there's a lot of angry words I could put about my mother here and the way this destroyed my life - my self confidence and perception and g-d knows what else - and of course about how I wish my grandfather would just fucking die already but yeah

title is referenced to an article I once read about the ways parents do exactly this, destroy their children's ability to believe in themselves by constantly gaslighting them

what's gaslighting? it's manipulative emotional abuse done to cause a person to doubt themself and question their reality, typically in the form of denial that things that happened actually happened, or that they mean the things they mean. "I didn't hit you, you're remembering wrong" or "Yes I called you that but I didn't MEAN it the way you took it" and so on.

ps: fuck everyone who says pedophilia is a mental illness and that pedophiles "just need help"