naamahdarling:

killerblackberrypie:

fuckyeahsexeducation:

robochai:

I thought that this might be helpful to talk about.

Keep reading

This is a really sneaky form of abuse that everyone needs to know.

Also, how to disagree with someone about events without gaslighting them:

When you disagree with someone about how something happened, make sure you don’t invalidate their experience. “I don’t remember it happening that way.” “I don’t remember saying that?” instead of a flat “that didn’t happen.”

That will go a long way towards being able to validate your own experiences and not just cave but also make sure the other person doesn’t feel attacked.

Seconding this, and adding that when you say “I don’t remember it happening that way” and “I don’t remember saying that”, that is not the end of the conversation for you.

You cannot cut someone off and act like because you don’t remember it that way, or don’t remember it at all, it didn’t happen or doesn’t matter.  You can’t just end the conversation there.  Because it’s mostly a conversation about the other person’s feelings.  Not the events themselves.

So to avoid being gaslight-y or just plain rude, you need to actually hear that person out and shape your response based on their perspective of the event.

The most important thing in that kind of conversation is actually not the objective truth, it is the other person’s feelings, and the dynamic between the two of you.

By all means, try to clear things up, yes, absolutely, to make sure they know it was not intentional and that you won’t do it again, but first, acknowledge that you have hurt that person and you need to make it right, whether you intentionally did wrong or not.

A lot of harm gets done when someone does unintentional harm, and then, because it’s unintentional and they therefore feel attacked for being called out, doubles down and refuses to accept the aftereffects of their unintentionally hurtful actions.