It's all real.

The funny thing about gas-lighting is that if you're subjected to it long enough, it becomes part of your mental backdrop to everything. You start to second guess everything you do and your memories of things. I started keeping a bullet journal/planner in part to help me combat the long term effects of gas-lighting. Today is not a great mental health day. Part of it is because I'm hormonal and suffering from seasonal affective disorder. Part of it is because all of the gas-lighting from when I was a kid is rearing its head right now.

My parents didn't believe mental illness happened to our family. It was treated as if you were some how mentally defective and that through force of will and correct thinking you would be cured. My parents didn't believe me when I complained of pain in my knees as a child. Cue 30 years later and I was diagnosed with arthritis with my doctor horrified that no one listened to me as a kid. My parents told everyone that I was a compulsive liar and a hypochondriac from as soon as I could start talking. My parents used gas-lighting to do their best to keep my siblings and I compliant with their will.

The years that was most active, my brothers and my father don't remember. I have spotty memory that is coming back in bits and pieces. The memories coming back are pretty horrible. I don't talk about them with the rest of that side of the family because as far as the narrative goes, we all had a normal childhood and I was the weird one with issues. But, I remember things like my parents having screaming arguments over money late at night. I remember my mother throwing cast iron pots at my father as she screamed at him for some reason or another. I remember that stuff and worse.

I don't sleep well at night. Some days, I have this crisis and I question my memories harshly. I can't tell for a moment what is real. Is what I remember accurate or is what I was told about myself true? Each segment of my life where I have spotty memory recall due to trauma, I have this crisis. All because of gas-lighting's long term effects. It is like imposter syndrome all the damn time.

But, when the people around you confirm some of those memories that you don't talk about, you realize that all of your memories are real.