The Gaslighter

( Normal Bodies - Series)

Step 1: Believe yourself, in the things that happened to you, in the way said things happened to you. You are your best witness, your best ally, your best advocate. 

Step 2: Do not reach out to an insensitive jerk who you have begun to call ex-friend. It will never end well. 

Step 3: Walk away if you need to, walk away, block all their numbers, block them on every platform, delete their contacts on every platform. DO IT, DO IT RIGHT NOW. 

Step 4: Look below and learn for this is how gaslighting looks like when you are chronically ill. There are people you can educate, there are people you cannot. There are people who will learn, there are people who you will have to walk away from for your own mental, physical safety. Prioritise yourself, every single time and walk away. 

Step 5: Darling, you will lose friends, you will lose allies, you will lose family, you will lose a lot. Heck you will lose even your own self. But trust me even in your own lost self, yourself is still with you, still holding you, still your greatest ally. Love it, you will not be able to in the beginning, it will be the hardest kind of love, but you will get there.

Green - Me

Black - Them

I should have known better than to continue the conversation when their reply was, “haha been waiting for months” when I reached out. 

I was broken by them but I still reached out. I suppose I couldn’t help but to hurt myself. 

I think I was far too kind and tempered. If I could do it over again (which I do not want to, not even with a knife to my throat) I would have not held back quite a bit. I wouldn’t have thanked them to begin with. 

I would have ended with “well what was the point of that, we should have stayed strangers.”

I wanted to type, the way you made my pain, my experience, my feelings about you, that proves that you are a bad person. 

The way you shirked responsibility of your bad behaviour, it proves that you have much to learn and refuse to do any of the learning.

You then become a bad person of your own making. 

My kindness, my generosity, my compassion, they were all wasted on you. 

As I said, my kindness, my generosity, my compassion were wasted on you.

Chronically ill is a living loss. It is the most abstractly visible form of loss one will ever encounter. 

You didn’t understand that. 

You only wanted to take never give, you never gave. It was my fault for expecting more, for the need to feel validated by you. I hate myself for it, but I grew from it too. I learnt from it. I learnt about my own self. About walking away. The thoroughness of it that is needed. 

The rich Indian cuisine that is relegated to… butter chicken. The rich Indian culture that is relegated to… butter chicken. 

All racism is a joke till pointed out. All insensitivity is a joke till pointed out…

Oh but you did. I was terrified of asking for a little bit of consideration before this. I was terrified of asking for a little bit of space before this. I asked and you gave. And then you snatched it right back. 

Too bad I don’t have receipts. 

I gave you the grace of anonymity, that is all the grace I have left to give you. I hope to not cross your path ever again. Not in this life time, not after either. 

Step 6: Believe yourself, believe yourself every single time. Even in your brain fogged state, you are more capable than you give yourself credit for being. 

Step 7: Don’t be the idiot I am. Don’t reach out. Don’t. Just don’t darling. It wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth the hurt. 

Step 8: Living loss is a part of chronically ill. You are a warrior, every one will tell you that. But I want to tell you that you are a victorious warrior, every breath, every step, every second that you choose to live despite the pain, you stubbornly plow through to accomplish despite the pain, proves my words. YOU. ARE. A. VICTORIOUS. WARRIOR. 

Some of you might see what I am talking about, some of you might say it is all made up to seek attention, some of you might see faults of mine more than theirs, some of you might cringe at how honest I was in my messages. Some of you might not care. 

I would have been bothered by it when I was younger, when I had freshly gotten sick at the age of 17, when achalasia was slowly taking over me. But now, I do not care. 

I was as honest as I could be. I tried the hardest I could. I cannot be faulted for challenging your perception of healthy, or physical pain, or disability. I can just hold myself forth and hope, hope that you hold a modicum of compassion, a modicum of understanding, or anything really. 

Anything but the above because the above was callousness, uncaring and shirking responsibility for bad behaviour.