[Pride 2020] Ghosts and Gaslighting

Gaslighting.

I am not alone or special in this experience. I am not the first, nor the last, and definitely not the only. However, that thought of similarity does not comfort me. As much as islands are similar, they are isolated.

And I think you feel that, too, sometimes. Being surrounded by people, maybe even people you like and respect, but feel lonely there. Maybe it’s when your mother uses the wrong pronoun, by mistake or “by mistake.” Or when your lover scoffs at what you’re wearing. Or when a friend says something so innocently backwards, it catches your breath. It’s a sudden and momentous moment of a vacuum - of existence in non-existence. It’s the presence of a familiar ghost in a crowded room.

A ghost of silence - not theirs, but of your own.

*

I am game for experiences. Recently I was given the opportunity by the website I write for, Haunted MTL, to spend a virtual night in a haunted house - in one of the haunted houses, The Conjuring house. I was ecstatic - who isn’t infatuated with Satanist-baby haunted houses?

I took a day off the “regular” job and tried to stay up all night inside the haunted house. I built a fort to block out as much sound and light as I could. I jumped on and tried to stay up the whole night…which was about 3:30 A.M. since I am an old person who wakes up early. But in that time, I took notes, I jumped onto the chat forums, took grainy pictures, and yelled at ghosts through a screen, hundreds of miles away, to give me a sign. It was a fun and peaceful night, and I slept soundly to the soft glow of the night vision cameras and the gentle static of uninterrupted audio feed.

It was the next morning when the experience soured.

When I woke up on my day off, I went right back to it in my ghost fort. I watched the cameras and went to the chats to see if I had missed anything.

The night before, the chats were filled with discussions of “this is soooo not worth $20!” and “I can’t believe I wasted money on this”. Basically, the normal chatter you’d expect of any gimmick or attraction - from actual haunted house attractions to Ouija board socks on Amazon.

However, there’s always someone, isn’t there, to stir the pot? This alleged pot-stirrer went by Lucifer. Lucifer Morningstar.

See a theme?

It’s the old story of drama on the web and I won’t get into all of it, but here’s the basics, Lucifer was banned from some of the forums because he was being a dick. Lucifer stated that it hadn’t been him making comments, so the moderator stepped in and was iffy about letting him back in.

But Lucifer was lying. I had examples of Lucifer in recent chats with questionable content, including saying out of left field that Andy (from Raggedy Ann and Andy) is “a transsexual sapien freeloading monger.”

I just said for the moderator, “Hey, this dude likes to stir the pot.”

Here’s the bottom line. I’m a person that lurks in forums. Apart from a few words here and there, I don’t really speak up unless I see some shit going down and I call it out. I’m used to this. It doesn’t make friends. In fact, it usually makes me the asshole, which is what it did here.

Immediately, I heard the “boys will be boys” type of excuse. I was indirectly told that I had “nothing better to do” and that I was being “annoying for other people.”

And yes, I had to just let it go.

Out of Lucifer’s three hundred and-thirty-eight words, I said fifty-nine, some of those being quotes from Lucifer, and some of them being, “Cool, let’s just keep ghost hunting.”

Sure, I was annoyed by the exchange but it wasn’t what soured the experience. It was that I, in speaking up in that moment when I saw hypocrisy and harmful intent, was also dismissed by this niche group. I was causing trouble by pointing it out. I was affecting other people’s enjoyment by sharing my experience with them.

This is an extremely common complaint from all minority groups in these subsets and niche tribes. I have personally heard this from female atheists, LGBTQ and/or feminist people of color, horror writers of color, and cosplayers/anime artists of color. What typically happens is there’s a concern, they voice it and then they are shut down, not the actual problem person. Their experience is the problem, and when they express the hypocrisy or harmful intent, they are blamed by affecting other people’s experiences and enjoyment.

There is a back-and-forth pull of groups wanting (or paying lip service to wanting) diverse members, but if there’s an issue brought to attention, that onus lies with the person reporting it. It’s on them. And so they lose that voice of diversity and dissent, because who wants to die on this haunted-house hill after the folks turn off the night vision and turn on the gaslight?

I will say that the moderator/ghost investigator did a terrific job at being inclusive and confronting the situation. However, if you’re in a room where you’ve been told you’re not wanted by the other people there, you know your way out. So, I turned off the forums. I cut myself off from the community. I can be all-or-nothing and always have been. So I spent my time staring at a black-and-white screen with only white noise to accompany me.

Even the ghosts ghosted me; nothing else happened for the rest of my time watching the silent feeds. 

My spouse (they/them) knew how excited I had been, so I was dreading the question. Since the night prior I had made a production to build the pillow fort to sleep in to stay up and watch for spooks, they knew it was a big deal. I adorned the top of my fort with my great white doll/pillow and the whole thing looked triumphant when I had crawled into it that night, smuggling in some rum and wine. They had even posted it online, with my feet sticking out and shark staring into the darkness.

But in the daytime, I felt foolish, even embarrassed, as I took it down. Not for building it, but that my enthusiasm that had soured. I was ashamed of my disappointment.

When they finally asked the question, I coyly told them about it: the details of what Lucifer said, what I said, and the way I felt dismissed. I wondered aloud whether I should have just stayed out of the chatrooms all together.

My spouse does this thing with their eyes when I know that they have a thought that they don’t want to share, but is important.

“What?”

“Well,” they said, “I wasn’t there...but from what you told me...maybe you’re seeing something that isn’t there. Maybe you’re being too aware. Too vigilant. Maybe it really wasn’t a big deal.”

And maybe you just felt it then, too. My spouse, also non-binary, also feminist, also atheist, usually on that island with me, suddenly wasn’t and I was in that vacuum again. Isolated. Wondering.

This was supposed to be an experience to goof around with some wine in a fort, looking for spooky things that I don’t even believe in. It was supposed to be about chatting with people about the Alf doll that was in the upstairs bedroom and his own spin-off ghost investigation show. Or listening in on Ouija sessions and telling ghost stories. Live. In the dark. Together. Millions of miles away, in the middle of a pandemic.

It was supposed to be something to pull me towards a community. Enjoying the experience with a group of people who liked watching the same things as I do. But now, I am feeling more isolated and lonelier than I’ve felt in a very long time. I don’t know who I’m actually doing this for any more.

Maybe my spouse is right; maybe I am seeing things that aren’t there, just wisps out of the corner of my eye. A footstep from someone that was never here. Garbled messages in a spiritbox that only my apophenic brain connects. Maybe I’m looking too carefully at what people are saying. Maybe boys will be boys and I should let it go.

Or maybe not.

Maybe this is a real issue, but is so deeply ingrained that even those closest to me don't see or understand it…or worse, add to the glow of the gaslight. I feel like I’m William Shatner screaming that there’s something there and people are telling me that it’s not a big deal, that pointing out the gremlin is annoying everyone, and don’t I have something better to do?

Yes, of course I do, but calling out bullshit and hypocrisy within these communities that we’re a part of is important, too. The consequence of having diversity is that we actually are diverse - we have different thoughts, opinions, and cultures. The other consequence is in the growing of ideas and development. They’re two sides of the same coin and sometimes it’s shitty work. It’s hard to sift through the feelings and cultures of others (I get it), but it’s how we, as a species, have persevered and thrived. Dissent is essential to growth. Tolerance and compassion are cornerstones in every healthy community.

It’s not a hope, but an understanding that some of you may feel like this, too, in your own isolation, in those moments of your life. You will hear from members of the same “tribes” and “clubs” that speaking up about your experiences is not essential to the group. You may be asked if you have something better to do. You may be called annoying. For that, I understand you; in my vacuum, disconnected from you, I understand you. It’s often not what people want to hear, but it’s important, just as you are important.

Who are you doing it for? You’re doing it for those that didn’t speak up, in the past, present, or future. Growth is uncomfortable, and for those who don’t understand, it’s intimidating and nearly unbearable. But don’t be gaslighted by their insecurities or rhetoric. You being there is important. And if you like it, then you should be there.

So, ghost investigation community, this wasn't the experience I wanted. This wasn’t the hill I was preparing myself to die on; however, if it is, break out the wine and spiritbox, because I am not a silent ghost and I’ll be sticking around. I’ve got a lot more than fifty-nine words to say. 

And I don’t think I’m the only one.

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