The gaslighting is really horrible. I've spent my entire adult life doubting myself and my own reality and trying to sort out real from not real.

What finally broke though it is that my mom's brain isn't what it used to be. Over the last year it's become so obvious. Her angrily telling me that I haven't spoken to her in weeks when I actually have her on caller ID from just a few days earlier. I then KNOW that my memory of the story that she told me isn't made up. That happened so much. At first I was wondering if her brain really is that broken and maybe she doesn't remember, but then I remembered a lifetime of confusion and realized that no. She's always been this way.

I have one very clear memory that must have happened when I was around four. My dad used to give me these ritualized beatings and they were bad. Now my mom swore up and down for years that she protected me from him and that she'd take beatings for me, but I distinctly remember bawling and begging her to save me and seeing her through the kitchen doorway calmly doing dishes and ignoring the entire situation.

At that moment I realized that I was alone. Nobody was going to save me. I submitted to the beating and really focused on minimizing the damage. I worked so damn hard to figure out exactly how to give him what he was looking for to satisfy him so he'd stop. If I cried too much or too soon, that would increase the rage. If I didn't cry at all he'd call it 'defiance' and REALLY lose it. (I only tried that once.) It took me months to find the formula that would make him beat me the least.

I also remember getting into trouble for showing my legs in public. I had to wear long pants or tights even in the summer to hide the bruises.

But she insists that these things never happened. That she'd always protected me from him and tries to make me feel grateful for her sacrifice.

But that's not reality and I know it isn't. I didn't make this shit up. These memories didn't appear out of thin air.

The freaking head games REALLY can jack us up!