Gaslighting — The School Dance

Hinzugefügt: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]What are some of the signs of narcissistic abuse and or a narcissist that people maybe don't know about or can be more aware of in the future?

[00:00:11]Well, the signs of a narcissist, I mean there's a wide variety. It can present in different ways. I would say the most consistent uh traits that I see my clients having experienced from a narcissistic, let's say, parent is that the parent needs them to be the kind of child that they want them to be.

[00:00:34]Whether it is what they do, you know, in sports or in school, how they show up, how they dress, how they speak. And if they aren't aren't conforming to that, there is often punishment in various forms. For some of them who have become the scapegoat, there is nothing they can do that's good enough. There will always be something to be picked on, to be criticized for, to be rejected for.

[00:01:01]There is also the type of narcissist that is, you know, we've heard of gaslighting, where the person will deny anything they've said. You know, let's say the mother says they can go to the school dance.

[00:01:20]And then the girl's getting ready for the dance, and the mother says, "Where are you going? I didn't give you permission." And so it screws with their sense of what is real.

[00:01:28]And and where that is happening all the time, and where a person loses touch with their own reality. I've seen a sort of narcissism that is sort of like victim narcissism, meaning the parent is always sick, and they're always not feeling well, and they need the child to take care of them, or cook dinner, or, you know, it's almost like the roles are reversed in what we call the the child, where the the parentified child needs to perform the role either for the parent or for their siblings of being the caretaker in the relationship and putting their own needs aside.

[00:02:09]I have seen a pattern where parents play siblings off against each other.

[00:02:15]It's sort of like this triangulation where they talk about one sibling to the other where they criticize and then they almost like foment arguments and disagreements and hurt and anger and distance between the siblings. Mhm.

[00:02:31]Um which is so painful for both of them.

[00:02:34]There's often a golden child where there's this the perfect child that gets everything and is in some ways in some ways has the sort of ideal parent and then there's the the scapegoat and who who gets nothing and but witnessing the this golden child of this ideal parent they wish they had but is never directed towards them.