Dealing With Fear Of Gaslighting

Poem 2 Minutes

I am so terrified of not being understood, and being blamed, when it comes to circumstances holding me back. Which at the moment are mainly my living environment and OCD, and how the living environment (including lack of daylight) makes dealing with and recovering from the OCD so much more difficult.

I’ve been struggling for a few weeks just to arrange a Dr. appointment. Besides OCD and knee pain being bad lately, it’s also difficult because sleeping is really hard to control. When I finally managed to phone the Doctor on Monday, it was an Easter bank holiday and they were closed! It was unfortunately really demotivating. I couldn’t manage to do it for the rest of the week.

Another part of why this is really frustrating and why I fear being gaslighted about it, is because I really do improve quickly once I have what I need. I am a boot-strapper but I have my limits. And so, for 2 and a half years of working with Stepping Forward to try to do the PIP application, I’ve been held back by so many complicating factors caused by where I’m living. And now I fear them getting annoyed with me because they won’t know anything different.

It’s irrational, because they’ve always been understanding so far. But since I only get to see them when we need to plan the next step, then if something is being held up by me I won’t see them and it’s too easy to get paranoid about what other people are thinking.

Now that I am losing time (and being stimulated) from being anxious about this particular thing, I will end up being awake for longer and losing progress on my sleeping pattern…and so it goes. I have very few outside sources of reassurance at the moment.

I’ve been taught to expect gaslighting and blaming. But trying to explain myself and not getting sufficiently-reassuring responses doesn’t help the situation. It’s terrible to fear gaslighting from someone you’d never usually expect it from. I don’t need to explain myself. And psychologically, as it happens people tend to be more accepting of a situation the less that they see you explaining yourself. It’s an effect that is hard to get away from. Just stating the facts is enough.

πŸŒͺ

Published by 𝑹𝒐𝑩𝑰𝑡 πŸͺ

I write poems which are mental health-themed, creative or humourous :). Within mental health I write a lot about: ADHD, OCD, anxiety, autism, emotional traumaβ€” usually with an optimistic slant. My goals for my blog are to give myself a therapeutic, creative outlet whilst also being able to connect with and relate to other people.

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9 thoughts on “Dealing With Fear Of Gaslighting”

  1. It is a tricky situation. Only by communication, your intention and challenges which you are facing will be known to them. If there is silence from you, it may be perceived as lack of demonstrated motivation to move forward to getting assistance.
    Saying that though, if the relationship was established and proper assessment was done and on file properly, the case worker could have notes as a reminder something along the line “Client may struggle with meeting agreed engagement due to mental health condition, STAY CHECKING IN”.
    Afterall, the service needs to tailor to your needs. I feel you service provider needs to not giving up on providing adequate service to you and non judgmental based on some of the demonstrated behaviours.
    I hope I managed to express it without misunderstanding of your situation. If I did, please make correction and accept my apology of assumption.

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    1. Thanks yeah just the norm for my life has been that I never feel I can explain the situation as it is and be believed. Not even with family who are the first you should be able to do that with. Constantly having to justify and explain. And now because my housing situation is going on for so long I am going through multiple support people, which means I have to explain it again to a new person who knows nothing. And so on.

      Anyway, in this particular case I was feeling particularly bad to begin with from sleeping whilst low on serotonin, anxious about getting stuff done in general then getting paranoid about the intent/tone of a text message without more communication cues.

      In the end I explained more of how I was paranoid about them getting annoyed at me and she sent a super reassuring message :).

      You see, more often than not whenever I’ve opened myself more and asked for such reassurance, I’ve usually still never got it, or got the opposite and gaslighting. So it’s like a huge risk of making the hole even deeper. To us empaths it’s perverse, isn’t it?

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