Perhaps you’ve already come across the term. However, you still can’t think of a specific example of gaslighting, or you’ve never heard of it, wonder what it is and if you’re maybe even a victim of gaslighting?
I know it can be a bit confusing because it’s pretty subtle and invisible to others. Still, I’ll give you a specific example of gaslighting along with the four most common types of gaslighting. Each of these gaslighting examples outlines the real intention of a narcissistic mother or parents to use this form of manipulation on her child.
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What Is Gaslighting?
Before we come to the first specific example of gaslighting, it’s necessary to know what it actually means. The term Gaslighting derives from a 1944 movie called “Gaslight” where a husband manipulates his wife so that she starts believing she’s crazy.
Nowadays, we know gaslighting as an ongoing form of psychological manipulation where the abuser intentionally makes his or her victim doubt their own reality. This form of emotional abuse is a subtle process that can suck you in without even realizing it since it’s an ongoing process. Wondering what an example of gaslighting parents is? Do you often feel confused and somehow next to yourself, as if something is really wrong with you? Cannot find the right example of gaslight? Take a look at these ones.
4 Most Common Examples Of Gaslighting
To illustrate what gaslighting is and what it can do to the child of a narcissistic mother or father, I’ll explain four common forms, along with a personal example of gaslighting for each of them. I’ve decided to go with only four examples, but more in detail, instead of giving you a lot of different definitions that are all connected to each other.
While reading this blog, please keep in mind that, usually, parents and family are the most important people in children’s lives and children look up to them and are being “formed” by them. You’ll see that these categories are all interconnected somehow in one way or the other.
Example of Gaslighting #1: Web Of Lies
Lies are a fundamental part of the whole process of gaslighting. Whoever gaslights others is mostly also a frequent and pathological liar.
A narcissistic mother can lie straight to your face without blinking an eye. She wants to convince you in all ways of her truth – calm voice, angry voice, more lies, and so on.
And it’s not rare that she creates a whole web of lies that her child basically grows up in. It feels like growing up in a gray layer of fog that you can’t get out of. It’s always there, but you don’t know what it is. Nothing seems to make sense.
As an example of gaslighting regarding lying, my narcissistic mother lied about her whole heritage, parents, brother, and so on. She told me many different versions of that entire story over time.
Denial Of Her Own Brother
Let’s call my uncle “Jack” in this example of gaslighting. Until I was about 6 years old, the official truth was that Jack was my real uncle and her real brother. Later on, the official truth changed to him being my godfather instead of my uncle, and later on, my mother’s adopted brother. She told me that after her parents’ death, she grew up with her grandmother, who adopted Jack when they were still children, and they grew up together. So, that’s why she always said “brother”.
Denial Of Her Parents
And there were several different versions of her parents as well:
- They were diplomats, and her mother gave birth to her while on a mission in another country than the one she always claimed she was born in;
- They passed away in a car accident when my mother was still a child (sometimes my mother was in the car and survived, sometimes she wasn’t there);
- To my dad, she lied that they were shot in front of her, and that’s why she couldn’t see blood – she told me once that she saw how a woman was decapitated by a train, and that’s why she couldn’t stand blood.
And More Lies
I clearly remember meeting an old man with a beige coat and a brown hat, white hair, and just a few teeth when I was 7. She told me it was Jack’s father…
When I was 12, Jack told me the whole true story. He even showed me documents and pictures of them being together as a real brother and sister, with the same family names, same parents, and so on. When I confronted my mother with it, she said that Jack made it all up because he was drunk, and he had already apologized for lying about the same issue in court some years before. From then on, she forbid me any form of contact with him.
And even when I confronted her with that in my grown-up years, she still said, “I’ll tell you when you’re capable enough to understand it”.
I had no idea what was happening around me my whole life. That’s what I mean with “gray layer of fog”. I started believing her lies that Jack was a criminal and a liar, and that he was my godfather instead of my real uncle.
Uncovering The Truth
Let’s fast forward many years in this example of gaslighting. I found out through Jack that my grandparents (my mother’s and uncle’s parents) passed away in 1994 (my grandfather) and 2010 (my grandmother). I saw the death certificates. Funny thing – my mother did not attend their funerals. It turned out that the old man I remember meeting back then was my grandfather – my mother’s and her brother’s father, who she lied about that he had died when she was still a child. However, he died two years after I had met him as a young boy.
Example of Gaslighting #2: Playing The Victim
A narcissistic mother usually tries everything possible to keep complete control over her child. She uses all different forms of punishments, threats, withdrawal of motherlove, and more, to intimidate them. Somehow, a narcissistic parent never seems to run out of ideas.
And when she fears losing control besides these more obvious forms of manipulation, she often starts playing the victim so that her child is worried about her.
My Narcissistic Mother’s Lie About Cancer
Shortly after my father died in 2013, I thought that my mother and I would finally get back together because we had never been in a good relationship before. For some weeks, it was okay, but soon, it got even worse.
Before I broke off contact with my narcissistic mother for good, I supported her wherever I could. I even moved back into her house to be there for her after my dad had passed away. I started working in her company, went with her on business trips, did the garden, the garage, the basement, and so on.
However, it was never enough for her what I did, and she pulled the invisible chains even tighter. One day, I decided to move out again because I couldn’t stand her aggressions and the constant tension anymore. As soon as I did that, she called me and told me that she had stomach cancer.
The Details About Her Cancer
She told me that someday before, she had thrown up blood and gone to a doctor. They made a gastroscopy, and she would have to go to Switzerland to some special clinic for further tests and surgery. It hit me like a bullet, and, of course, I was so worried about her.
It was only a couple of months after my dad had passed away, and I was afraid of losing my mother as well. We’ve never been really close, but when you hear something like that, you don’t care, and you start doing everything you can to take pressure off her shoulders.
Exposing The Lie
The most important thing for me at that time was to know about my mother’s condition. However, each time I brought this up, she completely dodged the issue and gave some short excuses. Hence, I started doubting that something might be wrong and called all the hospitals in Munich that are popular for treating stomach cancer.
Long story short, she has never been a patient in any of them, and she hadn’t been to her house doctor for over 2,5 years, either. I knew she was just lying. And whenever I confronted her with this lie, later on, she told me that I was just exaggerating and understood it wrong.
Then, she lied again that she just thought she had stomach cancer and was only planning to visit a hospital and this clinic in Switzerland.
Intentionally Creating Worries
In this example of gaslighting, her intention was simply to make me worry about her in the most extreme way. I was afraid of losing my mother as well, shortly after my father’s death.
I moved back into her house, started working in her company again, did the garden, and so on. So, the whole vicious circle started again from the beginning.
She intended to play the victim and create worries to keep total control over me as an extension of herself. It’s like always pulling out another joker of the pocket that she can hit in your face.
Example of Gaslighting #3: Scapegoat And Golden Child
Her own child is never good enough for a narcissistic mother, and she tends to compare them with other children and later grown-ups of their age. This is an ongoing process, and it doesn’t stop at any age.
She could literally pick anything to compare you with others – their shoes, haircut, jacket, their taste of music, and just everything. And she could also decide to compare you to almost anybody else who is not her child.
Perhaps you’ve already heard of the terms Scapegoat and Golden Child. And if you did, then probably in relation to siblings. However, let me assure you that it also applies to children without any siblings.
For this example of gaslighting, let’s call one of the golden children she always compared me to “Norton”. Norton was three years older than me and the son of my mother’s business partner, “Tim”, who she’s always seen as some kind of business guru to her. To intentionally make me feel less worthy, she used more subtle comparisons such as:
- He is running his parents’ company like a real manager;
- Norton finally married the right woman;
- Look how cute their newborn is. You know that Norton’s your age, right?;
- Norton has already learned responsibility in life, but you still have to learn everything;
- He is already settled while you’re just wasting your life;
- Norton is connecting with real business people while you waste your time with losers.
It appeared as if she wished for him to be her child instead of me. In the end, I even ended up studying in London because also Norton had studied there before. I didn’t have a word in the choice of my uni – the anxiety she planted in my head was too strong.
The problem is that as the child of a narcissistic mother or as the scapegoat, you can’t really make any decisions on your own because your mind is full of fear of her.
Since her own child is never perfect enough, all of their friends, girlfriends/boyfriends, or colleagues will also be “parasites”, “scum”, “losers”, and “garbage”. That means that nobody in her child’s environment would ever be perfect enough for her, either.
Example of Gaslighting #4: Undermining Success
For a narcissistic mother, only her own life and success matter to her. When her child achieves something, she would either say it’s only because of “her help and support” or simply undermine the success and dismiss it as a complete waste of time and energy.
Worthless Degree
As an example of gaslighting for undermining her child’s success, I want to share with you her reaction to my degree when I finally graduated from uni.
She hated the fact that I didn’t want to study Business & Management and didn’t intend to follow in her footsteps. Instead, I finally decided to study something else after returning from London. So, I graduated in 2012.
Until then, this was the most important day of my life because I was finally done studying. I never really wanted to study at all, but I didn’t really have a choice. So, just to be a student and enroll, I found a subject I was interested in, but I still didn’t like the act of studying.
In the end, she didn’t come to my graduation, and she labeled my degree down to “studying garbage”. In this example of gaslighting, her words were that I would never find any kind of job with my degree and that all these sharks out there would eat me alive.
Why Does She Do That?
Also, in this example of gaslighting, her intention was to keep total control over me. The manipulation started as a child when she told me that if I didn’t study Business & Management, I would end up in the streets.
When she explained to others why she wanted me to study Business & Management, she always put herself in a good light as a caring mother who only wants the best for her child. But, nobody back then had ever seen her without her mask of hypocrisy, behind closed doors. And I was very far away from realizing that I don’t need to go to uni if I don’t want to and that there are thousands of other possibilities out there.
She had created anxiety in me over time so that I couldn’t make my own life-changing decisions, such as uni or no uni. And later, when I didn’t get a job right after my studies, she just said, “I told you so”, leading to immense guilt trips and more anxiety.
My narcissistic mother was simply trying to make me feel worthless without her and her support. She repeatedly said that I would come crawling back to her and agree that she had always been right about everything she had ever told me. And, of course, that only she could show me the “real rules of life”.
The Real Intentions Of Gaslighting
Summarizing every example of gaslighting above, we can conclude that the main intention of a narcissistic mother gaslighting her child is to keep total control over them. She constructs webs of lies and isolates you from your own family. When she’s afraid of losing control, she plays the victim. Furthermore, she belittles you by comparing you to others, and she undermines your success.
She is completely empty of any kind of empathy and without any trace of motherlove. From my personal point of view, I can say that it feels like being alive just to serve as the showcase she forms throughout life. Basically, she “teaches” you to be dependent on her in any way, so that you can’t really express your own thoughts and feelings.
It was difficult for me for many years to accept that other people could actually really love me. I always thought that I could be loved only in return for something, but not for the person I really am. However, I’ve finally learned to find my true self and to leave the nightmare of my life behind.
How To Stop Being An Example Of Gaslighting?
It is, in fact, possible to stop being gaslighted and manipulated. However, the chances that your narcissistic mother stops by herself are somewhere close to zero. You are the only one who can start the journey of freeing yourself and healing from mental manipulation.
Knowledge And Awareness
The first and most important thing is to be aware that you’re being gaslighted. When you feel confused about your own reality and don’t know what’s true and what is not, you might really be a victim to gaslighting.
Being aware of that is the key because only like that can you break the circle. You need to understand that you are not crazy and that your confusion results from the ongoing gaslighting process.
The more you know and understand about gaslighting and narcissism, the better you can defend yourself against it. When I was in this situation, I knew absolutely nothing about narcissism, not even the term. It was just the reality I lived in, and I needed to find a way out.
As soon as I came across the term Narcissistic Personality Disorder for the first time four years ago, I started dedicating most of my time to researching that topic. It felt like I finally opened my eyes for the first time and could see everything clearly. Two days after coming across that term, I’ve moved out of her house and her life for good.
Set Boundaries
I’m not saying that going no contact is the only way to get out of this vicious circle. Try to talk to her and set your boundaries. You need to have your own life. You can’t be her child, and nanny, and gardener, and everything at the same time. Especially not her doormat.
Furthermore, don’t tell her too many details of what’s going on in your life because she would do everything to find a weak point to hurt you. Of course, don’t be completely cold or non-communicative, but simply don’t share things with her that you have on your mind or your heart that she could use against you.
Recommendation
Growing up with a narcissistic mother is a nightmare for everybody who has experienced that. But there is definitely hope for everyone in this situation! I would really never have believed that I would feel free of this indefinable tension one day. But here I am, writing my blog, sharing my experience with my narcissistic mother as a free man. No revenge, no harm to anybody – just to create an awareness of the dangers of mothers with NPD.
Healing is a process that needs time. And you can only start this journey with knowledge and awareness of narcissism, and that you’re being gaslighted by your narcissistic mother or father. Of course, it’s also okay if you consider therapy. Just please make sure that the therapist is an expert in the field of Narcissistic Personality Disorder so that they really understand what you’re going through. Therapy can function as good support and guideline, but the real change still happens within yourself.
I hope that by sharing with you the one or the other example of gaslighting, I could bring this topic a bit closer to you. And if you want to share your own example of gaslighting that has occurred to you, please feel free to leave it as a comment below.