gaslighting

The Fear Prison

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It’s been one of those weeks where a number of seemingly unconnected events have been signs pointing me in a single direction.

I had a conversation with a friend on Monday (one which I will inaccurately paraphrase here) about the concept of a fear prison.  The concept as I understood it describes the moments when something becomes legal, permissible, even encouraged, but we are unable to embrace, accept or even explore it because we remain trapped in the FEAR of horrible consequences.  The fear remains, despite our logic brains reminding us that the actual danger has passed.  We can remain trapped, capturing ourselves into custom built, highly individualized fear prisons.  No amount of intellectual reasoning or reassurance from friends and family can truly convince us that the danger has passed, that we are safe and that the “risk” we perceive as insurmountable is, in fact, no longer a risk at all.  The fear prison is both irrational (because no actual danger exists) and extremely rational (because it exists based on threats which were at one time real).   The fact that it simultaneously FEELS real and is in fact not true, makes it a particularly challenging concept to work with.

As a survivor of abuse, sexual assault, family violence, relationship abuse and systemic discrimination and institutional violence caused by the very systems that were presented as existing to protect survivors, I have built a complex and sturdy fear prison.

This fear prison is the driving force behind, and explanation for, so many of my decisions and so many of the symptoms of PTSD which weigh down my mind, body and spirit.

Just under two months ago, my ex-husband signed court documents which were stamped and sealed by a judge, giving me sole legal custody of my two children.  In reality, this piece of paper opened the doors of a real prison.  It represented an actual, tangible increase in safety, decision making power and freedom of choice.  People in my life, knowing how long and hard I’ve fought for this piece of paper, celebrated for me.  They were happy and congratulated me for “winning” after a long fight.

I think many people are confused and somewhat disappointed by my inability to celebrate.  I don’t feel relieved.  I don’t feel safe.  I don’t feel like I have won ANYTHING.  I don’t find it easier to make decisions.  I don’t feel free.

I’m still caught in my fear prison.

The walls of the prison are built by a trifecta of related fears.

First, the fear that I can’t trust him and can’t trust the unpredictable nature of violence.  This is the fear that he might come back, that he might try to hurt me or hurt my children when I least expect it.  The fear that if I let my guard down and allow a feeling of safety to exist, that I will be most at risk.   This is entwined with a fear that if I allow myself to relax and feel happiness or relief that it will be taken away from me: swiftly, without warning and in a terrifying manner.  This is the fear that every decision I make, every plan I make, every step forward I take, everything I build can be taken away. That it will be MY fault it is taken away because I foolishly let myself believe I was safe.

Second, the fear that I can’t trust anyone.  The fear that if I’m honest with doctors about how I feel then they will judge me and find me wanting.  The fear that people don’t believe me about the events of my life and my experiences.  The fear that people find me annoying, whiny, controlling, and generally too needy.  The fear that if I open up, I will risk being hurt again.  The fear that honesty will result in terrible consequences and that I should be careful about sharing TOO much or needing TOO much because it might result in me losing my children.   This fear at a deeper levels is that other people believe that I am crazy, insane, mentally ill, hysterical or mad.

Third, the fear that rules them all, is the fear that I cannot trust myself.  The fear that I am crazy, broken, damaged and maybe delusional.  The fear that I can’t trust my own memories of the past.  The fear that I exaggerated or invented the abuse.  The fear that I’ve accused innocent people of crimes they didn’t actually commit. The fear that I’m making too much out of too little and that a “normal” person wouldn’t react this way, have these thoughts or these experiences.   The fear that all of the challenges, abuse and violence in my life have been either my own fault or creations of my own mentally ill mind.  This fear keeps me frozen, analyzing and picking apart all my flaws and potential flaws.  This fear fills me with shame and makes me feel worthless.  Or maybe I feel ashamed and worthless because of this fear.

Believing that others think you are crazy, that you can’t trust others and that you can’t trust yourself because you might actually BE crazy builds up an extremely secure fear prison.  A fear prison so strong, that no amount of reality, court orders, locks on doors, or distance can break down.

This fear prison can only be dismantled through my own healing process.  By gradually challenging my fearful thoughts and looking for evidence that my fears are no longer true or real.  It may be that some of the fears were NEVER true or real, but were creations of my abusers, projected on me and designed, plotted and crafted to drive me insane.

The path to “winning” is not in the court orders or external victories.  The winning is my stubborn refusal to give up.  The winning is staying alive despite the intense desire to die.  The winning is getting up each morning and living my life, in spite of the fears.  The winning is parenting and protecting my children each day. The winning is behaving as if I’m valid and sane, even when I believe I am worthless and crazy.  The winning is reminding myself that I am a good person and that only a very BAD person would abuse someone and gaslight them hoping they would kill themselves so they could be proven “right.”

In his mind, the only way my ex-husband can be proven right, be proven not to be an abuser, be proven to be righteous and a good person, is for me to kill myself.  If I kill myself it proves to him that I am, and have always been, CRAZY.   If I die, his narrative becomes the truth and my accusations become just the ramblings of a mentally unstable person, not to be trusted.   I will live forever just to prove him wrong!

There are reasons I have my particular type of fear prison.  I fear that I am crazy because I was led to believe this.  I was led to believe I was crazy by abusers who gaslighted me.  I was led to believe I was crazy by doctors who labelled me as borderline.  I was led to believe I was crazy by the police officer who never properly investigated my report of sexual assault.  I was led to believe I was crazy by the doctors and school principals who lied, under OATH, during my family law trial.  I was led to believe I was crazy by child protection workers who told me that I was projecting my anxiety onto my children and that I needed to be more neutral in my reactions towards my ex-husband’s transphobic violence.  I was led to believe I was crazy by family law judges, who denied that I had been abused (or denied that it was relevant to the custody arrangements).  The entire system, from the moment I was first assaulted (and even before) has been a set up to create in me the belief that I can’t trust myself, my memories, my body or my mind.

Breaking down my fear prison means trusting myself.  Breaking down the fear prison means living as if I am sane.  Breaking down the fear prison means that my memories are true and that the injustices I’ve survived actually happened.  Breaking down my fear prison means accepting that so much of the violence was completely and utterly out of my control.  That is TERRIFYING.   Believing that I was helpless to stop it and that it wasn’t my fault is terrifying.  Believing that I did everything I could and that I did my absolute best at every step and that I still was powerless to stop the abuse is terrifying.

But not as terrifying as the fear prison of believing that I am crazy.

I’m not crazy.

What to do when PTSD tells you that the entire world is unsafe?

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I don’t know what to do when PTSD tells me that the entire world is  unsafe.

Trust no one.  Trust no one.  Trust no one.

Everyone will let me down.  Nobody understands me.  It’s not safe to trust.  It’s not safe to open up.  The system is broken.  Nobody believes me.

Maybe it’s me.  Maybe I’m the common link.  Maybe I’m so deeply flawed that people are better off away from me.  Maybe I deserved to be abused.  Maybe I’m the real abuser.  Maybe I’m broken and selfish.  Maybe I am controlling.  Maybe I am incapable of loving someone.

PTSD lies a lot.

PTSD makes me push people away over tiny mistakes.  PTSD makes me feel like a small vulnerable child, when someone says one harsh word.  PTSD makes me freeze in a conflict or do anything to get out of it, even if that course of action doesn’t make long term sense.

PTSD at its root tells me that the world is unsafe.  PTSD tells me that I’m unsafe and that I’ll never be safe.

It also tells me that situations are either perfectly safe or completely unsafe and dangerous.

PTSD doesn’t find a middle ground easily.

I need to get safe and grounded before the middle ground reappears.

When I’m triggered it’s all or nothing.  All the fear.  All the self criticism.  Pushing people completely away.  Feeling hopeless and that nothing has meaning.

PTSD makes me feel like trust is completely destroyed when someone makes a mistake that hurts me.  PTSD tells me that person can no longer be trusted because they will only hurt me again.  PTSD tells me that I’m safer alone.  Or that others are safer away from me.

PTSD is not a realistic judge of anything.  It doesn’t accurately assess danger.  It doesn’t accurately assess me.  It doesn’t analyze situations clearly.  It doesn’t forgive.  It doesn’t forget.  It never forgets ANYTHING that makes me feel unsafe.  And it all gets tied together in a giant clump of tangled unsafe, danger.

On the other hand, PTSD tends to forget the good times, the moments of safety.  The moments of laughter.  The moments when life has so much meaning it hurts.  It forgets the perfect moments, or tells me they are worthless because they ended.

I’m not a perfectionist.  PTSD is a perfectionist.  I’m not a control freak.  PTSD is a control freak.   I’m not a judgmental person.  PTSD is judgmental.

PTSD changes me into a person I don’t even like.

I know people have limits and boundaries and are fallible.  I know I have limits and flaws.  I know that life has good times and bad.  I know that it’s important to be grateful and see the joy in little things.

I know.

But I don’t believe.  PTSD doesn’t let me believe.  PTSD doesn’t want to risk losing the good things, so it doesn’t want to get attached to them.  PTSD is always expecting the next crisis, the next drama, the next danger, the next heart break and the next pain.  PTSD is a child cowering in the corner waiting to be hit. PTSD doesn’t let me “just calm down” or “just smile.”

I’m always waiting to be abused again.  I’m always expecting to be hurt again.

Deep down inside I’m scared that I deserve it.  That I’m not a good person.

PTSD makes me believe that I’m not a good person and that I don’t deserve happiness and health.

PTSD makes me neglect my health, because “what’s the point anyways?”

PTSD tells me that nobody believes me.

PTSD is the combined voice of all the people who have abused and hurt me over the course of my life.  PTSD isn’t me.  It’s not my voice.  It’s not random and it’s not a character flaw.   It’s the cumulative result of years of gaslighting, emotional, physical and sexual violence.  It’s the result of a broken system, systemic/institutionalized abuse which did not validate my experiences.  It’s the result of the psychiatric system, the legal system, the police, child protection and violations of trust by people in authority.

PTSD is the reason I’ve spent more than half of my life not really caring about living (at best) or actively wanting to die (at worst).

Sometimes when I’m triggered it’s not just Ana (my angry teenager) who is on the scene.  It’s a much younger child, almost pre-verbal.  All that younger part wants is to be wrapped in warm quilts and be held.   She wants her hair stroked as she cries.  She wants to be cradled and rocked and shushed.  Gently and patiently, like a parent with an infant.   That part isn’t angry like Ana,  she’s just a deep well of unmet needs.  She just wants to be safe.  This inner child has been around a lot the past few weeks.

I just want to be safe.

But I’m an adult.  And I have to take care of my needs myself now.

How not to be an ally…

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Photo credit and further awesome information:
https://decolonizeallthethings.com/2014/03/03/how-to-be-an-ally-not-an-asshole/

I’ve seen various posts and articles online written about “how to be an ally” or “how not to be an ally” to marginalized groups.  I thought I’d contribute my thoughts to this debate.  Many people are no longer fond of the word ally.  I find it problematic in certain circumstances but potentially useful in others.  These are my own thoughts on being an ally and I am not attempting to speak for anyone or any group of people.

First, I think of the word ally as a verb, not a noun.  Ally is an active state, not a static one.  In order to be an ally, you must be continually working, learning, unlearning, listening to and magnifying the voices of people and/or groups you hope to work in allyship with.

I’m going to give some examples of how NOT to be an ally.  I’ve recently experienced issues with men calling themselves allies to women and declaring themselves feminists, without ever actually asking if they are working together with or supporting women.

1.Do not independently declare yourself an ally.

Generally, I consider myself an ally only when the person or group I’m working with considers me an ally.  In other words, my actions on their own don’t constitute being an ally unless the person or group I’m working with considers those actions positive, supportive or productive.  If you think you are being incredibly helpful, but the person you are trying to ally with thinks you are being a privileged idiot, then you aren’t an ally.  It’s not possible to be an ally in isolation.

2. Do not speak over or speak for marginalized people or groups and label that “being an ally”

If you are a man, working to end sexism, it is not your job to speak for women or about women’s experiences.  Speaking for women is not feminism.  Ways to speak out as an ally to women might include calling out male friends/coworkers/acquaintances on sexist behaviour, starting discussions with male friends about ways to reduce toxic masculinity, stepping in as a bystander to prevent street harassment by telling men this behaviour is not cool and so on.

3. Do not attempt to explain an oppression that you do not experience to those who do experience it.  In other words, no mansplaining, whitesplaining etc!

If you are in a position of privilege with respect to an experience do NOT try to explain that experience to the person who is being oppressed.   White folks, do not try to explain racism to People of Colour!  They experience it every day.  Men, do not try to explain sexism to women!  They experience it every day.  Don’t argue that a woman couldn’t possibly be experiencing sexism in a given circumstance.  If she feels something was sexist, that is her experience and it needs to be validated and believed. Instead, stop and listen to the experiences of marginalized groups.  This includes reading articles, books and consuming art or media created by marginalized groups and groups you are not a member of.   For men, this includes talking to your male friends about unlearning male privilege.  This includes white folks talking with other white folks about deconstructing white supremacy.

4. Do not ask the person experiencing a certain oppression to spend large amounts of emotional labor explaining their oppression (or even worse your privilege) to you.

This is why the internet and libraries exist.  Do your homework. Educate yourself.  Spend time reflecting on your privilege.  This does not mean it is always inappropriate to talk about oppression you don’t experience with someone who does experience it.  But please don’t expect that person to hold your hand and walk you through 101 level knowledge of their own oppression.  This also applies to asking 101 level questions about systemic oppression or systems the perpetuate oppression.  Do your research first.  It can be okay to ask a friend specific questions about their personal experience with oppression or specific ways they would like you to act as an ally, but respect their right to say no to these questions.  It’s not their job to educate you and they may not have the emotional energy to answer the questions at that moment.  Remember, that person is likely experiencing that oppression on a daily basis and this can be exhausting.  A man needs to respect that a woman may not have the energy to explain her experiences of sexism to him.  As a white person I need to respect that a Person of Colour may not have the energy to explain their experiences of racism to me.   Don’t expect people experiencing oppression to take care of your feelings related to your privilege.  Being an ally is not about you.

5. Do not lump all people experiencing an oppression together and expect their experiences to be homogeneous.  Diversity exists within marginalized groups.

An example of how not to be an ally to women:

“Well, even feminists don’t all agree on what feminism is!  How do you expect men to listen to women if you can’t even agree yourselves?”

Stop.  Just don’t do this.

There are as many different types of feminism as there are women on Earth.  Not ALL women agree on every aspect of every type of feminism.  That does NOT mean that feminism is inherently flawed or that women need to just “get it together” before men can work to end sexism.   It also does not mean that sexism does not exist. The same goes for other types of oppression.  People do not exist in boxes and are not single story, monoliths.  A trans woman of Colour who identifies as queer, will experience sexism and oppression in a different way to a white, cis-gender straight woman.  Some folks are facing multiple types of oppression and that is their lived reality.  It’s important to respect people’s diverse identities and experiences while acting as an ally.

6.  Do not expect a cookie, pat on the back or gold star. 

Do the work of allyship and unlearning privilege because it’s the right thing to do. Being a good person and working to end oppression isn’t a badge of honor.  You don’t get a reward for not being a racist.  Men don’t get praised for NOT being a toxic, sexist animal.  Doing the bare minimum of not being a shitty person isn’t enough.  Also, don’t go around proclaiming yourself ally of the year.   Being an ally is not about you, it’s about working to end oppression.

For more information about allyship and anti-o work, please check out this amazing resource The Anti-Oppression Network:

allyship

Or this amazing post by blogger Mia McKenzie:

https://www.bgdblog.org/2013/06/20136178-ways-not-to-be-an-ally/

 

 

 

Mystery.

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I’ve spent time over the past few weeks reflecting on the roots of my abusive relationships.  What I try very hard NOT to think about is the answer to questions like these:

Was any of it ACTUALLY real?  Was there every REALLY any love between us?  Were they lying to me from the start?  Were the entire relationships just elaborate gaslighting schemes design to facilitate abuse?

It’s quite painful to cope with the potential truth that my entire marriage was abusive. It’s sometimes too difficult to believe this.  It’s too difficult to hold that truth in my mind for more than a few moments.  If none of it was real, the loss becomes immense.  I can’t go back in time and re-live my children’s first  years with a non-abusive partner.  I might never know what it feels like to parent a child with someone I truly love and respect.  I won’t get my 20’s back.

Sometimes I search my memory, grasping for pure memories.  Moments that weren’t tinged with discomfort or abuse.  I try to find some moments to hold onto that feel REAL, where we were both happy, genuine and authentic.

Sadly, I can’t find very many.  I remember a lot of distance.  I remember a lot of me questioning myself, changing myself, adapting myself, trying to fit in with what I thought I should be.  I remember me hurting myself, starving myself, judging myself, disassociating, making excuses for him, and blaming myself.

I remember being alone.  I felt alone. I was alone.  I remember the isolation and desperation of post-partum depression and the loneliness of parenting two young children without much help.

I wonder if I ever really knew the man I was married to for a decade.  Today, I can accept that I never did.

I can remember one genuine moment.  It was in the hospital, after my first child was born.  We were tired and happy.  New parents.  It was the first night after her birth, before he went home to sleep for a while.  We were singing a ridiculous Hugh Laurie song that we’d both found amusing over the weeks before the birth.  I remember laughing a bit, holding the baby in my arms.  I think that was real.

But maybe it will always just be a mystery…

the truth is hard.

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I owned a set of fridge poetry magnets when I was 15.  They were stuck on the fridge in the house where I lived with my parents.  When I was 15, I wrote this poem with fridge magnets about being sexually abused:

Time together

Alone with thy soul

There is always my body.

 

I smile at nothing

But desire

Fire craving winter.

 

Take when you want.

I could never

Disdain it enough

to break your heart.

 

the truth is hard.

In my 15 year old mind it was clear what the poem was about.  It was direct, it wasn’t even thinly veiled.  The double meaning of the word “hard” was intentional.  To me it was a message, it was a cry for help.  It was an attempt to communicate that all was not well.

Reading back to my journal from 1996, it was clear that I knew something was wrong.  I can hear myself trying to justify X’s actions, trying to defend him, trying to believe that everything would be alright.  I can hear myself blaming myself for not being comfortable.

Less than 1 month into the relationship with X:

May 2, 1996

“He moves very quickly though, and is very persuasive when he wants to be.  That worries me a little bit, because he’s very forceful. I think that if I said no and meant it he would respect my choice…X turns into this totally different person when we are alone. He talked me into going under the covers.  At first I felt really uncomfortable…he can be so different, his different personalities are very drastic.  Like Dr. Jekell and Mr. Hyde…it worries me a little…the intensity of it scares me.”

May 7, 1996

“I’m not sure I understand X. He can’t seem to behave in public. He always wants to be physical with me, even when it isn’t appropriate.  I’m going to have to tell him that holding hands and kissing are OK in public, but anything farther isn’t.  He also doesn’t always stop right away when I ask him to. It’s as if he doesn’t believe I actually want him to.  Then he apologizes a lot after and seems to feel guilty, but he does it again…I’m sure after I talk to him he’ll act more appropriate.”

I wrote a lot about how it was my fault that I wasn’t comfortable.  I wrote about being too worried about other people’s opinions of me. I wrote about being seen as “Ms. Perfect” and struggling to live up to those ideals, especially when I didn’t see myself as perfect at all.  I wrote about the sexual relationship as a conflicted way to challenge people’s ideas that I was perfect, but really I was filled with guilt and shame about what was happening.  I couldn’t possibly be “Ms. Perfect” because if people really knew what was going on between X and I in private, they would be ashamed of me and hate me, the way I hated myself.

Looking back on it, I blamed myself for the abusive behavior of another person.  I thought that I was doing something wrong.  I thought his parents would hate me, my parents would hate me, my friends would hate me, and that generally everyone would think of me as a slut if they knew the truth.

So I didn’t tell anyone.  I didn’t tell anyone for 5 years after the abuse ended.  When we broke up, we started being “friends” and I fell into the deep abyss of anorexia.  The whole trauma which set this into motion was essentially erased, my hurt abused self was replaced by a frail skeletal figure, drifting though the halls of our high school, detached from everyone.  In order to make the abuse disappear, I tried to disappear.  I almost succeeded.

5 years later when I met my ex-husband, I fell into the same patterns.  I convinced myself it was my fault.  It was my issue that I wasn’t comfortable with the sexual stuff.  If I tried harder and was less depressed he would change his behaviour.  I blamed myself a thousand times more than my abusers every blamed me.  I abused myself a thousand times more than all of my abusers combined.  This is what trauma does to a young person.   By the time I even considered talking about the abuse, I was already caught in a second abusive relationship.  I never really had a chance to heal.

It wasn’t my fault.  I believe that abusers see vulnerable people like me a mile away.  They see us and they target us.  They know that we are less likely to fight back.  They know they can exploit our tendency to blame ourselves. They know they can build empires of abusive lies on the backs of our low self esteem and desire to please.

It wasn’t that I didn’t know I was uncomfortable.  It wasn’t that I didn’t know I wanted the sexual abuse to stop.  It wasn’t that I didn’t recognize that my boundaries were being pushed past and ignored.

It was that I blamed myself for the transgressions.  This was due to a mixture of the abusers gaslighting and confusing me, and my own lack of self confidence and self esteem.  My desire to please others was pre-existing and abusers knew they could use it to their advantage.

I didn’t scream or fight back because I believed it was my fault.  I felt so much shame, that I didn’t want to create a fuss.  I wanted to disappear and be invisible.  I turned to anorexia as a coping technique and a way to take up less space.  I tried to shrink my guilt and shame.  I tried to decrease the dirty feeling, by decreasing the size of my body.

I blamed my body because in my teenage mind, if I didn’t have a body I wouldn’t have been sexually abused.

 

 

 

Trusting my younger self.

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I’ve been reading through my journal from the first year of the relationship with my abusive ex-husband.  I’ve been reflecting on how I was gaslighted and how, in a way, I gaslighted myself.  I used the same coping techniques I did when I was abused at age 15. I found myself in another abusive relationship and I immediately began self harming, restricting food, and thinking about suicide.  As a distraction it worked, just as it had when I was a child.  I did what I needed to do to survive. I turned to creative (if self destructive) coping techniques that got me through very difficult situations.  But my inner self, my younger self did know something was wrong.  There was a part of me, healthy me, which was separate from “the voice” or “Ana.”  That part of me knew that my new relationship was deeply and integrally connected to my relapse and worsening psychiatric symptoms.  My wise younger inner self knew that I was in trouble, but she asked for help in ways that distracted and confused other people, even her own healthy self.

This is a concept that is often very difficult for those who have not survived abuse to understand.  It can be challenging to understand that the survivor will do whatever it takes to survive, even if those coping techniques may look like self destructive behaviours from the outside.  The survivor may feel she has limited or no options.  For various reasons she has been conditioned not to scream, tell, ask for help, run away, fight back etc…or maybe she tried those things and they didn’t work. So instead she turned to disassociation, self harm and eating disorders as a way to modulate and live with the abuse and all the symptoms of PTSD.

I was conditioned, maybe almost from birth, not to make a fuss.  I was conditioned, maybe almost from birth, to be a “good girl.”  I internalized this in a way that led me to blame myself for the abusive behaviours of others.  If I was being hurt it was because I wasn’t a “good girl” and if I wasn’t a “good girl,” then I must be a bad girl, maybe a very bad, shameful, dirty and disgusting girl.  Thus, Ana/”the voice” was born.  There was a part of me that split off and became self abusive and self critical.  A younger self, a part that never ages or matures.  A 15 year old frozen in time.

This is how I described “the voice” when I was 20 years old (ironically the description came right after mentioning intimacy with my ex):

February 21, 2001

“My body feels too big and uncomfortable right now.  I know it’s because I’ve been eating more normally and feeling hungry.  The sensation of hunger is not an easy one for me.  It is frightening. Like I feel afraid of losing control of myself. And yet I know that the E.D is out of control. It is a part of me that often deceives and betrays me. I know that in the end, though it feels comfortable, it cannot be trusted.  The voice which tells me not to eat, tells me to cut my skin, to smash my head against a wall, to step out in front of traffic all sorts of dangerous hurtful things.  It speaks to me in persuasive ways.  It is a part of me and yet foreign.  My ally and my enemy, my strength and my destruction. But after so many years it is the way I know.  A method of ridding myself of unwanted feelings”

When I was 20 I was able to recognize some of the signs of abusive behaviour in my ex. I was able to identify that I felt afraid.  But I didn’t draw the right conclusions from there. I blamed myself, I thought I needed to work on my depression, my recovery, get better at coping with anger etc.  My younger self tried to problem solve by changing herself, just as she had at age 15.  Just as she had for her entire life.

March 12, 2001  [written after being asked to swing dance with and dancing with a friend, a man I’d briefly dated]

“So the evening was going well until one crucial moment…asked me to dance.  I figured one dance wouldn’t hurt and I didn’t think [he] would mind…but [he] did get upset and left the room.  I followed after the song was over. [He] got angry at me saying that I couldn’t stand up for myself and say NO.  He totally misunderstood and overreacted.  I got terribly upset and started crying totally uncontrollably…I was so disappointed that my night was ruined.  I felt so much like hurting I became filled with intense suicidal thoughts. I hate feeling my independence threatened by a relationship. I want the freedom to choose who is in my life.  When [he] gets angry it just terrifies me and makes me want to hurt, with him is when I feel the strongest feelings”

My younger self clearly articulated that she felt uncomfortable with being controlled and with the jealous behaviour.  She clearly made a link between the angry jealous behaviour of her boyfriend and the suicidal and self harm impulses.  My younger self was wise on a deeper level, and yet she stayed with that man for 13 years.  It’s difficult to make sense of.  My adult self wants to travel back in time to that night, to go back to the dance with my friends, to tell him in no uncertain terms to F*#K OFF and leave me alone.  My adult self wants to protect that younger me, give her the strength to listen to her instincts and fight back rather than turning to a downward spiral of self destruction that would lead to 4 years in and out of psychiatric hospitals.

The next day, March 12, 2001 I was admitted to the hospital.  I wrote in my journal again, but made no link between the previous evening and my suicidal obsessive thoughts.  The self destruction worked as a distraction from his controlling behaviour.  The hospital was a place to get away from him.  The routine and the process of hospitalization was an escape.  I would feel safer in the hospital for a few hours or a few days, then I’d realize that the hospital wasn’t a solution and I’d want to be home.

I think what I really wanted was to be safe.  What I needed to be safe was to exit the abusive relationship in those early stages, when I still had the chance.

Because within a few short weeks I was already beginning to convince myself it was my depression and PTSD causing the issues in our relationship:

March 26, 2001

“The things that I thought were stable and unchanging have become uncomfortable. I can’t tell if it’s my depression pushing [him] away or actually me. It’s so hard to face that possibility. I want things between us to be simple again. I miss how easy we used to be together.  Now I feel distant from our relationship”

April 4, 2001

“I don’t feel as easy around [him] lately. Mind you I haven’t felt easy around anyone lately. I feel withdrawn, like I have built up the walls around me for protection from the storm.  But this is so ineffective because my storm is coming mainly from within. I don’t know how to protect myself from myself. I really am my own worst enemy”

Maybe I was never my own worst enemy.

Maybe the storm was never “mainly” from within.  Maybe I was confused and living with emotional abuse and gaslighting.  Maybe I bought into blaming myself as a coping technique, as a way to survive, and as a way to feel more in control of a scary situation.  I blamed myself and my mental illness rather than facing the reality that I was in an abusive relationship.  It was “easier” to seek help through psychiatry than it was to leave the relationship.

Looking back it all seems clear.  But my 20 year old self had less wisdom, less experience, less resources and less knowledge.  My 20 year old self did the best she could.  She did try to express herself, she just didn’t have the skills to listen to herself or to ask for the type of help she truly needed.  And those around her weren’t able to interpret her self destructive behaviours as, not a cry for attention or a manipulation, but a message.  A red flag waving, signalling that all was not well.  Help was needed, but psychiatry wasn’t the correct tool for the task.

Unfortunately, my younger self wouldn’t cross the threshold of a rape crisis centre for another 12 years.

The roots of an abusive relationship.

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Through some parts of my youth I kept diaries.  Never entirely consistently, but consistently for periods of time, especially when I was in treatment or in hospital.  I’ve been thinking back to this time of year in 2001.  My first year with my abusive ex husband.  My first year in psychiatric care.  My first year engaging in severe self harm.  My first psychiatric admissions (aside from eating disorder treatment).  My first suicide attempts. It’s interesting how all these “firsts” coincided so neatly in time with my new relationship.  At the time I thought it was because memories of the abuse I survived as a teenager were triggered and surfaced when I became sexually active.   That was part of it.  But there was more to it than that.  There was subtle abuse in my relationship with my ex husband that started very early on.  The seeds of gaslighting and emotional abuse were being planted.

It started with showering me with affection and attention.  It started with making me feel special and loved, almost to the point of making me uncomfortable.  It started with planning for the life we’d have together, the kids we’d have, the marriage…within months of meeting me (I was 19!).  It started with gifts, cards, flowers, spending all our time together.  It started with gradually isolating me from my other friends and social outlets.

Then some lies started.  And the lies were repeated so often I believed them to be true.

These lies were focused around my mental health problems and their link to my feelings about his abusive  behaviours.   He would tell me that it was because of my PTSD that I was uncomfortable with something.  He would tell me that a “normal woman” would be okay with it.  He would make me feel guilty, tell me that he felt like there were three people in the relationship: me, him and X.  He made me feel like I was CHOOSING to have flashbacks, like I was CHOOSING to think about X rather than him.  Almost like X was someone I never quite got over, a lost lover, rather than an abuser who had traumatized me to the point I often had flashbacks during any type of intimacy.  Over time, the lies were repeated to the point that I felt crazy.  I felt like I was to blame for the problems with intimacy in our relationship.  We even sought out support from a sex therapist to talk about this.  I had blood tests and was checked to ensure my hormone levels were normal.  I was completely manipulated into believing that the issues in the relationship were entirely my fault.

Today, in 2017, I realize I like some types of sex just fine.  I just prefer consent to be a factor in that sex!  In other words, I like sex, but I don’t like sexual abuse!  It turns out, I’m not physically broken.  I have PTSD.  I have flashbacks, but with a safe, trusted and patient partner I can be okay.  But because of the lasting impacts of gaslighting, I struggle with saying no. I struggle with blaming myself for anything that might go wrong. I struggle with identifying and communicating what I want or enjoy.  And I still fall back into patterns of believing that I’m crazy.

When I left my ex husband, I mainly remembered and talked about the sexual abuse that happened in the last 5-6 years of our marriage.  These were the incidents I felt most comfortable labeling “sexual assault” and “rape.”  When asked, I couldn’t really describe when the sexual abuse started.  I couldn’t really remember the first time.  I couldn’t really say when things started to go wrong.

But reading back in my diary from 2001, the first year we were together, there are so many red flags.  I can hear my 20 year old self trying to convince herself that things were okay.  I can hear my 20 year old self trying to believe that she loved this man she barely knew. I can hear my 20 year old self trying to rationalize that things would be better with him when SHE was better, when SHE stopped cutting, when SHE stopping being so depressed.  I can hear her trying to convince herself it was the right choice, and I feel deeply sad for her.

June 8, 2001

“The evening went well until the car ride home.  Before getting in the car I was feeling panic starting. [He] tried to kiss me but I pulled away.  He got offended.  I tried to explain but he got angry and said he felt stifled like he couldn’t be spontaneous.  He said I only make love to him out of duty.  I got really upset and started crying and I couldn’t breathe. It was like a panic attack and I couldn’t stop hyperventilating. I just was so very scared.  I’m terrified of being with [him], but I do love him too.  It’s such a dilemma all the time. I feel like it would be easier for me to get better without the strong feelings of a relationship.  But on the other hand [he] is my support.  I don’t know.  It’s so tough right now.  I’m so scared of my life and everything in it”

Looking back on the things I wrote, I realize that I was barely more than a child myself. Just turned 20 years old.  I had just disclosed the abuse from my childhood, just started counseling.   I was talking about abuse I’d kept inside for 5 years.  I was in full PTSD crisis mode, complete with flashbacks, hyper vigilance, anxiety and nightmares.  I was on psychiatric medication cocktails for the first time.  I was self harming almost daily and had recently attempted suicide.

It was perfectly normal that I didn’t always want to be intimate with someone.

Perfectly normal.

Today, I choose to forgive my 20 year old self for not knowing this.  I choose to forgive her for not knowing that she was having normal coping reactions to trauma and that she was not crazy.  I choose to forgive her for being tricked into a situation where, instead of healing and support, she found gaslighting, confusion, entrapment and more sexual abuse.

I know I’ll wake up tomorrow, or the next day and feel confused again.  I’ll wonder if the abuse was my fault.  I’ll think that I’m exaggerating or that I’m making things up.  I’ll start to feel the thoughts creep in that I’m not normal.  I’ll start to wish that I had died all those years ago when I attempted suicide.  I’ll start to believe his lies again, because a long term emotionally abusive relationship includes an element of near brainwashing which can take years of healing, therapy, patience, self love and self forgiveness to recover from.

But just for today, I want 20 year old me to know that her reactions were normal.  That she was allowed to say no to that kiss for any reason.  She was especially allowed to say no to that kiss when she was triggered.  She had the right to say no without consequence, without anger, without bullying and blaming.  She had the right to have needs and preferences and anxieties.

It wasn’t her fault that he didn’t understand consent.

Gaslighting. Part 2. The lasting impact.

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This might be a disjointed post, but that mirrors the state of mind I’m in when I’m experiencing the impacts of gaslighting.  Gaslighting is a term for prolonged emotional and psychological abuse which is designed to make the victim doubt their own perceptions of reality.  It’s a particularly harmful type of abuse and the impacts of it can last for years after the abusive relationship ends.  The lasting impacts of gaslighting can be invisible or vague to the outside eye, but are extremely powerful and terrifying to the survivor.

Much gaslighting and emotional abuse is perpetrated by sociopaths and various types of narcissists.  These folks lack empathy.  They lack the ability to understand the feelings of others.  They can exhibit levels of cruelty that are difficult to fathom, but they often “pass” as normal, functional human beings.  They often have good jobs, and often live ordinary lives.  They can often appear to be quite charming, especially in short controlled (always by them) interactions.  The cracks in their normalcy only begin to become evident when you get to know them over longer periods of time, then the signs of missing empathy and humanity begin to peek through.  But by that time you are quite likely hooked, trapped and unable to escape.  For those that have only short interactions with the sociopath/abuser, they may continue to think that he is a basically “good person,”  model employee, good father etc.   This can add levels to the gaslighting, because the victim/survivor has difficulty being believed, when her abuser has so much “street cred” as a decent person.

My abuser regularly spreads lies about me.  He tells anyone who will listen how crazy I am.  He also tells people in the community, including people who interact with my children, how crazy I am.  He tells them how I never took care of my children, how I never bonded or attached to them (they were both raised with me as a stay home mom, exclusively breastfed etc), he even lies and says they were in daycare from birth!   He tells people what a good caring person he is, how sad it is that despite his love, he just wasn’t able to cure my severe mental illness and the marriage ended.  These are the type of lies he tells to others.

While we were together, he used my PTSD against me.  Basically saying that it was because I was crazy (from being abused as a teenager) that I didn’t like what he was doing (abusing me) and that any “normal woman” would be okay with it.  He used me being “crazy” as a trick to keep me trapped for years in the relationship.  When I tried to get away he threatened me saying that the police wouldn’t believe me because I was “crazy.”

All this is emotional abuse.  It’s all gaslighting.  It all made me and makes me doubt my own reality.

Being abused over a long period of time is complex.  Because the abuser is also someone you are in a relationship with.  You never really know when the abuse will happen and when things will be “fine.”  You never know when you’ll sleep through the night and when you’ll wake to be assaulted.  You never really know…

Thus for many survivors (myself included) waiting can be a huge trigger.

One way that I try to cope with ongoing fears of abuse is by never upsetting anyone.  This means that I worry a great deal that anything I say or do, or don’t say or don’t do, or might say or might do, or might not say or might not do…might have terrible consequences for me or someone I care about.

Gaslighting has conditioned me to believe that everything is my fault. That I’m potentially to blame for everything around me.  And it has made me unable to adequately determine what is and is not my fault.  It has left me with very poor conflict management skills.  In a conflict situation, I freeze.  I say or do whatever I think will get me out of the situation quickly.  I say or do whatever I think will be safest in that moment, which isn’t necessarily the best option long term.  My PTSD brain kicks in and I don’t behave in a rational thought through manner.  I don’t have control over this.  I’m not being passive aggressive.  I’m not being manipulative. I freeze.  Or I’m trying to stay safe.  Even if there is no ACTUAL danger, in my  mind there is.

Gaslighting and triggers related to gaslighting leave me doubting myself in every possible way.

I can go to work, give a presentation, feel good about myself, feel I did an adequate job and then go home.  An hour after arriving home I can be completely convinced that I made a horrible mistake, said something offensive, said something my coworkers would not have said, said something that could cause irreversible harm to someone, embarrassed myself, brought shame on my organization, made all my coworkers hate me etc…

It’s an extreme reaction!

I’ve spent entire weekends ready to quit my job, convinced that a single email I sent has ruined everything I’ve worked for in 4 years.  That everyone will hate me and want me fired.

These are trivial examples, but they illustrate the impacts of gaslighting that still remain in my brain.  I literally doubt reality ALL the time.  I somehow think I’ve done something wrong, even when I have done nothing at all.

I need a lot of reassurance.  This isn’t entirely because I lack confidence or skills.  It’s because I can, at a moments notice, begin to doubt everything I knew to be true a few minutes early.   I can get to a place where I even doubt I was abused.  I can believe that maybe I’m exaggerating.  Maybe I made things up.   I need reassurance about things most people consider self evident.  I know it’s frustrating for those around me.  I know it doesn’t always make sense.  I know you wish I could just love myself.  But I can’t.  I need your patience and reassurance.  I need to hear that you believe me.  I need to hear that it’s not my fault.  And I’ll need to hear it again tomorrow.

These are the lasting impacts of emotional abuse perpetrated by a narcissistic abuser.

I’m reclaiming “crazy.”

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I’m so tired of crazy being used as an abelist, stigmatizing slur against me by my ex-husband.  I’m fed up of being called crazy as an insult, as an excuse for his abusive behaviour.  I’m tired of gaslighting which blames my PTSD for the sexual violence he perpetrated.  I’m tired of being seen as less than, being labelled with things that don’t apply to me.  I’m tired of the implicit assumption that having a mental illness is a terrible thing, something I should be horribly ashamed of.  It’s problematic on so many levels.  He accuses me of having borderline personality disorder (which I don’t have) but even if I DID have it, so what?  Would I be “crazy?”   Would this warrant being mistreated and shunned and ignored?  Would it mean everything I say and do is suspect?

I reject all this.  I want to reclaim crazy.  I want to fight mental health stigma.  I don’t want to be ashamed that I’m not neuro-typical.

I’d like my ex-husband to stop spreading awful rumours about me in the community, but I don’t have control over that!

Things I would like to stop hearing as I reclaim crazy:

-Be more neutral

-You are too emotional

-You are too sensitive

-Tone down your feminism

-Your past is impacting your parenting

-That was a long time ago, why don’t you get over it

-Just relax

-Calm down

-Don’t worry so much

-You are over-reacting

-Why didn’t you just say no?

-Don’t you know how to defend yourself?

-Why didn’t you just fight back?

-She’s crazy (from anyone unless they are also reclaiming the word)

I celebrate being crazy in a positive way, because it means that I’m NOT neutral.  It means that I am an advocate, a social justice warrior, an ally and a support worker.  I’ve harnessed some of the energy of the bad things I’ve survived and I’m using it to help others, to fight injustice and to try to leave the world a better place than I found it.    I’m proud of my feminism.  I’m proud of my anti-oppression principles and the way I strive to unlearn and learn in my daily life.  I don’t want to calm down.  My feminism gives me energy and it keeps me alive.

And if that makes me crazy, then I embrace it.  But let me define crazy.

Nevertheless she persisted.

 

Alternative Facts.

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It’s difficult to put into words exactly how triggering recent political events have been for me as a survivor of sexual violence.  It’s been difficult to know how to write about my feelings.  I’ve been reading the news, my feeds are covered in tweets, blogs, posts and comments related to the election.  But honestly, I can’t even look at his face without feeling nauseous and dizzy.  I don’t even want to type his name into my blog.

Why am I so triggered by this?  Some people around me have said, “it’s not our country, you have to just let it go.”  But that is a comment made from a place of privilege.  One that I’m not able to occupy because this election impacts me personally.  No, it isn’t my  country.  No, he isn’t my president.  But the fact that the democratic country to the south, has elected a man who has openly admitted to sexually assaulting women, is just too much to bear.  They say that accusing a man of rape will ruin his reputation. I think this is proof that that is a complete and utter lie.  Actually, it will make him leader of one of the most powerful countries in the world.

I’ve watched and heard snippets of news over the last few days.  I try to limit any viewing of the man himself, but I’ve gathered some important facts.  I’ve seen a new phrase being tossed around: “alternative facts.”

Quite frankly, this is terrifying to me.  I am very familiar with “alternative facts.”  The word I use for them is gaslighting.  I’ve already blogged about my experiences with gaslighting, but to refresh your memory, here is the Wikipedia definition of gaslighting:

“Gaslighting is a form of manipulation through persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying in an attempt to destabilize and delegitimize a target. Its intent is to sow seeds of doubt in the targets, hoping to make them question their own memory, perception, and sanity.”

I experienced “alternative facts” when my abuser told me that I was responsible for the abuse he was perpetrating.  When he told me that if I was a “normal woman” I’d be okay with what he was doing.  I experienced “alternative facts” when he told me that the reason I didn’t like being assaulted in my sleep was because I already had PTSD.   I then experienced “alternative facts” when he claimed in court that I’d made up all the allegations of abuse, including the ones from my childhood, the ones he’d used to as an excuse for my discomfort.  I experienced “alternative facts” when my first abuser told me he would commit suicide if I ended the relationship.   I experienced “alternative facts”  when my ex-husband spread rumors about my mental health to all the health care professionals and school professionals involved with helping me and my children.   I experienced “alternative facts”  when the family law system told me that my disclosures of abuse were just “allegations” and were “irrelevant” to the determination of custody of my children.   I experience “alternative facts” dealing with Children’s Aid, when workers accuse me of coaching my children, and accuse my children of not being truthful.  I experienced “alternative facts” when the police officer who investigated my sexual assault told me he had tried to contact me multiple times and then closed the case (it was proved he never contacted me).

I’ve experienced systemic gaslighting in attempts by multiple people and institutions to silence me, to discredit me, to paint me as insane, to transform my self advocacy into “creating conflict” and to dismiss my feminist principles as extreme.

I am not alone.  Women and gender non-conforming folks who come forward with disclosures of their experiences of sexual violence face “alternative facts” at every turn.  Male survivors of sexual assault are gaslighted too, within a culture which tells them that men can’t be raped. Survivors are no strangers to gaslighting.  We are no strangers to having our ideas dismissed as hysteria.  We are no strangers to attempts to control us, our bodies, our minds and our souls.

I believe this is why millions of women marched on Washington and in cities and towns all over the world.  Women marched because they are tired of “alternative facts” and they have no interest in being gaslighted by anyone (least of all their government) anymore.

I marched because I didn’t want to surrender to a feeling of hopelessness.  I marched to show solidarity with those women who are less privileged then I am.  I marched to break the feeling of isolation that I’m experiencing.  I marched to know that I am not alone.  It was not my first protest, it was not my first march and it won’t be my last.

I know that marginalized groups have experienced oppression and “alternative facts” for centuries.  This is not a new phenomenon.  I know that and I acknowledge it.

But there is something incredibly unsettling and downright terrifying about someone who does it so publicly, so obviously and so without shame.

There is something deeply sickening about knowing that someone who hates the majority of people I care about (My LGBTQ+ friends, my Women of Colour friends, my friends who came here as refugees, my friends who live with disabilities, my trans friends, my own child, and all of my friends who are survivors of violence) has risen to power in such a way.

When I look at him, I see a reflection of all the perpetrators I have known.  I see privilege unchecked and unrecognized.  I see destructiveness, ignorance and hate.  I see all the things I fight against and oppose in my day to day life.

I see you.  I see your alternative facts.  But I call them gaslighting lies.  And they disgust me.