What was the moment you realised you were being gaslit ...

[tellymc]

I've experienced a huge amount of gaslighting from family members, to devastating effect. There was one occasion though that sticks in my mind.

I was living with my partner at this time but regularly visited my parents. For a few weeks/months I hadn't seen my passport. You know how it is..for a while I kept thinking it had to be somewhere like down the back of some furniture.

Also, I've never lost my passport or any other important document like that. Which is not to say it wouldn't be possible obviously, just not expected.

I have a day to day bag that I keep phone/purse/keys/passport etc in. I kept thinking the passport had to be in the beg. I emptied the bag out several times and went through it. No passport. Eventually I said to my partner that I may as well report it lost and get a new one, that it was probably in our house somewhere but maybe I had left it on a train/table some place and if it was really lost it might take a very long time for it to show up. I told my DM that I was ordering a replacement and she seemed very against it and told me not to.

Eventually something happened at my parents house (not relevant what) and I needed my passport. I said that I didn't have it.

My DM started screaming and raging. She told me to look on some shelves where I kept letters and cards, just somewhere my passport would never be. My DF was involved being batshit but that's by the by. It was all horrible, screaming and crazy behavior.

Suddenly my DM appears with my passport in her hand. She was raging verbal abuse at me. According to her it was in my bag all the time and I was just too stupid to see/find it.

At the time I was just shocked that I managed to miss it in this bag which I had gone through over and over again. However, something just felt...wrong. it was so confusing and stressful.

I realise now, it felt wrong because it was wrong. I think my DM had taken my passport (she has done this before) and when it became clear I needed it for something specific she panicked and had to "find" it.

My partner actually said to me, even if she did find it in the bag, I distrust her enough to suspect this of her. If my partner found a lost item for me I would never think he'd had it all along.

The thing is, much worse things have been lied about that I've found out about and there's probably been quite a few I never clocked. This one stays with me because I knew something wasn't right. The cruelty of gaslighting isn't even the lie or what the person does, it's making someone doubt their own mind and their own thoughts and opinions.

I have tried explaining this to a therapist before and although they were sort of sympathetic they did seem to be saying, "well you lost your passport and found it again, it caused a row, big deal."

I am just wondering if anyone can relate to this and if so how you got over it, I am NC now but I still struggle with the fact that someone messed with my mind like that and made me distrust my own thought process. I get that it's about control but it seems to me like such a terrible thing to do to someone but I sometimes wonder if I am making a huge deal out of a misplaced passport. I still doubt my own perception and can't have faith in my thoughts.

Has anyone experienced this and got past it somehow?

Thanks

Gaslighting is hard because it is usually our closest people who do it to us.
The messing with our minds is cruel and vindictive. I believe there is something really far wrong with a person who uses these tactics. It is a need to control which is not normal in human relationships.
They have us believing such awful things about ourselves when really they are the awful ones.
Once we realise we risk further wrath by outing them so NC is the only safe way to stop this affecting us.

@User57327259 I'm sorry you've been through this too. You're right about the outing side of it. Back when I first dropped contact I was thinking about writing a letter explaining why but then I realised it would never do any good.

Even now I struggle with decisions and thinking clearly, I just doubt everything and that creates anxiety.

Just the other day me and partner acknowledged we had made a mistake with something, a bit of a complex problem. I ended up repeating myself so much and sort of worrying so much, more than circumstances called for.

I've been through a lot, I had two abusive marriages and both husbands were experts.

When I was with my first husband I lost my purse containing all my cards and £40. I was devastated. He watched while I cried and phoned the banks and made sure that all my cards were cancelled.

Months later, when I was packing to leave, the purse turned up in his belongings - cards intact, but the cash was missing.

I was gaslit for a number of years from an ex. This was 7 or 8 years ago and I still struggle.

How I noticed I was being gaslit was when he put me into therapy claiming I was mentally unwell. My therapist helped me see what was happening.

I still find that if somebody says "I didn't do/say that" that I get all on edge and need to prove to myself, and sometimes them that they did.
When I first left, I couldn't even decide which kind of milk to get from the shop.

I have never been able to trust anyone to get close enough ever since due to the fear of them getting a hold on my mind like he did, especially since I was so unaware for so long.

Therapy and NC helped a lot, but somethings do still linger and the fear of it happening again has been enough to put me off relationships for life.

My mother was emotionally abusive and I left home and moved away to university at 18.

Sadly, I got into relationship that was also abusive and became pregnant. I was 23.

I had no alternative but to move back 'home' although it was clear my mother didn't want me.

She had constructed a narrative around me that I was mentally ill, psychologically unstable and she'd lived her life as a victim in fear of me. Although I heard the things she said, I didn't understand what she was doing at the time as she had been constructing these narratives since I was a young child.

I went to hospital to have my son and, when I was discharged, she took me to live in a social services run mother and baby nursing home. To this day, I have no idea what she said to them for me to be given a place there - the other mothers there were on CP plans themselves; their babies were on CP plans; their had drug addictions; were care leavers... I was from a 'nice' middle class family, no problems that weren't caused by my mother ever. No SS involvement, no substance misuse problems, educated, lived independently since 18 without issue - nothing.

While I was there, she encouraged me repeatedly to refer myself and my son to SS. She was very fixated on one of us (me or baby) having a social worker. When I said I didn't need one, she used the fact I was living there and saying we didn't need one as proof that I did. Yet I was only there because she had put me there. Not because any authority had decided it. But it was very damaging. I became fearful that my baby would be taken into care; wondered if I should give him up voluntarily; convinced she might actually be right and I just had no insight into my own situation- which I knew was bad. I realised years later that she just wanted to be able to say to her friends "she's got a social worker now" to evidence a situation that was escalating and to garner sympathy.

Over the next 12 years, she used the fact I was in that place to justify her narrative to anyone who would listen that I was mentally unstable. She lied and said that SS had been involved and it was only her involvement that prevented them from being involved in an ongoing basis. Her friends congratulated her on being such a wonderful caring mum to me during such a difficult time for her. Whilst denying to me that I had been in there at all. So I showed her photos and gave names that she couldn't deny. So she denied that it was the type of place it was despite it still running as such and me googling it's name/address and proving it to her. Then she denied it was a mother and baby home and was just a supportive community for other single mothers. I bumped into one of her friends one day who said how lucky I was that my mother had found me a lovely flat to live in. I tried to explain the truth but that just fed into my mother's narrative that I was nuts because what was more likely? That my mum had found me a nice flat or that she'd lied about me to get me into a social services run care home with my 2 day old son? If anyone reading who disbelieves me, I got a care leavers grant when I left and the HV at my new address confirmed there were SS markers on my file but that no action had been taken. She told me she was 'closing' it as she had absolutely no concerns about my parenting whatsoever.

That baby is now 22 and I left when he was 10 months old. I've never got over the experience.

In reality, you might imagine that this was not the only incident of its type. I finally cut contact with my mother when my son was 12 because her behaviour did actually bring SS to our door and SW and I agreed no contact - she was furious. But last I heard, it has just cemented the narrative that I am mentally unwell and psychologically unstable because I have denied my children a relationship with their loving grandma for 10 years.

Nowadays, I keep an almost scientific log of who said what and when with details of what they/I was wearing at the time, where we were, even how I was sitting and the weather, what was on TV - everything. So that I can never be made to doubt my reality again.

Just to clarify - I referred myself for a psychological assessment when son was about 6. They told me that there was nothing wrong with me that a bit of distance from other wouldn't solve. I returned to university as a single parent and got a first class degree (which she repeatedly tried to sabotage); and later a masters. I have a professional career and have never been diagnosed with any kind of mental health or psychological disorder.

I still find that if somebody says "I didn't do/say that" that I get all on edge and need to prove to myself, and sometimes them that they did.

That's exactly what I do.

I do that too. I used to be worse but I’m slowly getting better

I moved from gaslighting mother to partner. And it’s taken me years to get to the point where I’m getting them out of my head

I met a narcissist and he gaslights over ridiculous things.
He didn't have a picture on WhatsApp for months. Then suddenly a picture of his twatty face appeared. I said oh nice to see a picture again. He says is it back? I said your Avi? He said has it reappeard ? I said u haven't had one for months!?! Then he tried to make out it had been there all the time, and he had updated WhatsApp must have come back..
I can only imagine he changed it for some other woman and was acting stupid.

My boyfriend of six years gaslit me for the last year. I only found out when he said he was away on business for a week and I was shown a photo on his girlfriends Facebook of them at a zoo. Found out by accident.
He was sending 70 messages a day, every day, even when he was away with her. He had been with her just over a year.
I didn’t know he was lying until that point. He swore to me he was faithful.
It’s hard when you find things like this out. The person you thought you knew as a nice and decent man turns out to be a lying scumbag.
Weird.

Saw my ex kissing someone else coming out of a room at a house party (aaah my 20s) when we'd been together for a few years.

Confronted him. He said I was seeing things and everyone was worried about me.

Fucking prick.

He also swore on his dads life (nobody ever swears on anyone's life if they're telling the truth I've learnt!) he didn't cheat then when it turned out he had (with house party girl and lots more) I said I couldn't believe he swore on his dads life considering his dad (who I ADORED) had cancer at the time. His response? "Thanks for bringing up that my dad has cancer".

On narcissists, how truly awful they are!

My cunty exH putting us into couples therapy while screwing around and turning the therapist against me was a particular lowpoint

For more than 10 years, every single day.

And the most silly things. Like putting salt in a meal and saying he hadn't. That was obvs the mild stuff, but there was some awful things too. I honestly thought about seeking medical help as I thought I was mentally unwell, why couldn't I remember anything. He claimed he told me things, although he didn't and said I never listen.

It got so bad a had post it notes everywhere, note books, a diary. If I hadn't written it down, he claims it was because I wasn't listening when he told me.

I divorced him, but I did have a breakdown and quite a long hospital stay. Out of habit I still write everything down, slowly seeing that I don't really need to though. And I've been single for 6 years.

I think it's one of the worse types of abuse.

I really remember the first time I realised, clear as day. He gave me a black eye at a party by punching me in the face because I called him out about flirting with another woman. The next morning he said 'I didn't give you that black eye, your DS (who was 3) did by accident'. Fucking mental but I stayed another 10 years!

It took me absolute years to realise it was even happening. I admit, when I get drunk sometimes (or used to- darling baby now) I would get silly drunk. I’d wake up in the morning to absolute abuse from my ex (then partner) with all these accusations of things I’d said and done. It drove me crazy as I knew I wasn’t the person he was saying I’d been. I’ve always been that irritating drunk who becomes friends with everyone and just wants to hug people 😂 Anyway, one night I barely drank anything, was mostly just getting lemonade. He got absolutely fucked and become a complete arsehole, nothing new there really. Started a drunken argument with me over nothing. I went to bed and he passed out, half naked on the sofa. When I woke up in the morning, he was in a foul mood with me and the first words out of his mouth were “are you going to apologise for last night then?”
A couple of months later I found the confidence I had before he came into my life and shattered it. I told him it was over and I haven’t looked back.

I think it's one of the worse types of abuse.

I agree. It requires so little effort on their part and yet causes such long term damage.

I remember bumping into some people I did a hobby with when I was with mum. She told th that I'd suggested she joined me for the hobby and she'd love to come along too but inwas only.able to go because she babysat for me to go and so she couldn't. Silly Dusters for not realising that!

Except that I hadn't ever asked her to come with me and my partner stayed home with the children while I went. He and I just stood and looked at each other open mouthed. I'm so glad he was there to hear it too because I don't see how he'd have believed me otherwise.

We debated afterwards whether we should have spoken up and called her out on it at the time but we couldn't decide who would.have sounded crazier - mother for saying such a blatant untruth in front of us or us for denying that it was true.

I think that was the first time we realised the extent of things she must be saying to other people about me all the time.

I don't know if I was being (deliberately) gaslit, but XH had a habit of vehemently denying he'd said or done something, or he'd say I'd said or done something I knew 100% that I hadn't.

Over time I got less and less certain about what I might have said or done, because he was so sure that he was right. Basically, I started to doubt myself. I thought many times that maybe I should buy myself a dictaphone or something, just so I record conversations.

Anyway. One year we were going on holiday, and I booked some tickets well in advance. In those days you got sent actual tickets, and they arrived about a month or so ahead of time. I gave them to him, asking him to keep them safe until we went. And, as a 'joke', I wrote a little note and got him to sign it, confirming that he'd got the tickets.

When we came to leave for the holiday, I reminded him about the tickets, and he immediately said I'd never given them to him. I said yes, I had, didn't he remember the conversation? Again he said I'd never given them to him, and that I must have put them somewhere.

Then of course I produced the note, and his face drained. There was some bluster, and he did apologise, but to this day I don't know whether I was being gaslit, or whether he genuinely a) had a bad memory and b)was accustomed to being right.

Whatever it was, I'm very glad to be rid of it.

@Wrongsideofhistorymyarse That's so horrid :( It really shocks me how people can enjoy something like that as they basically betray someone who cares for them.

I lost some jewellery at one point, ended up being down the back of the bed. To cut a long story short it was a ring that was a gift from my DM. She started insisting my DP had stolen it and was covering it up with lies, insisted she wanted it back.

So anyway it turns up, I take it round to hers on my next visit, she totally denied every saying anything of the kind. Because I was a bit wise to her at this point I asked if I should maybe call the doctor to make an appointment to discuss the fact that I hallucinated. She smirked and said I should. I then casually said "oh, but I'll have to mention that it only happens around my DM and no one else..." She looked at me in shock and then started laughing almost hysterically, like it was all some huge joke,

tellymc he did a lot of horrendous things to me, but that sticks out because he watched me cry about it. All the time knowing he'd stolen the money.

@YellowDusters

My mother was emotionally abusive and I left home and moved away to university at 18.

Sadly, I got into relationship that was also abusive and became pregnant. I was 23.

I had no alternative but to move back 'home' although it was clear my mother didn't want me.

She had constructed a narrative around me that I was mentally ill, psychologically unstable and she'd lived her life as a victim in fear of me. Although I heard the things she said, I didn't understand what she was doing at the time as she had been constructing these narratives since I was a young child.

I went to hospital to have my son and, when I was discharged, she took me to live in a social services run mother and baby nursing home. To this day, I have no idea what she said to them for me to be given a place there - the other mothers there were on CP plans themselves; their babies were on CP plans; their had drug addictions; were care leavers... I was from a 'nice' middle class family, no problems that weren't caused by my mother ever. No SS involvement, no substance misuse problems, educated, lived independently since 18 without issue - nothing.

While I was there, she encouraged me repeatedly to refer myself and my son to SS. She was very fixated on one of us (me or baby) having a social worker. When I said I didn't need one, she used the fact I was living there and saying we didn't need one as proof that I did. Yet I was only there because she had put me there. Not because any authority had decided it. But it was very damaging. I became fearful that my baby would be taken into care; wondered if I should give him up voluntarily; convinced she might actually be right and I just had no insight into my own situation- which I knew was bad. I realised years later that she just wanted to be able to say to her friends "she's got a social worker now" to evidence a situation that was escalating and to garner sympathy.

Over the next 12 years, she used the fact I was in that place to justify her narrative to anyone who would listen that I was mentally unstable. She lied and said that SS had been involved and it was only her involvement that prevented them from being involved in an ongoing basis. Her friends congratulated her on being such a wonderful caring mum to me during such a difficult time for her. Whilst denying to me that I had been in there at all. So I showed her photos and gave names that she couldn't deny. So she denied that it was the type of place it was despite it still running as such and me googling it's name/address and proving it to her. Then she denied it was a mother and baby home and was just a supportive community for other single mothers. I bumped into one of her friends one day who said how lucky I was that my mother had found me a lovely flat to live in. I tried to explain the truth but that just fed into my mother's narrative that I was nuts because what was more likely? That my mum had found me a nice flat or that she'd lied about me to get me into a social services run care home with my 2 day old son? If anyone reading who disbelieves me, I got a care leavers grant when I left and the HV at my new address confirmed there were SS markers on my file but that no action had been taken. She told me she was 'closing' it as she had absolutely no concerns about my parenting whatsoever.

That baby is now 22 and I left when he was 10 months old. I've never got over the experience.

In reality, you might imagine that this was not the only incident of its type. I finally cut contact with my mother when my son was 12 because her behaviour did actually bring SS to our door and SW and I agreed no contact - she was furious. But last I heard, it has just cemented the narrative that I am mentally unwell and psychologically unstable because I have denied my children a relationship with their loving grandma for 10 years.

Nowadays, I keep an almost scientific log of who said what and when with details of what they/I was wearing at the time, where we were, even how I was sitting and the weather, what was on TV - everything. So that I can never be made to doubt my reality again.

Just to clarify - I referred myself for a psychological assessment when son was about 6. They told me that there was nothing wrong with me that a bit of distance from other wouldn't solve. I returned to university as a single parent and got a first class degree (which she repeatedly tried to sabotage); and later a masters. I have a professional career and have never been diagnosed with any kind of mental health or psychological disorder.

Fucking hell.

I am in awe of your resilience.

I've been NC with my DM and DB for nearly a year now. The last bouts of contact was through text exchange because I was adamant of keeping an account of what was said, what I was accused of, the questions that I'd asked her - she as firm for gaslighting, for as far back as I can remember. Name-calling then denial doing it, accusing me of doing things, then denying the accusations.

When I was 18 and had horrendous abdominal pain, she told the next door neighbour that I'd miscarried (nothing of the sort) and the neighbour had gently asked me how I was feeling some weeks later. Cue me, looking bewildered, then asking my DM why she'd lied only for her to deny the utter lot.

There's history there - she has been resentful of the good relationship I had my with DF (divorce) and tried all ways of sabotaging that. The latest is that I have stolen money off an elderly relative (now deceased, someone who I adored) - I have it all down on text - another attempt at sabotaging the goodness that's happened in my life and something she wasn't a part of.

If and when we resume contact, then the accusations she has made are something that I cannot overlook. Unfortunately for her, she will not be able to deny saying them this time. I know what her coping tactic will be when she's caught out, and I'll just walk away again.

Such as it is.

Gaslighting is a horrible abuse tactic.

*she has form for gaslighting