DARVO

DARVO stands for Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender. This is a popular acronym but thankfully it’s not a TLA! It’s just a thing they do.

And Susan was no exception. It’s what so did when confronted with anything, or even asked a question now that I think of it, or actually, if I expressed an opinion for that matter. Anyway…

1. Deny => Automatically reject any wrongdoing, insisting that it never happened or in Susan’s case…
2. Attack => “you’re a fucking lier, Oh my God, I can’t believe you’re accusing me of that” (Puke!)
3. Reverse Victim and Offender => “I can’t believe you’re treating me like this after all I’ve done for you”. The poor little victim (sorry, I have to puke again).

Levelling tends to follow

In my experience some kind of “leveling” would always eventually follow, such as “yea, well don’t forget about the time you blah blah”. That was pretty much a resignation or an admission of the wrong doing. And if I denied it, then we’re into gaslighting push-pull, back-and-forth exhausting life-destroying horrible bullshit.