"It's For Your Own Good": Gaslighting in Our Families, and What Western Psychology Gets Wrong

You are too sensitive. It wasn't that bad. We are doing this for your own good. What will people say? If you grew up hearing even one of these sentences, then this episode is for you. Because most of what people learned about gaslighting online was built for a different kind of family.

And today I want to talk about the version nobody explains to us. So, welcome back to Satan Therapy Podcast. I'm Iman. I'm a licensed therapist in three different countries, and I believe everyone can benefit from therapy, even or especially third culture kids.

So let me start with the word itself: gaslight. The term comes from the 1938 play Gaslight and later the movie with the same name. A husband dims the gaslamps and then insists his wife is imagining it, until she doubts her own mind.

By the way, gaslighting is not a clinical diagnosis. It describes a pattern. Someone repeatedly makes you doubt your own perception, memories, and feelings until you trust their version of fence more than your own. What does it do to you?

You stop asking what happened, truthfully asking yourself what happened, and you start asking what's wrong with me. Here is the part I want to challenge. The popular version online of gaslighting is a toxic partner, a narcissist, someone doing it on purpose to control you.

That picture comes from a Western lens. One person, one villain, and the solution is to leave. Let me be clear before I continue because I think this is very important. Domestic harm is real, and we need to take this very seriously.

But this is not what we are addressing today. We are addressing how the term gaslighting has been overused. In people of color's families, it's often different. It rarely is a plan to destroy your mental state. It's love, fear, the fear of losing a good reputation, and survival mixed together.

And then it sounds like you're too sensitive. It wasn't that bad, we had it way worse, get over yourself, have more sub, have more patience. Don't talk about this outside the house. What happens in the family stays in the family.

And then, the most famous one probably, what will people say? Psychology has a term that fits better here, and I think it's about time we start using it. It's called emotional invalidation. Marsha Lihan described invalidating environments as a home where your feelings are repeatedly treated as wrong, too big, or unimportant.

So the lie isn't gaslighting doesn't exist. Harm can be unintentional, but it can still be harm. Here is a story I want to tell you, so maybe it resonates with you. In 2019, one of my clients, back then her age was 28, I think, she comes from an Emirati Egyptian family.

And she came well, how she put it, she wanted to learn how to control her feelings. She was in a constant state of anxiety and always second guessing herself. When we digged a little deeper, we found out the sentence she was constantly telling herself in her head was, but what do you know about life?

You are still too young to understand this. And even at twenty eight, she was believing this. Twenty-eight is usually an age where you're supposed to be an adult. The moment in therapy she realized that's not my thought, that's a sentence I was taught by my mother, a lot of things shifted for her.

I want to tell you what she did next. Because it was not cutting off her family or her mom. But she was changing how she was showing up. And this is something that took a lot of mental preparation for her.

She planned her time with her mother. Something amazing happened along the way. She learned how to enjoy her mother. She learned how to be reintroduced to her mother beyond the role of her mother. She started to understand the person in front of her, even though she often disagreed.

But she made it, she got there. I want to share this with you because I have seen this pattern so many times and because she was surprised to learn that she was not the only one. Trust me, it's one of the main things that comes up in my therapy room, virtual and physical.

I also want to be fair because pop psychology has a second problem. Popular psychology, which is basically the real term for pop psychology, refers to concepts and theories about the human life. And basically is telling you about our behavior.

And it's based on psychology that you think is real incredible. And this is why bigger audiences just accept it as correct. Now, not everything about pop psychology is wrong, but it's incomplete. The term pop psychology can be used to describe authors, influencers, consultants, entertainers, basically anyone who doesn't have enough credentials to give you the advice that they are giving.

But because they have projected that image of being an expert and you trust them because you saw them online constantly, you start believing them. Here are a few things I want you to understand about gaslighting, and this is very important.

Not every disagreement is gaslighting. Two people can really have the same day but remember it completely differently. When a parent tells you I see things differently or you're wrong, it's not because they are trying to get in you.

Nine times out of ten, it's because they really believe it's different. But it doesn't mean that this repeated pattern is not harmful to you. But labeling it as gaslighting is problematic. If we call our mother a gaslighter after one argument or even more, we turn a label into a weapon.

A diagnosis is not a personality, not for them and not for you. After years of being told your feelings are wrong, you can start doing this yourself. Same applies to your mother or father or whoever is agitating you at home.

Because things they have hurt themselves and learned and they didn't take the time to unlearn it, it becomes a reality to them. I am not overreacting. You are overreacting. Others have it worse. You shouldn't feel like this. I shouldn't feel like this.

You see, all of these belief sentences are adopted. There are things they have heard themselves. The voice that started outside, you and them, moves in and becomes a part of your belief system. Now here's the good news. This is something you can unlearn.

It's hard, but it's possible.

I have seen working on this. You need to recognize whose voice it is you hear when you apply negative self-talk in your inner dialogue. You also need to hear it and understand where it's coming from and what the context is.

So ask yourself, is this my thought? Or is this a sentence that I have heard a lot when I was younger? The second step that you should apply is this one. Write it down. So basically whatever triggered that sentence inside of you, write down the facts around it.

Because it's really hard to argue with facts. And when you see it black and white in front of you, you will be also able to tame your mind. I want to give you an example. So let's see you had a test and you failed.

And then basically you started telling yourself, I'm a failure, I cannot do anything right. But when you start looking at the facts, maybe you missed the mark with one point. Maybe you really got confused over one question, but the rest was really good.

You will also understand that this is something that you can work on. And it ultimately means you are not a failure. It is just a hiccup, an obstacle that you need to overcome. So, when you know all of these sentences come from a specific source, you also need to prepare yourself to see that source.

For example, if you have repeated thought patterns that were instilled in you by your mother, your father, or anyone in your family, you have to be ready to sit down with them. And also have a few sentences ready to get yourself out of the spotlight.

Maybe you can distract them. Maybe you can bring up other things you want to discuss. Maybe there are a few things that you can discuss with them that are not necessarily about you. And when things are about you, you learn how to distract them.

I also want you to understand that this is not about winning arguments. Sometimes you need to choose to lose the battle to overall achieve a better relationship with them. Boundaries without burning bridges is one of the most important things that I discuss in my therapy sessions.

Sometimes when you go to see your parents and let's say you no longer live at home, it's better to plan shorter visits. And plan ahead for topics that you can discuss and topics you really don't want to discuss.

And then also plan for time to recover afterward. Because I need you to understand that this is trial and error. This is not something that you will learn overnight. It's something that you need to implement slowly but surely, but you can only do that if you keep going back to experiment, to find out what is actually pleasant and what's what is not.

Last but not least, please get support. A therapist, ideally one who understands your culture, can help you untangle whatever is your thought process and what is theirs, and what you absorbed over the years and what you can unlearn.

Even in our culture, there is an inner state that you cannot ignore. Consult your heart, understand what feels right and what feels wrong, understand when it's harmful and when it's not, and how you can deal with it. But here is a very important side note, and it is about safety.

If you're living in a constant state of abuse, threats or control, your safety comes first. Distance in that case is not betrayal. Please reach out to someone you can trust or find a professional.

So as we close this episode, I want you to understand a few things that are very important. Healing isn't leading your roots. It's learning to stand on them with your own two feet without relying on anyone else. I would love to hear from you, because I think this is a very important topic.

Tell me, what's a sentence from your home you still hear in your head even though deep down inside you know it's not true? DM me. I promise I will read them all. And some might end up in a future episode.

Of course, without mentioning who you are. If this episode helped you, share it with someone who needs to hear it. And leave a rating. It really helps the podcast reach more people like you. This was Set in Therapy.

I am Iman. Take care of yourself.

Hey, thank you so much for tuning in, and hopefully you will tune in again next week. It will be another episode talking to or about clients of mine, and you can find us on social media on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

The handle is always set in therapy. Thank you so much.