"one time my stepdad chased me around the house with a running chainsaw threatening to kill me because i ate his potato chips isn't that funny!" cuz they had gaslit me hard and tried to make it out like he (bipolar nam vet) was just goofin' and when you're desperate to be accepted by your family you take a lot of bullshit.
This was me for so long. I ran away from home at 16 from abuse (my parents were not happy to have a ND child and they let me know it daily).
It was always a giggle for people to get the big eyes and say how fucked up stuff was when we were drunk and telling stories but I had buried it all so deep that they were just stories to me, I never really processed all that abuse.
I am now processing it, many decades later, and it's rough. Because my parents gaslit me for so long and I downplayed all the abuse as not so bad (I made it out after all!) as coping mechanisms.
I have extreme PTSD from the emotional and physical abuse and that dovetails nicely with the Bipolar to where i'll have constant emotional flashbacks and then get flooded with adrenaline and then when it's all over the depression sets in.
DBT/IFS Trauma therapy was absolutely vital to me unlocking the path to actually process and deal with all this stuff and I have made sooo much progress in the last few years. I saw dozens of therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists and counselors before i finally got one who was able to help me. Therapy works!
