Trying to deal with and handle gaslighting parents is no easy task. Parents gaslighting their children use many toxic ways to manipulate and control them. Dealing with gaslighting parents is challenging but understanding that you’re not alone and that your feelings and experiences matter is critical to ensuring you do not succumb to their manipulation.
What Is Gaslighting?
Gaslighting is a type of abuse used to distort the truth of its victim´s experience. Gaslighters create doubt in their victims to manipulate how they feel, what they may think and what they do. Gaslighters want their victims to question their own reality so it’s easier to control them. It is a tactic often used by toxic or abusive parents and also used in narcissistic relationships and abuse cycles.
Signs of Gaslighting Parents
Gaslighting parents tend to need and have a lot of control over their children. This emotional manipulation starts out as mental and emotional abuse by denying statements or events which occurred, often minimizing the severity of their actions. They use gaslighting to undermine their children’s needs and perspectives. Usually these types of relationships don’t change, and are often due to narcissistic parents and/or family members.1
Signs your parents are gaslighting you may include:
- Ignoring a child’s subjective experience
- Making a child feel worse about themselves
- Playing the victim
- Being overly controlling
- Rewriting history
- Creating unhealthy competition
- Verbal abuse
- Blaming, belittling or publicly shaming a child
- Denying something that occurred
- Creating doubt in a child’s memory
What Do Gaslighting Parents Say?
Gaslighting parents may say a number of things which may be similar to what many parents say. However, gaslighting parents say these phrases with the intent to distort the reality of their child in order to maintain control over them.
Examples of gaslighting phrases that parents may say to their children include:
- “You’re being overly dramatic”
- “It didn’t happen like that”
- “You sound crazy”
- “You’re hysterical”
- “You’re too sensitive”
- “You’re not upset, you’re fine”
- “You’re not hungry, you’re tired”
- “You’re not making any sense”
- “You’re exaggerating”
- “It’s not a big deal”
- “Don’t make it a big deal”
- “It’s not that serious”
How to Respond to Parents Gaslighting You
How to deal with gaslighting parents is similar to dealing with narcissistic parents. There is a lot of overlap with how these parents dismiss and minimize the feelings and experiences of children.
The following are tips for responding to gaslighting parents:2
- Take time and space for yourself: Take time away from others and let yourself be and allow yourself to focus on being in the present.
- Journal/document the abuse: Journaling helps to keep a source of truth for you even if your recollection is challenged. Having this logged gives you something concrete and gives you an insight into your actual experience if you do begin to question yourself.
- Set boundaries : Setting boundaries is important because you limit how much of yourself you allow your parents to control, even if they have a lot of control. Boundaries help you maintain control of your own emotions, which no one can take from you.
- Acknowledge it: Recognize that this is going to happen and understand that you’re not going to be able to change your parents. Letting things go doesn’t mean that you agree or you believe it, it just means you won’t mentally drain yourself trying to argue.
- Agree to disagree: Simply agree to disagree.
- Validate yourself: Have ways to validate your emotions, whether that is from your journaling or other creative outlet or support system.
- Have witnesses: If you are able to have someone with you or nearby when there is a challenge, you can have leverage from others who can validate your position on the topic. There is power in numbers.
- Get help: Getting therapy or counseling is a great step as well in preserving your self-worth and self-esteem.
When to Seek Professional Help
The right time to get help with gaslighting parent issues is when it’s identified. It can be challenging to talk about with your parents, so it’s important to consider individual or family therapy, depending on what your issues are. Given the emotionally volatile and abusive nature of gaslighting parents, it’s important to seek help immediately if you feel you are in danger of any kind. You do not need to endure any kind of abuse and this should never be tolerated. A therapist can help normalize this into an internalized belief.3
Sometimes family or group therapy can help with these gaslighting parents. Family therapy can give insight to the parents about what is happening if they are unaware of their own blind spots. Therapy holds a safe space for children to speak up, and allows the therapist to set ground rules and goals of therapy that parents need to adhere to.
Group therapy can also be helpful in providing a sense of community and support from others who have gaslighting parents. These group therapy sessions can give individuals the validation from their peers that they are not getting from their parents and ensure that their feelings aren’t minimized. Knowing that you’re not alone is a big benefit of group therapy.
Using an online therapist directory to find a therapist experienced in dealing with these types of relationships is a great place to start. Reading reviews and looking at clinician bios to understand their scope of practice can give you an idea of whether their experience suits your situation. Many therapists offer a free phone consultation and virtual/teletherapy visits if you are not able to be physically present.
Final Thoughts
Gaslighting from parents is hard to deal with but there are ways to heal and move forward. It may take time to recognize, understand and accept that this is happening. Working with a therapist is a great way to empower you and restore some of what has been lost to the manipulative tactics.
