C'mon Baby Gaslight My Fire (Season 3)

Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse. It’s the act of manipulating a person by forcing them to question their thoughts, memories, and the events occurring around them. When it’s done repeatedly, over a long period of time, it can have a very negative effect on self-esteem and confidence. Being manipulated as a child is cruel because I was a captive, innocent audience. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I discovered how entangled in dysfunction gaslighting left me.

Transcript

Hello,

This is LW Nolai.

Welcome to the Stuck Stops here.

I'm here with Tammy and today's episode is called Come on Baby,

Gaslight by Fire.

Here we go.

It's very nice to meet you.

You can call me blame.

I am invisible and I cause a lot of pain.

Call me gravity,

Call me kryptonite.

Call me the reason that you never get it right.

Sometimes I'm a driver.

.

.

Happy August.

Had to throw the doors in there somewhere in that title.

My favorite band!

Yep,

I'm not as cool as Jim Morrison,

But I'm sure as hell gonna try.

And I'm more alive than him too.

That's for sure.

Alright,

I'm gonna start with a quote.

Are you ready?

Ready!

Go ahead.

Quote by Shannon Weber.

It is not okay for someone to treat you poorly and pretend it didn't happen.

Making you question your own grasp on reality.

This dynamic is called gaslighting.

It's a common tactic of abusers to shift the focus of the blame from their bad behavior onto the person they are victimizing.

One important side effect of gaslighting is having your memory black out after a fight because your brain is trying to protect you from the cruelty of the abuse,

Which results in not being able to remember how an argument started.

You may start to internalize the idea that there is something wrong with you and that you did something to provoke the situation as you are increasingly beaten down and confused.

End quote from Shannon Weber.

So you're saying that the victim of the gaslighting is the one that has the memory blacked out?

Correct.

Gaslighting,

The term was taken from a 1940s movie in which a husband intentionally tried to make his wife feel like she was insane.

So he would hide her jewelry and they would hide all of her things and misplace things and said,

No,

You put it there.

And eventually she,

I think,

Was committed or somebody pointed out that she wasn't crazy.

But the whole dynamic of the movie certainly captures what gaslighting is.

So let me describe it.

It's a nasty communication habit.

It's repeated statements that make someone doubt their own feelings or perceptions.

And it is very commonly used by emotionally abusive parents.

It is the use of deflection and distraction and blame for the abuser to hide the truth and benefit at making someone feel responsible.

When a parent mentally abuses the child by gaslighting,

The child believes that they are crazy.

And that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,

Usually doing a lifetime of damage.

And trust me,

I know.

Children need to learn to trust themselves and their instincts.

And when they are falsely told that what they see,

Hear or feel isn't real,

That leads to a lifetime of pretty deep,

Well-entrenched self-doubt.

And they lose the ability to think for themselves.

And or don't give themselves the permission to exercise the ability to think for yourself.

And I am living proof how destructive that is.

Tell us some examples of how you were gaslighted.

OK.

So some examples that I endured that's also common for most families,

Particularly with narcissistic parents.

They tell you what you like and don't like.

That was certainly my mother.

So,

You know,

What do you mean you don't like the beach?

You went to the beach last week.

They take away your power to decide for yourself.

Yeah,

Well,

I went to the beach last week and I didn't like it.

I mean,

I liked it then,

But I don't really want to go again.

You know,

You're allowed to feel that way.

And they take away the right for you to say that or feel that.

So like,

Oh,

I'm supposed to like the beach.

I should like the beach.

Remember our podcast on should?

Yeah.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Exactly.

So,

Again,

Telling you what you like or don't like or what you should like and shouldn't like.

So even though that's a pretty harmless example,

I can say it leads to a larger self-doubt where you don't really know what you think anymore.

So if you go correct,

I mean,

Think about death by a thousand cuts.

If you're told that you're supposed to like the beach,

You're supposed to like vegetables,

You're supposed to want to go shopping.

Why don't you like to do this?

Why don't you like to do that?

Why don't you watch this TV show?

Why do you hang out with them?

Why do you not hang out with this person?

It's constant.

So now even though I gave you some benign examples,

Over time,

Those benign examples leave a really big hole.

That actually brings up a familiar memory for me because I remember as a kid,

My mother would always tell me who to like and who not to like.

And most people that I met that I would like and say,

Oh,

I like this person,

I want to be their friend,

She would shoot it down.

She said,

No,

No,

That person is just using you or no,

That person is not good for you or whatever.

And it took me a very long time to learn how to make my own judgments and my own decisions about people and things.

So I definitely that is really true for me.

It should,

When I say should,

It probably does for a lot of people.

Now,

I said it's typical of narcissistic parents and that's very common,

But it's common for toxic parents,

Whether they fall under the umbrella of addiction or codependency or any kind of personality disorders of any kind.

Gaslighting is typically used to deflect responsibility and it makes the kid feel very overly responsible.

Other examples of gaslighting that will sort of tie into why it is so destructive is pushing boundaries.

So from a very young age,

And my mother did this,

Is the abusive parent refuses to acknowledge that there's a point at which they end and a child begins and the child's individuality needs to be respected.

And the child is supposed to be an extension of the parent in likes,

Dislikes,

Behavior and moods.

So if you're,

You know,

When my mother was in a mood and it could be a lot of times her frustration with her deafness,

I was forced to align myself and immerse myself into that mood,

Regardless of what I wanted,

What I was feeling,

What I needed at that moment.

So you're saying that her expectation of you was to be that extension of her,

Right?

That's not really,

That's not the way it should be.

That's what their expectation was,

That parent that you should like and be what they like and be.

Yes,

Pushing the boundaries is you're a mini me.

So I had that too,

Actually.

My mom always wanted me to dress like her.

She used to wear a lot of high heels and dresses,

And I wasn't into dresses at all.

I wanted to be a,

You know,

I was more like a motorcycle gang person the way I wanted to dress.

And she wanted me to be a little mini version of her.

And I did not want to.

It was a source of many fights.

Same here,

Same here.

And it does lead to different expressions of rejection as a result of that.

And there's different degrees and spectrums of rejection.

Some are more painful than others.

But as a kid,

Let me interrupt for a second,

Because as a kid,

You know,

You're allowed to interrupt at a time.

Oh,

Thank you.

How can you know when you're young,

You know,

You're like 10,

11,

12,

13,

14.

How can you know that your opinion is is right?

How can you know that?

How can you be strong enough to know that when your parents says something to you,

You know,

They're they might be gaslighting or they might be,

You know,

Code doing the codependent thing.

You don't know.

You're just a kid.

So you look up to them.

Everything that your parents do and say is supposedly right.

So it's very difficult when you're young and you don't know any better.

It's impossible,

Which is why you have a lot of behavior disorders that get repeated and emphasized.

So I'll throw out things.

You know,

When you're a codependent as a young kid,

You're typically highly anxious.

Making friends,

Establishing relationships,

Knowing what you want,

Feeling comfortable in your own skin,

Pursuing interests that actually nurture your soul.

So then you start to need to soothe that pain and you look for very toxic waste to soothe that pain.

It could be eating disorders.

It could be substance abuse.

It could be just overall destructive behavior in different ways.

Getting involved with a bad crowd.

But you don't even know why you don't know why you don't know what you want to soothe even.

You just know you need to soothe something.

And let's say a mother is even smart enough to get the kid into therapy,

You know,

To say,

OK,

You fix her.

How is a therapist supposed to say to the kid,

Oh,

Your parents are emotionally abusing you?

What's a kid?

They don't have anything.

Right.

There are no options.

I mean,

One of my secret unrealized passions is teaching an emotional intelligence course at a bare minimum freshman year in college.

Because now that the kid's out of the house,

You can start introducing other ways of looking at the world.

My youngest took some sort of self-love class,

You know,

And it sort of touched on little things that we touch on here,

But not quite specific.

It wasn't bad.

Just was a different direction.

She loved the course.

You know,

And she's like,

You know,

I got a little ego boost out of it.

She come home and said,

Yeah,

They were talking about this.

And you told me that.

And I'm like,

Does that I was like,

Does that make me smarter than your teacher?

And she laughed.

That is a real that's a real kudos moment.

You know,

My I remember my daughter took a course in high school like that as well.

It was like the love course or whatever.

And it was all about positive psychology.

And she would come home and say,

Hey,

I learned today about this.

And you told me about that.

That's a real kudos moment right there.

That's great.

Absolutely.

Candy covered chocolate chip kudos,

Please.

And applause for you.

Yes.

So,

No,

But the point really was,

I think these type of classes in high school level,

Which would be,

In my opinion,

Challenging,

But freshman year and college level should be mandatory.

But taught by the right person.

Right.

So you go so you're in high school,

You go home every day to the same parents.

No matter what you learn,

You're still in that toxic environment.

Then you go to college.

You're away.

You learn this stuff.

But then you come home for Thanksgiving.

And what happens?

The shit hits the fan.

Suddenly you see your parents differently.

You know,

As I've always said,

I'm not I have no clinical training.

I'm certified in nothing.

But my perception would be if they hear another way of looking at things in a safe environment,

You know,

And I think in a big classroom and not sitting in front of a therapist by yourself,

I think you might be more open to saying,

Oh,

So that's why they do that.

Maybe it's not my fault.

Maybe I could look at this in a different way.

Maybe I don't have to react.

Maybe the fact that I'd rather wear Birkenstocks instead of stilettos is OK.

Yeah,

I love that idea.

I think that you're reaching a larger audience that way and you're catching it fairly early,

I guess,

For the kids once they're out in the world.

I love that idea.

I think it's my whole theory,

My nonclinical,

Non training based theory,

Is that if they can undo some of the damage before they choose a life partner of some kind and have kids with that life partner,

Then they can minimize some of that toxic behavior being passed on.

That is amazing.

You would change the world with that.

That's one of my secret dreams,

Although I just said it on a podcast,

I don't know how secret it is now.

I love it.

Make it come to fruition.

I like it a lot.

It's a great idea.

So I hope so.

So back to,

I really want to continue with the examples of glass lighting so people can start to understand if they're experiencing it with their significant others,

Their parents or professionally.

So we said,

You know,

Telling you what you do and you don't like pushing the boundaries.

Next one is dismissing your unhappiness.

So it's one thing to solve a problem.

And then there's another to tell someone there's no problem to begin with.

That's denial.

So that absolutely.

But it's coming from but instead of coming from the person that's unhappy,

It's coming from your parents,

Your leaders,

Your people who are saying,

Oh,

You're not unhappy.

You didn't feel that,

Right?

Yeah.

I was unhappy most of the time.

And most of the time I would just swallow it and pretend.

But a few times,

It wasn't working.

They didn't know what to do.

So they were both paralyzed by ignorance as well as laziness,

As well as denial.

So they didn't want to deal and they couldn't deal.

I mean,

They were 13 year olds themselves.

Picture you walking up to your 13 year old daughter and sitting down saying,

I have a problem.

What would the 13 year old do?

They wouldn't know what to do.

So it's that kind.

So it invalidates why you're feeling bad.

So you think there's something wrong with you for feeling bad.

Now,

There are certain situations,

Certain experiences that do make you feel bad.

And you need to talk it out and sort it out and learn how to respond to what's happening or whatever is upsetting you.

Not told that it shouldn't be upsetting in the first place.

I mean,

What are you talking about?

So you start to question your sanity.

If you feel bad and it's invalidated,

There must be something wrong with you for feeling bad.

So the more often you feel bad,

The more you think there's something wrong with you and then you start to feel crazy.

All of that happened to me.

So another manipulative gaslighting tactic.

Giving surprise gifts is you give a gift to a child and then randomly take it away.

So this did not happen to me.

But once appreciation is shown,

Then the gaslighter uses it as like sort of a push-pulled views tactic because then they take it away.

So it's you give pleasure when you give the gift and then you give pleasure when you take it away because you're enforcing control.

Well,

Who gets the pleasure when you take it away?

The addict or the abuser.

The abuser says because they get pleasure out of exercising control regardless.

So it's a control tactic.

Yes.

So that's another example.

I did not experience that.

Mine was I get a gift but it was to.

.

.

Conditional?

Yeah,

It was conditional.

Like I had to do this,

I had to behave and I had to give her attention.

Whatever it was,

It was always conditional.

So that's different than what the gaslighting does because that gaslighting gift-giving,

They take it away.

And then you create that fear of,

Strange fear of the kid losing something or getting anything taken away from you so you don't learn to enjoy gifts.

So that's a pretty horrible joy to lose as a kid.

Another thing is projecting suspicion onto the child.

Suspicious,

Negative people take their own fears and paranoia and they project it onto the child.

My parents did that.

They were very negative.

Everybody was out to screw them.

People are going to let you down.

They're bad.

They wouldn't necessarily say,

Like,

Evil,

Just more,

Don't be friends with them.

Right.

Or don't trust them.

Or this person,

Don't trust them.

They looked at me cross-eyed.

They hurt my feelings.

You know,

So this twisted perception that nobody can be trusted and this becomes a reality and the child is perpetually suspicious.

And that itself adds a layer of negativity,

Of pain,

Of anger,

Of rage,

That they need to find something to soothe.

Ideally as parents,

We want to instill in our kids positivity and like a good,

General good feeling about people in the world rather than this paranoid,

Everyone's out to get you kind of attitude.

Yes.

We are supposed to see things for what they are.

You know,

If somebody is,

Let's say somebody is being really nasty to you.

Well,

There's something wrong with them.

There's not something wrong with you,

But you're taught gaslighting tactics teach you to think that there's something wrong with you based on what other people are doing.

And that is the polar opposite way that we should be living.

Sure.

So,

Yeah,

The other one,

I call this the my way and the wrong way.

So another example of gaslighting,

My way or the wrong way,

That they abuse their so-called godlike position simply because they're parents.

That's my way or highway,

Right?

Exactly.

You are never right.

They don't listen to anything you have to say.

It could be about any topic.

Good.

It could be,

It doesn't matter whether it's about your job,

Your friends or politics,

Your perceptions,

Your statements,

How you feel,

Your points of view are not valid.

So again,

As you get older in,

Shall we say,

The workplace or at a party or in some sort of social engagement,

If you're always wrong,

How can you enjoy yourself and just be?

If you didn't raise to believe that anything you have to say is not important and anything you feel should be questioned,

How do you enjoy yourself?

How do you like fit in?

How do you operate in a healthy,

Functional way?

You can't.

It's a very,

It's very invalidating.

Yeah,

It is.

The other thing that they talk about is when you fight back verbally,

You're being too sensitive.

I never said that.

These are false statements.

So it's a,

I guess they can call it an attack and retreat.

I didn't say that.

You're too sensitive.

I didn't mean that.

You took it the wrong way.

You don't have to take any.

And my stepdad did this constantly.

And this,

You know,

This,

It's just really sometimes pisses me off when I think about at eight,

Nine,

10,

12,

13,

14,

How many times you'd say,

You know,

Oh,

That was just a joke.

And he gave him power to absolve himself of the abusive statements and make me feel crazy.

So that is a continuation of undermining my ability or the child's ability to trust their instincts.

Yeah.

And just again,

Just because it's funny.

Oh,

I'm just being funny.

It's just a joke.

Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.

Right.

And another bitter irony example of gaslighting is they expect you to control how you feel.

They don't have to.

You do.

So they will say,

You know,

You can control your response to what I do.

I had a bad day at work.

So deal with it.

Well,

That's very disrespectful.

And we are not machines,

You know,

Whose feelings should be turned on or off.

And we don't turn them on or off based on what's convenient for you.

But we're taught,

We're raised to do the opposite.

So I was only not only I was only allowed to feel something when it worked for them.

But even when I did feel something,

When it was worked for them,

They undermined it and they questioned it and ridiculed it.

So it's a no win situation.

And I think I call it a beating that you can't see.

It's invisible.

These are invisible.

Everything I'm talking about here leaves invisible bruises.

So the bottom line is a parent is supposed to make a child feel better using reality based and logical techniques and a warm style of communicating that allows them to feel what they feel,

But process it in a way that helps them cope in the future.

And as adults,

It's I would call it emotional skill set.

Gas and gaslighting kills any ability to develop an emotional toolkit that you can use as adults.

Gaslighting just teaches us toxic coping strategies that paralyze us and cripple us as adults.

And I'm queen of that.

And then very often,

Very often we take that behavior and then we do it to other people because we don't know any better.

We do it to other people and we make bad,

Yes,

We do it to other people.

We make bad decisions.

We blame everyone else because we got blamed.

We repeat what we don't repair.

And,

You know,

To just elaborate a little further on lifelong consequences.

It's one of the toughest things to deal with in a relationship,

No matter who that relationship is with,

Is it strips,

Gaslighting strips children of any confidence they have and leaves them with an inability to fight back and this great big ball of frustration just sitting there churning inside.

And you need to do something about that because it's just sitting there eating you from the inside out.

And that's where behavior disorders come in,

Substance abuse comes in,

Poor life choices take over.

A child is defenseless against the world.

The parents are supposed to protect them.

When the parent is behaving like the enemy,

That causes lifelong damage.

That's very,

Very hard to undo,

Which is one of my reasons for wanting that college level class is you can sort of stop that vicious cycle or minimize the severity of it if you start to acquire the emotional skills that you were never taught.

Really,

Really hard.

And,

You know,

Gaslighting teaches you that you never feel like you're good enough.

So you either flunk or you become an affectionist.

Flunking or perfectionizing your life,

Both are just as toxic.

Two extremes.

Two extremes,

Two very understandable reactions to a big and all too common problem.

So by taking the blame for everything,

You grow up not trusting anybody because you learn not to trust your adults,

Trust adults.

They blamed you,

So you don't trust anybody and you blame everyone else.

It's a toxic cycle that's hard to get out of.

And it's a lonely existence too when you don't trust people.

It's a very lonely existence.

Well,

It's funny when you think about going through daily life,

Whether you're at work or you're on the soccer field with your kids,

Or at a wedding shower,

It doesn't matter where it is.

All these,

What I would say,

You know,

Thousands and thousands of little cuts influence how you interact.

And if you are using toxic coping strategies as a result of being gaslighted as a kid,

As an adult,

That is very destructive in your life.

And you will look for anything to numb that pain,

To self soothe because you don't know what else to do.

You weren't taught.

So let me ask you this.

That's a very sad thing.

What happened when you first realized that you were a victim of gaslighting?

What did you do?

I got really pissed off for a really long time.

So I've mentioned a lot the grieving process for mourning the loss of people who are still alive.

It was to me a knife,

Several knives.

Every time I would read something from the experts that I have on my website,

Every time I would read something or hear something,

And acknowledge the pain that that caused and the damage that caused,

It was tough.

And this is one of the hard parts about healing is I didn't feel better.

The aha moments brought clarity,

But they also brought pain.

So it was liberating to understand why,

But crushing to realize what I endured and what I had lost because of it.

But it is worth it because I'm in a much better place now than I was a few years ago.

So that's why I would tell everyone,

Even though it's not linear and the grieving process is hard,

It's worth it because once you get through that,

It's like surviving a storm and then cleaning up all the branches out of your yard.

The sun does shine again,

But it's a process,

But it's actually worth it.

It's worth the work.

I say it all the time.

Worth the work.

It's necessary work.

You took your power back.

You do take your power back by realizing you actually don't have any.

So you can't control what other people are doing to you or trying to do to you.

All you can control is how much you're going to let it eat at you.

And by saying,

I'm not going to let it eat at me,

That's where the power lies.

That's where the power is.

But that's an acquired skill because we weren't taught.

Right.

So that is all I have to say about,

Come on baby,

Gaslighting my fire.

Gaslight my fire.

Amazing.

Well,

I want to thank you,

Tami.

I so enjoyed doing this podcast with you and our next episode.

Maybe we'll be in two weeks.

No,

Two weeks.

Two weeks.

Yes,

Definitely two weeks.

Episode nine.

And this concludes this episode of The Stops Here.

Thank you everyone.

Talk soon.

Been around for a long time.

Hope you pass me on.

Hope no one wakes up.

That's when I'll be gone.

Rock bottom scares me.

Darkest light can shine.

Brave ones fly away.

I find another.

Make them mine.

Oh,

Yeah.

Sometimes I'm a fire.

Sometimes I'm a flame.

I will never,

Ever stop.

Don't forget my name.

Been around for a long time.

I hope you pass me on.

Hope no one ever wakes up.

That's when I'll be gone.

So nice to meet you.

You can call me.

Boys in the young.

You all look the same.

Well,

Look,

They say.

You can call me.

You can call me.

Reviews

You have described my family’s dysfunctional patterns exactly. Thank you.

Namaste 🙏

extremely relatable kinda scary but comforting to know I'm not the only one 😏

Well done. Advice for your listeners: If you suspect you are being gaslighted, send contemporaneous emails to yourself. It helps you piece together what the other person is saying or doing. Writing / journaling is therapeutic. It might take a while to figure it out. Neil 😀☯️

My childhood and my 25 year marriage.
Thank you for sharing.

It would be great to see all your music on a playlist here on Insight Timer! I would keep it on repeat all day. I love your music.

Ding ding ... parent mama expects you to be in control because she can’t! My dad tells me often you have to be gentle with her (the narcissist mama) in other words let her have her way so I won’t upset her! I’ve heard this shit all my adult life but just found all these podcasts by you , Lisa a Ramona , Nicole White and now I know what is wrong with her and why she acts like she does.
We are in the storm of our lives right now because they are making poor decision for them and both are 92.
Just listened to a meditation on acceptance. I am going to try and accept their choices and their consequences will be theirs to deal with....hopefully.
Your work is needed by so many and much appreciated! 💜

Wow. Illuminating. Thank you so much.