Cheat codes for CPTSD recovery from narcissistic parent gaslighting

Hello my friends. Today in my CPTSD recovery from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm starting a series exploring why we put so much energy into preserving relationships with narcissists. Why do we as victims of their narcissistic abuse worry so much about them, what they want, need, feel and so little about ourselves? Why do we not go not contact and be done with it? There are many factors but one that seems to encompass them all and that is narcissistic gaslighting. Here are cheat codes to degas gaslighting and find healing. 

What exactly is gaslighting? 

Let's unpack this commonly used but often misunderstood term. At the heart of gaslighting is willful and self-serving lying in all its forms. This umbrella concept includes distortion, distraction, deception, evasion and manipulation. Like an artist, a gaslighter uses these untruths as paints to create an entirely false picture which he presents to the person he is gaslighting, as reality. Usually it is someone who wields some kind of power differential over another and so is able to rewrite the script so the person believes it. This psychological brainwashing is emotional abuse which uses insidious, destabilizing, undermining and second-guessing to make the person doubt her own perception of reality, memory, sanity, or judgment.

The Gaslighting Enmeshed Parent Narcissist Trifecta

People who gaslight are usually also narcissistic and enmeshed. Arrogant people believe they are above rules and have the right to use people as tools. When you add parent enmeshment to the mix, you get a really nasty Dark Tetrad cocktail of arrogant, selfish, ruthless, cruel, control freak bully. The enmeshed parent believes he owns his child. His arrogance tells him he has no obligation to her while she owes him everything. My narcissistic father thought he was perfectly justified, as the parent, to use me, the Broken Vending Machine Child ™(a term I coined and will explain later) as as servant, surrogate and to get narcissistic supply. He felt no duty of care or need for reciprocity.  And that's why narcissistic parents can so easily gaslight their children, because the child has a natural attachment to and trust of them, plus the parent has authority over them. 

All for One and None For the Scapegoat

My Machiavellian and narcissistic mother and father were willing to exploit me, my love, devotion, sense of obligation to them, to get what they wanted. All's fair to these lawless hypocrites, who hold themselves above censure while rigidly censuring other people. And the Broken Vending Machine Child ™ gets the brunt. She's all the family system roles in one. She's the Golden Child in terms of parentified expectations (but without the exemption from rules of the golden), the glass child whose individuality is seen right through, Cheerleader Enabler who must always prop up the narcissistic parent and the Savior or Scapegoat Child who must take on herself all consequences for the parents foolish, dangerous actions. This false teaching that I was responsible to and for them, is the gaslighting of parentification. 

Trauma Bonding and Betrayal Blindness

Trauma bonding is a sticky net that enmeshed parents crochet for their child to keep her wrapped up in them. my four narcissistic stepparents and parents wrote the training manual on trauma bonding. They played the game like pros with

• Love-bombing ( a type of grooming-gaslighting which singles the child out and makes the feel special but which is just to give the child a false sense of security which is then exploited)
• Future-faking (another type of gaslighting which paints a future full of promises that are all routinely broken, and then the parents blame-shift fault onto the child for their broken promises so she feels responsible for it)
• Bread-crumbing (the child is consistently deprived, then fed just enough to keep her compliant and coming back for more. This ultimately leads to a betrayal blindness and cognitive dissonance in which the child believes that because they provided something, they must be good parents. 
• Devalue and Discard (the parent pushes the child away for no reason and then blames and shames her for "causing it." This is where the DARVO distortion comes in, too. The parent Denies, Attacks, Reverse Victim and Offender roles. She set up the child as the villain and herself as the martyr. 
• Hoovering. Then the malicious parent "sucks" the rejected child back in with self-pitying lies about FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) that the child is supposed to feel toward this parent who has devalued and discarded her. And the trauma cycle begins again. 
• Gassing The fuel for gaslighting is gas, toxic hot air. Over time, these noxious fumes brain damage the child, causing self-destructive trauma responses like fawning. And like carbon monoxide, this mind gas is odorless, colorless and tasteless. It causes betrayal blindness which makes the child unable to recognize it. 

Why Gaslighting Is Effective

Gaslighting is rarely overt; it usually happens incrementally over time. My parents chipped away at my sense of self and self-confidence causing self-abandonment by a 1,000 cuts. They used chaos, backstabbing, isolation, coercive control, little digs, subtle mocking, second-guessing, humiliation, DIMMER, triangulation, gotcha set-ups, toxic shaming for normal behavior and a host of other destabilizing actions. They painted me as a liar. Because the manipulation is subtle and often delivered with absolute confidence by someone the victim trusts, the victim gradually stops trusting their own internal compass, relying instead on the manipulator to define reality. Over the long term, this erodes self-esteem, creates intense self-distrust, and can lead to chronic anxiety or trauma responses.

Cheat Sheet for Recognizing Gaslighting

It's only in retrospect that most Adult Children of Narcissists are able to see their parents' lies clearly. It took me reading some Reddit AITA posts, at 60, to understand what my parents had done.  But hopefully these realizations can help younger generations spot it earlier. Here are some cheat codes to spot parent gaslighting. 

• Denial and Distortion: Denying events happened, insisting conversations you clearly recall, occurred differently, or flatly saying "that never happened" ("You're making things up").

• Trivializing Feelings: Minimizing the victim's emotional response or concerns to make them feel overly sensitive ("You're blowing this out of proportion" or "You're too sensitive").

• Double standards. My narcissistic father used the "too sensitive" accusation against  me all the time along with "you can't take criticism" when he was in an narcissistic rage and attacking me. Then if caught out, he'd take narcissistic insult, quickly backpedal and say I was too critical of him. Narcissists have a comeback for everything. They are always right and you are always wrong. And my betrayal blindness made me think he just cared about me, and made me miss the insults and humiliation he was heaping on me. 

• Countering: Questioning the victim's memory of events, even when the victim remembers them accurately ("Your memory is terrible," or "That's not how it went at all" "You're making this up." "You're just showing off for attention).

• Evasions and backpedaling. Pretending to forget something which they clearly recall. Purposely confusing order of events. She only tells the part that the child did, not what she did to provoke it. My mother lied and said I hit her without telling how she routinely slapped me. She told it in such a way that ignored that fact that I raised my hand to protect myself, not against her. Then she lied and said she never slapped me. 

• Half-truths, exaggeration and sanitizing. The parent cherry-picks parts of stories that make herself look good and the child look bad. She exaggerates the child's behavior into capital offenses while euphemizing her own words and actions to sound innocent and calm while neglecting to tell how she herself overreacted, cursed and screamed abuse. 

• Spinning. Rushing to get their spun version in pre-emptively, before anyone has a chance to question them. Then any other version will look suspect. 

• Withholding and Blocking: Pretending not to understand ("What do you mean?" when you're speaking clearly) or refusing to listen ("I'm not talking about this again" or giving the silent treatment and cold shoulder, to create self-doubt).

• Rewriting the Narrative: Blaming the victim for the abuser's actions or twisting situations to make the victim appear at fault ("If you didn't provoke me, I wouldn't have to act this way").

In short, if something sounds or feels off, that someone with a history of invalidating you, says or does, believe that it is gaslighting.