It sounds (and this is an assumption) that you have never been in this sort of relationship before.

I have. And that fact is completely irrelevant. The events of my life have no bearing on whether or not she-stocks-the-night can make different choices that lead to different results.

It is one of the most confusing, frustrating, and overall bizarre experiences I have ever had in my life, and it has taken years to untwist all the thought paths and learned reactions that I made in that time.

Good! It sounds like you examined how your actions affected your relationships, and learned to alter them. It would be to she-stocks-the-night's benefit if she did the same.

Have you ever heard the term, "gaslighting" before?

This is a good illustration of my point. While the woman in the film can't control her husband's actions, she can control her response. The way you describe it, the husband drives his wife mad. She is a prop. Madness is forced upon her. Movies can work that way, that's not how humans work. Let's imagine this scenario played out with many otherwise identical women. One of them went mad. But another turned the lamps back up, and the next time, knew that the valve levers were not in the position she set them in. Her husband didn't try it again, and they lived happily ever after. Another did the same thing, but came to believe that her husband was sinister. She left him. Still another removed the levers. And others took different actions. They all got different results. They have total control over themselves. Madness was not imposed by anyone else. I do not suggest that there is a moral failure on the part of the mad woman. I don't assert that she wasn't treated badly or that her husband isn't horrible. I aver that she can, and would benefit from examining her reactions, and learning new ones that get a more favorable result. And that she won't do so as long as she thinks she is a passive prop, that she can't alter the outcomes, and that her madness was forced on her by an outside force.

If you want to insist that we don't have control over ourselves and can't improve our circumstances, then we also have to excuse the abuser. He didn't choose to be an abuser and can change his circumstances, but not his abusiveness. He only abuses because someone from the outside forced this upon him. People told him things EVERY DAY that led him to abuse. He had doubts. He was in love. His internal monologue led him to abuse. And who can change that? We can't put people in jail for doing things over which they have no control. There is no point in anger management treatments because he can't change himself.

I understand the internal fight. I understand losing it. But I disagree with those who think we can't change it.

This is not far from that tired old feminist cliche, "never blame the victim." Nobody ever says that the abuser is not responsible for pulling the trigger. But nobody seems to want to acknowledge that the victims often chose to be in the path of the bullet. That's not blaming the victim, that's saying she is not the helpless, passive, weak prop that feminists insist we believe women are. The first time your husband hit you, or adjusted the gas lamps, it was probably a surprise. It could have only been prevented by him. But the 13th time could have been prevented by either of you. If you act differently, there might not be a 14th time. To me, the language she-stocks-the-night uses makes it seem very likely that she doesn't know this. And you go so far as to say that because I believe it is true, I am damaging and insulting.

It's telling a depressed person that the only reason they're depressed is because they're a selfish, shitty person.

THIS IS INSULTING. I have not said a single word of that kind. It's sleazy for you to make up such a wild story to villianize me. These are profoundly different:

1) You are depressed because you're a selfish, shitty person.

2) If you believe you can't overcome depression and take no action to do so, you will probably continue in your pattern of depression. But if you make believe you have some control over your health, and you act differently- if you end relationships that contribute to your depression, if you undergo ECT, if you go to a support group meeting every day, if you exercise and stop drinking, you will get different results.

But I'm sure it was gratifying to you to say such a horrible thing about me.

It's telling someone who was abused as a child that they deserved it, and anyway maybe they should stop being so selfish and think about how hard it was for their parents to abuse them. Insulting.

What bullshit! I said nothing even remotely close to "it's your fault" or "stop being selfish". This disgusts me.

It's amazing what you can make a person believe if you just keep intentionally reinforcing it over and over,

How many times do you have to claim that I said things like "it's your fault," "stop being selfish," and "you're xxxxx because your a shitty person" before you can make a person believe it? And, are you trying to gaslight me? Trying to make ME think I actually said this filth?

I am really sad for you because the vicious anger that has to reside in someone in order to make up a story so vile is tragic. "Deserved it...selfish...shitty person." You ACTUALLY said my comment was equivalent to this! Fuck.