I spent a lot of yesterday trying to piece together a “meeting of the minds” between Jennifer Monroe and Travis Miller. Travis was one of the guys who left her for dead on the side of road in Missoula, Montana. Three years later, she returns to Missoula to confront her past tormentor:
I want to know if this is a good example of “gas-lighting”:
“It Can Only Go Up From Here”
Chapter 8 “Not Just a Girl” (snippet)
There were piles of old parts, covered in snow and scattered on the sides of the building
The sign read “Miller Small Engine Repair”
I took a look back to my car and then a deep breath before I opened the front door.
The inside was just as crowded with old and new machines littering the floor. I looked around the room and again wondered why I was there. He was not going to say he turned over a new leaf and accept me; nor was I going to feel any remorse for whatever hell he had been through since that night.
“I’ll be right with you!” A voice called from the back and I recognized immediately. You tend to remember the voice of someone who’s bashing your body with a metal bat.
A hand whipped back a curtain to reveal a tall, bearded man in a wheelchair.
“How can I help you, miss?”
I tried not to stare at him too intently but, apparently, he remembered me too.
“"Holy shit! It's you!"
"Hello, Travis."
"What do you want? Come to gloat?"
"Why?"
"Because of how I look.”
“I don’t really care. To be honest, I don’t know why I’m even here.”
“That makes two of us,” he replied as he sat back in his wheelchair and crossed his arms.
“A part of me wants to hit you a couple of times.”
“Go ahead, let’s see how that works out for you. The second you do, I’ll be on the phone to report a hate crime against the disabled.”
“Oh, that is rich, wow,” I replied with a scoff.
“What, you think you’re victim here?” Travis asked as he wheeled down the length of the counter. “Everything that’s happened was your fault. I’m in this wheelchair and Mike’s dead because of you.”
I would like to say I was putting up a strong front, but I think he could see that I was kind of afraid of him. The visions of being dragged to the side of the road were racing through my brain. I took a step to the right and then stared at him.
“What?”
“How the mighty have fallen.”
“I really thought you had died. It felt so much better thinking that. One less freak in the world.”
Comments
"A hand whipped back a
"A hand whipped back a curtain to reveal a tall, bearded man in a wheelchair."
Might remove "tall" a man in a wheelchair isn't going to be tall.
Not sure Travis is gaslighting other than trying to intimidate her and belittle her. Although not necessary, the term gaslighting usually has gone on for a while to make the other person believe what they originally thought wasn't really right.
"You're a freak, a stupid bitch, and you should have died that night." Wouldn't be gaslighting. Derogatory name calling for sure. But would it affect what she thought of herself?
Definiton of gaslighting as pertaining to people instead of events.
In relationships, an abusive person may use gaslighting to isolate their partner, undermine their confidence, and make them easier to control. For example, they might tell someone they are irrational until the person starts to think it must be true.
Hugs Aylesea
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Gas lighting
Gas-lighting is usually someone trying to make you doubt something you believe to be true with false memories. I didn't see that happening here.
Gaslighting
Gaslighting is a colloquialism, loosely defined as manipulating someone so as to make them question their own reality.[1][2] The term derives from the title of the 1944 American film Gaslight, though the term did not gain popular currency in English until the mid-2010s.[3]
The term may also be used to describe a person (a "gaslighter") who presents a false narrative to another group or person, thereby leading them to doubt their perceptions and become misled, disoriented or distressed. Oftentimes this is for the gaslighter's own benefit. Normally[vague], this dynamic is possible only when the audience is vulnerable, such as in unequal power relationships, or fearful of the losses associated with challenging the false narrative
hugs :)
Michelle SidheElf Amaianna
Word of the year
It’s the word of the year.
hugs :)
Michelle SidheElf Amaianna