Have you ever been a victim of gaslighting? What happened?

The boyfriend with the sharp tongue is now my husband and still snarky. I am regularly on the receiving end and handle it like a champ. Every once in a while, he hits a nerve and I tell him, “That’s kind of mean.” I get a sincere apology and he stays clear of that topic. But that took a couple decades of building trust.

The problems started during freshman year. I was in honors classes, earning straight As. I had also started working in the kitchen of a local restaurant, which meant not only did I have plenty of spending money, but I wasn’t sitting around eating junk food anymore. I began to lose weight and what acne I didn’t clear up was covered by makeup. Suddenly, I was a petite, cute smart girl standing next to totally average Lizzie and Jennifer.

Then they would make plans together or with other people and specifically exclude me. When I was hurt by it, they would play it off as no big deal. It was “spontaneous” and why was I so “needy” that they had to include me in everything they did?

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How It Ended

Was it that I had no other options? No, my honors classmates would welcome me anytime. And my new boyfriend was loads more fun.

Did I like them? No, not really.

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Looking back as an adult, I suspect my appeal to them - not rejects, but never part of the in crowd - was that I was a nobody with bad skin and 40 extra pounds. They felt like pageant queens next to me.

First it was mean comments about me. I wore ugly clothes, said something stupid, was horribly uncool. I’d tell them that was a jerky thing to say, and they’d both act like I had way overracted. It was a joke. This was just how friends talk to each other; I wouldn’t know that because I never had friends before - and my whiny attitude might be why.

I don’t know if that’s humility or my own psychological scars.

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Did I get anything from hanging around them? No, not really.

Now my kids are around that age. I try to be supportive and share some wisdom. Hopefully their adolescence will be less painful than mine.

Freshman year of high school I fell in with two girls, let’s call them Lizzie and Jennifer. I was very shy and introverted. Before high school most of my time was spent alone, and mostly I liked it that way. But the high school environment heavily discourages this. “Loners” are weirdos. So when these two girls welcomed me into their group, I accepted.

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It took over a decade for me to stop assuming I needed to just get over it when someone treated me badly. During that time I had some unpleasant and some downright scary incidents, mostly during the college years, where I didn’t speak up because I thought others’ unacceptable behavior was something I was unable to recognize as normal.

He liked that I was smart. He thought I was interesting and funny. He told Jennifer off for saying something mean about me. He responded to Lizzie’s “jokes” with his own - and unfortunately for her, he had a much more biting wit. He kept asking me, “Why are you friends with those girls? They’re really bitchy.”

The Aftermath

If women see themselves as free, dignified, human beings just as good as men, can Trump hang it up and just lose in a landslide at last? How can men who like and respect women help improve womens' self-esteem?

The major turning point was the summer before senior year. That was when Lizzie got her first boyfriend, making Jennifer seethe with jealousy. In the middle of their power struggle, I was set up with a friend of Lizzie’s boyfriend. And while he really liked me, he was much less impressed by Lizzie and Jennifer.

If I showed up feeling like I really pulled together a cute outfit or got my hair just right - and OMG that cute boy is checking me out! - they would exchange a look and pityingly inform me I shouldn’t be trusted to pick out my own style. He was looking because I look kind of ridiculous and slutty, like I’m desperate for attention. But why was I upset? They were just trying to help me - because that’s what friends do. Why was I always so sensitive?

At one point Lizzie actually did apologize to me. Not a great one, but what can you expect from a teenage mean girl? (If Regina George was less popular and less hot, I would swear the character was based on Lizzie.) I managed to say, “Thanks,” and ended the conversation. It was much too fresh for me to even consider rekindling any kind of relationship with her. Have only seen her once or twice in the last 20 years despite living less than 10 miles apart.

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Eventually, I just stopped standing up for myself. Basically, anyone could say any horrible thing to me, and if it upset me, I assumed this was yet another example of me, the drama queen, thinking everything is about me and my feelings. I was too sensitive and self-centered to tell the difference between friendly ribbing and meanness.

And I began asking myself, why was I friends with bitches?

Through sophomore and junior years, because I spent so much time in honors classes and they didn’t, I got to spend quite a bit of time with another group. And they didn’t seem to make mean jokes about their friends like Lizzie did. They didn’t lie to their friends and talk about them behind their backs like Jennifer. I felt good about myself when I was with them. I started to lose patience with Lizzie and Jennifer.

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So I spent more and more time with those other people. Eventually Lizzie and Jennifer were just people I knew casually. We only hung out when we happened to be at the same place at the same time.

But I have to wonder, what do I really know about anything?

I haven’t seen Jennifer since the summer after graduation.

Why does my dog keep licking at her privates now? She is 7 years old and has barely started licking there. The vet said she’s fine but she keeps doing that.

What It Looked Like