Waiting for permission to breathe.

Lost in the Dark: How Gaslighting Can Lead You Astray.

I like to think of myself as creative, you know. Arty. When my brother (“the favourite”) was getting accolades for being his golden, amazing self, to cheer myself, I’d remind myself: “You might be salesman of the year, Jay — but I’m the one who notices the sunlight through a dew drop on a leaf”.

I notice scratches and dents in beautiful pieces of wood. I notice eyelashes and the delicate yet deliberate swirls on fingerprints when someone is talking with their hands. I notice the glimmer of the late afternoon sun on waves at my favourite beach that makes the water look like it’s filled with jewels.

I notice everything.

So, when I saw the picture above (not sure of who the photographer is, sorry! I sourced it from Google), I immediately noticed my body’s strong physical reaction to it. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw it. I hurt deeply over it — it was profound how deep the hurt ran. Seeing that horse tethered to that plastic chair made me feel a million things in the milliseconds my mind took to process the image.

My writer’s brain can’t help but imagine the horses’ life before. Before someone broke its will enough that when it was tethered to a plastic chair, it believed it couldn’t get away. What was the horse like before? Was it strong and wild? Did it run through fields and enjoy the feeling of the wind whipping through it’s glorious mane? How had that horse changed from being able to be free and run with complete abandon to being tied to a plastic chair?

How powerful is gaslighting in a relationship? How much damage can it cause?

I know from personal experience that gaslighting can whittle a person away until they’re an empty shell of themselves — that’s what being emotionally abused, manipulated, and insulted continually over a long period of time leads to — it leads to questioning reality. When someone you put a lot of trust in and someone you love tells you that the sky is red, you’ll at first think “No, it isn’t”.

You’ll try to disagree, but even as you begin to say “No, it -” the master manipulator you’re with will talk over you. They subtly attack you and make you doubt your worth, saying something like: “Of course you’d think the sky is blue — you’re gullible and stupid and you don’t know how to think for yourself”. It immediately hurts, so your…

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