I’ve seen so much content related to gaslighting lately, and I credit this sub in part for helping me realize when it was happening in my own life. Even more so, how much it was happening to myself and the women around me, particularly friends with mental illnesses. I wanted to make a post on gaslighting for those of us who are experiencing mental (or physical!) illness, more specifically those who have symptoms that affect their memory, concentration and/or attention.

I personally have ADHD, and it often feels like I’m gaslit much more easily than many neurotypical people I know, in part because one of the hallmark symptoms of this disorder is being inattentive (missing bits and pieces of a conversation for example). When a core facet of your diagnosis is the fact that you tend to drift in and out of a conversation or forget important details, gaslighting becomes the easiest sport in the world for a man, and they can and do target us because of our symptoms. This is another reason it’s so important to follow FDS principles about sharing your trauma or illness with a man; They WILL use it against you, I have enough examples to fill a library.

For the queens here experiencing mental or physical illness with memory issues, how do you cope, and what’s your strategy to identify gaslighting and help protect yourself? Personally, when I’m vetting a man, I tend to have any serious discussions in a text format so I can be sure of what was said, and cut men off if there’s even a hint of gaslighting. I keep a diary as well, where I write down the key points of what happened in my day and any significant interactions/feelings I had so I can reference them later if I need to. I also don’t share my diagnosis, but that doesn’t stop the scrotes from trying to scrote, so I’m super curious as to what other strategies you all use (besides pulling a Memento on yourself lol)

EDIT: I also realize that developing self-confidence and self worth is an incredibly important aspect of keeping oneself insulated from bullshit from men, but just wanted to address the specific aspect of memory issues in this post ☺️