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Gaslighting vs transference vs over-reactivity vs ???

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DogwoodTree

MyPTSD Pro
I talked with my T today about a conversation with my mom where I felt she de-valued some of my contribution to our work (I work with/for her in the family business). It was a significant contribution, requiring a lot of time and energy investment as well as financial from my own resources...she had said it was required, but she never requires my sister to do it (who also works with us at the same level as I do)...and yet I never complain and I do it well. Last week, we were talking with a customer, and I mentioned something I had learned from that particular task that was relevant to the conversation, but my mom said my experience was "an anomaly" and therefore not relevant to the customer's concerns. Obviously I didn't confront her in front of the customer, and I told my T today that I felt devalued and angry about what she had said, and I had it in my notes to possibly address it at the next family therapy session (which is with a different T).

Clearly, without knowing more details, no one here nor my T can make a professional assessment of whether my statements were actually relevant or anomalous. That's not really what I want to ask about anyway...in the long run, it doesn't really matter. My T's response was that his perception of my mom's comments was that she simply disagreed and that there is the possibility my experience was anomalous and it wasn't that big of a deal that my mom disagreed with my observations and resultant assertions in that conversation. My reaction to his statement was...how can I ever build a logical response to something my mom says if I can't determine what's real or what's not, if I can't discern between simple disagreements or gaslighting-ish devaluation?

I have asperger's, so I rely heavily on logic to determine how to interact with people. Logic requires a relative amount of certainty about what's true and what isn't. Neurotypicals (NTs) interact with people more intuitively, with lots of room for abstraction, variation, emotion, irrationality, paradox, subjectivity, metaphor, ad lib, whatever. I can't do that. I need to know what the facts of a conversation are, and build responses based on those facts. But if I can't determine whether something someone has said is essentially undermining or not, then how can I protect myself?

So, okay. T sees it one way, and I see it another. Or...am I over-reacting? Maybe my mom really didn't mean it badly? Maybe she really did just disagree? And isn't that my T's job, to identify areas where I'm over-reacting, point them out to me, and help me choose less reactive interpretations of people's words and behaviors?

So here's my question really...

How can I know when to trust my perceptions, or when my perceptions are skewed?

I have family therapy with my mom and sister later this week, and I have several items from our last session that I intended to address. Some of these, I've already gone over with my T and he's agreed my concerns are legitimate. But he's also told me I need to trust myself more, and if I feel my mom is making a dig or whatever, then she probably is. But...today I felt like he contradicted that position by saying that his impression was that my mom's statements to the customer were benign, and that I was just seeing them through my own subjective lens.

I've waffled back and forth all day from...my perceptions are completely unreliable and I should just shut up and never assert my opinions ever again...to...my T doesn't have a clue what's he doing and can't recognize gaslighting when it slaps him in the face...to...I pay him so much money because he's good at what he does and why would I bother going to therapy if I'm not going to listen to what he says...to...I'm done with this whole therapy sham and with peopling and with humanity and I'm going to become a hermit (which is truly a temptation for me, not just an exaggeration)...to...my T is good on some things, but he missed this, and I can't trust his opinion on the issues with my mom anymore so I just won't talk about her with him anymore...to...I should email him and tell him all these things I'm thinking, but that won't resolve a single thing before the family therapy session on Friday, and I don't know how in the world I'll hold my ground on anything in that session if there's any doubt as to my ability to somewhat accurately perceive reality.

I spent about half of today's session in a tailspin, consumed with self-hatred. It's not that I'm bothered by T's disagreeing with me, or even with my mom disagreeing with me. The problem is that my logic can't handle human relationships...real, messy, unpredictable, irrational human relationships...and I really would just rather give up at this point. T said today that I have a right to choose to what depth I engage with other people, and to set boundaries around that engagement at the level that is good for me. And so...I kinda quit talking to him in the middle of the session. If he asked me a question, I attempted to answer, but mostly I just felt over-exposed and yet totally disconnected and didn't offer anything he didn't ask for. As a general rule, I try to open up and be vulnerable, but there's no emotional connection in it for me, so it's kinda like consenting to intimate physical contact when nothing in me wants it or can enjoy it on any level. And today I despised the fact he knew anything about me at all and that I couldn't disappear from his consciousness and never be seen again, by anyone, anywhere, throughout all of history.

I realize that part is an over-reaction. But going forward, how do I know when my mom is making a dig at me, vs when I'm over-interpreting her behavior and words? Or...how do I handle the uncertainty of not knowing?

And...how do I balance learning from my T-the-expert, vs trusting my own perceptions?

And...how do I explain all of this to my T? I feel like he dismissed and minimized my concerns...but I also feel like I missed what it was he was trying to tell me...but I also don't think he really has any answers because I'm too screwed up to be fixed...but I also can't give up because I can't keep living like this...but I'm hurting so deeply and so horribly inside and there's nowhere for it to go because I never feel "connected" to anyone or comforted by anyone's efforts to connect...and basically the only solution I've come up with is getting better at tolerating the pain and shame and loneliness and hopelessness that the healing I need from the trauma is basically impossible because of the aspergers, and I'm so, so tired, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.
 
But he's also told me I need to trust myself more, and if I feel my mom is making a dig or whatever, then she probably is. But...today I felt like he contradicted that position by saying that his impression was that my mom's statements to the customer were benign, and that I was just seeing them through my own subjective lens.
Trusting your perceptions more, doesn’t mean you will always be right.

Not always being right, doesn’t mean that you can never trust your perceptions.

Allow for an error factor.

Both for yourself, and for others.

There will be times when your perception is wrong.
There will be times where their perception is wrong.

Neither means you or they are always wrong & can’t be trusted.
 
There will be times when your perception is wrong.
There will be times where their perception is wrong.

Neither means you or they are always wrong & can’t be trusted.

Is there a way to know the difference?

All I can control is my behavior and my boundaries. So...where do I draw the boundary line? At the point where I feel devalued, regardless of her intent? Or must I first prove her intent before holding a boundary?
 
Is there a way to know the difference?

All I can control is my behavior and my boundaries. So...w...

I recommend keeping a diary of every incident. Over time, you will see a pattern and you will be able to demonstate, with more context, what the dynamic actually is, so that your T gets a clearer and clearer picture.

Some T's really don't get narcissistic abuse, as they have no personal experience and narcy types are dishonest and manipulative by definition.

My Dad was in this position and myself also. My Dad has Aspergers and had both my mum and his next wife ran absolute rings around him.

Aspergers people are, customarily, significantly vulnerable and incapable of the type of guile necessary to combat or match manipulative and invalidating treatment. Although it is a HUGE spectrum and that isn't the case for all spectrumy people.

Over time, I've realised and observed how out of depth my Dad is in the face of abusive treatment or any level of disempowerment wrought by my mother and his horrendously power-tripping second wife.

It's painful to witness, as someone with a lot of empathy and love for that person.

So ... If you suspect or feel that you are being invalidated, writing all occurrences down and giving these accounts to your T, for appraisal, could prove fruitful. Sometimes it just takes time, to see patterns emerge and to work out what's actually going on, this is especially valid when it's covert abuse or exploitation.

Writing it down to read to, or present to your T may also help you discharge the emotions and allow you the opportunity to process and communicate without the distorting painful emotions that may be obfusticating the facts.
And may well make things clearer with your T.
Just a suggestion.
I really feel for you!

I think I'm slightly on the spectrum and am good at logic and reason and I distrust and dislike more emotionally driven claims and perspectives, after being subject to a lot of manipulation, invalidation, exploitation and character smears myself.

Logic is good and so is intuition, don't doubt yours, just because you have Aspergers doesn't mean you should doubt your's.

You have EVERY right to advocate for validation and support and if you don't feel you are getting it, logic and facts are your greatest hope but your intuition should not be discounted.
 
In my experience, people who gaslight aren't willing to go to therapy with the people they gaslight.
From.what you told us, your family has been pretty open in working things out. Change doesn't happen over night.
Just my 2 cents.
 
I talked with my T today about a conversation with my mom where I felt she de-valued some of my con...

Dogwood Tree,
Are you asking if you have a right to feel as you do? You do! I don't think you need to know if you were being gaslighted so much as to know that the interaction made you feel devalued and caused you pain. I think we sometimes think we must prove the others motives in order to speak our truth, we don't. I would tell my mother how I feel, in therapy, or elsewhere. I would ask for what I need; things such as to be appreciated for the hard work you do and to be treated respectfully. If your mom was being manipulative or just thoughtless is less important than that you are hurting. Using "I" statements tell her how you felt and what you need. Of course you have no control over how she reacts or responds to you. I feel better having expressed myself regardless of the others response.
 
One step that might be helpful is to review
The top 10 cognitive distortions.

One way I evaluate if my perceptions might be off or not is to see if I might have any of those possible thinking patterns going on.

The first thing I notice about your post is the way you interpret and think about the interactions with your mother, your therapist, and how you think about with yourself, is that you have a very common cognitive distortions of all or nothing thinking. Very few things in life are all or nothing.

Try instead, as an experiment, thinking of another possible interpretations that isn’t all one way or another.

I've waffled back and forth all day from...my perceptions are completely unreliable...
All the self statements and interpretations you waffled about are very all or nothing.

When it comes down to it, no one has 100 accurate logic or perceptions 100 percent of the time. No one. The possibility of misinterpreting one interaction doesn’t mean your perceptions are completely unreliable. It might just mean you are human, and you get some things right and some things wrong.

It’s ok to practice trusting my perceptions even when I could be wrong. You will at times be wrong. That’s ok. Really. You can set boundaries for yourself that will help keep you safe even if you might be a little wrong. You can ask for input from others, as you have done with your therapist, and if it’s still off, you can try out trusting yourself. Then see what happens. Take it in as data. Adjust your thinking accordingly.

There will be bumps along the way. It’s sort of like learning how to ride a bike. T
Last week, we were talking with a customer, and I mentioned something I had learned from that particular task that was relevant to the conversation, but my mom said my experience was "an anomaly" and therefore not relevant to the customer's concerns. Obviously I didn't confront her in front of the customer, and I told my T today that I felt devalued and angry about what she had said, and I had it in my notes to possibly address it at the next family therapy session (which is with a different T).
You mention that this conversation happened in front of a customer - your focus was on the task. People wih aspergers sometimes can see problems that others don’t see. So kudos to you for using your skill set to notice something that might be helpful.

Trying to crawl into your mother’s head and guess her intent - gaslighting it just being dismissive or etc... is probably not going to get you anywhere helpful. And her intent may have been something different than even what you and your therapist are trying rogues at. Your mother may not have been even thinking about the task, who but rather thinking of how to talk about it in front of a customer. She may have called it an anomaly because she was trying to not admit a matter that needed change in front of a customer.

She may still have also been engaged in an on-going pattern of gaslighting you. Gaslighting tends to not be one incident but many. She may not have been gaslighting you but knew of other info about the matter that she didn’t want to share in that moment.

At the end of the day, bring it back to you. Instead of trying to crawl into her thread, own what it was like for you. You are the expert on how it felt to you to be spoken to that way. You know how you wish she could have communicated it. Even if your perception about her intent is totally wrong, it would be really ok to go to family therapy and tell her, “when you said (it was an anomaly) I felt (dismissed). In the future please (what you what her to do instead.)” If your perception is off base, then that gives her a chance to provide you more info to consider. And, either way, you get a chance to stick up for yourself and what you need.

In a way, the more you can let go of trying to guess her intentions (all of us are terrible at mind reading) and the more you can focus on you, the better off you’ll be - and the more accurate.
My reaction to his statement was...how can I ever build a logical response to something my mom says if I can't determine what's real or what's not, if I can't discern between simple disagreements or gaslighting-ish devaluation?
Your mother isn’t going to always be logical or respond to logic, and that’s probably going to be frustrating as hell for a time until you can accept it or build up other tools. Try using the when you do xyz, I feel (or think) abc. In the future when you do xyz I am going to (the boundary you will hold). It is a way to set boundaries in a non confrontational but clear way.

But if I can't determine whether something someone has said is essentially undermining or not, then how can I protect myself?
You can actually protect yourself. You can set boundaries and ask for what you need.

But he's also told me I need to trust myself more, and if I feel my mom is making a dig or whatever, then she probably is. But...today I felt like he contradicted that position by saying that his impression was that my mom's statements to the customer were benign, and that I was just seeing them through my own subjective lens.
Both can actually be true. It doesn’t have to be all one way or the other. If you feel like your mom made a dig at you, it’s ok to make a request she handle it differently. Perhaps ask that she take the time later on to explain why she thought it was an anomaly. Will she actually do it? Maybe not. But you can still stick up for you even if she was being totally reasonable (and I’m not saying that she was.)

Feelings are not fact, but they have value. The fact that this really upsets you shows there is a need to talk it through with your therapist. You’ve done a great job explaining it here. Try sharing it with him just as you have here. And watch for the all or nothing thinking. You both may be on a little different page at the moment, but that doesn’t make your perceptions or him totally trustworthy or not trustworthy at all. He is trustworthy to talk to about how this was for you. It is safe to risk the possibility of being wrong in therapy, and it may help heal hurt from the past and present to really be able to talk it through wih him.
 
First, you're right, I don't have enough information to know whether or not your mother's remark was actually accurate. It WAS rude, IMO. And kind of dismissive. I have no idea if she does that kind of thing on purpose or not, but you've mentioned other times when she's done it, so she seems to be like that.

Trusting your own perceptions, other people, logic, all that........ I can relate. I spend a lot of time guessing. LOL Here's something my T told me early on, that's been useful, for me. (paraphrasing) We all have our own road map of reality. And, when you think about it, we really do. We all follow an unique trajectory through space and time. How could we POSSIBLY see "reality" the exact same way? He says some of those road maps are more accurate than others. He believes it's useful to try to have the most up to date, accurate map available. But everyone doesn't see it that way. Some people (your mother? mine for sure!) like the map they've got just fine. The thing is, none of these are "reality" they are representations of reality, maps, that are more or less accurate. A lot of this comes from the ideas and writing of M. Scott Peck. You might want to check out some of his writing. I especially recommend "People of the Lie"

I've found that idea useful for a lot of reasons. To begin with, I was raised with kind of a frantic fear of being "wrong". And then the flip side of that, a kind of paralyzing need to "get things right". (Except that that was impossible.) It helps to remind myself that this is all about "maps". It's about quality, it's NOT black & white. It also helps to realize that everyone doesn't even have a "map" that includes "maps". A lot of people are under the impression that what they're talking about it actually "reality".
But if I can't determine whether something someone has said is essentially undermining or not, then how can I protect myself?
Is this a case where you have to protect yourself? The information, which was kind of contradictory, was presented to the client. The client can chose who to believe, or how to interpret the information. They may or may not get it "right". It would be nice if they got it "right", but how much of that, beyond presenting your thoughts, is your responsibility?

Are you over reacting? Where your mother is concerned, I'd say you're "reacting", which is a normal, human thing to do. If her remark was a one off (and I don't think it is) maybe you'd be "over reacting". But this has been an ongoing issue. You don't feel she appreciates you, and what you do. This remark was one more example of why you feel that way. For the client, it was probably a "one off" kind of thing. Same for some of your readers here. Different road maps. See what I mean? There's a kind of logic, and more consistency, if you allow for different maps. That doesn't make it any easier to understand someone else's map, of course, but it is a little easier to explain stuff that otherwise seems to make little sense. Where your T is concerned? Everyone now and then, mine says something that makes me think, "Darn! I thought YOU were supposed to be "on my side" and now it sounds like you aren't! What am I supposed to do with THAT!!!" (And then I tend to start mentally yelling at myself for being generally stupid and "wrong". Which is me, not him, and I'm working on that.) He IS, in fact, on my side, but he still doesn't always say exactly what I'd like to hear.
 
I don’t see gaslighting even if your mom was indeed devaluing your statements.

Yes, I can see where a stricter definition of the word wouldn't apply in this situation. I was searching for another word, but never narrowed it down. Dismissive, maybe? Undermining? Devaluing was the closest I could come up with.

I recommend keeping a diary of every incident. Over time, you will see a pattern and you will be able to demonstate, with more context, what the dynamic actually is, so that your T gets a clearer and clearer picture.

Some T's really don't get narcissistic abuse, as they have no personal experience and narcy types are dishonest and manipulative by definition.

I have kept a list of events that seem "off", and I've gone over some of these events with my T. My T hasn't told me many details of his own past, but I know it includes abuse and a very dysfunctional family. Plus, he's an introvert like I am. But I think it's difficult for him (or anyone) to pick up on subtle manipulations when hearing my reports of conversations secondhand. For a while, I recorded conversations and played back parts of them for him during our sessions, so he could really get the context. Through that, he came to realize how subtle my mom's manipulations can be. But I think there's also an element of me seeing manipulation all the time even when that's not what's happening, and finding the line between what's unhealthy behavior from her vs what's over-reactivity from me has been incredibly difficult and painful. And that's a problem when it comes to knowing where to draw healthy boundaries with her. So that's where I start trying to dig in to understand her intent and motivations so that I can decide what I'll tolerate and what I won't, and that isn't necessarily helpful, as pointed out by others in this thread.

Sometimes it just takes time, to see patterns emerge and to work out what's actually going on, this is especially valid when it's covert abuse or exploitation.

It's been very difficult to identify patterns (even though I'm very much a pattern-thinker). My mom is highly, highly intelligent, and skilled at managing her reputation. She's done some of her own therapy, so she understands a lot of these concepts (like the Karpman Triangle) and presents them in ways that make her look like the victim. Due to her own traumatic upbringing, there's also a lot of inconsistency in her presentation of issues. She can seem very healthy and adjusted in one conversation with the family therapist, and the next day be whining like a small child when it's just the two of us. She's managed to mostly seem well advanced in her own recovery work in family therapy sessions, which has opened up possibilities for discussing certain topics. But I never know what repercussions there might be outside of the therapy room, especially if/when family therapy ends. When I've played recorded conversations for my T, where it was just my mom and me, he was shocked at how dramatically she "switches" from one stance to another within the course of minutes or even seconds...actually, she was diagnosed with what was then called multiple personality disorder in the early 90s.

In my experience, people who gaslight aren't willing to go to therapy with the people they gaslight.
From.what you told us, your family has been pretty open in working things out. Change doesn't happen over night.

My mom insisted we go into family therapy, but she and my sister both refused to engage in any sort of individual therapy because, supposedly, all the problems were with me. I think they wanted me in family therapy so they could "fix" me and get me back to functioning the way I used to before I started learning about boundaries and authenticity and so on. On the other hand, it's true that changes take time, and there are changes being made. But so far, nearly all the problems are being blamed on my aspergers. Making accommodations for me isn't nearly the same thing as each person owning their contributions to the problems and engaging in their own growth process.

I don't think you need to know if you were being gaslighted so much as to know that the interaction made you feel devalued and caused you pain. I think we sometimes think we must prove the others motives in order to speak our truth, we don't.

To do this requires a shift in logic that I think I really need to make...that pain on my side doesn't necessarily mean there's a "bad guy." I don't know of anyone in my family who has been able to make this shift. I've learned to better tolerate my being labeled as the "bad guy" when I hold boundaries, but to be so focused on "this is my experience" without making it "so this is what that means about you" is a whole different level. I need to think on this some more.

The first thing I notice about your post is the way you interpret and think about the interactions with your mother, your therapist, and how you think about with yourself, is that you have a very common cognitive distortions of all or nothing thinking.

I've thought about this a lot today. On one hand, yes, my statements portray cognitive distortions. On the other hand, I realized that fact when I wrote that post. So why did I allow myself to say those things when I so highly value logic?

Then I realized that there was a higher-order integrity I was going after...authenticity. My internal world felt chaotic yesterday. I don't have a way to express the related emotions externally, but I realized that when I'm upset inside, I allow my external logic to portray that chaos by engaging in cognitive distortions. I don't stay there usually. When I'm processing on my own, I follow the chaotic logic theoretically to its natural conclusion, and from there I evaluate its integrity and relevance to my values, and then I can re-orient to healthier logic. It's similar to what NTs do with their emotions...allow their emotions to run amok, processing through that chaos, until they can settle into a healthier, more cohesive perspective on the problematic situation.

So then I wondered if that might explain why I felt so invalidated by my T's response yesterday in my session. If he's jumping to the disintegrity of my chaotic logic, it's similar in experience for me as when someone tells an NT "You shouldn't feel that way because it doesn't make sense."

Then I wondered how my T might have responded differently that would have felt more supportive and still conclude with healthy logic. I emailed him earlier this afternoon about what that might look like...if perhaps he could hold space for my chaotic logic for a bit longer and validate the underlying emotions being expressed in that logic before pointing out the problems with it...or even just waiting for me to see the disintegrity myself and reach the point of self-healing in my logic similar to how an NT does with their emotions. I haven't heard back yet, but I'm continuing to play with this train of thought.

I have to go pick up a kid at school. Be back shortly. These comments have been really helpful.
 
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