In early November, while writing on my Days of Thanks series, soothing happened that was absolutely devastating to me as well as a couple small children (not my own) thanks to someone I trusted gaslighting someone else I trusted, resulting in me losing that person and those children from my life. My daughter and the little girl were bonding in their own way as well. Gaslighting is literally a form of abuse, and it’s a hard one to handle since the victim is made to believe they can only trust the abuser. This abuser has already admittedly interfered with one other relationship this person has, resulting in a divorce, and she admits wanting this person all to her very own self, and I was his last friend aside from her. He’s completely alienated now, and it’s just crushing.
That distracted me a good deal, as you may be able to imagine. Tons of tears, tons of trying to get him to read full context about something, trying to get him to realize I couldn’t have said something (a lie about my birthdate) on a very specific day when I was 127 miles away, and to explain to me how I could have “created holiday conflicts” with a schedule when I didn’t create the holidays. Yeah, blame me for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I actually really was.
When provably false accusations are made against you by someone who admitted to you wanting everyone out of someone’s life, and you can’t get the victim to even look at context or explain those things, and it results in immediate severance from children you love, it’s hard. It’s been very hard. I lost all motivation to do anything.
Yesterday I started rearranging one of my sewing rooms, and hopefully a fresh arrangement in there will help me want to go in there more. I have a lot to do still, just…I think you understand what I can’t figure out how to say. It’s just been rough. 2020 sucks.
For anyone worried about me seeing someone outside of my household, we’re talking a very small group with me getting weekly COVID tests, sometimes twice weekly. If I don’t ever get out of my house, I will literally go insane, and as it is, my antidepressants have been increased twice this year to help me handle what’s going on. I think a lot of us are in a similar position with mental health these days.
I’m so sorry, so so very sorry for your loss. I’ve had something similar happen to me in 2020 (someone I thought was a dear friend gaslit me and suddenly the two two kids, whom I adored, and who loved me, are out of my life…) well, it’s devastating.
Sigh. So ready to move forwards… trying hard to do that. Sending love, and hoping your sewing can bring you some peace?
The helplessness that comes with it, knowing that the more people outside of the abuser and victim try to get the victim to see reason, or to even look at a full text conversation rather than one or two messages out of a whole conversation, or to even admit we literally weren’t there, pushes them farther toward the abuser. We have to just let them reach the bottom and hope they’ll find it in them to come back one day. This man went from gentle and sweet one day to literally being so hateful the next when he asked her about a minor modification to his own schedule. The leap is a complete 180 in under 24 hours.
This year has just plain sucked.
How long ago did you go through this? What did it take for you to see that you were being gaslit?