Gaslighted

Introduction -- The oil and gas pipeline -- The stayers -- Voluntary separations -- Corporate downsizing -- Conclusion -- Methodological appendix.

In this groundbreaking guide, the prominent therapist Dr. Robin Stern shows how the Gaslight Effect works, how you can decide which relationships can be saved and which you have to walk away from—and how to gasproof your life so you'll avoid gaslighting relationship. Your husband crosses the line in his flirtations with another woman at a dinner party. When you confront him, he asks you to stop being insecure and controlling. After a long argument, you apologize for giving him a hard time. Your mother belittles your clothes, your job, and your boyfriend. But instead of fighting back, you wonder if your mother is right and figure that a mature person should be able to take a little criticism. If you think things like this can’t happen to you, think again. Gaslighting is an insidious form of emotional abuse and manipulation that is difficult to recognize and even harder to break free from. Are you being gaslighted? Check for these telltale signs: 1) Does your opinion of yourself change according to approval or disapproval from your spouse? 2) When your boss praises you, do you feel as if you could conquer the world? 3) Do you dread having small things go wrong at home—buying the wrong brand of toothpaste, not having dinner ready on time, a mistaken appointment written on the calendar? 4) Do you have trouble making simple decisions and constantly second guess yourself? 5) Do you frequently make excuses for your partner's behavior to your family and friends? 6) Do you feel hopeless and joyless?

In this entry from the thrilling short story anthology FaceOff, bestselling authors Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child along with R.L. Stine team up for the first time ever, pitting FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast against the most unusual villain he’s ever faced—Stine’s classic creation: Slappy the Ventriloquist Dummy. First introduced in R.L. Stine’s 400 million-copy bestselling Goosebumps series, Slappy is a dummy carved from coffin wood who boasts enormous strength and a sarcastic, sadistic personality. In contrast, Agent Pendergast is an elegant, intelligent man who never lets himself be ruffled by the particulars of an investigation. Yet when these two meet for the first time—at Stony Mountain Sanatorium—Pendergast is quite clearly out of his element, and nothing is as it seems… For more exciting pairs, check out all eleven stories in FaceOff!

“We have a right to encounter God where we are. We have a sacred responsibility to experience God authentically." What happens when the God we’ve been taught to believe in seems powerless to help us in the struggles of life? What do we do when the God we personally encounter no longer resembles the God we’ve been shown in narrow interpretations of the Bible? Many of those raised in the world of fundamentalist Christianity have been manipulated into accepting a false reality that runs counter to lived experience. The result is confusion, isolation, fear, shame, and trauma, often carried throughout one’s entire life. This book is for the victims of this spiritual abuse—anyone looking to reclaim their faith from legalism, nationalism, sexism, anxiety, intolerance, and other mechanisms of control utilized by God’s self-appointed gatekeepers. It’s for anyone who has learned that the real God is infinitely complex, that authentic faith is perfectly compatible with doubt, and that our suffering is not something we’ve earned. Gaslighted by God is not a book of easy answers—it’s a companion for those mourning the loss of a belief system who need their pain recognized and legitimized. Tiffany Yecke Brooks shows—through stories from her own life, conversations with Christians from a variety of backgrounds, historical anecdotes, and messy episodes from Scripture—that there can be faith after disillusionment. But it will be a different faith—bruised, battered, nuanced, and real, rather than one wrapped in tissue-thin platitudes and three-point sermons. It will be a faith empowered to see beyond who God “should” be to who God is.

Prepare yourself for a spine-tingling journey into the heart of darkness. In this bone-chilling collection, you'll encounter thirteen long-lost tales of terror by famed authors. Whether the setting is an English village, the Brazilian countryside, or the Barbados coast, the madness lurking beneath the beauty of each location will haunt your imagination long after the last page is turned. In Dick Donovan's "The Mystic Spell," a young man finds the love of his life in Rio, but the deadly curse of an old crone could destroy their dreams if they marry. "The Black Reaper" by Bernard Capes, takes place in 1665 during The Great Plague, a time of wild fear and confusion. When the residents of an English village come face-to-face with the deadly scythe of the Black Reaper, only one daring act of courage can save their lives. In "A Tropical Horror" by William Hope Hodgson, the crew of a ship undergoes a series of attacks by a giant, eel-like sea monster. Will the young apprentice who relates this story survive? Filled with a mix of the macabre, the mysterious, the supernatural, and the sinister, this anthology is Victorian suspense at its finest.

Sixteen long-neglected classics by renowned writers include "The Drunkard's Path," "An Unexpected Journey," "The Haunted Mill," "The Page-Boy's Ghost," "In the Court of the Dragon," and 11 others.

A fantastic collection of stories of love and intrigue that focus on the trappings of the popular Victorian era, enlivened with fantastical elements and incorporating some noir and detective pieces, by O. M. Grey, Leanna Renee Hieber, N. K. Jemisin, Eliza Knight, Sarah Prineas, Delia Sherman, Genevieve Valentine and many more. Full list of contributors: Vivian Caethe; Leanna Renee Hieber; Seth Cadin; Tiffany Trent; Eliza Knight; Sara Harvey; Rick Bowes; Genevieve Valentine; Nisi Shawl; Maurice Broaddus; Ella D?Arcy; E. Catherine Tobler; Sarah Prineas; Barbara Roden; Mary Braddon; Mae Empson; Caroline Stevermer; Delia Sherman; Tansy Roberts; N. K. Jemisin; O.M. Grey.

"Gaslighting" is used to describe abusive behavior, specifically when an abuser manipulates information in such a way as to make a victim question his or her sanity. Gaslighting intentionally makes someone doubt their memories or perception of reality. The term Gaslighting originates in the systematic psychological manipulation of a victim by her husband in Patrick Hamilton's 1938 stage play Gaslight, and the film adaptations released in 1940 and 1944. In the story, the husband attempts to convince his wife and others that she is insane by manipulating small elements of their environment and insisting that she is mistaken, remembering things incorrectly, or delusional when she points out these changes. The play's title alludes to how the abusive husband slowly dims the gas lights in their home, while pretending nothing has changed, in an effort to make his wife doubt her own perceptions. The wife repeatedly asks her husband to confirm her perceptions about the dimming lights, but in defiance of reality, he keeps insisting that the lights are the same and instead it is she who is going insane.