It was about ten years later when I heard about the movie Gaslight and what it was about, that I could describe the process. Gaslighting is convincing someone they are insane by mental and emotional manipulation. I was never convinced I was insane, the most accurate term was "railroaded." The definition is "sending someone to prison without a fair trial or by means of false evidence." Since I wasn't even close to being considered a criminal, the only real means to attack me was to have me labeled insane, because I smoke pot and drink.
The attack on me was actually a combination of the two terms, being gaslighted and railroaded together. My family, openly hostile to me, would just like me sent to prison to make themselves feel like better people. Their righteousness, a comparison of the quality of my life. However, being psychopaths and mentally deficient, they convinced themselves I was insane. Any attempt to argue with them was a symptom of my denial of reality, that I was insane. Which warranted getting the police involved. There was no point trying to convince my family or the police otherwise, so I figured I would just go to war on the idea.
It started with my friends and immediate family. Not aware of my full past, they identified one moment, my psych hold at Cottage Hospital as the apogee of my youth. They assumed I cracked under stress. My friends began behaving towards me as if I were a strange, distant loner. My family, became overly concerned that I might commit suicide or start mutilating myself. All of this I found infuriating.
For these two sets of people, their method of gaslighting was due to ignorance about me. Instead of them convincing me I was insane, they were making me mad. All I needed to avoid was lashing out, because at this point, if I did anything stupid, it would further their belief in my insanity. My method of dealing with this was to escape. Hanging out with Jeff because he seemed the voice of reason, going to AA with over a decade clean and sober.
Jeff is an extreme example of a gaslighter. Thinking everyone on this planet is an alcoholic or addict in some form, needing help. I don't know if it's trauma because his mother committed suicide, he was a crack dealer or he is just inherently a bad person. I think all three. I was using him for his possible mafia ties. He looked, acted and pretended as if he was in the mafia, so I would take him at his word. After all, he didn't work and played video games and watched movies all day. I figured this was a reprieve from the stress of my friends and family. He looked like a 6'6" Billy Idol. He had the same hairstyle, except he dressed like a mobster.
He would behave aggressively, showing me his guns at opportune moments to either invoke fear or intrigue, like I had never seen a gun before. He would also communicate with his body language. Crossing his legs when I would say something that was pissing him off. "You are making me cross." One time we were eating at Carmine's. I am talking about the state government and I refer to them as "they." He bangs his glass on the table in objection. I understood this to mean that "they" is not the government, "we" are the government. I genuinely believe whether or not he was, he believed he was in the mafia, it being some sort of super mafia of elite citizens. He may be sort of correct in this idea, if instead of conducting assassinations, the new method of hitting people is by gaslighting them.
Tension was building between me and Jeff. I wanted something mafia related from him, and would use his methods of communicating back at him. Finally one night, he had enough and he and his sponsor dropped me off at Huntington Hospital.
Las Encinas was fun though. The whole time, because of the damage Jeff instilled in my mind, I would watch people looking for their body language. If I was talking to someone, and they crossed their legs, which leg did they cross? If it was the leg nearest me, they might be cross at me. Were other people aware of their body language? Or were they still communicating, but unconsciously. I was fucked up on this for years. I also started reinterpreting language. If someone was talking about "beer," it meant they wanted to "be here." I formed a system for assigning meaning to numbers. I was thinking about how Chris shot 8 people and Aaron said he slit 8 people's throats. So you're a 10, and if I don't like you, you are a 9, and if it's a hit, you're an 8. I thought far too much about this stuff during my time at Las Encinas, and it would bother me for over a decade until it slowly dissipated.
