Photo by Norbert Buduczki on Unsplash
Trigger warning: This post mentions gaslighting, abuse and related topics. If this is a trigger for you, you may want to skip this.
Disclaimer: I am not a medical doctor and this post is not medical advice. It is however a true story. I believe these things are important to talk about. The intention of this post is to raise awareness of subtle/ covert abuse.
I also want to say that this is not against step parents in general there are many loving and wonderful step parents that exist. I had a step father who was not abusive. Not all step parents are bad, but this one is., My biological father is also not innocent in this scenario but a bulk of the manipulation and abuse came from my stepmother. He is just as culpable as he allowed this to happen and he would often participate in verbal abuse as well.
This is just one example of such abuse.
In this story there are 3 main characters: a teenaged daughter a father and a stepmother.
The daughter had been suffering for a while with a lot of "weird" symptoms (not actually weird as the daughter has a neuro immune disease that involves dysfunction in multiple systems in the body as well as some secondary neurological issues). She told her parents about some of these symptoms for years, but she wasn't believed (this unfortunately is all too common with "invisible" illnesses). Every symptom was brushed off as her either making it up or being over dramatic.
The truth was the daughter spent most of her time hiding her symptoms and pretending to be healthier than she was. This was to protect her from the constant belittling and gaslighting she was experiencing.
The daughter started getting bad headaches. Because her father suffered from pretty sever sinus headaches, there actually was a little empathy for her suffering of these bad headaches -which turned out to be migraines. At first she tried all of the over the counter sinus and headache medicine, but found little to no relief (she did also suffer form sinus headaches and those otc drugs worked well enough for that)
The daughter ended up going to the doctor for an exam and a diagnosis. This actually gave the girl hope. She thought that if a doctor validated her headaches, maybe then she would be believed for the other health issues she was suffering from too. Her parents still did not believe that she had asthma and never took any diagnosis seriously but the girl was always hopeful that maybe this time would be different. It never was.
The daughter had the doctor visit and was diagnosed with migraines. She was prescribed a medication to try but was told by the doctor that this medication or medication in general is a trial and error. If it doesn't work there are different treatments to try. She already knew this as this was something that has come up before with other family members who had to try multiple things to find a treatment that works.
Both the step mother and father were already aware of the fact that medication is trial and error. Not all medications will work for all people and it can take months or years in some cases to find the right thing. This is important to know this for context of the rest of the story.
When the daughter got a migraine and tried the medication for the first time, it did not work. It made her sleepy and she took a nap but actually had no relief (except being sleep). When she told her parents this - mind you she is in the middle of a migraine which is not just a headache and incredibly painful but a neurological incident with a bunch of other symptoms too. She tried the medication and was still suffering.
So obviously the loving parents immediately called the doctor to schedule another appointment or to see if something else could be called in. The girl, their child was suffering afterall. No parent wants to see their kid suffer.
Just kidding. That didn't happen. What actually happened is the stepmother gleefully proclaimed "See I told you she didn't really have migraines. If she did have migraines the medication would work. It's proof she's just making it up".
Again both parents knew that this is not how medication works, yet somehow with their daughter things are different. This has always been the case. The same rules that apply to everyone else never applied to the daughter. She was always "lying" about her asthma, fatigue, pain and other symptoms. Yet if anyone else in the family got a cold, or illness they were taken care of and always believed.
The father sided with the stepmother, shamed the daughter for being "dramatic" and left her to suffer. This is consistent to how she was always treated. This is what abuse can look like.
Another thing to note is that there was another daughter a few years older. she had a lot of the same medical issues as the migraine daughter except she was always believed even though the younger daughter had more neurological issues and had more severe forms of shared illnesses for the most part (as well as additional illnesses commonly co morbid with the underlying neuro-immune disease that was not yet diagnosed). If the older daughter got a diagnosis for an illness or disorder like asthma or motion sickness before the younger daughter, the younger daughter was told she was just making things up to be like her sister.
I mean it's not like medical issues run in the family or anything (sarcasm)
The older sister was the "golden child" who got pretty much everything she wanted (though occasionally she would suffer similar abuse to the younger child it was much more mild and nothing like what her sister endured). The younger daughter was the "black sheep" (though she did nothing to deserve being treated as such) and got scraps at best. This is a very common dynamic in abusive situations and is important to recognize in general as a society.
Both daughters complained about how the were treated by the stepmother and were never believed or taken seriously on this issue. In fact if they spoke up too much, they only suffered more abuse.
The father always sided with the stepmother even when the facts didn't line up- which was the case 90% of the time.
If your child or any person you know is complaining about being mistreated please take them seriously. Do not just dismiss them because they are young (or whatever excuse you use). So much suffering could be prevented if we as a society believed victims - especially your own children.
I want to close this out by saying if you are suffering from something be it mental, physical, or anything know this: I believe you. Your feelings are valid and you deserve to be heard and treated with the same respect other people receive. Please do not let anyone gaslight you and make you feel that "it's all in your head".
I believe you. You matter.
♥️🦄