How Gaslighting Is Abuse That Stays with You Like a Terrifying Hurricane

January 8, 2016 / Tatyana Brown

(Content Warning: Abuse)

“It’s not so bad.”

Have you ever experienced gaslighting? It’s an abuse tactic that makes you doubt your own memory and perceptions.

In this chilling performance from the 2015 National Poetry Slam, Tatyana Brown captures how the impact of gaslighting can stick with you for a long time.

With lines like “You find yourself apologizing to a voice no one else can hear,” her heartbeaking words compare holding the trauma of gaslighting to living in an apartment flooded by a hurricane – while someone tells you “there is no storm.”

Nobody should have to live this way – and if you’ve suffered through this, we hope this reminds you that you’re not alone.

With Love,
The Editors at Everyday Feminism

Click for the Transcript

Taking its name from the 1944 film The Gaslight,

gas-lighting is a form of mental abuse in which false information

is continuously presented to a survivor in order to make them doubt their memory, perception, and sanity

You know you’ve really got it bad when decades later,

shadows in your apartment flicker after the sky is baptized in lightning,

and you hear his voice instead of thunder telling you, “There is no storm”

You don’t need to close the windows

That is not water pouring in sheets onto the rooftops,

flooding your bedroom until the mattress weeps under your weight

It’s just an accident

Probably you did it, little girl

Why are you making such a scene?

It’s a quiet night, a leaky bathtub upstairs,

there is nothing to protect yourself or anyone else from, darling

Everyone is happy

Maybe you should try it

Are you trying hard enough to have some better, more attractive feelings?

Show me your winner’s smile

No, not like that, all bare teeth

Close your mouth, and pull until it stings

Who’s going to love that gap, yeah?

Who do you think you’re fooling with all this sky is falling bullshit?

Nobody cares

It’s a party, and the sad girl in the darkened room stays sad her whole life

Her bottomless sorrow transforms all of the beautiful people into monsters,

or else just makes them leave

She only has herself to blame

It goes on like this for hours

Even though you know it’s raining, it’s a hurricane

The walls are peeling from their studs

The floor is floating in the flood

You live on a raft now, tearing itself apart as it is being sucked out to see

You find yourself apologizing to a voice no one else can hear

I’m sorry for this act of God we’re living through

Sorry about this flesh wound I keep walking around with, staining all your furniture

I’m sorry I can’t seem to start crying

You know, I guess somebody died, and it’s stupid

I realize, but not over it

I guess maybe something happened that gutted me

like a carp you hack apart to catch worthier fish

I guess I haven’t slept in months because silly me,

the roof tore off,

and I have swallowed so much rain lying on my back

Taking it

I’m sorry

You probably don’t mean to hear this messy grief girl who can’t keep her mouth shut

It’s just the way it always is, yeah? My fault.

You know it’s bad when you can’t actually remember what he sounds like

The only version of his voice is rooms away, roaring between the book shelves

as he pulls them crashing to the floor,

and you wonder how it is that he still lives here

How every creak and rumble in your new apartment belongs to him somehow

How you keep waking up feeling guilty for being lazy and such a mess, even at 7 AM

Your books still in their boxes, you realize, it isn’t him you’re hearing,

but the muscle memory of what he made you feel

It’s not so bad. It’s not so bad. You’ve got to get up, and get over it

Are you sure you even remember it right?

It’s your hand on the light switch now, flickering, and cursing your eyes for their perfect sight

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Tatyana Brown is a poet, performer, and educator. She is the founding Captain of The Lit Slam, a San Francisco-based, live-audience-curated literary journal–the only show/publication of its kind in existence–and she ranked 4th in the world of competitive performance poetry at the 2011 Individual World Poetry Slam. Check out more of her work on her website.

Video courtesy of Button Poetry. For more amazing spoken word performances, check them out on YouTube and Facebook.