I have a friend who was abused by her husband for many, many years. He didn't hit her daily, not even monthly for the most part, but when he did hit her, he hit her hard. A closed fist punch to the face, a powerful kick in the stomach, he even grasped her throat once and began to strangle her before the toddler playing in another room began to cry, forcing him to release his hold on her neck.

. . .

Until one day, she'd finally had enough, she was broken, she was suicidal, she was falling apart, and she told someone she worked with. That was the very first person she'd ever told. And it was both terrifying and liberating for her to finally let someone else in. To let them see what was going on behind the smile.

Little by little, she told more people. Close friends cried with her over some wine in someone's kitchen, phone calls and text chains of support. Slowly, day by day, she stopped feeling ashamed of what had been done TO her. Eventually, she began to understand that it needed to end. That she needed to get out.

And then all of the sudden, whenever she would bring any of the incidents up with her husband, instead of blaming her like he had always done, he began denying they had happened at all.

Conversations they had in the past, conversations she KNEW they had about what he'd done, he said never took place.

She began to think she was losing her mind. She began to question her own sanity. It all became so blurry. Her memories were muddling together, the sights and sounds of what she knew she’d been through were becoming hazy. His constant gaslighting was dizzying.

And he knew it worked, because whenever she would say their marriage needed to end, and cite one of those times when he'd hurt her, he'd tell her she had lost her mind. That she wasn't well. That she had convinced herself of events that never happened.

Events she went through. Pain she experienced. The trauma of being punched in the face while her kids slept in the next room. Of being strangled, forced to have intercourse, slapped, kicked, threatened...¦ but he just looked at her straight in the face and said it never happened.

He wouldn't admit to any of it anymore. In fact, to this day he never has. Other than a brief mention of "losing his temper once or twice" in a divorce filing (she did eventually get out) and a random passing comment in front of their child's therapist.

They share a horrible, terrible, painful, unreconciled truth but only one of them will admit it ever happened. The one responsible for the violence has washed it all away. My friend carries it with her at all times. It never really goes away.

That's what January 6th feels like. MAGA is the history-erasing ex and we are all my gaslit girlfriend.

. . .