Identify and Heal

Gaslighting | Emotional and Psychological Abuse

Gaslighting – “I never said that…what a vivid imagination you have”

Gaslighting is a form of emotional and psychological abuse,  which narcissistic mothers use in order to maintain control over their daughters. This insidious and dangerous form of abuse is used with the intention of making her Daughter doubt herself, her feelings, experiences, perceptions, reality and memory.

Narcissistic Mothers Tactics

Mother gaslights as a tactic to deflect from the toxic abuse she inflicts upon her daughter.  This is done to distract or remove attention away from herself, in order to blame the daughter, hide the truth, and deny the event ever took place. Mother gains much amusement and supply from this form of abuse.  Gaslighting is always used with the sole intention of benefiting this narcissistic mother.

The Developing Child

As a child grows up she is hardwired to seek her mothers love and approval. An attuned, emotionally intelligent, nurturing and loving mother enables and helps her daughter to develop self-mastery skills.  She also teaches her daughter to manage her emotions, and in turn her daughter learns how to self regulate.  As a child grows, she is reliant on her mother for healthy emotional and psychological development.  From being valued and nurtured in healthy responsive ways, the daughter learns to have self worth and solidity.  A narcissistic mother however, takes great pleasure from gaslighting her daughter, thus ensuring daughter doubts her own perceptions, and reality. This self-doubt ensures the daughter becomes even more reliant on her mother for assurance and validation, in order to make decisions and learn how to navigate her emotions and experiences.  This is exactly the mothers motive for her daughter.

Master Manipulator

As a consequence she is able to continue abusing her daughter,  knowing that her daughter will always return to her for validation and reassurance.  A child growing up in her home, views her mother and family as being normal, for this is all she has ever known, therefore she only learns how to doubt herself. Gaslighting can present in many different forms, and has many variations. Narcissistic mothers are skilled master manipulators and they will determine their daughter’s weaknesses from a young age, using ways which are best, suited to gaslight her daughter. There are common themes used in this bizarre crazy making.

Death By A Thousand Cuts

Due to many of mothers cruelties being small, mother is able to pass off these behaviours and dismiss them as just being thoughtless, telling her daughter that everyone is thoughtless sometimes. These small cruelties can equate to death by a thousand cuts.  If the daughter begins to see a pattern in these behaviours, she will be likely to challenge her mother and bring them out into the open. The mother’s response to this will always be denial.  She will deny the previous examples put forward by her daughter.  A common way in which she will do this is by telling her daughter she is too sensitive.  She will try to convince her that she is indeed the crazy one who makes things up for attention, or to hurt her mother.

Restriction of Emotions

Another form of gaslighting is denying the daughter of having emotions.  The right to be angry, upset, happy, or whatever emotion she is feeling at the time.  Bearing in mind that narcissistic mothers only possess two emotions, which are jealousy and hate.  It is therefore unacceptable in mother’s eyes for her daughter to feel, or present with such emotions that mother is incapable of feeling in herself.  This invokes much anger and rage within mother, and she must make her daughter doubt and deny her own feelings and emotions.

A Mothers Invalidation

If the daughter puts forward a situation which made her feel an emotion such as sadness or hurt, the mother will quickly invalidate her by vehemently denying the situation ever happened, by telling her daughter that there was nothing untoward, and therefore no valid reason to be upset.  She will most likely pass it off as a joke, or accuse her of being too sensitive, thus making her feel she has to walk on egg shells around her daughter, for fear of upsetting her.

The Mocking

Another cruel form of gaslighting is when mother will abuse the daughter emotionally and mentally, which will cause the daughter to have an angry or emotional outburst resulting in tears.  This usually stems from being so frustrated because her mother is purposely trying to hurt her, resulting in mother laughing and mocking her daughter, and relaying that it was only meant as a joke.  Telling her daughter she needs to toughen up if she is to have any hope of making it in the world.

Mothers Narcissistic Fists

In the case of malignant narcissism, the mother is also likely to lash out and physically beat her daughter, when she becomes too upset or angry with her mother. The daughter quickly learns that in order to protect herself from more abuse, she must mute her inner emotions and not present them at all. The daughter then begins to internalise these emotions, in unhealthy ways, which can lead her down a painful path of self-harming and maladaptive behaviours, as a form of emotional release.

Isolation

Narcissistic mothers know and understand that in order to be able to continue with their abuse, in the many forms in which it presents, she must ensure that people outwith the family and home, do not have cause to question or investigate indicators, that her daughter may present with, such as at school, or at social events, which may point towards mother being a cause for concern. This puts mother in a very vulnerable position. To counteract this, mother must try to isolate and put distance between others and her daughter. This of course has a detrimental effect on her daughter for many reasons.  However the most dangerous one being it keeps the daughter dependent on mother.  Ensuring that daughter has no ally or support network to reach out to if she wants to disclose the abuse which is taking place.

Deny The Lies

Narcissistic mothers will manipulate their daughters from a young age and convince them that they are the crazy one, and the liar. These mothers will vehemently deny their lies, and convince them that no one will believe the daughters lies.  Because everyone knows that mothers do not lie.  They will continuously chip away and gaslight in order to convince their daughter that there is something wrong with her.

Trust Our Instincts

The effects of gaslighting are detrimental, not only for a developing child, but also as an adult daughter. When a child is growing up she needs to learn and feel that she is able to trust herself, in order to be able to make safe and healthy choices, have a strong sense of self worth and value in herself, and place in the world.  When the developing daughter is taught by mother to doubt everything, that she sees, hears and feels, the doubt becomes internalised and is carried on into adulthood and will present in many unhealthy ways.

Decisions…Decisions

Many women as a consequence of gaslighting are not able to think clearly enough to make their own decisions and choices about even the smallest of things, due to the severity of her self doubt, un-ease and lack of decision making abilities.  This is due to the sheer destructive nature to the development and thinking abilities as a child. As a daughter of a narcissistic mother it can be near to impossible to trust our instincts, or make a decision for herself, which leads to a healthy outcome.

Self Reliance

We can struggle immensely with self-reliance, and will seek out instruction and validation from others. This can be very dangerous because it leaves the daughter in an extremely vulnerable position, whereby other people can abuse and take advantage of these vulnerabilities.  Thus one of the many reason daughters of these mothers often find themselves in abusive and toxic relationships in adulthood. Our inner voices and intuition become so muted, and tangled up in our mother’s reality, that it can feel impossible to begin to set about untangling our reality from our mothers.

Muting Our Feelings

Our inner voices are so heavily critical and belittling of ourselves and the way in which we view and think of ourselves.  For example that we are stupid, are overreacting, are drama queens, and undeserving of feeling and emotions.  It can seem like the easier route to just continue muting our feelings and denying our own needs.  We become so used to feeling scared, and blocking the fear, or feeling that what we see, must be wrong.  This can lead us in to the most painful situations and relationships, with consequences such as presenting with people pleasing behaviours and taking the blame for others.  Which in effect only perpetuates our abuse.

Insidious Abuse

As we learn more about NPD and the behaviours and patterns and nature of this insidious abuse, we begin to reach acceptance of our experiences at the hands of our mother, and we will naturally learn to become more self aware as we heal.  It is not a quick process, because after all it has taken a lifetime of toxic imprinting and conditioning to feel the way that we do about ourselves.

Untangle Our Reality

However, with this newly found self awareness along with the healing process, we can learn ways in which to begin paying attention to our unconscious behaviours, and then learn ways to make them conscious, so that we can change them.  Our brain remains responsive in adulthood, and therefore it is very possible that with the correct support and self care, we can change how we think of ourselves, and develop self trust. Thus untangling our reality from our mother, to become healthy and strong capable women.  You can do this!

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