Sorry I went on, and sorry if it didn't make sense! There's so much i have left out, but it's hard to type it all out, it's hard to ADMIT it all happened. It's hard to know I was so weak.
Hobgoblin27 my dear girl, you come across as anything but weak.
And your confusion, wondering if it's you, thinking you might be able to accommodate the entire issue, seems to be an incredibly common reaction.
It's sooo outside normal experience that, of course, one would be constantly questioning and challenging oneself.
If one is being lied to, then one's entire basis for living shifts. You can't really deal with stuff, on even the most mundane level, if you are consistently reacting to something that's simply not true.
And then uncovering the truth, learning the implications and having the mental room to assess it, sounds positively Herculean.
And exhausting. Reliving it, rewriting it, reassessing. It's only surprisingly that you have the capacity to write about it so eloquently.
I don't know if you know where the phrase gaslighting originated (I believe).
From an old black-and-white film called Gaslight. Where the villain was trying to drive the heroine insane by secretly turning up, yes the gas light. And then asking her, why she kept doing it.
You watched her doubt herself and, incrementally creep towards instability. Whilst he appeared plausible and in control.
Although it has the name gaslight now, at the time, despite the term not yet being coined, the phenomena was clearly well known. And, I suspect, instantly recognisable to women everywhere.
This thread is, in my opinion, one of the most important threads we've ever had. Certainly whilst I've been posting.
The experiences that you've all had contain so many commonalities, the veracity is indisputable.
I know, beyond doubt, that it is having an effect. On several different levels.
And I hope with all my heart that it is having a positive affect on the women who contribute to it.
