Gaslighting: The Most Significant Cause of C-PTSD

Ongoing gaslighting can have severe consequences. If you’re being gaslighted by your mother, you may begin using unhealthy coping tools like lying to avoid stress and arguments or prevent her from becoming triggered, angry, or abusive. You’ll also want to control your environment and every interaction and outcome to feel the sense of predictability or stability it offers.

For those of us who’ve been gaslighted by our mothers, it’s one of our most challenging aspects of healing because, at a very young age, we’ve learned to disregard our perceptions, self-trust, judgment, and ability to remember. Because we may have learned to trust our mother’s interpretation of the world and events more than our own, we may come to rely on her judgment and perception instead of ours.

When you’ve been gaslighted, you probably got unexpected or inappropriate responses to common questions or actions, and your responses may have been determined to be incorrect, unreasonable, or shameful. You may wonder why your mother gives you strange looks that cause you to question your every action or word. Fearful for your mental health, you worry that you’re losing your grip on reality. You may accept and believe that you’re the illogical one in the relationship. You’re confused by things she says and does, but your observations can’t be validated because you’re often the only witness.