1. I’ve had years of knowing stuff isn’t right and being gaslighted into it just being my ‘perception’ or pathology. It’s a pretty cruel thing to do when talking to someone diagnosed with a label that likes to include an ‘unstable sense of self’, ‘paranoid ideation’ & >
2. ‘severe dissociative symptoms’ as part of its diagnostic criterion bullshittery. After finally catching wind that actual evidence existed that I had been excluded, lied to, had things hidden from me, I felt so relieved and happy to finally have something solid to show that >
3. although I’m a loud proud member of the Mad movement, I’m not losing the mind I’ve worked so hard to keep. But that has been replaced by sadness that people would actively use my disability - which I am open about for work purposes - to gaslight me in this way. I have to >
4. double check every time someone tells me my perception is out. It means grounding myself and a bit of work that ppl who don’t have this label don’t have to do. If you tell me it enough I think I’ve become ill. It’s a really malicious, insidious thing to do and a way to hit a >
5. persons weakest points. It’s an unspeakably awful thing to do. I risk this every day as an #LXP, and sadly it’s been exploited. Although I’ve had the good fortune to have found out I was being lied to, most people would never know, they would begin to believe that they were >
6. ‘Unwell’. Today I finally was able to ask why. I didn’t really get an all purpose why, but at least it wasn’t me being told I was mad or imagining it. How many other #LXPs end up going through this without realising it’s not them who are ‘ill’? >
7. I wish I could tell you that I felt better for finding out I’d finally got a piece of solid evidence of this happening. The reality is that although I’m relieved I’m also so sad. Imagine finding out people you thought had your back, who cared about you, had been the people >
8. doing the gaslighting, holding the status quo, the power imbalances? The people you thought were your allies were the ones who were unpicking the work of SU activists and people working in the lived experience professions? I feel like a complete idiot, naive, so many >
9. feelings that relate to inability to make meaningful working relationships, like the ones colleagues around me seem to have. People treat you differently, you have to respond differently. You can’t connect. This is what it’s like being an LXP in environments like this. >
10. If you’ve read this far, you can make a difference. Be a real Ally. Stand up for us, if you see gaslighting, don’t sit and watch. Help us recalibrate afterwards and know we aren’t going mad, to reground ourself. Push for equality and posts for us. Be a real friend. Care. ❤️
@threadreaderapp please unroll!
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