Is a Gaslighter Making Brain Noodles Inside Your Skull

Smell it quickly and please stop the cooking midway

My friend used to be in a relationship with this 33-year-old man for 3 years hoping to soon get married, live together, and have a baby. We don’t know if the dream of this future truly exists in the man’s head or not but it sure existed in my friend’s brain.

On her 28th birthday she called me and after heaving a long sigh of frustration said how his boyfriend and soon-to-be-husband did not wish her happy birthday at night. Later in the day, he called and nonchalantly said “Happy Birthday” and went by his day. When she asked her why she was not important to him, he said she was out of her mind to think that not wishing happy birthday meant she wasn’t important.

She asked me, “Is it normal to wish me so late?” She added, “On his friend’s birthday, he sent him a gift card at midnight.”

A few months later, she called me saying that he agreed to get married in 3 months! I was very happy for her, her hopes were materializing.

She went on to say that she also got him a watch and two large boxes of chocolate on his birthday. Then he thanked her for the thoughtfulness and mentioned how on her birthday, she spent the whole day fighting over his time of texting instead of enjoying the day.

She didn’t bring up that she was sad and felt unseen, and it’s not that she was fighting because she was just hostile for the sake of it. She didn’t want to bring it up and fight on his birthday too.

A month later, I asked my friend how the wedding preparations were coming along. She said “Oh! He said I overestimated the meaning of those words earlier. He meant that he would be more ready to think about marriage in 3 months.”

I asked, “Are you sure you overestimated?” She said, “I guess I did if he didn’t mean it.”

I wondered, “Now what!”. She shrugged and said, “Well we will discuss it in 2 more months, right? Meanwhile, look at this link to a 5-day Maldives trip for couples that he has sent me. We have always wanted to go to the Maldives. He said he was saving up for a trip there.”

Two more months passed. She and I meet again. This time she looks a little sleep-deprived. Clearly, she hasn’t been resting.

Last night she brought up the question of his intentions to move to the next step in the relationship but he was visibly stressed and said that his mother was seriously ill. So, she did not want to bring up their relationship at that time. Instead, she comforted him.

But this afternoon she saw his mother and him at a shopping mall, comfortably walking around. When she asked her boyfriend if his mother was doing well already he said, “Why wouldn’t she?” She immediately felt like her mind was getting clouded and there was no question she could quite ask. “I thought she was very ill and needed some treatment.”

“You always exaggerate things in your mind, baby. I just expressed concern for my mother’s health.”, he said with a surprised smirk.

I needed a ride to the airport and called my friend for help. She dropped me at the airport and right after I took my luggage out I recalled the Maldives trip she was hoping to go to. I asked about it.

She laughed out loud and said, “Oh I never told you. That trip wasn’t for us! He was asked by his colleagues to plan a work outing and he was considering the Maldives as an option. I totally misread his cues.”

I couldn’t hold my frown back and told her, “It really did sound like a trip for the two of you.” She said, “I said the same but you know how I misinterpret him all the time. haha.. Safe trip!”

I waved at her and rolled my luggage down into the departure area.

Nearly two more months passed and she and I finally made time for hanging out over coffee one afternoon. She brought up her boyfriend and a recent development on that front.

She saw a few messages between his boyfriend and a woman from a matrimony app his sister had once opened for him. She knew of this one match his family was a bit serious about. She also saw that he liked a post by her on Instagram.

I eagerly listened on.

He also removed one of the Instagram photos with me, my friend, and him on it. She noticed it. However, she did not know what to confront and certainly did not want to overestimate anything.

But some weeks later, she noticed that his sister was following the Instagram account of this woman. She decided to ask about it this time.

The conversation went as follows:

He said, “They were family friends and it’s only natural for them to follow each other.”

“But why now all of a sudden?”

He replied, “I don’t know! Ask them. Only you can ask such awkward questions about people’s choices. You are for sure making things up that’s not there.”

I sipped on my coffee and said with a straight face, “It’s like he is making you question reality.”

Two weeks later my friend found some sexually charged conversation and some pictures between this woman and him. This time she could not but confront immediately. To that, he said, “It just happened. Doesn’t it happen between you and that colleague of yours in a different form all the time? I see you throwing yourself over him and laughing with him all the time at your office events. You need to stop making a big deal out of everything I do.”

She told me, “I am turning into such a paranoid, suspicious person. Not only that, I am so controlling of him. I really need to be more cautious about my nosiness. What do I do?”

My friend looked at me with dreary eyes, clouded with profound perplexity. She was visibly tired again and unhappy with herself.

At this point, I could feel the brain noodle that was cooked inside my friend’s brain. I could smell it and I could almost see it through the skull. What I heard from her was only a small portion of the Gaslighting — it’s a form of emotional abuse where a person is made to question his/her reality and perception of things.

Many abusive relationships are founded on various gaslighting behaviors. It fills a person up with confusion, damages their self-esteem, and triggers depression. In other words, takes the brain neurons and stirs them up in a massively entangled noodle.

If you smell it, feel it, or see it, write your absolute realities on a white piece of paper with dark ink on it and stick to the truth when anyone wants to question it. Put a hard break on this unacceptable exercise and run as far as you can.

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