Gaslighting relative

[theminionsmother]

I have a very close relative, let’s call her Lisa, who has been severely damaged by an abusive past (as have I been damaged but less severely).

Lisa’s coping strategy has been to create a more or less fictional version of her life, build a wall around it and not let anyone damage it by introducing any significant truth into her reality. It has been very effective she has been able to take on life exceptionally well given the abuse she suffered.

My strategy has been to find out the truth and then cut out and go NC with the family members who have been minimising the abusers behaviours and responsibility for that behaviour. Instead these family members have tried to make out that my responses to their choices are the irrational ones. I have explained to Lisa that while I respect her choices for handling what has happened I am also very comfortable with my own decisions that I have taken and I believe them to be most suited to me.

However there are clashes due to the respective courses of action we have taken. For years Lisa sought to gaslight me about our abusers behaviour and to minimise it and to not recognise her own part in his actions all to suit her own fictional reality. Then Lisa finally got a whole pile of memories back and the extent of her abuse came out.

Now Lisa is back to bedding herself back with the other relatives who are minimising the abusers actions and Lisa has been gaslighting me about the other relatives and talking up her “better” mode of handling this situation and “down” my apparently childlike, not selfless way of handling it. She is a very selfless person but to her own absolute detriment in this particular scenario. I have had some seriously dreadful times dealing with this issue with my family and she dismisses them as my “inner child tantruming” sort of thing.

I know she has serious issues. I know she is seriously affected by her abuse but her way of “managing” me to keep her own fiction alive is frankly bothering me. I am at a fork in the road trying to decide how to manage this going forward.

Goodness me that sounds hard. No real advice tbh, I just thought I'd give you a bump so it comes up in active threads.

Could you go NC with Lisa? It sounds like your relationship is compromised due to your different ways of managing the trauma. Space may allow you both to progress the way that is more comfortable for each of you?

Thanks National

Could I go NC? I could but I find NC has a huge personal cost. Plus to be honest I feel like NC might be punishing Lisa for her way of handling this which I don’t feel right about. She has been through an awful lot already.

She sounds like she could be harmful to you in the foreseeable future. You've accepted her way of doing things and now your coping mechanism is at odds with hers, she's insisting your way is wrong.

Regardless of how she has suffered, she's now also minimising abuse you both suffered.

Eventually, one way or another, it will all come out for her and then she's going to suffer for all her years of repression.

As for yourself, if you can't do NC, it's definitely time for low contact. You can't allow her blinkered, harmful attitude to impact on your own life.

You've accepted her way of doing things and now your coping mechanism is at odds with hers, she's insisting your way is wrong.

Yes I guess she is questioning what I am doing. It is done quite insidiously, which is why I am finding it very gaslightingy. She goes after values if that makes sense, hits on self esteem things rather than directly calling into question what I am doing. So her way is “considerate of others” my way is all “harsh and childlike”. By any measure this is true but we are not talking about stealing chocolate from the cupboard, we are talking about child abuse and people who are minimising child abuse. You are definitely right that she is minimising her experiences and our experiences and their impact. Without question at the moment I am far more affected by her experiences (and to a certain extent how it could have been me) than she is. How does that happen?

Eventually, one way or another, it will all come out for her

Do you know I am not entirely sure about that. Her strategy is incredibly effective for her. She is incredibly good at it. I think she has probably developed some personality “hang overs” as a result of her abuse which are further bolstering her ability to use her own coping strategies.

It might not be that she'll be able to face her past, but when I say they'll come out, I think she's liable to have a breakdown, or make such monumentally bad decisions in life that she loses everything. Nothing can be buried forever, even if it has to dig itself out, finger by finger.