Let’s talk about experiencing gaslighting when you regularly experience brain fog or cognitive deficits as part of your disability. I think this makes us particularly susceptible to gaslighting and that then it’s particularly hard to recover from or navigate after.

I’m in a fog most of the time. When I have to encounter someone else purposely or incidental rewriting my reality, it is really hard to untangle and regain my footing.

It’s partly because I experienced it while I was confused and partly because I have to process it after in moments where I’m deeply brain fogged and it’s extremely distressing trying to make sense of nonsense or untruths. I also struggle to trust myself when brain fogged.

I had an experience recently where someone deliberately lied to me for months and I sensed something was off but told myself I was unsettled or overreacting when they kept reassuring me it wasn’t.

Then they told me that something we had had multiple conversations about hadn’t happened. And trying to untangle that was really hard (I found written proof of the conversations, I was not the one who was wrong).

But the gaslighting caused me such deep distress. In part, because people gaslighting me by saying I’m making up my disability or symptoms is a deeply traumatic thing for me since it has been a tactic in how people have abused me.

I think this person wasn’t doing this to deliberately harm but gaslighting a disabled person with intermittent cognitive issues and brain fog actually causes far more harm than gaslighting a non-disabled person. Because we don’t have the resources or confidence to navigate it.

Also. We don’t believe others will believe us if that person tries to challenge the story because of our disability. So we end up looking for concrete proof in case we need to defend ourselves or prove something. Which is just a horrific feeling.