It's been a while since I talked about my trauma, so there's probably a lot of you who don't know any of this. In college, I was in an abusive relationship with someone we will call Dave. Dave gaslighted me for two years and ended up taking away most of my sense of self and even

some of my sense of right and wrong. He raped me once, and it took me a few years after our relationship ended for me to even admit to myself that it wasn't my fault. Now I have known for a LONG time that rape is never the victim's fault, but he was able to make me believe that

I should have been able to prevent it. Dave is a frustratingly likable guy who is helpful and kind and outwardly thoughtful of other people. Abuse doesn't start with someone being terrible to you. It starts when you realize they don't take your feelings into account. When their

problems are more important than your problems. When they push boundaries and then tell you that you never set them. When they set boundaries, cross them blatantly, and blame you for not stopping them. Abusers become most desperate when they see that their victim is becoming

independent. They'll do anything to make that last pull on your heart strings, play to your emotions, and make you feel just enough guilt to suck you back in. It's always worked before. They just have to lay it on harder this time and you'll crawl right back to them. This last

ditch effort for me was 10 months into a happy relationship with the person who is now my wife. About a week after I started dating Lily (who was going by her deadname at the time), Dave announced he was coming to my home town to take me to dinner. So the weird thing about me and

Dave is that we never actually officially dated. We slept together, had a very complicated relationship, but were never boyfriend and girlfriend. I had only told a couple people that I was dating someone at this time, so Dave didn't know yet when he announced that he was coming

to pick me up. He took me to dinner at a mid-tier Italian restaurant in the area (we don't have many options in my tiny town) and we were talking and having a decent time. I mentioned my boyfriend (remember, deadname) at some point and I saw the visible disappointment in his face

when he realized he had lost me. He became unconsolably mopey the rest of the evening, took me back to my parents' house where I was living at the time, and left. We remained friends for a while, texting fairly frequently. At some point he told me he had fallen for me and wanted

me to know. He tried to guilt trip me for not waiting for him until he was ready for a relationship, when he had told me on multiple occasions that he would never date me. I told him off for lying and guilt tripping me and he again moped for a while. His bitch wasn't his bitch

anymore. I wasn't putting up with being told my experiences didn't matter or didn't happen. Ten months into my relationship with Lily, we were happy, had begun talking about marriage, no major issues, and I get a text from Dave saying that the night he took me to that restaurant,

he had been planning to propose to me. Remember, we never dated. He announced out of the blue that he was coming to town and ten months later he says he was planning to propose to me that night...in the middle of a crowded, loud, mediocre Italian restaurant. It was clearly

bullshit, and it was the last straw for me. I could see the last ditch manipulation tactics coming into play. He was desperate to go back to the time when I would defend his worst actions and take his side over anyone. The time when I would do whatever he said and always accept

that I was in the wrong if I was upset. The time when he could literally rape me and make me believe it was my fault. I haven't talked to him since, and he has tried multiple times, including on my wedding night. Gaslighting is incredibly damaging and a very subtle art of abuse.

It's tricky. Most people don't realize it's being done to them at first. Most people wouldn't be able to pick out the small ways that abusers push boundaries and negate concerns and make you doubt yourself. Those who have lived through this kind of abuse see it immediately

because it literally triggers our trauma. To this day, 8 years into my happy, healthy relationship with my wife, if I see someone gaslighting someone else, my fight-or-flight response is activated. My heart races and my breathing quickens. Because I know what it feels like. I

know what it looks like. So when I see two sides of a story, and one has receipts that clearly show gaslighting behavior from one party, I have to call it out. Not every situation is black and white, but gaslighting is terrible, and I can recognize it anywhere. It's important

to believe victims, even those who aren't the victim in a particular situation, because we know what it looks like. We can NEVER forget exactly what it looks like.