06-09-25 Gaslighting 101
I was texting with a friend who is still on the FPPAS board, although he has stepped down as president and jokingly said I’m still on for Friday night right lol. His reply stunned me. Had Ward not told me that he had asked someone else to emcee?
I was incredibly shocked to say the least, as I was asked by the past present, who was the organizer to please stick with the organization long enough to be the MC.
I admit it hit me in all the feels; first anger which then quickly turned to complete disappointment, and then incredible sadness ramping quickly into depression.
The last stage was especially brought on when I received a terse not apologetic email from the acting president just stating the facts that indeed someone else was going to be the MC.
I talked to the powerful kind women that work around me who all agreed that I should reply with a skin peeling email, however what I couldn’t clearly communicate is the buttons that a situation like this pushes and my feeling that should I try to respond in a reactive way it would only get worse.
I replied to the email that I did find the disrespect untenable and that I had never done anything to hurt him.
This was his reply
I responded immediately with the simple directions to remove my credit card from the society, Google suite, including full directions how to do so, and did not mention the body of the email at all.
I then sat and cried as the accusations were unfounded, but my instinct led me to question my behavior, and how it came across. Maybe I was to blame for this situation somehow.
I finally thought to call another board member who had also left (4 in all recently) and had been the secretary. I needed to run it past her if she remembered any of that behavior.
Elva made it very clear that I was being gaslit. She has recordings of all the board meetings in order to do her notes later in the evening. She said they were many heated discussions over the course of the year between other board members that didn’t even include me and never once was there more than a decibel of voices raised. She encouraged me. She told me that no one who knows me would ever believe that about me and if they do believe it, they don’t matter. It was what I needed to hear from someone who was there.
The problem is, I do see the bigger picture. He is a man who is trying to push things through in an unprofessional and not long-term thought out way, and I questioned him. I felt that is my position on a board, my responsibility, to question things and then go with the majority. As long as all the questions have been asked, all options are on the table. Good decisions can be made. Apparently, being the question asking person is a negative in little boy in a man’s body world.
Of course, having been treated this way in my life has left me susceptible to internalizing. I am writing all this tonight so that I can truly process and let go and move on. The really sad thing is that I was already missing VIMF and now I don’t have the joy of summer sounds either.
I did look up the definition of gaslighting, and I asked Siri how to respond to it
I completely resigned in every way from the organization today. That is number three and six
I have email, the receipts, if you will . Number five
I definitely did two and four
I am working hard on number one
I had made plans back in November with Deb to see a show tonight and we planned to do dinner first. I wasn’t sure I was going to be good company but now I am really glad that I went and had a good visit with her and we talked about our upcoming trip and we had a delicious dinner at the modern olive before going to see a whole New World at Key City Theatre. That was much better than sitting home in the sad.
triumphgal 