Gaslighting... Wow, I learn more everyday. I just googled it and read about it and I'm fighting back tears. I realized since I found Al Anon 4 weeks ago and started reading about the disease of A that A had effected me my entire life. My maternal GF was an alcoholic and my mother who raised me (father abandoned me at 9 -- another dreadful long story) told me stories since I was a kid of how she got an ulcer young and of sleeping with her clothes on out of fear her father was going to come home and kill everybody. He also beat on my GM. My mother is really controlling and I've only in the last 2 years been able to break free of it. I'm 42 with 3 bio kids, 5 stepkids and the AH. I literally had to move out of the house I bought because I put her name on it, even though my credit was good enough to have the deed in my name alone. (I'd been diagnosed bipolar 4 yrs before and I was concerned if I got manic and did something crazy, that my kids would need a permanent home.) She lives in Florida but was influencing my eldest daughter (22yo) that I was still mentally ill and that my decision making was wrong. That my house rules were unrealistic considering my past & current relationships. It felt like everything I said was criticized and undermined so I gave up and left with my youngest two kids.
But I remember having conversations with her about my life and her telling me I wasn't remembering things right. It left me feeling really confused. When I met my AH 8 years ago I see how easy it was for him to get his hooks into me now. I was so open, I was dealing with the diagnoses of an anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, PTSD and agoraphobia, on heavy meds trying to regain my life after a nervous breakdown in 1997. That's when my mother came in with her codependency to take care of me and my kids. (She'd divorced her mentally ill husband the year before.)
I got myself together and med-free, got back in college and working in 2005. I married in 2004. My mother continued to rationalize to me why I should let her keep handling my finances because I was so "unstable" and "irresponsible". Even dealing with my kids, every time there's a problem its because of my breakdown and inability to function and poor judgment.
Then there's the AH who feels he's been my savior. It was him who singlehandedly helped me get off meds and back to work & school. Personally, I thought it was my tireless effort to stay in therapy, be it 3 or even 4 times a week to deal with the crap of my childhood and trauma of adolescence and young adulthood - which was riddled with DV and stalking; and my working with the Drs to find the right "medication cocktail" to manage my physical symptoms that got me back to a functional level, but don't let him hear me say that. He even takes credit for my kicking a marijuana habit because he said he didn't like it so I quit. As if...
But I've had countless discussions with him about incidents where he's telling me I'm remembering it wrong. That I started the fight. That I did things that didn't even sound like me. That the only reason I got hurt was because I was out of control and he was "trying to restrain me." Like when he put me dragged me into a cab after I ran from him in the street after being assaulted, trying to hide. He says I walked and got in the cab and then willingly walked into his house to be held captive until I ran out barefoot with no phone or money. Did I mention that was my birthday? Anyway...
It's like everyone I've chosen or in my mother's case, been around that was supposed to provide an encouraging and supportive love relationship has had issues. Its like everyones been manipulating me to their own sick minds pleasure. What a brain f***!!!
I read today that I should take care of myself like I've taken care of those I love and expected to take care of me. A model idea considering I have worked 50-60 hr weeks and still came home to cook and clean for an AH and kids regardless of my health but I won't even take the time to fix myself a sandwich for lunch.
Obviously, I have a lot of work to do.