- Parents can and do gaslight their children, or manipulate them to question their sanity and cause them to doubt their own judgment and memory.
- Oftentimes, parents who engage in gaslighting have narcissistic personality traits and/or suffer with alcohol/drug abuse.
- Parents may outright lie to their children, discredit their thoughts, cause them to feel self-conscious, anxious, weak, and confused.
- If you suspect a parent is gaslighting you, you should bring these observations to a trusted individual’s attention, such as a counselor.
- You should also explore the possibility of family therapy, to potentially fix this unhealthy family dynamic.
Camille and Amma couldn’t be more different. Camille is a 30-something journalist, who prefers to stay under the radar. Amma, on the other hand, is her more outgoing and rebellious kid sister. That said, there is one common thread between them: their mother Adora. Or more specifically, their mother’s abuse.
If you’ve seen (or read) Sharp Objects, you know just how crazy the dynamic is between Adora and her daughters. One significant element being Adora’s manipulative tendencies. It’s obvious from the start that Adora isn’t the best mother, as she talks down to Camille and inappropriately babies Amma. Viewers and readers alike quickly observe the manipulation—often, gaslighting—and grow cautious, even afraid of Adora as they root for the wellbeing of her daughters.
Gaslighting Parents: Warning Signs
Adora lies to her children, undermines them, and manipulates them in a way that causes them to question their very sanity. This is gaslighting in the flesh. And while Adora, Camille, and Amma are but fictional characters in a popular miniseries, gaslighting is seen in many parent-child dynamics. Lisa Larsen, PsyD, a psychologist and coach, delves into how this form of manipulation is employed by parents:
“I often see parents who have narcissistic personality traits or who abuse drugs or alcohol manipulate their children into questioning their sanity. They can outright lie to their children about what they did and happened, or they can say things to their children like, ‘Are you sure you saw that?’ Sometimes, if the child has a diagnosed mental illness, a parent will use that to discredit the child’s credibility. They can do this in a falsely sweet way like, ‘Are you sure you aren’t just having symptoms? Have you taken your medication today?’
Alternatively, parents can be harsher about it, by outright insulting the child, such as, ‘What do you know? You’re just crazy!’ The child can start to suffer from anxiety, confusion, low self-esteem, and question their own reality. They might be less assertive than other children in speaking truth to power and become socially passive. Unfortunately, being passive can lead to others manipulating and bullying them as well. Sometimes, the parent will make a show of loving their children to the public, but verbally lash out at them at home, heaping blame and inappropriate responsibility on the child at home.”
Put an End to the Manipulation
I’m going to leave it to you to find out how Camille and Amma deal with their mother’s manipulative ways. In the meantime, if you suspect that your mother or father (or both) is gaslighting you, consider Larsen’s advice:
- Confide in a trusted individual about the manipulation.
- Talking with a psychologist about your concerns is likely the best route.
- Consider going to family therapy to potentially correct this unhealthy dynamic.
- No matter what, put your wellbeing first.
Larsen explains that though it takes courage, it is important to come forward and discuss your parent’s manipulative behavior, preferably with a professional: “This is difficult, but if the child has enough courage, they can go to a trusted adult, perhaps in their place of worship or school, and describe some of the things that are going on that concern them. If the school has a school counselor or school psychologist, that would be best. Unfortunately, it can be hard for the child to even know that they are being gaslit and they might start to believe the lies that are being told to them.”
She goes on to say that counseling can be helpful to repairing the family if making these repairs is possible: “Hopefully, the child can enter psychotherapy or counseling, or the whole family can be seen to help change this unhealthy dynamic. If the parents see that it is hurting their child, hopefully they will have enough empathy to own what they are doing and stop it. However, that is less than likely. I would say that it is a form of abuse that is passed down from generation to generation and it might be hard to break because the perpetrators do not see it as problematic behavior.”
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I’m 67 & beginning to understand why I have no self esteem. I do well when I take classes but once I pass & get certified or licensed due to fear of not being good enough I’m unable to do the work. I can’t seem to excel at anything. At 67 I’m on SS Retirement now & stay home alone reading a lot. I did even as a child, I used books as my escape to deal with my parents. Thank you for your article. Now i a have a better understanding of what’s going on. I was told I didnt see what I know I saw. I was expected to think like them do their bidding & if I didn’t I’d be told I was crazy & wouldn’t ever amount to anything. This happened daily. Besides that my father kept touching me inappropriately. My mom didnt believe or protect me. I moved out at 17. As an adult he still kept sneaking grabs but I stood up to him. They then contacted my friends, church members, family members including my brother telling them I was severely & dangerously mentally ill so they should have nothing to do with me. Plus tried to have me put in a mental facility & take my children from me. Thankfully it didnt work. I was proved to be a good mom.They took my childhood mistakes (we all make them) twisting them into serious things to make me look bad then telling people to confirm I’m crazy. Example: At 17 I tried pot, hated it as it was mixed with something & scared me, so now I’m a dangerous drug addict. The truth, I was very straight laced, still dont drink or use drugs. When my friends were drinking & shoplifting in HS I refused to. I was accused of partying because people I knew were. I was a virgin until the night of my senior prom when I was raped. So I was accused of being a whore & warned if I got pregnant they wouldn’t help me. Later I get divorced from an abuser & I’m asked what did I do to make him beat me plus told I need to go back & stop doing it & make it work. Leaving me injured, pregnant with no money, but no family support. I was disowned & told that I’d get no inheritance because I refused to let them trick me into joining their pyramid business that was taking all their money. That’s when they began secretly contacting my children upsetting them by telling them the lies & working to destroy our close relationship. This is just a few of the things they said & did to me. Now that I’m not working I’ve been searching to understand why I feel like such a failure & even though I’m intelligent I still don’t succeed. Thanks to you I now have a place to start. After covid I want to get a job & succeed. My home is falling apart. The carpeting throughout the house is buckling up, my water heater & furnace are going out, the siding is falling off & needs painted & i have leaky pipes. That’s just a beginning so I need a job to get these fixed. To many big projects for me to do them myself. SS just covers my payment, food & utilities. I’m tired of struggling through life with no confidence. I’m ready to succeed. I lived in a tiny farming community where the there was no help when growing up. I’m an example of what can happen if you don’t get help so please if you are a child, teen or even an adult, find someone to listen. Tell what’s going on if you are experiencing any of these or other things. Get help now, don’t stop until you find someone to believe you. Don’t end up like me with everything falling apart, even me, but no confidence to work or money to fix things, including myself, due to not believing in myself so I just gave up. Now I’m back to fighting
& will find the help I need. Counseling is too expensive so I’m reading everything I can find to help myself so I can finally become who I was supposed to be instead of an old lady with a beaten down inner child who’s lonely, depressed, broke, falling apart, & feels like she accomplished nothing good in her lifetime. We have to fight for ourselves to succeed. No one else can do it for us.
The best advice I have for anyone under 18 currently ‘under the care’ of an abusive parent like this is to find a friend or teacher or someone who will help you emotionally cope with the situation. I just turned 17 and I am literally counting the days until my 18th birthday because of everything I go through at ‘home’. DCFS has gotten involved and even opened cases against my parents on multiple occasions but it’s always amounted to nothing because I can’t ‘prove’ what they did and their words take precedence over mine thanks to my recent hospitalization.
For me it really helps if I write down the events of the day every night because then when they try to tell me that things that happened didn’t happen or things that I did something I didn’t do I can refer back to the notebook and even though I don’t argue back I can know on the inside that I’m not crazy or stupid or ‘making stuff up’.
Other things I do to help is to make sure I’m taking care of myself as best I can. So after they go to bed I read a little bit out of a favorite book or sip some warm milk. I also have a friend who lives a few hours away that I talk to on the phone sometimes and she always brings a smile to my face.
If you’re open to it, you might find it nice to open yourself up to a higher power now or then. That’s completely up to you and it doesn’t work for everyone, which is okay.
You should also know that what I have to say does not replace the advice of a mental health professional and I highly advise you to seek out the help of one. They can help you find coping skills that work for you in your situation.
It is important to keep your own wellbeing in mind especially when there are others in the household you care about. It is no doubt hard to think of yourself when you have siblings being hurt to but you can’t help them until you help yourself. It’s like the airplane analogy: you have to put the oxygen mask on yourself before your kid because you can put the mask on an unconscious child but an unconscious you can’t put the mask on anybody.
Lastly, I want you to know that you are not alone. There are people you can talk to that will really listen and there are places you can go where it’s safe for you to talk about your situation. There is absolutely no shame in seeking help and guidance.
I’m a only child but i feel or i know that i’m being gaslit by my mother. She is obsessive over me, like if i was a smaller and younger version of her. She tells me that she knows me, but she doesn’t at all. She Doesn’t pay attention to me, she thinks i’m always wrong about something i’ve done. She controls my life, like she forces me to be this beautiful girl that never messes up. She comments my body.. like if i’m proud of it. she forces me to like guys and stay away from gays. she chooses out clothes for me which are a lot of skin showing clothes, which i’m uncomfortable wearing and if i don’t like them she’ll call me ungrateful and picky. Making me feel bad then i already did, sometimes she yells at me for doing something wrong and Call me names if she doesn’t get her way.