Understanding Gaslighting Afterwards

Didn't really understand what the term gaslighting meant. Didn’t understand how it showed up in my previous relationship, but one pattern came to mind:

After awhile I stopped drinking with my ex out and about. Maybe have one or two drinks, but never got drunk or would get to the point where I would lose my senses and awareness. Never felt safe and comfortable enough to let go. Then when I moved to Germany for a few months, things changed. Because I was no longer immediately in his presence, in a foreign new place, met really cool accepting people, I felt comfortable to drink and perhaps let go control of my consciousness a little bit.

My ex use to get mad at me when we talked on the phone and I told him I drank, he would argue that I didn’t do that when I was with him. And it was because I always had to be on my guard with him.

But now hindsight is 20/20. Understanding what gaslighting is, I am able to reflect and see how that happened in my previous relationship. I realized that the none drinking in his presence was because of the many times he gaslighted me. I refrained from drinking to maintain a clear sober state, because I couldn't tell if I was crazy or delusional about the abuse that would follow his drinking. Sobriety was my coping mechanism to the gaslighting.

Every drunken night, he would come home, and in my sober state I would endure all the insults, the abuse and sometimes the physicality of his anger. Which never really had anything to do with me. But many times during those or immediately after I was convinced to believe that it never happened, or he never meant to hurt me. Basically gaslighting me to reject the hurt and pain even happened, that I was blowing it out of proportion, or I shouldn’t feel the growing resentment and anger towards him.

Not sure if I would have realized this cycle, this pattern, this forced coping mechanism, if I would have made wiser decisions or not, like to walk away sooner. If I would have known that what he was doing was gaslighting me and was a key indicator of the toxicity of the relationship. Now, I see those patterns of gaslighting more easily and have connected with my intuition to have a more clear sense of what I am feeling and what reality is, to combat gaslighting.

That's my advice from realizations after the fact, connect with your self, your intuition, your body to understand what you are really feeling, to understand your mindset and perception so that you can have a better idea of what's really happening in each circumstance. So that when your perception of reality is questioned you can root down into your understanding and knowing, and fight the gaslighting or walk away easier.