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and i’m just gonna say it, re: this ”you’re not a real system” bs
you know what it’s called when you purposefully cause someone (strangers or otherwise) to doubt their memories? their history? their existence and their reality? you know what it’s called when you purposefully cause someone to sit there, anxiously going “well maybe they’re right and i’m wrong, maybe my experiences and feelings are wrong”? when it causes people to clam up in an effort to avoid further damage?
it’s called gaslighting
by refusing to listen to someone’s experiences and shutting them down
by telling someone they’re remembering things wrong, that their memories/histories are different than they remember
by trivializing what someone has experienced
by denying the fact that telling someone they don’t exist is harming them
by turning it around and making it about how they are supposedly harming you
by purposefully causing people to second-guess themselves; doubt their own feelings and experiences; doubt their own sanity; shut down/withhold information to avoid incidents, and cause confusion, a negative self-image, and anxiety
you are engaging in gaslighting
(and yes, even if you’ve been abused and have trauma, you can engage in this behavior, so let’s not even try and pretend)
let’s ALL knock it the hell off already, and quit telling other systems of ANY sort that they’re not real
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