I had been spending weeks gasping for air between sobs, between the flood of fear and hormones. The last few breaths of a relationship I thought was forever. A love I believed was real.

I kept begging Jori for the truth. But all he gave me were scraps, barely enough to function.

Then one morning, eyes itching with exhaustion, body shaking with the stacking trauma, but my son’s tiny feet pressed under my ribs to remind me I was still grounded. Barely. I used whatever strength I still had and turned toward Jori through what felt like thick smoke.

“Give me your phone,” I said.

He did.
“Give me your passcode.”
Again, he did.

I opened WhatsApp.
Scrolled straight to Jessy.

Nothing shocking… at first. So I kept scrolling. Faster. My pulse syncing with the motion of my thumb.

Then I saw it.

That’s when he immediately lunged for his phone.
I jumped out of bed just as quickly, thumb still scrolling, words blurring into panic. Panic blurring what was now happening behind me.

He was chasing me.

I ran for the spare bedroom.
“Stay away from me!” I yelled.
He didn’t.

More messages flashed across the screen.

Sexting, pet names, “girlfriend,” “boyfriend,” “sweetheart.”

Proof. His newest affair.

My heart hammered hard against my chest. My pregnant body trembled with adrenaline. I could barely see. And then, the air turned black and felt heavy to the touch. But I could still hear his footsteps fast on the floor behind me.

I bolted for the bathroom, trying to lock the door.
He pushed. Hard. I felt my backside launch forward.

“Stop!” I pleaded. “Please, I’m pregnant. Stop.”

He didn’t.
The door burst open.

I was cornered.

Shaking, crying, devastated that I had put my baby in this circumstance. All I could do now was wrap my body around itself in an attempt to protect my belly.
I handed him the phone. It was the only way to make it stop.

Then I crouched to the floor, arms still around myself, the room still spinning, the taste of nausea rising as I swallowed back the tears.

***

I wish I could go back to that moment.
Arrive with wings bright enough to burn through that darkness.
To protect that beautiful woman and her beautiful baby.
To shield her from the abuse she couldn’t yet name.

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Day 1.

I picked up my phone, hands shaking a little, and called the clinic.

“It’s here,” I said, trying not to sound like I was announcing a miracle.

Because in a way, I was.

I walked in on my first day on the fertility floor, a place that smelled faintly like antiseptic and hope.

Couples sat side by side in silence, waiting at the pharmacy window. Hands intertwined, shoulders touching, eyes fixed anywhere but each other. The air hummed with nervous energy, a kind of reverent quiet that only exists where science and longing meet.

Women were being ushered through doors I didn’t yet know what was behind. Some looked calm, practiced. Others clutched their purses to their chests like lifelines.

And then there was me. Alone.

Jori had to work.

All good, I told him. I’d keep him posted.

A nurse appeared, cheerful but tired in the way fertility nurses always are. Women who’ve learned to carry other people’s hope on their backs. She led me into a small boardroom, the blinds half-drawn against the morning light.

She carried a clear plastic bag filled with needles and vials. My new vocabulary. She unpacked them one by one, naming each like a teacher introducing students: Gonal-F. Menopur. Cetrotide.

We went through everything. Needle placement. Dosages. Timing. Timing again. Always timing.

Everything about IVF was built on perfect timing. Perfect hormone levels. Perfect temperature. Perfect coordination between body, science, and chance.

I left the clinic clutching the bag to my chest like it might break if I moved too fast. Two different drugs, starting on different days, overlapping like choreography I hadn’t yet learned.

Every day at 1:00 p.m., I’d sneak into a private treatment room at work, close the door, and transform from physiotherapist to patient. I’d lay out the supplies; alcohol wipes, syringes, gauze, like surgical instruments. Then I’d pinch the soft flesh of my abdomen and inject. Alternating sides every day. Never the same spot twice.

After each shot, a sting, then a bloom of heat spreading beneath my skin.

Some days I’d feel fine. Other days I’d blink back tears I couldn’t explain.

Every few days, I’d return to the clinic for check-in ultrasounds. Each time with a different doctor, each with their own rhythm, their own version of kindness. I’d lie on the cold table, paper sheet crinkling under me, legs trembling from nerves.

They’d count the follicles, murmuring numbers I didn’t understand to the nurse beside them. I stared at the ceiling tiles, pretending I wasn’t holding my breath.

Was it working?

Was my body doing what it was supposed to do?

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And then, one day, a doctor looked at the screen, then at me, and smiled.

“Your lining is gorgeous,” he said, like he was describing art. “And you’ve got a beautiful number of eggs. You’re a prime candidate for a fresh transfer.”

For a second, the world went still.

A fresh transfer.

Not months of freezing and waiting.

Not another cycle of needles and patience.

It meant we could be pregnant in weeks.

The fear in me shifted shape. It wasn’t dread anymore. It was anticipation. Hope reborn.

We had planned to freeze eggs, thinking we’d have to go through more than one retrieval. But now, maybe we’d skip straight to the dream.

Maybe this would be it.

For the first time in a long time, I let myself imagine it.

Two lines on a test

A nursery with sunlight spilling through it

A tiny heartbeat that might finally steady my own.

The final needle was the trigger shot. And it was timed to the minute. HCG, the final push before retrieval.
I funneled the clear liquid into the syringe with hands that felt steadier than they were, lining up every drop as if precision could guarantee the outcome. The vials sat alone on the top shelf of the fridge, nothing beside them but cold light. It looked like a shrine.

I set alarms on my phone. Two of them. Just in case.

By then my ovaries were enormous. Heavy and foreign, like grapefruits solidified inside me. It hurt to walk, to laugh, even to sleep. My abdomen pulsed like it was filled with stones.

I had to temporarily stop playing water polo.
If my ovaries flipped, it could cause ovarian torsion. A medical emergency. The idea of that terrified me.
So I waited. Careful. Hopeful.

Then came the retrieval.
No one warns you what that really means.

We arrived before sunrise, the sky still a pale bruise. A nurse met us at the door and led us down the sterile hallway behind the “Patients Only” sign. The forbidden zone I’d been staring at for weeks.
Rooms lined both sides, a nurses’ station glowing in the middle like a lighthouse.

She guided me to a small prep room and handed me a gown, sliding a heating pad beneath my lower back as I reclined. That simple gesture, warmth against the ache, made me want to cry with gratitude.

Jori had one job: produce a sample.
I felt the anxiety for him, that quiet pressure neither of us would name.

Then it was my turn.

The operating room was small, all hard surfaces and bright light. There was a two-way window on one end, video monitors on the other, and in between, the physician’s tray of instruments.

Fifteen minutes, they said.
I was given fentanyl.

It didn’t touch the pain.

I gripped the sides of the table, body shaking, tears pressing behind my eyes. I remember the sound of the suction, the quiet counting, the doctor’s voice calling numbers that didn’t mean anything yet.

Nine eggs.
Only nine.

I was crushed. The nurse saw it immediately and squeezed my hand. “They’re beautiful,” she said softly. “Perfect-looking eggs.”

A few hours later, eight of them had fertilized.
Eight tiny cells waiting to become.

We went home, and I could barely move. The pain spread like bruises blooming under my skin. I hobbled around work, praying none of my patients would notice, least of all the ones I was helping learn to walk again.

But hope kept me upright.

Every day, the same embryologist called—his voice bright, almost giddy. He told me our embryos were “developing beautifully.” He made me feel like his favourite patient.

I lived for those updates.

And then came day five. The cliff everyone waits for. The day when some survive and the rest quietly stop dividing. Every IVF patient knows this day. It’s the drop-off, the great unknown between science and soul.

My call came.
Five had made it.

Two were what he called perfect.
One of those would be placed in my uterus that day.

Jori almost didn’t come.
He had a meeting. A meeting with his coworker. Jessy.

He’d been talking about Jessy more and more lately.
Said she was older, married, had kids.
Said she was harmless.

I’d warned him months before. Be careful, I said. Use your tools.
But what tools can you hand to someone who refuses to build?

**

I watch my old self from above now, watching her believe, watching her hope. I won’t take that from her. She deserved to feel it.

**

I asked Jori to come anyway. “You should want to be there,” I told him. “You might be watching your son or daughter being placed inside me.”

He agreed and came.

We gowned up again. He fussed over his gown, taking selfies and sending them to friends. I laughed, because what else could I do? His silliness in that moment calmed me.

The room was the same one I’d left a few days earlier in pain, but this time it felt gentler. Softer. A technician dimmed the lights. The screen flickered on, showing the magnified image of a single embryo. Our embryo. Floating in a droplet of light.

I watched as the catheter slid into place, a flash of white entering the dark space of my uterus.

“There it is,” the doctor said quietly.

Jori and I held hands. His smile was huge, proud, bright.

And for a moment, everything felt whole.

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I had read books on grief, books on rebuilding, memoirs about surviving difficult circumstances, but none of them prepared me for the bomb that detonated in my soul.

I remember being 38 weeks pregnant, lying on the couch unable to move, unable to speak, unable to eat. And none of it had anything to do with being pregnant.

My mind and body shifted between complete numbness and rabbit holes so deep it took all my effort to find my way back to the surface. The only thing that could pull me back into a life I once recognized was my son’s tiny feet pushing against my skin.

I loved feeling him move. It was surreal, and yet somehow grounding.

At a time when I felt as though I had been pushed from an airplane without a parachute, it was him—so small, so unaware of the depth of the betrayal—who guided me toward a safe landing.

If someone were to ask me what it’s like to be nine months pregnant, to give birth, or to be six weeks postpartum, I wouldn’t have an answer for them.

I don’t know.

There is no way for me to separate the trauma, the grief, the emotional roller coaster, and the hormones. They are woven together so tightly that I can no longer tell where one ends and another begins.

When I was going through it all, I wanted every detail. However harsh. However minuscule. However cruel.

My brain fed on information like purified glucose.

The gaps were unbearable.

The gaps caused the rabbit holes.

The gaps caused the panic.

The gaps caused the endless nights lying awake and the brief stretches of sleep that filled with nightmares.

The future I had envisioned for so long was disappearing in front of me. It felt like wisps of smoke slipping through my fingers while I desperately tried to hold on.

I panicked at the thought of having to move.

I panicked at the thought of not being able to afford life on maternity leave.

I panicked at the thought of missing the fresh, precious days of motherhood I had been so excited for.

I panicked about things that mattered.

I panicked about things that didn’t.

I couldn’t sort out what deserved immediate attention and what could wait. What was important and what wasn’t.

Grief works in strange ways.

It is nonlinear. It refuses to follow a script. It doesn’t care about timelines or expectations.

And to get to the other side, you have to feel all of it.

That sounds simple until you’re the one doing it.

Feeling all of it is its own cruel little game.

I had no idea one person could hold such a multitude of emotions at once.

What hides beneath red-hot anger.

How desperate bargaining can become.

How deeply depression can settle into the cracks of your life.

And yet, how unimaginably powerful acceptance can be.

What surprised me most wasn’t the grief.

It was what came after.

I remember sitting down to write passages of my manuscript. In many ways, it felt as though my past self was reconciling with my future self.

My future self pulled out a chair and offered that sad girl a seat at the table.

At first, she didn’t know what to do with the invitation.

She didn’t feel welcome.

She didn’t know where she belonged.

She didn’t know how to contribute.

But she came anyway.

That was the beginning of my integration.

Months of conversations between each version of myself.

The athlete.

The mother.

The angry woman.

The grieving woman.

The hopeful present woman.

For a long time, they felt like separate people, each carrying a different wound, a different strength, and a different story.

I integrated the angry woman first.

I had never led with anger before in my life. It probably had something to do with how, as women, we are socialized. But when my therapist kept urging me to feel the anger, I finally did.

And my God, was she a goddess.

She held boundaries.

She spoke her truth.

She felt vivacious.

She maybe overdid it for a while, but once she settled in, she became one of my biggest assets.

My best friend helped me abundantly with my athletic self.

Every day, he welcomed me and my little baby into his basement gym. He bought a Jolly Jumper for him. He held him with all the love you want for your babies.

Workout by workout evolved into strength. Strength evolved into fun. Through tears, freedom in my body, and love in movement, she sat proud and tall at that table.

The mother was tough.

Her heart may always stay separate, and I believe that to be a good thing.

But her pride, her resilience, her unusually organized self, and the spunk and love spilling through the seams all sit at the table too.

But it was my grieving self that was the challenge.

My present self would be happy, excited about something, yet my past self felt like she didn’t belong in that conversation.

She felt like she should walk away from the table.

Like her voice didn’t belong.

She held too many emotions.

She dampened the party.

When I would have a tough moment, no one let her speak for fear of all the emotions overwhelming the whole situation.

But one day, as I wrote, I realized her place had been obvious all along.

She was the heart.

She was the emotions.

She loved fiercely.

She felt fiercely.

And she was needed fiercely.

As I slowly began to understand the role each of them had played, I also learned how much I loved each of them.

I learned where their strengths shone.

I learned what they had protected.

I learned what they had survived.

Integration wasn’t about choosing one version of myself over another.

It wasn’t about becoming someone new.

It was about welcoming every version of myself back to the table.

And when they finally sat together, something unexpected happened.

They stopped fighting for space.

They stopped pulling in different directions.

They became one.

They became me.

Integration isn’t “getting over” grief.

It’s bringing all the fractured pieces of yourself back together again.

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She is looking toward a future she believes is full of green pastures.

A husband.

A family.

Little kids running around.

A life she spent years building.

I stand next to her.

Then I show her a bridge.

A golden bridge, full of light.

It stretches beyond the pastures she is staring at, and over them entirely, reaching toward something she cannot yet see.

On the other side is more light sprawling across a beautiful open canvas.

And beyond that, an ocean stretching endlessly toward the horizon.

I hand her a match.

Or honestly, whatever she wants.

And I let her decide.

Because those pastures were never mine to burn.

They were hers.

The dream she believed in.

The future she trusted.

The life she thought she was walking toward.

She lights the fields.

And we watch them burn.

With love for the woman who believed so deeply in them.

Then we begin to walk.

Slowly.

Together.

As we cross the bridge, she cries.

There is no rush.

No pressure.

No demand that she understand.

Eventually we reach the other side.

We look back.

The fields are now gone.

The smoke has settled.

We cry.

Then we smile.

Then we exhale.

Then we smile again, wider this time.

And then she notices something.

She looks down at her hands.

The chains are gone.

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The invisible chains she carried for years.

The hope.

The confusion.

The self-doubt.

The need to understand.

The need to be chosen.

The need to be enough.

They burned with the fields.

Then she looks out toward the ocean.

She waits for me to point at something.

A destination.

A house.

A husband.

A map.

Proof that everything will be okay.

Instead, I smile.

“No,” I tell her.

“You don’t understand.”

“The beautiful part isn’t what’s waiting for you.”

“It’s that it’s yours.”

The canvas.

The ocean.

The horizon.

The choice.

All of it.

For the first time in a very long time, it belongs entirely to her.

And as we stand there together, looking out at the water, she finally understands.

The bridge was leading her back to herself. 💜

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Over the smallest, dumbest things—how to hang a mirror, how to assemble a bed. Every conversation felt like walking into a trap.

He had to be right about everything.
He had to control everything.
He had to feel superior, no matter the topic.

I couldn’t do anything right.
At least, not when he was there.

But when he was gone—when the house was quiet and the air finally cleared—I’d be able to do things on my own. Little projects he said I couldn’t manage.
And every time, I’d finish them quickly, perfectly. My brain felt lighter, sharper. Methodical.
It was proof that I wasn’t incompetent. That the fog that rolled in when he was near wasn’t mine.

When he was around, I could feel it—the pressure.
It was like a cloud wrapped around my cerebral cortex, blurring my thoughts. I couldn’t see straight, couldn’t think straight.
The fog wasn’t metaphorical. It was real.
My body knew before my mind did.

And I was pregnant—hormones flooding my system, emotions heightened—but even through that storm, I knew something was off.
I couldn’t name it yet.
But I felt it.

He was doing something.
Someone. I just knew it.

Looking back, the clues were everywhere.

A hair.
I’d asked about it, my voice already shaking.
He sighed, annoyed. “A friend of yours,” he said.

Scratches on his back.
“Sporting fights,” he explained.
“I haven’t seen that happen to you before,” I said.
“Yeah, well, I played a different position that day.”

A sun visor flipped down in his car.
“Mechanics must’ve done it,” he said.
“Do mechanics usually sit in the passenger seat?” I asked.
“They must have,” he replied flatly.

And then—the Kleenex in the trash.

That was the moment.
The line between suspicion and knowing.

I called him immediately, my pulse wild.

He told me not to worry.
Said it was “just him.”
Said I was hormonal.
Said I wasn’t thinking clearly.
Said he loved me.
That nothing was going on.

And I believed him.
Because I wanted to. Because I needed to.

“Okay,” I said quietly. “Okay.”
Then, out loud, the words I still can’t forget:

“I must be crazy.”

He soothed me after that.
Told me it was okay. Told me I was okay.
The way you calm a child, not a wife.

I had told myself too many times that I needed to be the chill wife. Not because I thought that was what a wife should be—but because the alternative was worse.
The alternative was feeling like I was losing my mind.

That’s what gaslighting does.
It rewires you to fear your own perception.

And in that moment, it worked.

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So why is it so incredibly hard to leave these dynamics? Most of us look on from the outside and tell ourselves that if we were in their shoes, we’d leave immediately. But the shoes these individuals are wearing are not what we imagine. It’s often not that simple.

It can feel like an invisible tether is wrapped around your core, pulling you toward your abuser, who holds the other end. There are financial, social, psychological, emotional, and physical implications to leaving a partner.

I’ll be focusing on the relational and emotional perspectives, as this is part of a world I once belonged to.

It creeps in slowly. A polluted air that fills one room, then the next, until one day you wake up and your whole house is full of it. But it’s your normal, so you live your life the best you can—trying to push the pollution back against the walls.

You see, the windows and doors don’t open. Your spouse holds the only key.

The first time I came across the term trauma bond was about a year and a half ago. At the time, I thought, ahh, this might explain my husband and his AP’s relationship dynamic. From the outside, it looked like an addiction.

I didn’t explore it much further until months later—when I needed to understand what had happened to my marriage. What had happened to me.

That’s when I started to see a pattern. A pattern of give and take. Of good times and bad. One that had spanned over a decade. Intermittent reinforcement. Addictive, like slot machines. A staircase down to that room full of pollution

I was in a trauma bond.

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It started over a decade ago. Back when BBM was king. The tiny keyboard. The downloadable threads. The constant little pings.

Message after message from him. Everything a young woman wants to hear. Visits where he went all out trying to impress. Trips across oceans. Making me feel like I was the most important person in the world.

So when, a year or two in, the first indiscretion arrived—wrapped neatly inside a moment of gaslighting—I reminded myself of all the good.

And the good did come back.

But so did the indiscretions.

A slow erosion of the relationship. A slow erosion of my reality.

Soon the good times became fewer and farther between. And yet I still lived for them. My brain latched onto them, treating them as proof that things weren’t really as bad as they felt. Proof that the version of him I missed was still in there somewhere.

Give me that feeling again.

Like I mattered.

Like I was still present in reality.

Like I still meant something to him.

Without even realizing I had lost myself. It became like a Vegas slot machine. You get just enough of a win to put another few bucks in. Just when your money is gone, the lights shine on, spectacular and bright.

Coins spit out, not as much as you started with, but enough to keep playing, enough to see the light again.

Our brains are remarkably trainable. Predictable rewards are satisfying. Unpredictable rewards can become addictive.

When love, validation, reassurance, or emotional safety are given inconsistently, we often chase them harder—not less.

I didn’t know I was chasing intermittent reinforcement.

I thought I was fighting for love.

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The embassy was a beautiful stone building with a quaint backyard full of luscious greenery. Butlers were walking around with champagne, there were chocolate fountains in the yard with fruit and cookies to dip as we pleased, and everyone was mingling, laughing, and relaxed. I was giddy—buzzed off the ambiance and the bubbly. It felt like a cherry on top of the great summer I was having. Finding love in water polo, in my friendships, and in myself.

The yard started to get darker and as I looked up, those heavy clouds had enveloped the sky above. Then the rain started coming down. People scattered, puddles formed in the yard. I was wearing sandals and saw a few people jumping around in the mud puddles that were forming, just being ridiculous. So, giddy and carefree, I joined in.

That’s when I felt someone’s foot step onto mine. There was a spark—literal and electric. I looked up and locked eyes with Jori for the first time ever.

He smiled, his dark eyes and tall frame glistening in the rain. I was intrigued by more than just the spark.

Now, when I look back, I wonder if that spark was actually the universe telling me to stay away. But instead, it became the very beginning of my journey to losing myself.

At the end of the games, we all went out. The clubs were electric—right on the river, loud, wild, alive. We had a VIP section for both teams. I was having a blast… until I noticed my accreditation ID was missing. The same one we’d been warned we could not lose, or we wouldn’t be allowed back into the athlete village. No ID meant no re-entry. No place to sleep. No access to our things.

I panicked. Tears started flowing down my cheeks. My teammates helped me search for it.

Then out of nowhere, Jori came up to us with that flashy smile and swagger, laughing, cool as ever—my ID around his neck.

He assured me I had given it to him. I didn’t remember that, maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. Maybe the booze and exhaustion blurred things. All I remembered was that we had shared our first kiss earlier that night.

At that moment, I didn’t question anything, I just felt relief sweep through my body. I hugged him and felt a rush of gratefulness, like he had saved me.

The rest of that night was a blur of joy and adrenaline. I danced. I sang. I ended up on a table with some tanned, shirtless man who may or may not have had abs carved by a Greek god. Then, as the sun was peaking out to welcome the new day, I was fearlessly body surfing onto a boat. A boat. It was anchored, not going anywhere—but still, at the time I didn’t know that. And it felt like magic. Like freedom. Like the end of a hard year of water polo, school, and struggles, wrapped in one endless night of ecstasy.

But in the years that followed, every time I talked about that night, Jori seemed… annoyed. Dismissive. He wouldn’t celebrate it with me. Instead, I felt like he chipped away at the joy. He’d say it was reckless to body surf onto a boat. That I had overreacted about losing my ID. He wasn’t overtly cruel—just subtle. Undermining. Controlling the narrative.

Eventually, I stopped telling people the story. I started editing myself. And with that, I lost a small piece of who I was—that fun, carefree girl who danced on tables and played in the rain.

After the games, Jori and I kept in touch. I had no idea he had a girlfriend that summer, but later he assured me she’d given him a “pass” and that they broke up shortly after. At the time, I believed him. Looking back, I no longer believe that explanation. And honestly? I’m glad she got out when she did.

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We are, generally, an empathetic and compassionate species. When someone commits an act of harm, we try to understand the complexity behind it. We search for context. We fill in the gaps. We consider different perspectives.

And often, that instinct is valuable.

But sometimes we take it too far.

We get so caught in the nuance that we begin to justify away the harm itself.

Complexity is not moral neutrality.

Complexity is not “maybe nobody is wrong.”

Complexity is not “there must be an equally valid alternate explanation that softens responsibility.”

Complexity is not “understanding means withholding judgment.”

Human beings are complex.
Harm is complex.
Motives can be complex.

And still — some actions are wrong. Full stop.

Recognizing complexity should deepen our understanding of reality, not dilute accountability.

There can be:

• nuance

• psychology

• contradiction

• humanity

While still firmly holding:

• this behaviour was abusive

• this caused harm

• this matters

• there should be accountability and consequences

That distinction matters deeply.

Because sometimes “let’s understand the complexity” becomes a way of explaining away harm before the harm itself has even been plainly recognized.

Honouring complexity should not come at the expense of someone’s safety or lived reality.

This piece was written in response to some of my own lived experiences, but also to what I have heard from others on social media through comments and direct messages. There will be people who defend, minimize, or explain away the harmful and/or abusive behaviour under the guise of complexity, empathy, or understanding. I wanted to take the time to explore how these responses can themselves be harmful. I suspect this also might be a broader problem in society today.

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They weren’t just texts. They were detonations—tiny bombs of lust, cruelty, deception, and those teenage-style love letters that make anyone nauseous.

In the middle of swollen ankles and baby kicks, while folding newborn onesies beside a mostly assembled crib, I learned that the man I thought I was building a life with was already building a fantasy with someone else.

A month earlier, I had found deleted photos of nudes and messages on Jori’s computer. My gut had been whispering for months that something illicit was happening. I just didn’t know the depth of it. For weeks, I lived in a fog of betrayal, my brain storing scraps of evidence like survival ration. The mysterious dark hair with grey roots, the scratch marks on his back, the passenger sun visor left down in his car, the sudden obsession with my work schedule.

When I finally pieced it together, I opened his computer and that’s when I saw those explicit photos, the screenshots that would change the directory of my life path. My nervous system froze before rage settling in for the briefest of moments. I then sent him screenshots and called. Ten minutes later, he came home crying, desperate to hold me. But I was too gutted to touch him. A million questions tore through me, but his answers were slippery—half-lies, deflections, gaslighting. Looking back, that was the first clear glimpse of the emotional abuse I’d been living under.

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Those weeks between the explicit photos and that dreaded thread were a private hell.

I had just started maternity leave from my career as a physiotherapist. I wanted to nest like a queen. Decorate the nursery with elephants, finish organizing baby gear, rest my aching back and feet, and soak in the glow of the final weeks of pregnancy.

Instead, I became an undercover detective.

I searched Jori’s phone and computer whenever I could. I stayed up all night spiraling, feeding the rabbit hole that was my brain, as I felt safety slip away and vulnerability crash through.

My therapist kept asking why I hadn’t told anyone. I didn’t have a clear answer, but deep down, I knew. I felt like I had to ask Jori for permission to seek support. I thought I was protecting him. I thought that was what a “good wife” did. In reality, it was the reflex of a trauma bond.

I fawned.

Fawning is the art of disappearing in plain sight. It’s the survival instinct that whispers, If I can just be what they want, maybe I’ll be safe. I bent, I appeased, I dissolved until I couldn’t see where I began and the person harming us ended.

After fourteen years with Jori, I became an expert of fawning.

I finally worked up the courage to ask if I could tell my best friend, MC. I gave Jori a whole speech about how he wasn’t in our friend group, he was trustworthy, and my therapist wanted me to lean on support. Jori muttered that he’d “think about it,” probably assuming I’d drop it.

Oh, but I didn’t.

Eventually, he “allowed” me to tell MC. Later, when I shared my reality with my three closest girlfriends, Jori accused me of betrayal. I scrambled to fix what I thought I had broken - his trust. I didn’t see the blame shifting in real time, but my nervous system felt it.

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Then came the dreaded thread. Reading it was like living through hell. The sexting, the I loooove youuuus, the “how can I get rid of Serena so we can meet up”. I immediately called MC to come over and my parents drove 12 hours straight to come look after their daughter. I then sent excerpts of the thread to my besties. My whole world felt like it was upside down, spinning on its head, no control of its direction. I felt the terror and disorientation so deeply. But I also felt a fierce clarity. That clarity came in the form of protecting my unborn son. Apparently, when we face substantial trauma, our brain compartmentalizes things, tucks pieces of the trauma away so we are able to focus on what’s paramount. What I’m most proud of throughout this journey is how I showed up for G, before he was born and postpartum. He was my saving grace through the storm. My anchor.

Things exploded when Jori held his diaper party to stock up on diapers for G. We had a tight-knit friend group—wives and girlfriends as close as the men. When my besties learned what Jori had done, they told their partners. Quietly, in solidarity, the men skipped his diaper party.

I never asked anyone to boycott him. But he blamed me anyway.

He said I aired our dirty laundry. He said he knew who his “real friends” were, and that I would never know. He was mad, I could feel his rage shaking in my bones. I sobbed deep heavy tears and then promised to help Jori get his friends back. The guilt and fear were crushing. That deep sympathetic feeling I could never name. That was my trauma bond in full bloom. I was protecting the man who broke me.

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This is what happened in those two weeks before my son came into this world.

Those weeks felt like an eternity. Trauma and grief have a strange way of distorting time and memory. Not to mention being 9 months pregnant seems to make time tick by slower.

These weeks were a rollercoaster of emotions: quiet, dissociated devastation, laying on the couch, not moving. Not eating. My internal compass had left its own gravitational pull. My attachment became disorganized. I felt untethered. All while my husband tried to intermittently pull me back into his gravitational field.

I’ve designed this series as another case study, similar to my How I Found Out series, in the hopes of adding language to an experience and helping others who have experienced anything similar. It is also meant to emphasize a framework to help people see these experiences as a whole, to recognize why they are not easy to get out of, and to give power and clarity back to who the real victims are.

The Trash Bags

After finding and reading the long, explicit thread between my husband and his AP, all I remember is that I ended up in my bedroom on my bed. I have no idea how I got there.

The room was spinning as if I had vertigo. Complete devastation mixed with panic, mixed with delirium. Was this real life? Whose life was I living?

My vision of the future was collapsing. I felt like I had been pushed out of an airplane without a parachute.

Then I remembered one of my closest friends—M. I had confided in him a couple weeks prior, upon my therapist’s persistent advice. It took a lot to confide in anyone because my husband didn’t want me to. And at the same time, I also felt like it was my duty as his wife to protect him. So I had framed it as this friend didn’t share the same friend group as us, so it would be safe.

So in this moment, I remembered I had one safe person, so I called M.

He dropped everything and drove right over to my place.

Devastation was written in the lines of his face. He took on my executive functioning. He helped me pack all of my husband’s belongings, and as I was organizing things into suitcases, he asked, “Do you have trash bags?”

I said yes.

And it gave me a moment of lucidity.

My husband didn’t deserve my kindness, so I went and grabbed the trash bags. And M just stood there with me, throwing things into them, doing whatever I needed.

I left all of his belongings in the entrance of my house—a castle of black trash bags—and gave him an hour to pick them up and get out.

Then M took me for lunch. My mind was caught between spinning and blankness—like I was stuck in a whiteout blizzard.

But I was proud of those trash bags.

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The Phone Call

I called my husband hours after kicking him out.

I wanted him to apologize. To tell me everything I was so desperate to hear.

But when I asked about the thread between him and his AP, he gave me the same lines.

He said he didn’t even know what he had written.
That it was just words on a page.
That he was broken.

Then he said he loved me.
He loved her.
And he wanted both of us.

He said he needed to talk to his therapist.

Then I heard his dad yell in the background.

My husband’s voice hardened instantly.

“I’m not talking about this anymore. I have to go to bed.”

Just like that.

So I sat there holding my phone—nine months pregnant, days away from giving birth.

I left that call confused. My hands were shaking. My chest felt like it was vibrating.

I tried calling him again. He wouldn’t answer.
I texted him. No response.

What had I done wrong? Why was he mad at me?

Then I felt this pull—like I needed my husband to come home, to lie beside me, to make this stop.

And at the same time, the thought of him walking back into the house made me afraid.

How would he keep hurting me?

So instead, my best friends came over for the night with pizza and love.

The Diaper Party

A couple days after that phone call, on the day of my husband’s diaper party, he came over to the house to grab some files.

He looked sad.

He told me he had an intense session with his therapist the night before. He said he had deep love for me, that he was in love with me, that he had lost sight of our marriage and had taken me for granted.

Then he said he was afraid no one would come to his diaper party.

We had a very tight friend group—husbands and wives who were all friends with each other. The men had already told me they were thinking of skipping the party.

I told them they didn’t have to. That it wouldn’t upset me if they went. But ultimately, it was their decision.

So I told my husband it might be a good idea to cancel it.

He started crying. He said the party was for our son, that he wanted to get diapers for him.

I told him the diapers didn’t matter right now.

But he was insistent.

Then he left.

After he left, I started to feel responsible for his pain. Like I had done something wrong. Like he was the one who was hurting.

I felt sad for him.

I didn’t want him to feel that way.

So I texted him and asked if he wanted to meet for coffee the next day.

He replied right away. He said he would really love that. That he missed me.

That night, I went to sleep heartbroken.

For both of us.

But especially for my unborn son.

The Park

The day after the diaper party, I showed up at the coffee shop. I was expecting my husband to be the same as he was the day before—loving, caring. Maybe I would finally get the apology I was so desperate for.

But when I saw him, I knew something had shifted.

He looked cold. His sentences were short.

I asked if we could go sit in the park and chat, hoping it was just because we were in a public setting.

We sat on a bench under a couple big trees.

I started confiding in him, crying, tears rolling down onto my very round belly.

But he barely touched me. He didn’t console me.

Instead, he told me parts of him had fallen out of love with me, and some parts of him had fallen in love with his AP.

I asked for reasons. I wanted reassurance. I still wanted that apology.

But none of those came.

He said I had thrown him out like a dog, saying that I should have just told him to go sleep in the spare bedroom.

He said that I had no right to tell our friends—that I was airing out dirty laundry like a teenager, that I was immature. That it should have been a family matter only. That he had told me I could tell my friend M, but that was it.

Then he said he had to go.

I barely had time to wipe my tears off my face.

I left that park feeling like I had been the one who had betrayed my husband.

The Requests

There were a couple issues on the table leading up to the birth of my son. We had originally decided on a first, middle, and last name for him. The middle name was going to be my husband’s name and the last name his last name, as I kept my maiden name.

I told him I wanted to hyphenate my son’s last name. I felt scared at the idea of my son having my husband’s middle and last name. It just felt wrong.

My husband was upset, saying that we chose this name months ago already.

The other issue was who my support person was going to be during labour.

My husband said he wanted to be there. That his therapist told him that watching me go through labour and give birth would help him realize how much I had done for him and would help him reconnect to me and love me more again.

I felt so confused.

The thought of him being present terrified me. What if he were messaging his affair partner during my L&D? He had already shared an abundance of my medical information with her. How much more would he tell her?

I told my husband how I felt and added that the only way I’d let him in is if he could prove to me he was no longer talking to or involved with her and would be in L&D only for me and my son.

The Baby’s Mattress

My husband had made the promise that he was no longer with or in contact with his AP and that he was focusing on me and our son. He really wanted to be there for us during L&D.

But I didn’t know if I could trust his word.

Then he did something that gave me my answer.

I had asked him to purchase a mattress for our baby earlier that day, as I had received and assembled everything else with the help of my friends and family, and this was the last item that was needed.

He said that he would do it for me.

He came over that afternoon with the mattress. But when he walked in the doorway, something just felt off.

He seemed in a rush. Asking if he should take off his shoes, rushing up and down the stairs.

So I asked him where he was going.

He said he had to go pick up some sporting cards for a friend’s kid.

And I thought that’s a weird reason to rush.

So I asked to see his phone.

He panicked and said he left it in his car.

He never left his phone in the car.

So I did something I wouldn’t have done before—I followed him to his car.

His hands were shaking, his eyes beady and black.

He showed me his phone and quickly scrolled through his apps saying, “See—nothing.”

But he wouldn’t physically hand his phone to me.

Then he left as quickly as he had scrolled.

And I had some clarity through all my confusion.

I made my decision.

I couldn’t trust him to be my support person.

So my mom stepped into that role.

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The Second Night

My son arrived quickly on a Monday afternoon.

I was in the hospital until Wednesday.

My husband was in and out.

He came Monday evening, brought me the food I wanted, then he left.

On Tuesday night, he came back—but he seemed uncomfortable. Like he didn’t actually want to be there. Like he was there because he thought he should be.

He did skin-to-skin with our son because he was adamant it was important for our son to bond to him in those first moments of life.

But after that, he was restless. Checking his phone. Anxious to leave.

I asked him if he could stay that night anyways. I needed some help. I had had an emergency C-section and was finding it hard to move.

But he said the chair was too uncomfortable. That he was too tall to sleep in it.

So he went home.

That night was the hardest night of my life.

I was delirious. My son was crying and I couldn’t figure out why. I felt like I was doing everything wrong. I needed the nurses constantly. I had never felt so unprepared, but also so alone.

I felt rage boil up inside me, so I texted him.

I told him how disappointed I was. How mean he had been. But also how much I needed him in these moments.

The next day, he wouldn’t talk to me. He wouldn’t even look at me.

And then I felt like I had done something so wrong.

I shouldn’t have sent that message.

I had been too mean. I had let my emotions out unfiltered.

So I apologized.

We talked a little after that. And then he told me, again, that he was in love with two women.

But now he wasn’t so sure about this.

His affair partner had been so nice to him. So caring.

And I had been mean. I had kicked him out. I hadn’t let him be at the birth of our son. I had sent a cruel message.

I remember feeling so confused, like I had handled the entire situation so poorly, like I had been the one who needed to fix things.

The Drift

The first week after giving birth is a blur.

People came to visit me and my baby.
My husband came every day—sitting awkwardly.
Our son would cry in his arms.

And every once in a while, we’d find ourselves alone together.

That’s when I would feel it.

That pull. Like a tether.

I needed him.
I needed him to show up.
I still wanted him to say all the right things—
the apology, the remorse, the accountability.

Instead, he told me he wanted to move back in.

I said I wasn’t ready.
That things were working as they were.
That I wanted to wait until after Christmas to revisit it.

And then he said…

he felt himself drifting away from me.

The way he said it—
like his love wasn’t a choice,
but something slowly siphoning itself away.

And I felt that panic.

The one I knew so well in his presence.

The future I had held onto for so long
was disappearing right in front of me.

Then he said…

there might not be anything left by Christmas.

I remember holding my tiny newborn tighter in my arms
and saying, “okay.”

I was so nervous.

But part of me was… excited.

Maybe if he moved back in, he would change.
Maybe we could make it work.
Maybe my future could stay intact.

And at the same time,
I didn’t want my parents to leave my side.

Because they had given me nothing but love and support.
And I knew I would miss them deeply.

The Framework

Those weeks were a complete whirlwind.
Slow and fast at the same time.

I don’t think I could ever fully explain what labour, delivery, or postpartum felt like—
because I couldn’t separate it from the grief…
the trauma…
the shock of what was happening in my relationship.

It took me just under a year to name it.

Abusive.

And even longer to understand what had actually happened to me.

These episodes were meant to take you on a journey—
not just through events,
but through a pattern many people experience and struggle to leave.

DARVO.

Deny.
Attack.
Reverse Victim and Offender.

It looks like this:

You confront someone with their wrongdoing—
and instead of accountability,
they deny it.

Then they attack you—your tone, your reaction, your character.

And then… they reverse the roles.

Suddenly, they are the victim.
And you are the problem.

Research shows this isn’t just confusing—
it actively distorts how others perceive the situation.

The person who was harmed can start to look unstable,
emotional,
even responsible for what happened.

While the person who caused the harm
can appear calm, believable… even victimized.

It’s a powerful narrative.

One that protects the perpetrator—
and quietly erodes the credibility of the person telling the truth.

And when you’re inside it,
it can make leaving feel almost impossible.

DARVO is not just a communication tactic.

It is a power-preserving maneuver inside a larger control system.

Emotional abuse often includes:

Gaslighting
Blame shifting
Withholding
Intermittent reinforcement
Isolation
Image management

DARVO is the enforcement tool.

Every time the victim tries to assert reality or a boundary, DARVO punishes the attempt.

Over time, this creates:

Learned helplessness
Self-doubt
Guilt for speaking up
Fear of confrontation
Nervous system dysregulation

The partner stops raising concerns—not because the issue is resolved, but because the cost is too high.

That’s coercive control.

This series is a lived case study of DARVO after discovery and boundary-setting.

Framework informed by Freyd & Harsey (2020) and the work of Dr. Ramani.

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It isn’t just lying.

And it definitely is not you being “too sensitive.”

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation and emotional abuse.

It’s when someone repeatedly denies, distorts, or contradicts your perceptions, memories, or lived experiences — until you start doubting your own reality and sense of self. Over time, it erodes confidence and can create dependence on the abuser.

It doesn’t happen all at once.

It happens slowly.

In small moments.

In explanations that don’t quite fit.

In reassurances that leave you more confused than comforted.

You may start double-checking your memory.

Over-explaining what you felt.

Questioning things you once knew with certainty.

And eventually, clarity can feel unsafe —

while confusion feels normal.

That confusion is not a flaw.

It’s not a lack of intelligence.

It’s not because you “missed something obvious.”

It’s a predictable response to sustained psychological and emotional manipulation.

The “How I Found Out” series wasn’t just about how I found out my ex was having an affair.

It was about pulling people into the pattern — the confusion, the emotional fog — to show why it’s so hard to see when you’re inside it, and to help people recognize it sooner.

How I Found Out Series

Two examples of gaslighting from my How I Found Out Series:

The Restaurant

Then he was at a restaurant when he said he was going elsewhere. I texted him asking what he was doing there. He replied saying. “I was checking out deals for date night”. But I noticed that he was there for quite some time. I thought, how long did it take to check out deals. So I asked him. He replied by insisting he had just popped in and out. “Ok” - I thought, maybe I was wrong about how long he was there for.

The Kleenex

I was cleaning the bedroom, when I got to the trash can in the corner by his side of the bed. There were all these Kleenexes in them. But neither of us had been sick. Then I remembered the feeling of things being moved in my home from months prior. The Kleenex box had been one of the items. So, I called him. And with panic in my voice, I asked him, are you cheating on me. He said no. I told him about the Kleenex. He said they were his. I said I’ve never seen that in the trash before. He told me that’s weird cause it has been there before. And then I felt completely off balance, emotionally, mentally, physically. Then, I said exactly what I had been feeling for a while. I must be going crazy. And he didn’t deny me or affirm me. He just soothed me. And then I looked down and remembered how pregnant I was, I said, wow, I must be really hormonal.

Lying vs. Gaslighting: The difference is important1

Gaslighting: Impacts & Strategies2

If any part of this felt familiar, you’re not alone — and support exists.

If you’re experiencing emotional abuse, coercive control, or domestic violence, you deserve help and safety.

🇨🇦 Canada:

Visit https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/health-promotion/stop-family-violence/services.html for resources and crisis lines in your province or territory.

You can also download the iHEAL app.

🇺🇸 United States:

National Domestic Violence Hotline — 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or chat at thehotline.org

🌍 Elsewhere:

Local crisis lines or women’s support services can help connect you to resources in your area.

You’re not imagining it.

And you’re not weak for needing support. 💛

#gaslighting #emotionalabuse #domesticabuseawareness

I found out two weeks before giving birth that my husband was having an affair. However, there were clues along the way and a trickle truth that led to the full discovery. This article is not only about how I found out. It is also about what led me to think something illicit was happening. It includes the dirty details and the messy truth. But most importantly why I didn’t clue in sooner.

To anyone that has gone through the fire or who is currently going through the fire, I hope this sheds light onto what we can’t always name but feel so deeply.

The Hair

I found a hair. On my kitchen floor, laying almost in a way where it felt placed. The colour was a dead set off - it definitely wasn’t mine. I looked over at my husband and asked who’s hair it was. As soon as the words had left my mouth, I could feel the mood in the room change. He was irritated, like I was ruining some unnamed vibe or like I was trying to pick a fight with him. I felt nervous and then he barely looked over at me while flatly saying, “it must be one of your friends”. And I thought, ugh, I should never have asked. And then on top of that I felt bad because I do have friends with that colour hair. They hadn’t been over at my place for a bit, but it could still be theirs. Right?..

The Restaurant

Then he was at a restaurant when he said he was going elsewhere. I texted him asking what he was doing there. He replied saying. “I was checking out deals for date night”. But I noticed that he was there for quite some time. I thought, how long did it take to check out deals. So I asked him. He replied by insisting he had just popped in and out. “Ok” - I thought, maybe I was wrong about how long he was there for.

The Sheets

It was a random weekday and I was at work. I was in between seeing clients so I was texting my husband how his day was going. He replied being all cute and kind. Adding that he washed the bedsheets for us. I was elated. He very seldom did the laundry, let along the sheets. Then I said it out loud. And that’s when my brain went there - what had he actually done - for a quiet moment. The words were hanging in the air, soiling the space. But I breathed it in, pushing the dirty oxygen deep within. I had been really busy, maybe he was just doing something very nice.

The Scratches

We were hanging out together one evening when I noticed thin red marks on the backside of his rib cage. Scratches. I thought, who did that. Could it have been… and I had a moment of internal panic. Do I confront or not? I decided to ask him where he got them. He said from the sport scrimmage he had played in. I thought, that’s weird, he doesn’t play a position that would cause that. So I probed some more. He told me he played a different position that day. So I dropped it, even though it felt off. My nervous system was on fire. I was entering my second trimester of pregnancy and didn’t want to start a fight that would just end up making me feeling bad or crazy afterwards. And really, it could have just been sports injury, right?..

The Condo

I was in my second trimester when I came home to my condo one night. My husband hadn’t come home from work yet. But something felt off. Things were moved. And that feeling that someone had been in my home. Invisible footprints lurking in places they shouldn’t be. I thought, I should buy a nanny cam. Something is going on. Then I thought, how would I react if I saw. How would it affect me and my tiny baby to be. Did I really want to know? Could I handle it. How would he react if he found it and how would his reaction make me feel - could it be dangerous. And then I thought, maybe I’m just hormonal or something.

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The Sun Visor

My husband and I were going to do some shopping together. As I got into the passenger seat of his car I noticed that the sun visor had been left down. I looked at him and asked who he gave a lift to - out of curiosity more than anything. He said no one. I then felt that same nagging feeling I had in the past. Something was off and I cant name it, it just felt so foggy. But I went on to ask him why the visor was down. He said that the mechanics must have left it down. I then responded - do mechanics go into the passenger seats of cars. He told me they must have. Then I thought, when did he go to the mechanic? Racking my brain I remembered he had gone for something small a few days prior. I guess it kind of makes sense, right?..

The Spa

I was seven months pregnant and we had just bought and moved into a house in the suburbs. I had a fairly mentally and physically demanding job on top of loading up boxes from the old home and unpacking and organizing the new one. I was tired and achy. So when my husband said he was planning on going to the spa I asked him if I could join. He looked taken a back and uncomfortable. And then I felt bad for asking. Was I imposing myself. And then I just felt weird and almost out of nowhere, I asked, are you going with someone else? He looked at me and said no, I just want to go alone. I told him that I really wanted to relax too, it would be nice if we could go together. Then he told me I should book my own session on a different day. I gave him a funny look and he said, don’t worry, i just want some alone time. Then I said, ok if that’s what you need, go enjoy it and I’ll go another day by myself. Then I thought, maybe I was just overreacting a bit.

The Sushi

I was a few weeks away from taking my maternity leave, so I was slowly passing clients on to other therapists, which meant my schedule was thinning out. I had a couple hours to kill so I texted my husband to see if he had any lunch plans as I was debating sneaking home for some food. He was done work for the day but told me he was going to get some sushi. I told him enjoy for me - as I couldn’t have raw fish - and that I would go get a smoothie. We kept texting and he told me he decided to eat at the sushi restaurant. I thought that was strange, he didn’t eat out alone. And then my nervous system began to light up. I asked him if he was on some secret date. He said he just thought it would be a nice change up to dine in. Then I had a brief thought, I should just drive to this restaurant and see for myself. But, I took a beat and instead I asked him to send me a photo of his sushi. Which he did. It was blurry photo, a small part of the table and a plate of sushi saying, see I’m all alone. I said ok, but I felt confused like something was just super off but it was just too foggy to discern.

The Kleenex

I was cleaning the bedroom, when I got to the trash can in the corner by his side of the bed. There were all these Kleenexes in them. But neither of us had been sick. Then I remembered the feeling of things being moved in my home from months prior. The Kleenex box had been one of the items. So, I called him. And with panic in my voice, I asked him, are you cheating on me. He said no. I told him about the Kleenex. He said they were his. I said I’ve never seen that in the trash before. He told me that’s weird cause it has been there before. And then I felt completely off balance, emotionally, mentally, physically. Then, I said exactly what I had been feeling for a while. I must be going crazy. And he didn’t deny me or affirm me. He just soothed me. And then I looked down and remembered how pregnant I was, I said, wow, I must be really hormonal.

Finale Part One: The Photos

It was my first day of maternity leave when I found the photos. Scandalous and explicit. A wave of fear mixed with nausea settled in the pit of my stomach. I started shaking as I called my husband. He rushed home to try and smooth things over. Told me nothing was going on. He had deleted the photos anyways. But I knew what I saw. And in my gut, and in my mind - however foggy, knew deep down something wasn’t right. But I want to be clear here. The past episodes happened over the course of under a year. And there were multiple other instances in this same time span I didn’t share. But It took me months of work after everything took place to remember them clearly, to piece it together, and to understand them for what they were. So in that moment, I really didn’t know what was happening. All I knew was that the feeling was there, my nervous system was lighting up in all the wrong ways. So, I finally asked him to see his phone. And that’s when I read the explicit messages, the nicknames, calling each other girlfriend and boyfriend. And yet still the truth didn’t come out. He minimized it. Said they were just friends. But then tiny fractions of the truth would spill out each day, until my nervous system really just couldn’t handle it anymore. And that’s when I found the very long thread of messages between my ex-husband and his AP. Three weeks after I found the photos.

Finale Part Two: The Thread

I found out they had been together on and off for over a year and that there were overlapping affairs with other women. And then the thread itself. The thread had an extraordinary amount of detail about the ongoings of their affair. Explicit explanations of what they wanted to do in my home, how they could send their spouses out of the house so they could meet up, how they would become super stepparents, how they were soulmates and just so so so much more. But when I demanded answers from him. He said the thread was just words on a page. He didn’t even know what he was writing. That he couldn’t stop writing to her and he didn’t even mean what he was saying. But, I do want to reiterate here that it took me months of work after discovering the thread to clarify all the little moments that led up to this point. Everything was just so foggy, it was as if I didn’t have full control of my cognitive processing. Like my limbic system had been hijacked. So when I finally pieced it all together, after months of healing, months after discovering the thread, I saw that I was being chronically gaslit to the point of doubting my own reality. And that’s what was still happening here. The thread I had read with my own two eyes now blurred in my mind. My reality was crumbling literally and psychologically. And that is what this series was designed to share: to demonstrate what gaslighting feels like from the inside out. To give language to an experience that so many people struggle to explain. And to help others recognize it sooner than I could.

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