Hi all,
My mum, on several occasions, made calls to various professionals - health visitors, doctors, social workers etc - claiming that I had mental health problems when I didn't, that I was abusing my son (I wasn't), that I was violent and aggressive towards her (I wasn't) and so on. I'm currently reviewing all my son's records with a view to getting the false information provided by her taken off them by the court. The general picture seems to be she would call 'someone' - health visitor, for example - tell them there had been child protection concerns about my son because I was mentally ill and his health problems (autism) had been caused by neglect. She'd also tell them not to tell me she'd called because I get aggressive and that I refused to be reassured that he was okay because of my mental health problems, and that I wouldn't listen to reason.
I didn't know any of this (and none of what she was claiming was true) so I was taking my son to assessments where I was basically fobbed off. My theory is that, because of what she'd told them (and no-one bothered to check - duh!!), they all assumed that he just needed the right sort of input and he'd get that in school, so were just going through the motions to keep the 'mentally unstable one' quiet until he got to school where everything would be fine. His health problems weren't addressed until I went private and of course, they hadn't had the same nonsense from my mum so they assessed his health properly and sorted things out. I then made complaints about poor service, which, I've discovered, my mother then claimed I do all the time because I'm 'crazy' and my illness makes me think I'm always right and everyone else is wrong (there's actually a paragraph in one report where she has told a social worker this clearly, and another where she has told a social worker that I have mental health problems because I trained as a teacher, instead of doing my PHD and becoming a lecturer. This, according to my mum, made me go nuts. Even the social worker has written underneath it "no idea why she is telling us this or why she thinks this is relevant?"").
Anyway, sorry, bit of a long winded explanation, but basically, there were two different realities. Mine was that I was a caring, loving mum who was (rightly) worried about her son's development and who kept being fobbed off by various people who refused to help him, which confused, angered and frustrated me. My mum's version to everyone was that I was mentally ill, my son's problems were somehow all in my mind and caused by me at the same time (which in itself doesn't make any sense) and that I mustn't be told what she was doing for her own safety. Truth be told when I found out what she'd done I wasn't angry I was heart broken. Anger came at some point, obviously, but to discover my own mum had done this to me and my boy was worse than discovering my son was disabled in the first place.
Anyway, going off the point again, but is this what they call gaslighting? Just reading around various things at the mo and this keeps coming up - if you were going to give what she did a name would it be this one? Or something else?
Thank you!!!
