If a family member is contemplating leaving a cult or extremist group, it is important for her to know that upon exit she has a safe place to stay, social support from family and friends, and possible opportunities for earning income. The more you can show that you have these safety and security concerns taken care of, the more likely it is that your loved one will eventually exit the cult.
However, let’s say you’ve been patient and tried all these things. It can be easy to become completely consumed by working at getting your family member out of the cult. Establish boundaries where you will say “enough is enough.” You can love someone, but also detach and acknowledge that she has made life decisions that have impacted your emotional, physical, and even financial health—and it’s time for that to stop having such an influence on you. You can’t “make” someone leave a cult or extremist group.
For more information on organizations and mental health professionals that help former members of cults and their families, see the Resources section at the end of this book. A legitimate organization or mental health professional is one that is cited in scholarly work, such as journal articles, and the head of the organization and its board are licensed, certified mental health professionals.
WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE IN A CULT
If you are in a cult or extremist group and have found a way to get access to this book, that is amazing. You must have gone through a lot to get ahold of it. Please know that there is hope for you, and a life with meaning and happiness outside the cult. Know that the cult cannot legally keep you against your will. Their doing so would be what is known as false imprisonment.
The first thing to do is create an exit strategy, but tell no one in the cult about it. The cult may already sense that you are straying, so be aware of attempts to control you further or isolate you away from other followers.
Try to reach outside communication. Be aware that if you are contacting outsiders from within one of the cult’s buildings, your calls may well be monitored. If you do succeed in leaving the cult, check to be sure you aren’t followed. And if you can, report any suspicious behavior to law enforcement.
Once you do leave, please get counseling. If you’ve been in the cult for a long time, you will face adjusting to life on the outside, as well as a likely history of abuse and neglect, deprivation of education, and difficulty emotionally attaching to others (Matthews and Salazar 2014). You can do this. Take it slow. You can learn more about counseling in Chapter 12.
LET’S MOVE ON from cults and extremist groups to gaslighting family members. They can make you question your sanity and do quite a bit of harm to you. It’s hard to get away from them, as well.
8
THE ONES WHO REALLY GET UNDER YOUR SKIN
Gaslighters in Your Family
AS YOU’VE LEARNED IN OTHER CHAPTERS, GASLIGHTERS SHARE A LOT of similar behaviors. However, there is something about gaslighters in our families that make them some of the most exasperating ones to deal with. They have some particular characteristics and tricks in their toolbox, as you’ll see. Also, our histories and emotional ties with these people mean we often can’t just get away from them so easily, especially when we’re young. And even later on, they’re often present during holidays, family reunions, and they may live near you. They can be like a constant festering sore. And they usually know exactly what buttons to push to get you going—and they thrive off the ensuing chaos. You may have noticed these issues with gaslighters in your family.
“My stepdad gaslights my mom all the time. He says stuff to her, and then will say, ‘No, I never said that.’ I’ll tell my mom I heard exactly what he said the first time, but now she’s telling me I just don’t like him and I’m trying to drive them apart. I can’t stand it.”
—Liam, 20
In this chapter, we’ll look at how to spot the gaslighters in your family and what you can do to protect yourself.
Confronting Doesn’t Work
Gaslighters will never own up to their bad behavior. When you confront gaslighters in your family, they may say something like “You’re being too sensitive” or “You’ve never been able to take a joke.” And don’t be surprised if they tell other members of the family, in front of you, what just transpired. They want to embarrass you as much as possible to “get even.” Stand your ground. It takes a lot of courage to be the one to call out gaslighting behavior. Find support elsewhere, if you can, but by all means persevere.
My aunt always talks about how crazy and wrong everyone in the family is. Has my aunt ever considered that she is the crazy one? Hell, no. And I’m not going to be the one to tell her. That lady is scary.”
—François, 28
They Ruin Holidays
Gaslighters will often take holidays as a special opportunity to wield their chaos like a can of mace. Gaslighters hate when people are happy. Happy people don’t need them, and that drives them crazy. Gaslighters will use their full bag of tricks to bring chaos to what should be happy events. They’ll triangulate and split during holiday gatherings. They will pit people against each other. They will tell a very embarrassing or inappropriate story about you in front of your family (or the new partner you brought home to meet the family), even after you ask them to stop.
“My dad took Thanksgiving dinner as an opportunity to tell all our relatives what a ‘pain in the ass’ I was and told them that I cried for no reason. I could see their looks of pity. I didn’t even bother to say something back. There was no point. I was nine years old.”
—James, 25
Gaslighters are also notorious for buying inappropriate and cheap gifts. They will spend money on themselves, and even flaunt what they bought for themselves, but they will give you something so flimsy that you couldn’t even give it away. Most of the time the gift also has nothing to do with your interests or who you are. Gaslighters have difficulty seeing people outside of themselves. And part of their MO here is to send a message punishing you for being an independent, happy person.
They Force You to Do Things for Them
Family gaslighters want to make you feel that you have free choice, when you really don’t. It’s the classic “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario. If you don’t comply with a request, you are tormented. If you do comply, you always somehow get it wrong. Granted, you truly do have a choice—gaslighters can’t really make you do anything. But after you’ve lived with gaslighters most of your life, it can feel very much like that choice has been taken away from you.
“I pretty much just shut myself in my room growing up, because if my mom asked me to do something, it was always done wrong, or I didn’t move fast enough. I wasn’t even looking for a ‘thank you’, just no criticism for once. If I wasn’t up and moving within 10 minutes of her asking me.… it was really bad.”
—Gerard, 44
They Are Likely Addicts
If you think about what you’ve read so far, you can see that gaslighting is itself a kind of addiction—addiction to the thrill of gaining power by controlling and destabilizing. If you have addicts in your family, they are more likely to be gaslighters than are others. Addicts have just one concern: getting their next fix. That’s just the way addiction works. The need for the substance hijacks higher-order thinking. So, what does this mean for you?
“I couldn’t tell you when my dad is drunk. I’ve never seen him not drunk.”
—Heath, 25
The addict-gaslighter will gaslight you to the hilt to try to guilt you into giving them money or even your possessions. Don’t fall for it. You can bet you will never see your money or possessions again. If someone in your family is an addict-gaslighter, do not let that person into your home alone. Change your locks. Keep your valuables in a safe-deposit box, in your name only. Do not keep any medications in your medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Keep them in a secured, locked, fireproof box that has been bolted to the wall. Addicts will tell you they will go to open houses just to clean out the medicine cabinet. Consider getting a se
curity system for your home.
“I walked on eggshells around my dad, especially if it was 5 pm or later. I knew that’s when ‘happy hour’ started. I tried to become invisible.”
—Saul, 34
They Use Flying Monkeys
Not everyone in the family is going to see gaslighters the same way you do. Don’t expect other family members or friends to understand. Back in Chapter 2, we talked about “flying monkeys.” These are the people gaslighters will use to bring you back into the fold. Friends and family members are perfect for this role. Gaslighters tell them what to say to you and you do it. Flying monkeys will also often act as snitches, reporting back to the gaslighters anything you say about them and other facts and details about your life. If you tell a flying monkey that a gaslighter was abusive toward you, for example, she will take that back to the gaslighter, who will likely tell the flying monkey a story about how you are the truly crazy one.
It’s generally not a good idea to tell other family members or friends why you are distancing yourself from a gaslighter. Family bonds are often too strong, and you are likely to end up getting criticized or ridiculed for limiting or cutting off contact with the gaslighter. But here’s what you need to remember: You do not need to defend yourself. Your decision is your decision is your decision. You have a right to limit or cut off contact with anyone for any reason.
Gaslighters Have Placaters
There is usually one person in a family who will try to smooth things over with a gaslighter. They get upset when others confront the gaslighter or otherwise make him upset. They have become conflict avoidant as a survival strategy. If you are a placater, ask yourself why. Are you afraid of the gaslighter? Are you not sure what is normal behavior and what isn’t? If you have been living with a gaslighter for any length of time, you may not even be sure what constitutes normal behavior anymore.
“I read something about sociopaths, and I was like, that’s my sister to a T. When I call her out on something shitty she’s done, my mom immediately runs over and tells me how I need to be nice to my sister because she’s had such a hard life. Hard life? Are you kidding me? She’s never worked a day in her life, and my parents pay for everything.”
—Naima, 22
When you placate a gaslighter, it can cause an internal conflict for you. You may feel an inner rage due to the fact that you aren’t “allowed” to express how you really feel. To do so would mean incurring the wrath of the gaslighter.
Gaslighters Can’t Be Happy for You
Gaslighters try to undermine achievements that signify your independence of them. If you are the first person in your family to go to college, for instance, gaslighters might tell you that you are wasting your time, or that you think you’re better than everyone, whereas healthy relatives would encourage you to further your education.
They may also send mixed messages, as Lonnie’s mother and Jacob’s mother did in our examples. They will ask for something from you, and when you deliver (no pun intended), gaslighters will either dismiss it, tell you they never asked this of you in the first place, or act as though you’re burdening them. It is very confusing when you are asked for something repeatedly, work hard to fulfill the request, and then discover you still haven’t met expectations. But here’s the bottom-line truth: When you are dealing with gaslighters, you will never be able to make them happy or fulfill their needs. It is impossible. That’s part of the pathology. They’ll never be happy for you and nothing you can do is ever enough.
“My mother kept asking us when we were going to give her grandchildren. Finally, after years of trying, I was pregnant. When we told her, the first thing she said was, ‘Don’t expect me to babysit.’”
—Lonnie, 30
“My mom told me I had to go to law school. She said anything less than that was ‘settling.’ She never went to college. I graduated near the top of my class. My mom said at graduation, ‘I don’t know why you’re so excited, it’s not like you’re going to get a job.’”
—Jacob, 33
These methods of gaslighting are more or less unique to families or other close relationships, where people have an emotional purchase on you. Your manager or coworker is not quite in the same position to get under your skin. Your congressperson or president doesn’t have the constant presence in your life or the emotional strings to pull, though they can make you plenty hopping mad and off-kilter.
When Bad Things Happen, Gaslighters Don’t Become Good People
One would think that when something bad happens to a gaslighter or someone in her family, you would see some glimmer of redemptiveness or kindness. Nope. The gaslighter will gloss right over it and continue on whatever jag she’s on. Bad things do not make gaslighters nicer, nor does it make them change. This can be very confusing for family members, who think, “Hey, maybe this [name your bad news] will finally get them to reevaluate life or how they treat people.” That day of reckoning and reevaluation is never coming for gaslighters. Which, for you, means letting go of the expectation that things will change.
“My mother was complaining about something, as usual. I had enough and told her I had a miscarriage and was not in the mood. She was angry with me for not telling her earlier, then she went right back to complaining again.”
—Holly, 28
GASLIGHTING PARENTS
Our parents can also be our gaslighters. Healthy parents are supportive and nurturing. They provide guidance for their children so they become happy and productive adults. Some of healthy parents’ happiest moments are when their child succeeds at becoming a healthy adult. However, gaslighting parents manipulate, undermine, and compete with their children—meanwhile, trying to prevent them from being independent people. In this section, you’ll learn how gaslighting parents impact your ability to function as a happy, healthy adult.
“When I was about 15, my friend said that my parents fought a lot. I said, “Your parents don’t do that?” She said no, that they got into arguments sometimes but they didn’t scream at each other and call each other names. It was the first time I realized not everyone’s parents acted like that.”
—Lluvy, 35
If one of your parents was a gaslighter, you may find that you just don’t seem as happy or fulfilled as your peers. You may also find that you tend to get into relationships with gaslighters more often than others do. We learn how to interact with the world through watching our parents. If your parents got through life manipulating and meddling, chances are you saw that as normal behavior.
“I grew up thinking there was something wrong with me because I remembered stuff that my mother swore never happened. I thought maybe I was crazy.”
—Rafael, 65
They Don’t Like It When Children Individuate
Individuating, becoming independent from your parents, is a normal, healthy part of human development. It means that you are learning how to go about the world on your own. We first experience individuation as toddlers. “The Terrible Twos” are characterized by saying no a lot. The preteen and teen years are also times of individuating. Nongaslighting parents see these times as frustrating, but they know deep down that you becoming your own person is a good thing.
To gaslighters, individuation means that their grip on you is loosening—and they hate that. You may have noticed that a parent was pretty nice to you until you hit the preteen years, usually around when you start puberty, and then suddenly started making snide comments to you or ignoring you or stonewalling. What happened? The gaslighter realized you were no longer his “mini-me,” and instead of bearing up and seeing puberty as a normal developmental stage, he viewed it as the beginnings of abandonment. And gaslighters cannot bear that.
“I clearly remember the first time I really said no to my mom when I was a teenager. Why do I remember it so well? Because she stopped talking to me for a month.”
—Paulina, 45
“My dad is a master at stonewalling. I have no idea how he can just treat us like we’re not even the
re. It’s so cold.”
—Charlotte, 28
They Are Notorious Abusers
Abuse takes different forms: physical, emotional, sexual, and neglect. If you are the child of a gaslighting parent, you may identify with more than one of these forms of abuse. With the gaslighter, these behaviors may have just seemed like a normal part of life. If you were abused, it is important that you talk to a mental health professional about it. Remember, the abuse was not your fault. Full responsibility lies on your gaslighting abuser.
They Put You in a Double Bind
A double bind is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. You are given two conflicting messages from your parent. For example, she harps about you needing to lose weight, then makes a big batch of brownies. Or she tells you that you need to get ready for school immediately, but then hands you your portable gaming device. Double binds cause emotional distress, and set people up for failure. For gaslighters, watching you experience tension reinforces to them that they can control you.
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