Denial. It's difficult to explain. When something bad happens, but the only other person involved tells you "it wasn't like that!?" or "you are to blame!" or "you are overreacting"... You start doubting yourself in a very fundamental way. One of the greatest reliefs I have found in my research is a term called "crazy-making". This is exactly how I have felt for so long. Crazy. Like I can't trust my own judgements, perceptions or experiences because I am told they didn't happen, or at the very least they didn't happen in the way I experienced it.
From www.verbalabuse.com
DENIAL
Denial at its most basic is saying something has not happened.
It is extremely sick and extremely powerful.
It is the way that people can commit abuse and still live with themselves.
It allows them to continue being abusive by staying in the sick place, and by allowing them to hide their sickness from others so that they can maintain the abusive situation for a longer period of time.
They lie to others, and most devastatingly, they lie to themselves. The major tactics used in maintaing the denial are minimizing, rationalizing, and justifying.
MINIMIZING
Minimizing distances the abuser from the damage caused by saying it wasn't as bad as it actually was. "I didn't beat her up, I just pushed her..." By minimizing the damage, they can blame the victim for "exagerating" the abuse or accuse the victim of simply making the whole thing up.
RATIONALIZING
Rationalizing is lying to oneself about what was done to make it seem acceptable--telling ourselves rationalizing lies. This lying becomes more and more practiced until we can convince ourselves of anything--particularly when the pain of admitting the truth of what we've done becomes larger and harder to deal with.
JUSTIFYING
Abusers always have a reason to explain why their behavior or reaction was deserved and/or necessary. "She needs to know that over-drawing the bank account is serious. She knows I don't really hate her, but at least now she knows I'm serious!"
