Hello my friends. Today in my quest to heal from narcissist parent abuse, I'm exploring ways even loving people gaslight and perpetuate further abuse in traumatized kids. It's quite common and even accepted practice, in fact. Even religious groups which are supposed to help, will often gaslight the abused child and cause more pain. Here's how.
Making excuses for abusive parents is gaslighting and abusive "They meant well." "They didn't mean it." "They were just doing the best they could." "She was having a bad day." "He's just depressed." It's quite ironic that the same people who find all kinds of reasons for why an adult mistreated a child will find fault with the child for the child for the most trivial of things. Which is how the narcissist parent is already gaslighting the child. They hold the young vulnerable victim to much higher standards that they hold the adult perpetrator.
Minimizing a child's experiences is gaslighting and abusive. One of the worst things that happens is when an abused child finally scrapes up the courage to tell someone, she is pooh-poohed. And even loving people will do this, out of some silly notion that they are helping the child feel better. They do it in the name of soothing but they aren't. They are just making themselves feel better, . What they are doing is invalidating, insulting her intelligence, demeaning her, dismissing her feelings, and denying reality. Not her reality, real factual reality. They know that the behaviors the child is reporting are wrong in everyone's reality.
Soothing a child is gaslighting and further abuse. I'm talking about the there-there-ing, head pat kind of soothing. Since when did telling someone not to cry, it's okay, blah-blah make anything better? It's not comforting the child, it's silencing her. It's comforting the adult who, with minimal effort has assured herself she's made the child feel better. It's soothing their own consciences for not helping and lying to themselves that they are. It's putting a pacifier in her mouth when she needs to be fed. Childhood trauma can't be soothed away with a backrub or hug. That takes a lot of uncomfortable, exhausting work that most people find inconvenient. It takes confronting the perpetrator which most people are afraid to do. Soothing tells the child she's the problem because she's the one crying. And it just puts the burden back on the child to placate the adult by reassuring them that oh yes, she feel so much better when their soothing is making her feel even worse.
Patronizing or condescending is gaslighting and further abuse. Parroting unhelpful nonsense, making pointless comments, making obvious observations as if the child had never thought of that, passing off trite useless aphorisms as wise advice. Making obvious observations. "Well, she IS your dad."
Undermining a child is gaslighting and further abusive. Reinterpreting or interpreting the child's words, saying stupid things like "you don't really mean that, do you?" Or "maybe you just misunderstood her?" Or twisting the child's words back against her. "You really shouldn't say things like that about your mother." As if the problem is the child reporting it and not the parent doing it. And the child who did actually mean that, experience it, and who already feels bad having to tell on mom, now believes she is the problem. She questions her own experience because she's afraid to contradict the adult ABOUT HER OWN FEELINGS AND EXPERIENCES!
Blaming and shaming a child is gaslighting and further abuse. No matter and especially how sweetly you say it. Hinting the child has failed but not saying how or what could be done differently. "You're so lucky to have a good stepmother." As if the child is some kind of ungrateful brat for not knowing what demanding stepmother expects now. "Well you did provoke her." When the parent smacked child across the head for just saying she did not want mom's boyfriend to move in. Making passive-aggressive accusations but cloaking them as innocent suggestions. "Could you try just being a little nicer to her?" Or "God says to forgive." As if the child isn't already being too nice and too forgiving.
Believe me, these are the worst possible thing you could do. Because the child's parents are already minimizing their behavior and invalidating the child's feelings. It's a big reason many children don't tell on their abusive parents even into adulthood: fear of not being believed. Of being blamed or "telling secrets." Of disobeying or being disrespectful or disloyal. Of feeling or being told she's exaggerating, showing off for attention, being too sensitive and all the other gaslighting nonsense she's already being told at home.
What the child needs is an advocate. An empathetic listener. She needs to know she can count on someone for support. She needs someone to sit with her and hold space. She needs to be believed and told she is believed. She needs demonstration of belief not some backhanded, two-faced feigned support which is actually not support but punishment. It's about what she needs, not the would-be helper's need to feel superior. Her abuse is not a commodity to cash in on for some ego boost.
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