Gaslight.

I am looking at the twitching milk-vomit spaghetti mess of a smashed up synth and sharing what I know. For me, my husband is best represented by Ash, the android - the synth - in the Alien film. Ash, it looks normal, friendly, sounds intelligent - and it has an agenda revealed in action, not in words. And for almost all of the time, it isn't scary or horrible, or dangerous. The program code that causes it to become malevolent is activated by being in the right place at the right time, and then it is implacable, devoid of reasons you can know - acting on reasons that have nothing to do with your love, life or happiness.

No, though the metaphor is perfect. I'm being kind. People who chose to gaslight -  are not synths - my husband always had choice. But it helps me to externalize, to see it as a program, pre-determined behavior because it helps me get past my 'if only he'd known how much he was hurting me he would have stopped' delusion.

That actually is a delusion..

I certainly didn't pretend that I wasn't in pain.

I felt that I was being blamed. So I would apologize and ask what I needed to change.

I also said that I needed to know if what I thought was happening was happening. And this is where I got classic Gaslighting - the characteristic behavior: being told that I imagined it all -  it being that thing that is actually happening - because 'you were so upset that you can't remember anything properly'.

So tempting to start thinking that you are in need of medication....

I thought that I needed medication.

But no, hang on tight, it really might be them and not you. Find people who can hear you while you describe what has actually happened. In my view, only truth can undo lies and disinformation. 

I actually thought I was going mad. I thought I was experiencing undealt with trauma from my son's suicide attempt.

But hang on, why would that cause me to think specifically that my husband's personality had changed? That logic must have been running in me so  I recorded our dialogue, our arguments, my hysteria, my total meltdown into abject despair and panic. 

Best thing I could have done!

It took me a long time to hear how I had internalized his rules and had silenced myself. Through listening to the recordings I began to hear how I bought into the manipulation. And the only way to understand this was through hearing the actual dialogue.

But is it over, can I just focus on me, now? How many more virtual shot-gun pellets are left to dig out of my flesh? Not so many now.

I ask again...

Is it over? 

No, this is a liminal, washed out place.

A kind of hospital space perhaps...