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Gaslighting: Protecting Yourself

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When there is one who doesn't play by the old rules, the really dysfunctional stuff stands out.

Yeah. For me that involves I guess realizing that I am the cause of almost all of my family's problems but that there is seeded dysfunction there within the family unit while it is not all me it is mostly influenced by me & I am part of the dynamic or continuing or encouraging or what ever. Hoping that me being gone for long time will help them to figure out how crazy I was and help them selves more, I want to be there to help, but I am not healthy enough, as most of the really dysfunctional stuff is all me. I can't heal nothin I guess.
 
Great post. Having been raised by a Gas Lighter ..professional in the business, I am leery of anyone who says I don't have a right to my opinion or what I feel. That doesn't mean I still don't go running to my corner questioning my reality, I do! I grew seeing it ALL but my insides are twisted with the WHOLE picture in front of me.

The last gas lighter in my personal life was my ex. He left letter after letter on my car windshield, showed up at my door like nothing ever happened after breaking into my home, accused me of ridiculous things, spent 2 years fighting over nothing (no property) for divorce. He loved one minute and acted like he could careless the next, while some other woman called our home phone. My world was constantly turned upside down. I would leave and he would show up with books on abuse having been in counseling for a month or more. Begging me to just think about taking him back....gas lighting!!!

It was a slow but steady process for me to understand how beat up emotionally I was getting.
 
Mostly meant my family, Chris & my son. IDK about kid stuff. To me that's just a given. Given it was my fault. But I think that was just a cycle. For years. They all hurt eachother and then the next one hurt the next one cause nobody else knew how to do nothing but hurt, and now I am realizing I am the same way, I don't know how to communicate without hurting people, even if I don't mean to.

I'm so much more like my dad than I ever want to acknowledge, just cause I never hit my kid or raped him or starved him or intentionally, purposefully, with a rational choice, wanted to hurt, doesn't mean a lot to me re my ability to break the cycle cause I haven't broken it. I suck as a parent. I sucked when I was home before. I sucked as a husband. I sucked as a son. I suck as a friend or a support or a group member, where half the people either like me or find me completely ridiculous, or are scared of me, because I am mean.

Try so hard. So hard. Not to be abusive or mean or threatening or intimidating. Did not admit it on here. Last month/couple weeks/can't remember, I got suspended on hold, I wasn't allowed to go to group for like a week and a half because someone came in saying racist comments to my group I was facilitating, they got scared and triggered, I got protective and jammed my little metal bar from my hand brace into his throat and knocked him over and nearly took off his head. Aggressive. Bad. Adrenaline. Violent. Unpredictable. Just like my dad.

I spent six months nearly catatonic whiel my kid basically force-fed me, kid-being-parent, unhealthy, not right, kid-too-responsible, not good, kid-sees-psychosis, not good, kid-hears-dad-talking-to-prisoners, not good, kid-hears-dad-whinging-bout-war, not good, not good, not healthy, wasn't healthy enough to get myself out of there so I didn't expose him, damaged him, didn't see what was happening at his school, didn't stop it soon enough, cause I was too self absorbed. Just like my dad.

People argue with me and I condescend to them, biting sarcasm, rude meanness, bluntness, "excuse me? What the f*ck are you on?" character-attacks, rage, bad, righteous ragey rage, outbursts, struggle to contain the main, hostile, off hand remark. Just like my dad.

People try and comfort me and I want to hurt them. They're just being nice to me so they can hurt me. They're just being condescending to me by being nice to me. They're just wanting to use me for sex. They hate me and don't care about me and don't love me and I make them mad and I hurt everyone so anyone who is ever nice is just hostile and bad and scary so I treat all of my friends like shit, passive-aggressive, "well fine, if you don't like me, then I will go away and hide under table like dog cause I am scared you don't want me" - needing constant reassurance, attachment issues, bad passive aggressive stuff, can't tell my feelings directly, walks around with all this anger, called Chris names when I was mad at her. Just like my dad.

I'm too shamed to write no more. :cry:
 
Awww.... ((((((sea)))))))

So, we've had our bad moments as parents. You know...we try to change that. Our children see us through the love they feel for us and while we hand down behaviors that were taught to us, our kids see something we never got to...parents who feel remorse and try to fix issues.

As we speak more kindly to ourselves and peel off the overlay of abuser talk in our heads, we'll speak less like them in real life, too.

I know at my later 12 Step meeting last night I kept shocking the much older people there with my cursing...it just kept slipping out and I am trying so hard not to 'go there' but you know, my body 'goes there' anyway just dragging my tattered soul along. I'm still working on it.
 
I should not have come on this thread. That's both sickening and triggering. Is that what happened in the Megan Meier case?
 
I read your initial post and was HORRIFIED. I had no idea that there are people out there who befriend depressed individuals online and then use the information they gain from them to try to get the depressed individuals to commit suicide. OMG, for real????? What the heck is wrong with people????

Just add this one to my ongoing list of why people cannot be trusted. I think I'll just stick with dogs. At least you know where you stand with a dog.
 
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