America Gaslit
I remember that shiny Christmas Day so well eleven years ago in December 2009. I had been living what I thought was every young American woman and wife’s dream, when it suddenly came crashing down around me. I had married my college sweetheart, the only and beloved nephew of singer-songwriter Neil Diamond. We had just had our second baby. My small family was now complete and I thought our future bright. I believed my husband’s troubles -- his chronic lying and debting -- were finally behind us.
After opening presents by the shimmering Christmas tree with our two young children that morning in what appeared to be an idyllic scene, a sinking feeling that all was going just too well, led me to confront my husband and ask if he was lying again. Cornered in the kitchen, he reluctantly admitted that yes, he had begun lying and debting again for several months. These destructive, addictive behaviors, which unbeknownst to me had started just after our marriage in 2000, perhaps had always been happening, had brought us to the brink of divorce two years before after the birth of our first son. Now, just after the arrival of our second baby boy, came the excruciating repeat of history.
Fueled by a flash of my Irish temper, I took the dish that I had been drying in my two hands and threw it like a baseball across the room. It shattered in the kitchen sink. In an instant, our nine-year marriage and 20-year relationship was over.
For those who have not experienced the phenomenon of “gas-lighting” in a close, personal relationship, it is defined as “manipulating someone by psychological means to question their own sanity.” It usually includes chronic lying and deceit, which leads the person being deceived to ask questions when things don’t add up or make sense. These questions are usually avoided with put-downs, insults, or personal attacks leveled at the asker. The tables are continuously turned. This leaves the victim feeling as if they are the one with the problem. Sound familiar?
Like many Americans last fall, nearing the end of an unprecedented, pandemic year, and looking for momentary respite from the calamity that had become our political system, I turned to streaming “The Crown” Season 4 on Netflix. The much-anticipated season debuted on November 15th just after our dramatic, nail-biting Presidential Election. Binge watching the new episodes over one week reminded me of the events surrounding Princess Diana’s doomed marriage, similarly built on a foundation of dishonesty. The perpetrator protected by a thick layer of celebrity, and in her case: royalty.
It was hard to watch the arguments and the temper tantrums directed at Diana (uncannily portrayed by newcomer Emma Corrin) by her husband Charles, the Prince of Wales (played masterfully by Josh O’Connor). Most difficult to view was the gaslighting, and the use of Diana’s tragic bulimia as a weapon against her to injure her further -- to strategically make her believe she was mentally unstable. It’s no wonder that the Duchess of Cornwall (nee Camilla Parker Bowles) and the Prince of Wales received a backlash on social media about their alleged actions throughout the 1980s & ‘90s -- for the sheer cruelty of it all.
Netflix didn’t have to agree to put a disclaimer on the 4th season of the historical drama, “The Crown,” to remind us that the episodes are based on “real” events. For those of us old enough to remember, the fictional scenes ring true to actual events, and the rich story themes the series’ creator and writer Peter Morgan was and is mining carry even more weight as universal truths about our own human frailties.
Which brings me to my beloved country: America. We were all gas lit again and again countless times over the past four painful years since the fall of 2016 by Donald Trump. He took on the persona of the American President like taking on a role for his reality series “The Apprentice.” But rather than lead a nation, he used and abused the highest office in our land for his own and his family’s personal gain. Over the years, we watched as people bravely attempted to challenge him. In response, he questioned their abilities and attacked their basic faculties. He did this to senate and congressional leaders, to state governors, to a revolving door of cabinet members and advisors, not to mention a beloved Supreme Court Justice. Because of course, a narcissist cannot be the perpetrator of any wrongdoing. Let’s remember, Narcissus of Greek mythology fell in love with his own image reflected in the pool of water.
Americans have been chronically lied to and deceived over years. The foundation of our democracy, our core values and ideals, were questioned and undermined. It’s going to take more than one year in 2021 for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to heal these deep, collective wounds of ours. But at least now, there is hope for our healing.
After that Christmas so many years ago, in the New Year 2010, I took my newborn baby boy wrapped in a blanket in one arm, and his kinetic, three-year-old brother by the hand, and moved into my own house. Lauded Poet Laureate Maya Angelou said that every woman should always have enough money in the bank to move out. I agreed with her. So I took funds from my hard-earned savings account and I moved, just two blocks. But it was into my own house with my tiny boys and just my name on the rental agreement. In that small green house with the dew-covered garden in the back, I healed. I meticulously filled up the cracks that had been eroded away over years, like a bricklayer does, rebuilding and retrofitting an old wall that had once looked like it might give way.
It took a full year of restoring my self-esteem -- somehow comforted by the monotony of the repetitive tasks (the feedings and the diaper changes) required when taking care of small children -- to heal myself. I no longer questioned whether the sky was up and the sidewalk down. I no longer thought of myself as “overly sensitive” or “unstable” as my former husband, sadly enabled by his parents and extended Diamond family, had led me to believe by repeating those words as accusations over and over again. Relying on my core strength, I had questioned them, their lies, their deceit, their collusion to cover up their son’s lies and deceptions. And I had somehow by sheer force of will to survive come out on the other side, alive.
In the end, it has taken me a decade to extricate myself from an emotionally abusive relationship and marriage. And, it has taken ten years to heal the damage caused over the previous twenty years.
The Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle (also a somewhat rebellious, former “Valley Girl” from middle class roots, who also married into a family that operates like a kingdom, rather than an equal, democratic family…) reminded us over the holidays so eloquently in her essay “The Losses We Share” about her struggles with a recent miscarriage, as well as in her recent interview with Oprah Winfrey for CBS: we need to reach out and support one another. Put simply: we are going to need to ask each other as Americans for several years to come in our recovery and in our healing: “Are you OK? Are WE OK?”
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