Something, something, I'm all out of titles for today. in Like No One Is Reading

I fully believe that, if I were telling you the story of what happened between us today but it actually took place between myself and another man, you would say that that man was gaslighting me.

I don’t think you’re doing any of this intentionally. I don’t want to believe you are, anyway. Like, why would you suddenly decide that I wasn’t traumatized enough, upset and hurting enough, that you should add to it by bombarding me with your thoughts on the matter? Your thoughts on the matter didn’t… matter. That’s what I need you to be able to recognize.

When a woman is talking about her lived experience as a woman, you should not speak over her or down to her or try to correct her or tell her how to feel.

I did not need you to help me process, or suggest other ways for me to process what happened. I needed to feel heard and safe, comforted and loved. I didn’t need to have a discussion about the sexual proclivities of others - especially when you know (or really should have figured it out by now) that some of those things are powerfully triggering for me.

You don’t get to “fix” my feelings, or dismiss them with “let it go.” I am allowed to sit with my feelings for however long I need to sit with them to feel comfortable in the world and in myself again. I’m allowed to feel overwhelmed and scared and unsafe. All I needed in that moment was for someone who loves me and makes me feel safe to hold my hand so I didn’t have to sit with it alone. I am the only one who gets to say when I’m ready to let something go.

I’ve told you several times that sometimes I just need you to listen. That, if I want your input, I will ask, “What is your advice/opinion on this?” That has been me attempting several times to set a boundary with you that you continually violate.

You don’t get to tell me that I’m abusing you when I’m trying to explain boundaries that I feel the need to set for my own well-being. You are allowed not to like my boundaries, but you are not allowed to tell me I can’t set them, or say that I am abusing you by doing so. When I say to you that I just need a friend, I just need you to listen, maybe try not immediately attempting to center yourself in my narrative. And definitely stop telling me that you’re not my therapist. Believe me, I am aware. And that is why there have been a hundred other things, at least, that I’ve not talked to you about. Do you even realize that, or think about it? After the first time you said those words to me, “I’m not your therapist,” I stopped telling you things.

Did you even notice me withdrawing? Maybe not, because I do still share the most important things with you, really. But I have held back more than I can remember by this point, because I felt like a burden.

And every time you make another attempt to “fix” something, I feel like more of a burden. I feel less shiny. I feel uncomfortable in my skin and in your presence. After letting the mask fall all the way off with you in the beginning, I’ve spent… I don’t know. Months, a year… working so hard at putting it back on. I feel like everyone was right, I’m too much. Too much to deal with, too much to put up with, too broken, too needy, too…

I don’t even talk to my therapist about this. I don’t talk to anyone. I have been holding so much inside for so long that I feel like I’m going to die. Like that would be a blessing.

I keep saying I’m not okay but no one is listening, again. No one is taking me seriously, again.

And now this. The one person that I felt was keeping me afloat, always making me smile and laugh, always being so sweet and loving to me, is done with me because I had a traumatizing experience and tried to share it with you. You literally abused me - it’s right there, in plain sight in the chat log - and then accused me of abusing you when I said “please stop, this is hurting me.” I’m saying to you, “This is a thing I saw and heard and even captured on video,” and you just kept pushing the idea that I didn’t see what I thought I saw, and you don’t think that is abuse? That’s textbook gaslighting, sir. And then you injected some shame in there with telling me it wasn’t fair of me to judge. Gaslighting. Again. And then, the gaslighter’s coup de grâce, flip the whole thing ‘round and call the victim the perpetrator, accuse them of exactly what you’ve just been doing. Suddenly, the gaslighter is the victim, so upset, so hurt - often even breaking into tears - and their victim feels intense shame and guilt for causing them so much pain and somehow ends up being the one to apologize for the whole ordeal and then it’s swept under the rug, never to be mentioned again. If it is mentioned again, if we ever bring it up again, well, that’s abuse, too.

And that’s how men keep women silent.

That’s why we don’t report rape. That’s why we struggle to leave abusive relationships. You strip us of our sense of self-worth little by little until there’s nothing but a shell left. Anything traumatizing that happens to us is dismissed, minimized to our “overreaction” to it. And, if we were already traumatized when they get us, any and every future trauma (especially those inflicted on us by them) will be dismissed as unprocessed past trauma.

“Have you talked to your therapist about this?”

No, man, because this trauma is happening right now, in real time, and you’re one of the perpetrators of it. This isn’t me projecting, this is me telling you that you need to do some serious inner work if you wish to continue in any kind of relationship with me. This is me telling you that your behavior is not acceptable. This is me setting a boundary.

That’s not abuse, that’s love.

That’s an invitation to stay and make an effort.

Last updated December 12, 2021