Tag: gaslighting

Every day, psychiatrists in Australia’s mental health system write reports denying the sanity of women who are victims of sexual assault, rape, or domestic violence. I know: I was one of them.

The emphasis on getting "professional" help allows people to abdicate responsibility to their real-life friends, rather than learning how to contribute meaningfully to relationships.

It’s common that both people are contributing to the issue in one way or another. However, there is at least one instance that renders “it takes two” unavailable for blanket-statement use, and that is abuse.

Myths around reframing, having to love yourself before someone else can love you, and being triggered are all addressed in this blog.

Therapists seem to have a reference book where they go to find phrases that sound really helpful but are actually gaslighting and self-serving.

This narrative of who matters in society and how we convince everyone that certain people don't count (including, sometimes, those people themselves) should be a familiar one to all of us who've been touched by the psychiatric system in some way. But we don't talk nearly enough about how one interlocks with the other. For example, how do these attitudes about girls and women and their bodies serve as a sort of preparatory 'class' for the systems that will bind them just a little further down the road?

Here I was, 15 years old and already in a long-term treatment facility. I was, on paper: crazy! This entire time, all the adults in my life had been speaking for me. I never felt like I was any of the things they said, but I went along with it. What else could I have done? Every time I rebelled, it only confirmed to my mother what she thought of me.