The Gaslight Effect
My life is colored by what I would call the gaslight effect. My mom gaslighted me my entire life. She wanted me to see the world through her eyes so that she could control me. When I look at the world, I often still see myself through those eyes. I have a really high IQ, read a lot, and yet I don’t think of myself as being smart. In fact whenever I encounter anyone, I think that they are smarter than I am. When I meet someone, I automatically assume that they are more attractive than I am. (Check that: More attractive to others. I have come to realize that I don’t think human beings are very attractive, especially noses.) It isn’t so much that I don’t think of myself as less, I have learned that isn’t true. I just haven’t learned that I am not less than others.
Sometimes I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I have often written that it’s never a good thing to compare yourself to other people. I still don’t think it is a good thing. I have to admit that I am human, and I still do it sometimes. I also have to admit that sometimes I am not humble when I do it. Now that I am older, the younger generation does get on my nerves sometimes with their supposed lack of respect. However, when I am encountering someone one-on-one I never truly believe that I am better than or superior to anyone. The gaslight effect gave me that. No matter how much self-confidence I feel about myself, I still recognize that in everyone I meet is a person that is just as miraculous as I am. It doesn’t matter what they look like, their social status, their race, religion, or how they treat me. I’m not perfect I don’t treat everyone as I should, but I working on it.
The downside of the gaslight effect is that I don’t recognize my own special gifts. Yesterday, I shared one of my posts with my writing critique group. I really didn’t think it was very good writing. It’s just the prayer journal writing I do every day. Several people told me that they had head about people having panic attacks, but they never really knew what a panic attack was like until they read my writing. For some reason, I thought that with all the people who write about anxiety, people knew exactly what it was like to feel a panic attack. I didn’t realize that I have a special gift to write exactly what it is like and to describe the feelings. It really is something unique. One of the women said that I could be a companion to those suffering alone. It felt like God was speaking through her telling me, “Your message is to tell others that they aren’t alone.”
I don’t know when I will get published, but I am going to keep writing. I am going to keep spreading His message. I am going to keep the faith.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
