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From my understanding (according to Buddhism or some other spiritual sources) sleep is related to death in that the last thought we have prior to falling asleep is the first we will have when we wake up and so in a similar way the state of mind in which you are in when you die will determine your next life (that is if reincarnation exists). However thought is just a form in the mind. Does the mind go on after death then? It seems quite contradicting and also a form of scare tactic. What are your thoughts on this and reincarnation in general? better than that what kind of direct experiences have you had meditating that lead you to believe what you do about reincarnation?

Some sadness I want to get off my chest. Two weeks ago for the first time I thought of really killing myself. Like doing it right then - actually taking a tram (there was a station nearby), driving to a bridge and jumping off it. First time I had an urge like that. It frightened me. Also I googled "would I die from falling off a bridge" or something along those lines. Overall it was a level up from suicidal thoughts I'd had so far. Never before did they actually refer to reality. I didn't do it because I got kinda distracted and went to eat some food and think about it and stuff. After the meal I no longer felt like it, but I was still shaken. I feel like it was my biggest betrayal of myself in my life. My greatest disappointment in myself. I'm so sad and cry every time I think about this. How could I bring myself to that point? How? How could I hate myself so much as to want to do it? It's the single biggest thing I could forgive myself for. Another thing that makes me cry is that there was a period, I don't know how long (maybe a month?), in which my dancing classes at the gym were pretty much the only thing that I found meaning in. The classes are only once a week and I waited and was excited for them. My instructor is sooo fricking positive and fun. Pretty much my age. I like her very much. These dancing classes certainly wouldn't be nearly as meaningful for me without her positive energy and enthusiasm. She brings in a lot. I wish to tell her one day, maybe before I leave for my exchange. I wish to tell her how meaningful her classes were to me and that what she's doing matters to many people, even if it sometimes doesn't seem like it. Often the participants are kinda unengaged and more quiet, just going along with the dances, and to be honest I was guilty of it too. So I want her to know how much her classes helped me, sincerely. I can only speculate whether I would still be here without them or not. But I'm not sure if I'll be strong enough to say it to her in person. I'm fucking crying again now just by thinking about it, ehhhh. I don't want to break into tears in front of her. Usually I can keep my feelings in check when I'm with people because I'm distracted but this would be too much. I guess I can always text her. Besides if I said this in person at the end of the classes someone else would probably hear it (because she often has some friends that stay with her and drive home with her) and I don't want that. It's for her ears only. * * * * * * * * * * * * In the last 2 weeks I've been doing good. I had a moment of clarity after this suicide thing. I've found hope again. I've been listening to Vernon Howard a lot (love him), doing a LOT of contemplation, noticing my thoughts, breaking through my fears and shame. Had that awakening I mentioned. Did a lot of things I was procrastinating on. I've never been so conscious before. These last 2 weeks have been wild. I'm quite happy. I hope I don't get to the point of wanting to kill myself again. Truly, how can I ever be so fucking stupid and asleep? It's just THOUGHTS! How can I believe a single thing they say? I literally only believe my thoughts when I'm being this unconscious fucking robot walking on autopilot. NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! I say NO to these thoughts of fear! I can see through you. You are nothing. Try me again. Fucking DO IT! And I'll overcome you by noticing your fakeness once more. And again, and again, and again, if need be. YOU HAVE NO POWER OVER ME. YOU CAN'T CONTROL ME. You're unwelcome here so once you appear, get the fuck out. There's no space for you in my life. Ehhhh. There's so much to say, so much I've experienced and realized lately. But this is a good time to stop. It's nice keeping things to yourself. There are so many very important things to me I haven't told anyone about. Nobody would care nor understand anyway. But I'm more and more okay with that.

Depression Is Suppression. Get Familiar with that phrase, Depression Is Suppression. When you try to suppress your desires, and try to force/control yourself to delay gratification to obtain or achieve something you are doing harm to yourself. Now I am not saying that there are not instances where this is necessary, because sometimes you have to take that dark trek in the mud. As the saying goes....shit happens. And when shit happens...you wade through it till it ends. But you are not supposed to seek out shit, (stuff you hate) and dwell in it. That's how you get depressed. For example...let's say you want to buy a new car, and you get a job and you absolutely hate this job!! But you suffer through it to get the car. Unless the situation in that job changes....or you get that car pretty soon, you are going to be harming yourself forcing yourself to work a job you hate. The longer you put yourself through this, the more and more you will suffer till eventually your feelings will burst from you trying to suppress them. There will be anger, and if you feel you are trapped.....depression. Why? Because you ignored your feelings/desires. Sorry buddy, but you cannot ignore your feelings long term, they WILL SEEK EXPRESSION!! This is why people snap, because they have been taught to "act right" and be "responsible." I still can't get over how silly this "responsibility" thing is.....responsibility CREATES DEPRESSION!! https://www.brgeneral.org/news-blog/2021/july/men-and-suicide-why-are-white-men-most-at-risk-/ The only thing you are responsible for is existing. That's it!!! Outside of that, anything you add on should be based on your desires. But you see....humans fear their desires....because they consider themselves evil....so this message...is considered dangerous!! Tell people to give into their desires....and they will become like animals!! As if....you aren't already an animal!!!! Are you kidding me? What do you think depression is? ITS DESIRE!!! You desire to be free to express yourself but because you don't feel free to express yourself and feel trapped, you EXPRESS SORROW AT feeling trapped and not being able to express yourself!! Do you see how delusional this is? Does any of this make any sense to you at all? You suppress desire....then express sorrow for not being able to express desire!!! And you wonder why teenagers are so got damn rebellious!! They take one look at you and say....I don't want to become like my parents....look at how depressed they are!!! At the end of the day....reality, and everything in it...operates on desire. Stop trying to control yourself, every time you do ....you are leading yourself towards depression. Check in with your feelings, find your passions in life, then pursuit it. Understand that all your haters/critics are just jealous because you found passion and they lack it. Why? Because they ignore their feelings....and you don't!!! At the level you are able to connect to your feelings and discover what they are saying....is the level you will be in alignment with what you should be doing. Feeling=Motivation, Knowledge= Discernment. Combine the two equals Self Knowledge/Love. This will guide you towards what you actually want to do. Or...you could just ignore it alll...and BE DEPRESSED!!! Why give a damn about your feelings right?

Feelings are one half of truth. They are like a Tidal Wave, a Tornado, a Hurricane! They can consume you, drown you, dissolve you!! Feelings obscure your vision, they reduce your ability to observe what is. Feelings can give tunnel vision, they can make you only see what confirms the feeling being represented. People who are feelings based climb an uphill battle trying to obtain truth. Because they are consumed by feeling, any information that brings up negative feelings will be rejected regardless of its veracity. The Feelings person cannot help this, since they are Feelings based asking them to take in negative emotion is akin to asking them to jump into a raging river voluntarily. It feels like suicide and who wants to kill themselves? People who naturally suppress their emotion cannot understand. Unconsciously they get it, but consciously they don't. For them they would rather stay in the logical world away from a deep connection to emotion, because they too fear the ferocious spontaneous expression of the world of emotion. For feeling people to advance to the truth, you will have to drop your identity to your feelings. Until then, you will never see things clearly and will forever be locked in your point of view.

I feel as though I am a deeply negative and cynical and pessimistic person. I’ve tried psychedelics and have had beautiful experiences where I felt free of time for the first time in my life. Where I was in the present moment. But returning to normal life seems to suck so much. I have no willpower or discipline over myself and I have bipolar and probably some schizoaffwctive stuff too(i would think people are planting thoughts in my head, stuff like that.) i suck at socializing and think I’m gonna lay off the psychedelics for a while and get therapy. Currently I’m playing a lot of World of Warcraft as a crutch. I still work and stuff, but it’s as though I’m not really living for anything. My life just feels hollow and empty and dead. I tried meditation and I’ve even tried Transcendental Meditation and I can’t even do that right. Am I fucked? I have a chronic condition that causes my body a high level of pain + some sort of disfigurement that I went to physical therapy for. They gave me stretches but i still feel like the condition is getting worse. Obviously I’m not fucked - we’re all gonna die anyways which is kinda funny. But I’m pretty miserable and feel disconnected from everyone and everything. I’m very socially awkward which I guess is a skill I can work on. I just feel very half baked and underdeveloped and feel like there’s no point in even trying to remedy my mistakes when I can just play WoW. Maybe i should quit but then I don’t have the willpower or grit to muscle myself through learning new skills like playing the guitar. I had episodes in the past where i went insane and was diagnosed with autism so i guess it makes sense. Im currently taking meds for bipolar but it feels like now im just a cog in the wheel of the society we live in. And it sickens me. I hate myself and this world sometimes as well. Also i have a LOT of anxiety. And im just overall miserable. I don’t know how to feel my emotions or what that even means. I overanalyze and judge and even have thoughts when other people are speaking to me that say “nobody cares,” which i feel like i dont actually care about others. I dont want to commit suicide but i have suicidal urges. Also this condition that i have causes me extreme distress and misery. Its like im in pain and discomfort all the time and nobody can see it. Makes me want to “shtomp on their testhicles” like mike tyson haha. So im in this state of complacency with my life where im just sort of on this societal conveyor belt- going to work, playing WoW, eating, sleeping. Or maybe im blaming society too much. Idk man what should I do?? How can i live a good life?

If you join a community and there's love and connection you may find yourself in a suicide cult. ?

envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide

Yea but just because a person is likable does not mean that they shouldn't be criticized. I look at this from a meta perspective. This is not so much about Razard but about his opinions. You can always say everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Fair enough. But tomorrow an abused victim enters the forum who are already suicidal and talk about their traumatic experience of gaslighting. Someone like Razard lecture them on how it's their fault and there's no gaslighting and how it was their personal responsibility and everything they suffered was a result of their own consequence, that person might feel gaslighted again and what if they actually commit suicide? Will there be a moral obligation to point out that such advice or opinions are dangerous? So there's a greater good in opposing his opinions because they can lead to bad consequences under extreme situations. Not like there's high possibility of such a thing happening. But even if there's a very low chance of such an occurrence, it's a very tragic thing to happen. So I don't think that appeasing Razard's ego just because he is a good contributor should come at the price of someone's life tomorrow. It's important to consider things in perspective. In the context of the forum, it's all fine and merry. But people who come here are sometimes battling with real problems.

My life is so absurd its gone off the radar of even being a plausible reality. I think I died via suicide and woke back up into my own life to learn something. All the secrets of the universe come to me with no effort along with hellish punishment. I wonder we're this ultimately ends. Leo Gura is the name of an imaginary character my best friend came up with when we were children. You are not only not real, my friend named you. Why this life?

I've been guilty of this, I've even spat my dummy out and left this forum for a time when I perceived some on here for being transphobic. I've done some serious growing up since then and made attempts to be more understanding of others questions and sincere concerns. But to give you a perceptive of someone who is transgender, it can be anxiety inducing when political pundits, tabloids and governments play around with trans culture war like a soccer ball. We're at this stage where a lot of society is accepting but a good chunk isn't either and if one day society as a whole just decides they don't like this transgender stuff at all, they can honestly get rid of it quite easily, quickly and quietly, we're that small of a demographic. There wouldn't that much pushback either because understandably most people have bigger priorities than the lives of trans people, even if they are allies. It's anxiety inducing because if gender affirming services are made illegal or I'm forced to detransition by the state, it's something that will probably drive me to suicide in the worst case scenario. The best case my life would be unhappier and dysfunctional. It's hard to explain gender dysphoria to a cis person, but living and being socialized as a male is so repulsive to me that it feels harmful to the body and psyche. Imagine if a misandrist government decided the existence of men was illegal and they forced you (Leo) to transition into a woman both socially and medically, even though you know deep down in your soul you are a Man, it would give you severe dysphoria to the point it would cause damage. You would probably feel suicidal too. There is an argument to say this is an exaggerated fear of my many transgender people, but when you have popular figures like Jordan Peterson, JK Rowling and Matt Walsh nonstop fear mongering about us with a clear agenda to get rid of us of someway, you can see why many people like me can't stomach any debates about transgenderism that can be slightly touchy. We are still in vulnerable position so to speak.

I was born an African American male. I’ve been through modern racism (ain’t that bad honestly) I was molested as a child. My mom died when I was 4. I never met my father. My family was toxic and did not want me. My family forced me to fight smaller kids when I was growing up. I grew up depressed, lonely, fatigued, and felt like I had something to prove. I’ve attempted suicide twice. Once, with pills (I was young and dumb lmao) Where I’m going with this, I am a top 10% earner in the black community, I know 12 programming languages, I read 8 books or so a month, and I have a baller wife. You can turn it around. But do you want to? Read my past posts lol. I used to work at WALMART. I would Uber half way through town every day. I made no money. I had maybe $100 to myself each pay day. Life is hard man. This ain’t Jay Z and Beyoncé brunch. We struggle out here. Gotta be stronger. How? Don’t know man. It’s inside you. Gotta fish it out. what I personally recommend? Take Leo’s course. Can’t afford it? Figure out a way to buy it. Changed my life. Maybe it’ll help you. Good luck.

The word destiny is a very tricky word, but I guess you could say our story has already been written and we are just living through it. Everything you said is literally what is happening. Great job expressing it!!! It actually is sustainable, you are just too scared to implement it which I completely understand. Doing spirituality legitimately is the OPPOSITE of survival. The EXACT OPPOSITE of survival. You only want to do it if it helps with survival, initially it actually won't, in fact it will probably make it worse initially. But after integration....it super charges it. Spirituality is telling you to not care whether you live or die, to live completely without self-interest. To love another EQUAL to you not more or less in any direction. It is definitely sustainable....but its tough path with twists and turns but if you stick with it....it gives you the peace that passes all understanding, and if you integrate the feminine...the bliss part as well. The bliss comes and goes for me, but the peace is ever present and its surprising when you realize that the peace....is your natural state. Its why I say suffering is your creation, you create suffering and project it over your natural peace. You always pursue your desire, if he really wants to kill me, he will. If he doesn't pursue his desire he will get depressed and take it out on himself or others. Hell he might kill someone else because he let fear stop him from killing me, or he might kill himself, or do both. What do you think murder suicide is?

I think I know what you're talking about because I'm going through a shitty time of my life. Life is shit, no wonder why u asked this question. But why? Cuz shits everywhere. You wake up, shit. You get late for college, shit. You laugh, shit. You cry, shit. You fart… shit's coming up. More than half of the life is spent in washroom, half in eating, half in doing things you do not know the meaning of and can't explain why you doing it. Like why tf am I writing this? So yeah life is shit. Sometimes other people deal with your shit (mom while changing diapers) but others cannot deal with your shit for your whole life. You learn how to deal with your shit, cuz at the end of the day, its your life, your shit, either get it together, or lose control of your life. Either ways are shitty, but what can I say, life is more shittier than you think. Lol I searched on google 'Life is shit’, and it showed me results of 'Shitty Life Syndrome’ for a moment I was life “wait what? Wtf” lol it's just some shitty syndrome. Have you ever noticed a pig? Where does it live? What's shit to you, is heaven to him. Yes, that's what I'm trying to say. Don't be a human, be a pig. Enjoy the shit all around you and hope that there's more coming your way. Because the more shit you dive into, the more you enjoy. So, enjoy. If I had enough guts to commit suicide I would. The world is filled with darkness, cruelty and suffering. You can't trust anyone and human beings are selfish. What is the point of life? Some people are destined for misfortune whilst others are lucky. Why do people bring more human beings into this cruel world? Plus we all die anyway and become nothing. So what's the point.? We're all full of shit man ?

This obviously contradicts what Leo says. He claims that if you are murdered you stay in a dark limbo state after death for 1000+ years, same with suicide or any accidental death? Apparently the only safe why to die to assure a "rebirth" and not hell is to die in your sleep. Why does he say this? How would he know?

(please don't movie this to dating and sexuality, it isn't just about that) I created a tinder profile as a man and got about 50 likes in a day Then I created a profile as a woman and got over 100 likes in an hour. Then I created another profile as a man, but this time I asked to see other men instead of just women and I got over 100 likes in a few hours. it seems that not only are there more men than women on tinder, but there are even more gay men on tinder than there are women. Also on Omegle (the most popular online random video chat) almost everyone using it is a man. I have heard that male suicide is much higher than female suicide, and that men are less socially intelligent than women. Also I have seen multiple studies indicating that overall life satisfaction is mainly increased by meaningful relationships. Why do men seem to be more lonely than women? why do they watch more porn and use dating sites and online video chats more?

The thing is you are not the only one. Sometimes misfortune befalls people at random and there is nothing we can do about it. Some are born retarded some disabled, some have dementia predispositions in young age. For example I was so severely traumatized I developed dementia in my 34 years of age and even made a whole website about my life story. I'm searching the internet and have yet to find a person that has the same symptoms of cognitive decline. But suicide I feel is still not the answer because much of what happen to me wasn't my fault, and we cant just erase people that are in undesirable circumstances. And just help them commit mass suicide. No ,this is also part of reality and it probably has some purpose. The very existence of these misfortunes where people end up with no fault of their own reduces the glory of life on its positive side. Just a part of every success, bliss or wellbeing is reduced because random misfortune exists and god has no favorites. So the truth of what is normal is in part diminished and in all suffering their is a glimmer of divine mercy and reality.

@Loba Please stop with all that silent suicide nonsense and go get that infection checked and fixed. You know it's the right thing to do, so do it immediately, or first thing tomorrow morning. Thank you ?

Society - the Western based ones, which is most of the world now - is missing a trick by not persuing existentialism more widely. If we were able to connect a lot more deeply with reality as a collective, then a lot of things would naturally fall out of that. The main one is a much richer connection to reality: we would stop behaving in such brutal and shortsighted ways. We would naturally recognise each other as being one, and stop hating, enslaving and hurting each other. Well, that's what I would hope for - that and world peace (sorry Miss World joke, you have to be old enough). I don't know what's harder, having no choice or having choice but not being able to exercise it. Us first worlders are constantly told we have choice, but the reality is that exercising that choice is either very hard or impossible in a lot of circumstances. This leaves us with a bitter taste in our mouths. What are we supposed to do if we can't "get sex" or "be creative" or "be authentic" or "be loved", and yet we see others not so different from us getting those things? For some the torture of being teased by the ghost of choice is too much (sorry for the flowery language I'm exercising my creativity) and pulling the rip cord on living is tempting. Personally, when I repeatedly depressed about topping myself, in the end I came to the conclusion that I wasn't actually willing to do it at which point I simply gave up on the suicidal ideation, it was simply too wearing and idiotic (in my case) a thing to continue desiring. But this is what resonates for me about what you wrote, my depression was ultimately existential. In my case I also feel like I'm running out of runway because of my age, either I take off now or I hurtle into god knows what - anyway I digress. Talking to you as I would talk to myself, my advice would be simply to face things head on. If you're in your twenties or thirties then you have plenty of runway left. Don't be too rigid in how your express your creativity, hedge your bets. Society does actually provide you with a huge playground of avenues to explore - some will excite you enough that you will know what to do with your ideas. I don't know what turns you on, if it's art or chess (I think I've seen you mention) or a million other possible things, go do it, master it! If you feel you're not in a position of choice (real or apparent) then get yourself into that position, you still have time. If you need money to express yourself, strategise and then do the short-term grind to get there (trust me in hindsight it will seem short). Pragmatism and taking action can be very good for mental health - and you can create narratives which do match your reality. But. Also continue to do the existential investigation and master this side of things. Why not even start at "suicide" and investigate it, think about it deeply? There's nothing more existential than the threat of death itself. After all WTF is death anyway? Some Camus quotes about death: https://www.azquotes.com/author/2398-Albert_Camus/tag/death

Didn't talk about it but yesterday was International Men's Day. Reminder that men are disproportionally affected by depression, suicide, violent crime, and prison, when compared to women (would love to see more comprehensive stats with other genders but here we are). Depression and suicide are also exacerbated by transgenderism and bisexuality. FUN FACT: I am non-binary but present as a man and was assigned male at birth, and I'm a bisexual. Meaning I AM INCREDIBLY AT RISK. ^ These horrible stats are NOT because of "feminism" and "boys can't be boys anymore". On the contrary they're because of people spewing that bull. Toxic Masculinity. This is mainly why I decided to stop identifying with the shitty male gender. I don't want to associate myself with that toxic masculinity.

It is unrelated to modern day European languages and very difficult to learn for people who grew up in Europe, America, Africa, and elsewhere, but I want to ask, how hard is it to learn Chinese? The language is a cold thing. There is nothing passionate about it. So the goal with learning a language is to speak to others, live in another place, find a job there, or just to improve your English as the case is when learning Latin. But really, how hard can it be to learn Chinese? I don't want to live in the west anymore. Hoping to get away from all my problems by moving to China or Thailand or something over there. Can learning Chinese be done? Honestly I think all your wisdom and ideas which is like seeds, gets thrown on rocks or on the side of the road or in thorny areas when told to me. But keep responding because someone else might benefit. Edit: I actually don't mind living in the west, but the poverty and life circumstances are pushing me to suicide or to go far away.

I dont know if I agree or not. On the one hand yes of course he could spread spiritual love in the real world right now and bring himself in danger because people aren’t open minded enough. But it would be the most authentic/out of the gut/not devilish controlled way to do things and might awake people the most. On the other hand idk if this is the right message to send. It kind of gives me spiritual suicide vibes. That would be the highest form of love of course but maybe it’s better to evolve humanity spiritually in a way where we quietly integrate it in our day to day lives until spirituality becomes mainstream.

^ You haven't pointed out one bias. Not one single bias. I could literally take your generalized comment and post it on any book review comment section. Because it doesn't make any points. It doesn't take examples or actually point to perceived bias...it just states...that is biased. This means your post is an emotional reaction...because you cannot actually give examples....also guess what? Every POV has bias, so pointing out bias...is irrelevant!! The point is to point out whether what is being stated as truth to it!! 1. You said I take the absolute truth and use it like a weapon? HAHHAHAHAH. Are you kidding me? Here is some absolute truth for you!! There are kids starving to death in Africa!! 2. There are homeless men and women commiting suicide because they cannot find food. There are sex slaves being sold into slavery RIGHT NOW and being gang raped by their captors. There are hired assassins killing families for money. There are corporations killing off animals in record numbers and we humanity could collectively being wiping out species we don't even know exist!! Absolute Truth isn't just some wonderful things to look at!! Its also flood, famine, and blood on blood survival!! But because you are BIASED against what is being presented, you attack me. Now with any actual points!!! You haven't made a single point!! And dogma? Where is my dogma?? Google search my posts and all you will see is ORIGINAL POSTS!!! Dogma would be regurgitation!! But please I welcome you to point to some Dogma. You won't find it. You will find recontextualizations. Also within Spirituality pretty much everything has already been stated. All that is being done...is bringing it with a twist. Again what I have stated here....HAS ALREADY BEEN SAID. You are just too attached to the word gaslighting. Which is exactly why I posted it here!!! But here is the biggest kicker!!! I knew by posting it...I would get people to commit the act that they defend exists!!! So here is a kicker....if you cannot provide evidence of your assertions....I could theoretically using your own personal definition accuse you of gaslighting me!!! LOL and I could play the victim!!! But....I won't!!! Because I can only gaslight myself obviously.

Nothing is gonna happen. In modern world everyone, even politicians (!) know the difference between deliberate act and accidents. Countries do not like suicide no more.

@Tyler Robinson @integral Long post coming. I suffered a ton of gaslighting that caused me to land in the hospital. It's an intense process of dehumanization. It was the major reason for my mental collapse from which I never fully recovered. And my mental health steadily declined from that point. Part of the problem is that many victims of gaslighting are just not aware of this term. Not everyone has an abundant knowledge of psychology. I didn't even know this term existed when it was happening to me. A year after the relationship I was reading articles online is when I first became aware of this term and then realized that what I had been through was gaslighting. If I have to give you an analogy on this, it would be like this — imagine you're planning a trip to the Caribbean. You contact a travel company. You go through an entire list of travel companies and trip organizers. You come across a trip organizers that have 5 star ratings. But you might not be aware of something called "fake testimonials" and paid reviews. Sometimes people are paid to give great reviews and a lot of people don't know that. So you see these wonderful 5 star reviews and you sign up to this trip organizer for a trip to the Caribbean and you pay them the expenses for the trip and they arrange the trip for you. Everything is booked, you arrive to the trip location and you see a flock of tourists there on the beach and you become friends with them. You ask them about their trip arrangements and they tell you all about the expenses etc. You realize that they spent, let's say $3000 on the trip meanwhile you had to spend thrice that amount. You realize that you were overcharged by your trip company. And this makes you really angry. You decide to sue them but it's too late since they have disappeared and you don't find any information on them. You feel like they fooled you and you feel helpless and unable to change what happened. You trusted them and they violated your trust. This is how gaslighting works. It's a violation of trust. Above is not a perfect example but somewhat close to it. Now imagine you're in a relationship. Generally gaslighting happens in scenarios where you deeply trust the other person. So you have a wife who tells you that there's something wrong with you. Everytime you fight, she tells you that it is your fault, meanwhile shifting blame off herself. Gaslighters generally take advantage of weak spots in a person. For example you might have a drinking problem. Your Gaslighter will use it against you. So during a fight, they will convince you that you made a mistake because you were drunk. They will tell you don't remember what you did because you were drunk. But you know deep inside that during the event you weren't drunk. But your Gaslighter has managed to make you feel like it's all your fault. You are confused and you are not sure. But you believe them because you trust them. This cycle keeps going on and on. You must trust them a lot and suffer from low self esteem or not a great sense of self combined with issues like hidden traumas, addictions, lack of support from families, physical weaknesses like illness, loneliness, brain issues can make it much easier to be gaslighted because your defense mechanisms are down and you don't feel strong enough to fight back. Such circumstances also make you trust more because you develop dependency very quickly. Gaslighting causes systematic abuse of the mental health of the person because you begin to believe that whatever they're saying might be true. Gradually your sense of self becomes more and more fragile until you feel like whatever you do is wrong. That you can never be right. This makes you mentally weak. And in the end you suffer several mental breakdowns because you begin to doubt your own sanity. You think that you will never be right or never be good enough at something and the other person keeps convincing you that you are always wrong. It leads to mental fragility if you're already sensitive and cause you temporary insanity. Which happened to me. I broke down and landed in the hospital. After which I realized that something was wrong. Systematic gaslighting can induce insanity and loss of self. It's a very dangerous state, can intensify suicidal instincts. My gaslighting went on for a full year and at the end I ended up in the hospital, I was vomiting with panic attacks, the stress caused my liver to burst and I was unable to think proper. It took me months to recover and I broke up with him. That time I was very naive and always trusting him. He took advantage of that and drove me insane. It starts with little things and then goes to extreme. He would start with little things where he would tell me that I was wrong. I had memory issues but it wasn't too bad back then. But he would take advantage of my memory issues. He would tell me that certain things never happened when they actually happened. Then he would blame it on my memory. He would tell me I'm crazy. Then I would check my message history and discover that the event had happened and that he was lying. He would lie and gaslight me whenever I confronted his lies. He would do this on purpose so that I would slowly get used to it. He was nice in the beginning, always kind and helpful. This is a strategy to gain trust. Once he won the trust, he began abusing it. Every time I felt a sense of doubt, he would dismiss it as a memory problem or my craziness. I was already having low self esteem so I turned to my mother who was supposed to help me but she added to it. She began telling me that I was having problems and that he was right. But I knew deep down that I wasn't wrong. My memory was bad so I would only remember partially and he was taking advantage of my doubts and uncertainties. I trusted him implicitly because he was my boyfriend. I wasn't aware of relationship abuse so I looked up to him as someone I could fully trust. I always gave him the benefit of the doubt and my mother encouraged me to trust him. She would Shame and chastise me whenever I complained about him. She would tell me everything was my fault. But my gut was telling me that something was wrong. In the end he kept arguing with me in order to stress me out on purpose. After six months of arguments, I finally broke down and collapsed in the bathroom and was hospitalized. My liver was damaged from the stress of the gaslighting. I had become mentally unstable and fragile. I was already fragile to begin with. When I was discharged from the hospital and I came home, he told me that I was lying about the hospital. He told me that he wanted to speak to my mother. My mom confirmed to him that I was really in the hospital and I wasn't lying. Then he hung up. Following month when it was my birthday, he came to visit me and I asked him why he had given so much mental stress. He said that he did all that so I would find a better guy. I called bollocks on it. A guy would simply break up if that was the case. His strategy was to make me break up by systematically harassing me. Make me go, get rid of me. But he chose such a abusive way to get rid of me rather than simply breaking up. It's like if you want to make your wife disappear you make her go insane and then she commits suicide, boom, gone. He had planned that with me. I was shocked, I couldn't believe he would go to such lengths and this was all systematically planned and he knew all along that his behavior was hurting me. So I broke up with him. It took months to recover from his gaslighting. I learned to stand up against my mother, I learned and researched about gaslighting and I learned defense mechanisms where I would detect if something didn't feel right then place boundaries and stop it right there. The healing came much later. So after the end of the relationship, he stalked and blackmailed me. I told him that I would call the cops. He began gaslighting me again by making it sound like whatever I did was going to be pointless. I asked him why. He said that he had all our text messages saved. He would show those messages to the cops. And he told me that the cops won't believe me. He would convince the cops that we had a cordial relationship using those messages. I was fed up because I genuinely didn't want to engage the cops. So one day out of the blue I told him to come meet me in a park. I also told him that I was going to have a gun in my hand and that I would blow his head off if he was standing in front of me. That was my only way to stop his blackmailing and stalking. After that day, his stalking finally stopped.

@Tyler Robinson @integral Long post coming. I suffered a ton of gaslighting that caused me to land in the hospital. It's an intense process of dehumanization. It was the major reason for my mental collapse from which I never fully recovered. And my mental health steadily declined from that point. Part of the problem is that many victims of gaslighting are just not aware of this term. Not everyone has an abundant knowledge of psychology. I didn't even know this term existed when it was happening to me. A year after the relationship I was reading articles online is when I first became aware of this term and then realized that what I had been through was gaslighting. If I have to give you an analogy on this, it would be like this — imagine you're planning a trip to the Caribbean. You contact a travel company. You go through an entire list of travel companies and trip organizers. You come across a trip organizers that have 5 star ratings. But you might not be aware of something called "fake testimonials" and paid reviews. Sometimes people are paid to give great reviews and a lot of people don't know that. So you see these wonderful 5 star reviews and you sign up to this trip organizer for a trip to the Caribbean and you pay them the expenses for the trip and they arrange the trip for you. Everything is booked, you arrive to the trip location and you see a flock of tourists there on the beach and you become friends with them. You ask them about their trip arrangements and they tell you all about the expenses etc. You realize that they spent, let's say $3000 on the trip meanwhile you had to spend thrice that amount. You realize that you were overcharged by your trip company. And this makes you really angry. You decide to sue them but it's too late since they have disappeared and you don't find any information on them. You feel like they fooled you and you feel helpless and unable to change what happened. You trusted them and they violated your trust. This is how gaslighting works. It's a violation of trust. Above is not a perfect example but somewhat close to it. Now imagine you're in a relationship. Generally gaslighting happens in scenarios where you deeply trust the other person. So you have a wife who tells you that there's something wrong with you. Everytime you fight, she tells you that it is your fault, meanwhile shifting blame off herself. Gaslighters generally take advantage of weak spots in a person. For example you might have a drinking problem. Your Gaslighter will use it against you. So during a fight, they will convince you that you made a mistake because you were drunk. They will tell you don't remember what you did because you were drunk. But you know deep inside that during the event you weren't drunk. But your Gaslighter has managed to make you feel like it's all your fault. You are confused and you are not sure. But you believe them because you trust them. This cycle keeps going on and on. You must trust them a lot and suffer from low self esteem or not a great sense of self combined with issues like hidden traumas, addictions, lack of support from families, physical weaknesses like illness, loneliness, brain issues can make it much easier to be gaslighted because your defense mechanisms are down and you don't feel strong enough to fight back. Such circumstances also make you trust more because you develop dependency very quickly. Gaslighting causes systematic abuse of the mental health of the person because you begin to believe that whatever they're saying might be true. Gradually your sense of self becomes more and more fragile until you feel like whatever you do is wrong. That you can never be right. This makes you mentally weak. And in the end you suffer several mental breakdowns because you begin to doubt your own sanity. You think that you will never be right or never be good enough at something and the other person keeps convincing you that you are always wrong. It leads to mental fragility if you're already sensitive and cause you temporary insanity. Which happened to me. I broke down and landed in the hospital. After which I realized that something was wrong. Systematic gaslighting can induce insanity and loss of self. It's a very dangerous state, can intensify suicidal instincts. My gaslighting went on for a full year and at the end I ended up in the hospital, I was vomiting with panic attacks, the stress caused my liver to burst and I was unable to think proper. It took me months to recover and I broke up with him. That time I was very naive and always trusting him. He took advantage of that and drove me insane. It starts with little things and then goes to extreme. He would start with little things where he would tell me that I was wrong. I had memory issues but it wasn't too bad back then. But he would take advantage of my memory issues. He would tell me that certain things never happened when they actually happened. Then he would blame it on my memory. He would tell me I'm crazy. Then I would check my message history and discover that the event had happened and that he was lying. He would lie and gaslight me whenever I confronted his lies. He would do this on purpose so that I would slowly get used to it. He was nice in the beginning, always kind and helpful. This is a strategy to gain trust. Once he won the trust, he began abusing it. Every time I felt a sense of doubt, he would dismiss it as a memory problem or my craziness. I was already having low self esteem so I turned to my mother who was supposed to help me but she added to it. She began telling me that I was having problems and that he was right. But I knew deep down that I wasn't wrong. My memory was bad so I would only remember partially and he was taking advantage of my doubts and uncertainties. I trusted him implicitly because he was my boyfriend. I wasn't aware of relationship abuse so I looked up to him as someone I could fully trust. I always gave him the benefit of the doubt and my mother encouraged me to trust him. She would Shame and chastise me whenever I complained about him. She would tell me everything was my fault. But my gut was telling me that something was wrong. In the end he kept arguing with me in order to stress me out on purpose. After six months of arguments, I finally broke down and collapsed in the bathroom and was hospitalized. My liver was damaged from the stress of the gaslighting. I had become mentally unstable and fragile. I was already fragile to begin with. When I was discharged from the hospital and I came home, he told me that I was lying about the hospital. He told me that he wanted to speak to my mother. My mom confirmed to him that I was really in the hospital and I wasn't lying. Then he hung up. Following month when it was my birthday, he came to visit me and I asked him why he had given so much mental stress. He said that he did all that so I would find a better guy. I called bollocks on it. A guy would simply break up if that was the case. His strategy was to make me break up by systematically harassing me. Make me go, get rid of me. But he chose such a abusive way to get rid of me rather than simply breaking up. It's like if you want to make your wife disappear you make her go insane and then she commits suicide, boom, gone. He had planned that with me. I was shocked, I couldn't believe he would go to such lengths and this was all systematically planned and he knew all along that his behavior was hurting me. So I broke up with him. It took months to recover from his gaslighting. I learned to stand up against my mother, I learned and researched about gaslighting and I learned defense mechanisms where I would detect if something didn't feel right then place boundaries and stop it right there. The healing came much later. So after the end of the relationship, he stalked and blackmailed me. I told him that I would call the cops. He began gaslighting me again by making it sound like whatever I did was going to be pointless. I asked him why. He said that he had all our text messages saved. He would show those messages to the cops. And he told me that the cops won't believe me. He would convince the cops that we had a cordial relationship using those messages. I was fed up because I genuinely didn't want to engage the cops. So one day out of the blue I told him to come meet me in a park. I also told him that I was going to have a gun in my hand and that I would blow his head off if he was standing in front of me. That was my only way to stop his blackmailing and stalking. After that day, his stalking finally stopped.