Valentine’s Day and Gaslighting

Valentine’s Day is full of expectations.
For those in the nightmare
of coercive control,
rather than a dreamy romantic hope
the approach of February 14th
is painful anticipation ruminating on
just how bad that day was or could be.

Valentine’s Day is on the way! There’s nothing we can do to hold it back, but hold on to your heart and your reason, because here comes that made-up BS holiday when we potentially could lose both. Before you get sentimental and break no contact, maybe read this bit here…

Valentine’s Day Packed with Anticipation

Because this tiny day out of 365 is intensely magnified and can be hugely hurtful, I wanted to find out more about this day. This one day we expect so much of – and often get little from aside from a sad-sad day, or worse. So, I did a little online digging to investigate why this day is given so much weight.

Did you know, it seems there’s no one definite explanation for our modern-day Valentine’s Day, the candy and flowers routine? Historically however, it does have roots in a gaslighting extravaganza promising fertility and a partner.

Is Valentine’s Day Based in Gaslighting?

What I discovered is, that even with all this hoopla about what our partner does or doesn’t do for us on Valentine’s Day, and the pain of being solo on this day, there’s no one definite historical attribution to our flowers and candy romantic day other than a commercial one.

Our most familiar prescription for how we mark February 14th appears to be driven by Hallmark and florists wanting to earn a mid-winter bump in profits. Similar to Coca~Cola leaning heavily on the advertising image of our modern “Santa” to cash in on Holiday dough.

Booze, Sex, and Naked Bodies

There is some record of the Romans (those ancients we owe so much to) celebrating a span of days on the calendar correlating to our St. Valentine’s Day.

Their revelry during a trio of wintery days hugging our February 14th leaves us with our chosen day.

From February 13th to 15th Yale University professor, Noel Lenski, explains that the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia by cavorting and rabbelrousing while “drunk and naked”.

Holidays Used to Be Really Wild

Lupercalia was a pagan festival of purification. (“Pagan” refers to anything non-Christian including a belief in a cadre of multiple Gods.) These venerable three days revolved around violence, drunkenness, and sex and fertility. There were sacrifices and blood rituals.

Yale professor Lenski fills us in, “The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain. Young women would line up for the men to hit them”. And further saying these eager maidens believed this inevitably messy whipping with dead animal flesh “would make them fertile.” – Sounds like historical gaslighting to me!

And it continued to the men’s advantage as the brutal fête included a matchmaking lottery in which young men drew the names of women from a jar. Each lucky lady would then be coupled up for the duration of the festival with the dude who drew her name…or for longer if the match was right. (Promises, promises.)

A Not So Saintly Beginning

So why do we call it “St. Valentine’s Day”… And why specifically on the 14th if their bacchanal lasted three days? Well, it’s those Romans again. It seems on February 14th (bingo, that’s our day) Emperor Claudius II executed two men — in different years, but both on the 14th of February, and both men named Valentine. – More violence, gaslighting, and no imagination.

Then, later, when the Christians built up their influence, they didn’t like any non-Christian holiday or celebrations. (Pagan, essentially for Christians, meant anything non-Christian in the way of beliefs or celebrations.)

And the Times They are a Changin’

So this led to Pope Gelasius II digging to muddle things in the fifth century during his popedom in the years 492 to 496. Gelasius blended Lupercalia with a sweeter interpretation evolving into “St. Valentine’s Day” to cover up the pagan rituals.

Our Yale professor Lenski sums up that result, saying it was still “more than a drunken revel, but the Christians put clothes back on it. That didn’t stop it from being a day of fertility and love.”

Valentine's Day with a Psycho

Ya wanna know what I got on Valentine’s Day the year I was married to the international criminal conman? I woke up to him drooling and snoring on the couch, by then his usual sleeping place. His clothes were dumped in a crumpled mess on a near by chair where he’d shed them probably somewhere around 4:00 AM after a night of hunting. Being the good wife I was, I quietly, so as not to disturb him, lifted his jeans to straighten them out. A string of gold foil-wrapped Trojan condoms fell out of the pockets. Ya know what I did? I left those condoms on the floor and watched when he spotted them later as he woke from his nest on the sofa. He leaped up to hide them, glancing my way to see if I saw. I pretended to notice nothing. Comical by my account. – Both the condoms and the day went by unacknowledged. Those condoms were my only “gift”. Considering everything, I’d say I was pretty lucky. – This version of Valentine’s Day became one of the things that “undid” his spell on me.

Chocolate and Imagination for the Win

So, here we are in our era with Valentine’s Day with chocolates – said to boost our “happy” and “feel good” hormones. We’ve got cards, flowers, and candle-lit dinners… Not so bad with some one who truly cares. Whether you’re solo or coupled up, remember, there are good men – and women – out there! And know that good men and women don’t make us confused, use us, lie to us, or gaslight us.

And just a thought, as I mentioned the image included here is a drawing of the execution of both Valentines. How about, Just for fun and stress relief…maybe picture someone else there in place of Valentine?

It’s real that there’s a fleeting moment, a short time in the scope of resolving our losses, grieving, unwinding the truth and restoring our lives that we wish, imagine, hope…that they’ll share an end such as the Valentines did. That’s normal. PTSD hits some scary places. Use what you have to heal.

Valentine’s Day Our Own Way

It’s my hope that this broadened perspective on Valentine’s Day can relieve some of your pull towards them if it’s still tugging at you and they’re still in your bones. I hope that you can resist contact and stay no contact. Hang on to yourself and ignore and rebuff in silence any hoovering or drive-bys they instigate. These dirtbags aren’t worth poop. You are precious and of infinite value.

As far as chocolate, there’s a See’s or other candy store wherever you live or online for that matter, so grab a box, a bottle, and a good book or a movie. Take yourself for an outing or a dinner. Maybe get naked like the Romans and dance around your living room celebrating your freedom from narcissistic abuse.

Or ya could read Holiday Hoovering: Prime Hunting Season, and insert Valentine’s Day as the holiday in question for good measure. Or spend an hour on February 14th in a coaching session with me! We’ll have a good time!

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As a certified coach, upholding industry standards I strive to inform, educate, invite thought and dialogue, to co-plan, co-strategize, advise, consult, refer, recommend, train, teach, guide and coach people in guided recovery and discovery specific to these crimes, and from hell and broken in the aftermath to whole again, and more. You decide what winning is.

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