“I'm tired of debating
the fundamental nature of reality with you.”
I said this to her, in
exactly those words, at least a few times.
But much more often, I
confided in my good friend this frustration—and just tried to make
things work, silently; to swallow my frustration, because sharing
only seemed to make things worse: “Don't be so emotional,” “Why
do you keep re-visiting the past?” “That's not what happened.”
“You're so melodramatic.”
My frustration: that she
and I could experience the same 5 minutes of life together, and tell
completely different stories about what had just happened … and in
hers, somehow, I always seemed to be more foolish and wrong in her
eyes than I was in my own—which was not usually the case, when I
compared experiences with others among friends or colleagues or even
most strangers—but in her eyes, I was overly-emotional and
needlessly stressed, unaware of my flaws and resistant to accept
reality. That is, reality as she saw it.
She always hated that I
went to my friend for advice—“It's no one's business,” she
would say. And when I explained, “But I need advice; I want other
peoples' perspectives and guidance,” she would critique the
character of the people I trusted to confide in. My closest nearby
friend? “He's a shitty person,” she would say, so many times that
I started conceding reluctantly, “Okay, he's done some shitty
things, BUT—” just to move conversation past yet another debate
over the basic nature of reality.
… Welcome to what
psychologists call GASLIGHTING, a relationship phenomenon that I
lived inside for over two years. I didn't know what it was called
until 3 months after I had ended it. But when I described it to a
friend, she named it immediately—and when I looked it up online1,
my brain sparked with recognition at the way it was described:
STAGE
1 – disbelief:
the stage where I was making justifications for her responses; for
her having to be right, and being very sensitive to suggestions or
even attempts at support that drew attention to personal weaknesses,
while at the same time she constantly dispensed criticisms and
judgments … she once told me, off-hand, in the beginning of our
relationship, "I usually only argue when I'm wrong." During
this stage in the relationship, I was mainly putting my energy into
making things better.
STAGE
2 – defense:
the stage where I began constantly defending myself against what seem
unfair and inaccurate descriptions of me and my behavior...here, the
article states my experience almost exactly: "you start
defending yourself – telling your [partner] that you are not that
sensitive or stressed ... But, during
this stage, you are driven crazy by the conversation.... going over
and over, like an endless tape, in your mind.
/ What's worse, is that these kinds of conversations characterize
your relationship more and more. You can't stand that your [partner]
sees the situation like that and you work even harder...just to prove
that you are not overly sensitive and stressed out."
STAGE
3 – depression:
the stage where I started experiencing a noticeable lack of joy, and
“some of my behavior feels truly alien." ... like I told her
then, I felt anxious, stressed, fuzzy and distracted in my thoughts,
infantilized—losing my confidence. And I would have those
admissions of my vulnerable state met by phrases like, "You've
always felt like shit about yourself”; lines that, in retrospect,
were reinforcing that internal sense of self-degrading,
confidence-shriveling, worry-fueling doubt. Because I just didn't
know
anymore, in my heart, if I was capable of understanding the world:
the most significant other voice in my life was constantly saying I
was wrong—about my world perceptions, my actions and words, even my
internal thoughts and feelings—and she seemed very
certain that she was right.
Wikipedia2
explains this behavior, where one partner shapes and distorts the
other's sense of reality, as a pairing of Projection and Introjection
- one partner transferring "painful and potentially painful
mental conflicts" to a partner, who has "a tendency to
incorporate and assimilate what others externalize and project onto
them.” ... I like this description because it leaves room for
empathizing with the pain inside of the one who projects; that
motivates those projections (that is, she didn't do it to be abusive;
she did it to protect herself from stress—from being wrong or
feeling inadequate in front of someone she really loved). And it also
doesn't paint me as weak or stupid or gullible, but just emotionally
inclined to accept in what others offer out (that is, I knew
rationally that what she was saying often reflected her emotional
state rather than literal reality; for better or for worse, I
couldn't help trying to attune with her world, so that we could be in
the same one).
Of
course, looking back, it was a real bummer to realize that this was
the relationship dynamic I had fallen into—BUT, it was also a
comfort to know that I am not the only one who has been relationally
persuaded into self-doubt. And it also makes me feel kind of proud
remembering that, when I was deep in the self-doubt of that
“gaslighted” state-of-mind, and one day felt a little tingle of
the person I used to be3,
I was able to hang on to that, and ride it out toward clearer skies,
beyond the clouds I'd sunken into over the last 2.5 years; to say:
“I
love you, but I can't be with you anymore; it's not healthy for me:
you deserve somebody who can take what you give without being broken
by it; and I need someone who is willing to put being
kind-and-sensitive above being right-and-impervious.”
*
*
FOR
REFERENCE:
I
found particularly helpful the list of warning-signs at the end of
the article; for me, in my relationship, numbers {1*, 2, 5, 6, 8*,
9*, 10*, 11*, 12, 13*, 14} rang out as very accurate descriptions.
1.
You are constantly second-guessing yourself / 2. You ask
yourself, "Am I too sensitive?" a dozen times a day. /
3. You often feel confused and even crazy at work. / 4. You're
always apologizing to your mother, father, boyfriend,, boss. / 5.
You can't understand why, with so many apparently good things in your
life, you aren't happier. / 6. You frequently make excuses for
your partner's behavior to friends and family. / 7. You find
yourself withholding information from friends and family so you don't
have to explain or make excuses. / 8. You know something is
terribly wrong, but you can never quite express what it is, even to
yourself. / 9. You start lying
to avoid the put downs and reality twists. / 10. You have trouble
making simple decisions. / 11. You have the sense that you used
to be a very different person - more confident,
more fun-loving, more relaxed. / 12. You feel hopeless and
joyless. / 13. You feel as though you can't do anything right.
/ 14. You wonder if you are a "good enough" girlfriend/
wife/employee/ friend; daughter. / 15. You find yourself
withholding information from friends and family so you don't have to
explain or make excuses.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/power-in-relationships/200905/are-you-being-gaslighted
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/power-in-relationships/200905/are-you-being-gaslighted
3 (And
of course, here, thanks due to E, for sparking that flutter of
joy in me...we seldom save ourselves all on our own in this world.
Or sink ourselves, for that matter.)
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