Parental Gaslighting

After a full blown drunken narcissistic rage late at night, my mother would get up the next morning all sweetness and light, as if nothing have ever happened that night before. As a boy I learned to accept whatever she did to me and never question her behavior. That was the only way I could survive as a young boy.  My father also reinforced the gaslighting, never interfering in her attacks on me, never saying anything the next morning, never acknowledging that anything had happened.  I just realized that my mother employed food, especially deserts and sweets to gaslight me and distract me from her abusive behavior of me, her narcissistic rages the night before.  She would send me to the store to buy the food, involve me in cooking dinner, preparing everything, serving it, and cleaning up afterwards.  It was the only way I had a semblance of a relationship with her.  There was absolutely no relationship with my father.  I learned to accept very little from my mother, just the crumbs of connection with her all around food and meals.  That eventually led me to accept any shred of attention from a woman as True Love.  I learned to form fantasy bonds with women who were narcissistic and not really interested in me or firmly entrenched behind walls that they had constructed to survive their own abusive and neglectful childhoods.  Those kind of women felt just like Mom to me, the very image of True Love.  My father certainly reinforced that notion.  It took root and grew into my strong and sturdy False Self.