I was watching the Disney movie
The Hunchback of Notre Dame when I suddenly went into shock.
Right from the start, seeing Quasimodo be the recipient of
so much gaslighting – being told that the world wasn’t safe, that he would never be accepted or loved, that Frollo had only his best interest at heart – struck a jarring, but familiar chord with me.
I could barely breathe as I watched; Quasimodo’s isolation in the belltower eerily mirrored the control and entrapment I’d experienced years before.
“Hey,” my partner said softly, pausing the film. “Sam, you’re safe. It’s okay. But if this is toomuch, I’m more than happy to watch something else.”