It's great you got the locks changed. Unless she learns to pick locks, that should keep her out.

And no, she cannot get any information from you psychically. There's no scientific proof people can read minds. Professional psychics are actually just really good at picking up on forms of non-verbal communication, such as inflections in tone of voice, posture, and body language. This is actually something most people can do with people they know well--they can look at them and know what they are thinking or feeling without being told outright. If you feel your sister has "read your mind" before, she was instead probably picking up on your mood or body language, or other things she knows about you and drawing conclusions from this.

But I understand why you might believe she has literally gotten inside your head psychically because of the psychological warfare involved in gas-lighting. I think that, because the abuser messes with you so much psychologically, the damage can result sometimes in our thinking they are literally in our heads. Years ago, for a few weeks, I even had the delusion going that my stalker was in my head psychically.

My best advice at helping you stay sane as you deal with this: Get a hidden video camera. Getting a camera will not only get evidence if your sister ever breaks in again, but it will help you stay sane as it will serve as a way to check your perceptions about things that happen in your home.

I know from my own experience, and from talking to a lot of other stalking victims, that we often start to think that anything that looks weird or out of place is the work of the stalker, particularly if the weird thing that happens is something the stalker has definitely done before. For example, once or twice, when the stalker broke into my house, the calling card he left was that he left a light on. So months later, when I kept finding my patio light turned on at night, I immediately thought he had done this. But it turned out that I was the one turning it on accidentally, but didn’t know.

How I learned the truth about the light was that I had finally broken down and bought a hidden video camera. After I set this up, the next time I found the patio light on, the video proved there had been no one else in the house but me. And after awhile, I figured out how I was the one turning on the light accidentally, and this was a great relief.

I got the camera to try to get video evidence of the break-ins, but ironically, its greatest benefit to me was in how it helped me stay sane by helping me stay grounded in reality which helped me stay calm. I would be in much worse psychological shape today if I hadn’t had something to keep my own perceptions in check.

I strongly urge you to not drop your friend because she doesn’t understand the effects of all this on you--her not offering emotional support might be because she doesn't know what to say.

It isn’t possible for anyone to know what this is like unless they have gone through it themselves. Because of this lack of understanding around us, it’s so common for stalking victims to isolate from friends and family, but I can tell you from experience this only makes things worse--isolation will add to the stress of being stalked and this will make you crazier.

I understand how her disagreeing with you might be triggering. You’ve got family members not believing about the break-ins, and other people not agreeing with your perspective about something could feel like the same thing.

But I do think she has triggered you, rather than abused you.

I think the perception of whether something is “tidy” or not is personal. Some people are tidier than others; one person’s tidy is another person’s messy. I think her not agreeing with you was simply her personal opinion about the state of the corner, and not an attempt to abuse you. She wasn’t saying, “Your sister didn’t mess up the corner.” She was saying “I don’t think the corner is messy.” These are two different things.

One of the things PTSD does to us is make it difficult to understand what is really happening when something reminds us of abuse we have suffered. Just like the patio light I accidentally turned on initially appeared to be done by the stalker, your friend’s disagreeing with you that the corner was messy reminds you of your family denying your perceptions about your sister’s behavior.

Don’t let triggers make your life worse--give your friend the benefit of the doubt.

I am so glad you will be getting support. I hope it works out as health care professionals can be as clueless as everyone else is about the effects of this type of gas lighting. But I recommend you don’t just walk away if they doubt your perceptions like your family does as you could still get other support and benefits you need from them. (My last therapist didn’t believe my story for over a year, but I still got quite a lot of other helpful support from her in the meantime.)

Of course she loves you. And you are right, it’s important to love yourself. If you can’t love yourself, you won’t be able to see when other people do.

Hang in there! Supporting you, Ceara1010