YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

In the past couple of years I've come to realize that my dad very robustly fills the profile of someone with NPD. This discovery has helped me to better understand him and his random-seeming moods and actions. More specifically, I'm glad to have come across the term "gaslighting." Nothing has done more to help me understand my past experiences with my dad and my current neuroses without him (we're estranged) than being introduced to that concept. I stopped talking to my father when I realized I would never be able to have an honest interaction with him and that he would always be trying to manipulate me, and in my naivete I would always fall for it (his alcoholism factored largely into this, but that's more detail than I'm prepared to go into).

Now, the challenge is trying to stop second-guessing every single thought I have. I can't even imagine what it's like to not second-guess everything. Have any of you dealt with/overcome this particular problem?

I'm feeling a bit out of it right now, but I hope that I've effectively communicated here...

Hey! I am glad you have a new perspective due to fresh knowledge coming in. Good for you.

In a larger sense, I am increasingly convinced that society is one big gaslight: telling each of us that we are Not Enough. Boo gaslighting! Boo!

Sometimes it helps me to "name the game". ie, explicitly say, out loud, the game the gaslighter is trying. They don't like that.

Example:

I haven't had a credit card in 8 years. For me, unsecured debt is stupid. It is is a bad deal for me.

So the bank teller launches into her sales pitch about the wonderful benefits of the opportunities of the new line of credit blah blah blah.

"That's unsecured debt." I told her. "That is not who I am".

Gaslighting is devious, but the gaslighters almost always overestimate their smoothness, thinking they are putting something over on us.

Sometimes it helps me to pause, take a breath, and then state explicitly the implicit premises and conclusions offered by the gaslighter.

I often like to make difficult conversations painfully obvious, saying everything that needs to be said explicitly.

Such is my two cents! Forgive my rambling. Good luck!

I was married to a gaslighter for 18 years. Really, really messed me up for many years. The first thing I had to do was address my own use of alcohol and drugs. If I couldn't stay clean I wasn't going to have a hope of getting clean from psychological manipulation. You need a clear head to figure out what is going on!

I left my x to go into drug rehab. While I was in there he was accusing my counsellor of trying to get me to leave him. My counsellor told me that my problem was probably not so much my drug use but my relationship with my x. I did not go home after rehab and I never saw my x face to face again. 18 years later, I still cannot bear the thought of facing him. The crazy is just too overwhelming for me.

I have now been in active recovery for 18 years and recently I have been identifying the crazy-making thought twisters going on in my family of origin. For example, "Look how great I am performing for thousands on stage!" and, "My son is addicted to the computer and will spend days staring at a screen if I don't intervene."

But you will never hear, "I am feeling lonely and insecure. I am afraid of being invalidated by my father so I get up in front of any audience I can and demand their attention by singing." or, "I grew up in conditions of abandonment and deprival and my father emotionally incested me because my mother was mentally ill. Now my son has problems with emotional attachment and intimacy, and at the age of 39 still lives at home with me. I would like to get some help to figure out how to have a healthier relationship with my son."

The mental and emotional dishonesty in my family of origin is staggering and no one will talk with me about it. I am having to distance myself from my mother, father, sister, and four brothers because I just can't stand the insanity. Lots of alcoholism, drugs, work holism, food addiction, anxiety, depression, etc. that no one will admit to.

What I have been learning to do is find other relationships to invest in, the idea of 'family of choice' rather than 'birth family'. Right now my family of choice is pretty small: husband, two dogs, grandson, nephew1, nephew2, ex-sister in law, son1, son2, best friend. But they are people who are honest with me and I am honest with them and it is a relief to have people in my life who genuinely care about me instead of using me as a placeholder in family photos so they don't have to admit that anything is amiss.

Best of luck to you. It can be done and we are all better off for it.

Oak:

I appreciate your two cents and didn't think it was rambly at all the only problem is that while I consider myself to be a fairly intelligent person, I'm not always the quickest. It's often hard for me to catch when someone is manipulating me while they are doing it, haha. Actually, it reminds me of a joke I read yesterday in a McSweeney's article called "Kafka's Joke Book":

Why did the chicken cross the road?

It had been crossing so long it could not remember. As it stopped in the middle to look back, a car sped by, spinning it around. Disoriented, the chicken realized it could no longer tell which way it was going. It stands there still.

IrrationalPersist:

I have a few women in my life that have been in similar relationships to the one with your ex, and I have seen how hard it is to accept outside advice and separate yourself from the toxic person and I am heartened by your strength, that you were able to hear your counselor and walk away from that.

It is difficult, identifying the fine line between running away and walking away from a destruction that will only absorb you into itself. Having a policy of honesty with myself and others has helped to recognize that line more clearly, especially since my husband is pretty good at calling me on it, lol. It's frustrating feeling like if those around you (esp. birth family) would just be honest about themselves and their feelings and intentions, we could all be a lot happier. And I guess that's the line...when you've given someone plenty of room to be real with you and they just refuse.

ok I'm pretty sure I rambled there haha...sinus headache. gonna go lay down.

Gaslighting and manipulation. These are two distinct terms, yet are very close at means. Gaslighting can be of various forms from Redirection, Undermining, Countering, Denial, and Resurging history, while manipulation is changing of one's mindset about certain things for one's own good. They are very close as gaslighting does include manipulation in this.This article helped me find the difference, as Gaslighting in general has been explained really well. Be it both, it is a toxic relationship. You need to either get out of the relationship, or even out the scales by confronting your partner.

Article Link - https://www.femina.in/relationships/gaslighting-in-a-relationship-274452.html

pari.sehgal:

Wow, this post is 9 years old? I don't even remember writing this, but it is great to have a little insight into where I was at back then.

In regards to your comment - I'm not sure if this is a copy/paste text you are just placing anywhere you find the word "gaslighting," as I'm not sure how it fits into the conversation. If you are suggesting that I did not know what the term meant, I can assure you that I did and do. The term was not as overused back then as it is now.

My father would lie to me to make me doubt my own memory and to trust his word over it. He also wanted to rewrite history - to make himself seem more sympathetic. 9 years later, I can say that he has alienated everyone in his life and lives a sad life, alone. No one is valuable to him who does not blindly accept his narratives.

Hello Amie,

Thanks for the chuckle with Kafka (your 2014 post).
The McSweeneys post still there.

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/kafkas-joke-book