An important article. ― Molly
Ariel Leve offers strategies to stay resilient in the face of
psychological abuse that distorts the truth – much like what’s coming from
Trump’s administration
By Ariel Leve
Right now, many
Americans listening to their president are experiencing what I experienced frequently
a child. Nothing means anything, and reality is being canceled. There is
confusion, there is chaos, everything is upside down and inside out. When facts
and truth are being discredited, how is it possible to know what to believe,
especially when it comes from someone we expect to embody both ethics and
etiquette?
It’s obvious to those already initiated. To those new to the phenomena: the president and the current administration are gaslighting us. It’s a term we are hearing a lot of right now.
The
term “gaslighting” refers to when someone manipulates you into questioning and
second-guessing your reality. It derives from a 1944 movie – and the play and another
film that preceded it – in which this happens to the heroine. What perhaps
people don’t understand is how to manage and cope with it. For me, all it’s
very familiar. I know this behavior well and I know how to navigate it.
As
a child, I was experiencing a world where there was no emotional safety while
being consistently told that I had a beautiful and happy childhood and that I
was ungrateful. What was I complaining about? Yet what I was exposed to caused
me to feel unsafe. And those feelings had a verifiable origin. Whether it was
witnessing violent arguments or being on the receiving end of inappropriate behavior, when
I confronted my mother with the truth, it was denied; my reality was disavowed
and asserting it would only instigate conflict. I was told that what I saw with
my own eyes hadn’t happened.
When
I would confront my mother with things that she had said, or things that she
had done, she would say I was making it up, that it was a lie. When I
confronted her with facts, they were batted away. So it wasn’t just that my
reality was canceled, but that my perception of reality was overwritten.
As
I wrote in my memoir, An Abbreviated Life, it wasn’t the loudest and
scariest explosions that caused the most damage. It wasn’t the physical
violence or the verbal abuse or the lack of boundaries and inappropriate
behavior. What did the real damage was the denial that these incidents ever
occurred.
The
erasure of the abuse was worse than the abuse.
When
I was in my mid-30s, I had an encounter with someone who recognized me from
when I was a child. “Are you so-and-so’s daughter?” he asked. I nodded. He had
been a guest at one of my mother’s parties. After I left, he said: “I had
always wondered how that little girl would survive. I had thought her only
choices were suicide or murder.”
When I was told he said this, I felt validation. And that line
stayed with me for many reasons. This outsider observed what I was living
through, and having him as a witness confirmed what I knew.
One
of the most insidious things about gaslighting is the denial of reality. Being
denied what you have seen. Being denied what you have experienced and know to
be true. It can make you feel like you are crazy. But you are not crazy.
Please continue this article
here: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/mar/16/gaslighting-manipulation-reality-coping-mechanisms-trump
No comments:
Post a Comment