she’d had her first glass of wine for the evening, they were full of venom, personal attacks and, of course, untruths.
Before I understood the pointlessness of fighting for my corner, I countered one email by citing previous ones. It went something like, ‘You ask for x, y, z, yet on this date you wrote this [cite example], on this date, you wrote this [cite another example], on this date… and that makes it impossible.’
I have never forgotten my mother’s gaslighting reply.
‘You are so vindictive. How dare you keep my emails! What is wrong with you?’
Instead of acknowledging the impact of her behaviour, she launched an attack on mine. Shifting the blame; intending to create self-doubt. Thankfully and to this day, it makes me laugh because her emails go to my personal Gmail and if Google didn’t periodically purge my inbox, it would contain all emails going back to when I first created the account!
My “vindictiveness” was mere laziness. 😅
I haven’t used my mother’s or family’s name and few can connect us, but if she did read my memoir, rather than ponder the compassionate way I have written about her, my childhood and generational trauma, her intense sensitivity to criticism and lack of empathy would lead to an explosive character assassination. Incapable of considering her role in our fractured relationship, she would resort to gaslighting my memories and experiences, which is why I threaded it with the evidence my body and behaviours revealed.
If you find yourself on the receiving end of gaslighting, personally or professionally, you may start doubting yourself, overly defending or justifying your actions, think you’re going crazy, etc. Try to remember, that if you call a liar out on a lie, they usually admit to it. They won’t attempt to place the blame on you by crazy-making and undermining your self-worth!
That is gaslighting.