Gaslighting

Definition from Wikipedia: Gaslighting or gas-lighting is a form of mental abuse in which false information is presented with the intent of making victims doubt their own memory, perception, and sanity. Instances may range simply from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred, up to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim.

 ***
The term "gaslighting" has been used colloquially since the 1970s to describe efforts to manipulate someone's sense of reality. In a 1980 book on child sex abuse, Florence Rush summarized George Cukor's 1944 film version of Gas Light, and writes, "even today the word [gaslighting] is used to describe an attempt to destroy another's perception of reality."
 ***

Psychologist Martha Stout states that sociopaths frequently use gaslighting tactics. Sociopaths consistently transgress social mores, break laws, and exploit others, but typically, are also charming and convincing liars who consistently deny wrongdoing. Thus, some who have been victimized by sociopaths may doubt their perceptions. Jacobson and Gottman report that some physically abusive spouses may gaslight their partners, even flatly denying that they have been violent.
_____

Another explanation from an excellent site "Daughters of Narcissitic Mothers"

Gaslighting is one of the most insiduous, viscious, nasty and effective forms of emotional and psychological abuse.

It can make the victim feel as if she's going crazy. If your perceptions of reality are constantly denied, and above all, denied by your mother, the person you look up to and who you think knows everything, it is very, very head-wrecking and crazy-making.

Read more:Daughters of Narcissist Mothers

______

Just recently I went through some tough days of gaslighting with my malignant narcissist socipathic/psychopathic mother. It was trying and extremely difficult. At times I am as crazy as her as I get caught in her web of drama and end up engaging with her. I have been warned and have learned NOT to engage yet find myself unable to react at times. I will have to learn to be more aware and disengage those buttons or she will use that crack to tear my to pieces.

I listened to her for days telling me about my father and how he treated her so badly. I am fully aware that it takes two in a marriage and my father is not without fault, although his hands were extremely full being married to a woman with this personality disorder. She went on and on and ran him continually into the ground. She wore me down and I broke. Another tactic and I tripped and fell for it.

My father was one of the very few good memories I have in life. He was my hero, my ray of sunshine. He left my mother when I was 10 years old. We knew he was not coming back as he had put his wedding ring in a coffee cup and left it for my mother. He had caught her numerous times with other men. I had caught her with men. She abused him and I a witness to the violence. I lost my composure when she told me that her marriage had been annulled by the church as my father was no kind of husband.

Me: Incredulously ask "How can your marriage be annulled after you have 4 children?". In addition, one of the four is likely not his.

Her: "Because he was gone for 5 years so the church said he was likely sleeping with someone else and had abandoned the family."

Me:  "He left you because he found you sleeping with another man!"

Her: "Oh no, what are you talking about? That never happened. I would never do that. He left because he was alcoholic and sleeping with every woman that came around, including the babysitter."

Me: "I have dad's divorce papers right here and it says that HE divorced you."

Her: "What do you mean you have them. That is impossible because our marriage was annulled because of his infidelity. What do they say, IF you have them?" Yep, she's baiting me and I'm falling for it.

So I read the divorce claims and judgement to her where my father claims infidelity, listing the names and occupations of the men, and how HE was awarded the divorce and my MNM next husband was to pay damages to HIM!

She says, "Well I don't know where you got those because I was never in court." I remind her that the document states she failed to appear in court. So she states that she wasn't served with papers so how could she! I remind her that courts can't proceed without proof that she was served. That she had to sign that she received the summons. So next, she says, "Well, I don't even know who those men are that you read to me. I don't even know them."  I tell her that you can't go to court with made up names. You have to have proof, you have to have evidence. You can't make up names and get a judgment.

"Well, he had to, because none of this makes sense. I got an annulment because your b****** father was s******* around and I never got served, and I never went to court, so it is impossible that he divorced me. I don't know where you got those papers or where they came from. They have to made up!"

See, even with the evidence in front of them, with the lawyers name on the letterhead, the stamp from the court, the date, signed by the judge; it doesn't exist. Someone made it up. You are a liar. Someone tricked her. She didn't do anything wrong, the wrong was done to her. Everybody does things to her.

She was hospitalized after her suicide attempt and making me watch her die. I asked her what the doctor said to her. She said that he said she was stressed and it was like she was fighting a war with the entire world on one side and only her on the other. She was fighting the battle all by herself. I thought it was very apropos. I asked her what she thought of that. She said, "It made me mad. What kind of crap is that? I didn't even understand what he was trying to tell me. I just got madder."

Malignant narcissist people cannot admit their faults because they don't see that they have any. That is why they are so evil. Most people have a conscience. They have feelings, they care. Because these people don't, it is what makes them so evil.

Scott Peck writes in "People of the Lie"
It is necessary that we first draw the distinction between evil and ordinary sin. It is not their sins per se that characterize evil people...The central defect of the evil is not the sin but the refusal to acknowledge it.

My mother cannot acknowledge anything, because nothing exists for her, except herself.

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. James 5:16