Projecting Parents who Gaslight

Isn’t it interesting that the worse someone has been abused in childhood, the more repetitively they have been told that they are “too sensitive”, “a whiner”, “just can’t take it”? It’s almost mathematical. The intensity of the abuse and neglect is accompanied by an equal intensity and repetition of gaslighting and denial on the part of the abusers (which is internalized and repeated by the abused). I see this over and over as the people who are the most scarred and struggling with terrible trauma and emotional and psychological wounds are the most convinced that their childhood was idyllic, and they are just weak people who want to “blame the parents”. Here’s a therapist hint. Healthy parents know that life can be very challenging, sometimes traumatizing and sometimes very sad. They rarely if ever accuse their children of being weak, too sensitive or of whining. As a therapist, when I hear a parent use this language, I immediately know that the parents are wounded, terribly scarred, lack significant ability to parent and are blaming it on their children, the same way their parents blamed it on them. There are some behaviors that require very little exploration to know exactly what the dynamic is, and this is one of them. Life is hard and can be traumatizing. Parents who accuse their children of being whiners or too sensitive are trying to draw attention away from their own inability to help their children navigate a challenging reality.