How to Trust Yourself Again After Gaslighting

You're standing in your kitchen, certain the conversation happened. You can see the room, remember the exact words. But they're looking at you with that calm, slightly concerned expression, telling you it never occurred.

You feel something crack inside. Not anger, something deeper. The ground beneath your sense of reality.

Maybe you're the one who's confused. Maybe your memory really is that unreliable. Maybe you are too sensitive, like they've been saying.

This is gaslighting. And what makes it so devastating isn't just the confusion it creates in the moment, it's the long-term erosion of your ability to trust yourself.

You might now find yourself:

• Apologising for having needs

• Second-guessing your emotions

• Reaching for reassurance, then feeling ashamed for needing it

• Wondering, “Is it really that bad?"

• Or quietly asking yourself: “What if I'm the problem?"

These patterns are not signs that you're broken; they're clues that your system has been repeatedly trained to override what you know to be true for the sake of psychological safety.

Let's take a breath and explore what gaslighting does to the nervous system, and how we begin to reclaim our inner knowing.

What Is Gaslighting, Really?

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that causes a person to question their perception, memory, or emotional reality. It can happen in intimate relationships, families, workplaces, or cultural systems.

Often, the person doing the gaslighting presents as calm, rational, or even “concerned". The survivor may present as reactive, defensive, or unsure. This power dynamic can easily be misunderstood by outsiders.

Examples of gaslighting include:

• “I never said that, you're imagining things."

• “You're just being sensitive."

• “You always take things the wrong way."

• “That's not how I remember it, you're rewriting the past."

• ""Everyone else thinks you're overreacting."

Over time, this leads to what some clients describe as a fog, where it becomes hard to locate what's real, what's yours, and what you feel safe to express.

Gaslighting, a term originally rooted in a 1940s play, describes how emotional manipulation can distort our sense of reality.

Gaslighting vs. Normal Disagreement

Not every disagreement about reality is gaslighting. Two people can genuinely remember events differently; that's normal human fallibility. But gaslighting has distinct markers:

Pattern, not an isolated incident. One confusing conversation doesn't make gaslighting. But if you find yourself constantly questioning your memory or perception after interactions with this person, that's a pattern.

Your version consistently gets erased. In healthy disagreement, both people's perspectives have validity. In gaslighting, only one reality is “allowed" to exist, and it's never yours.

You end up feeling “crazy" rather than just frustrated. Normal conflict leaves you frustrated, maybe misunderstood. Gaslighting leaves you doubting your sanity, your memory, your right to your own experience.

When you bring it up, they deny, deflect, or attack. A partner who genuinely misremembered might say, "I don't recall it that way, but I believe that's your experience." A gaslighter will insist you're lying, confused, or trying to manipulate them.

If you're still trying to sort out whether what you're experiencing is gaslighting or honest miscommunication, my blog on Gaslighting vs Miscommunication explores this distinction in depth and can help you trust your assessment of what's happening.

Why Gaslighting Hurts So Deeply

Gaslighting disrupts the basic building blocks of selfhood: your sense of reality, safety, and truth.

For many clients I work with, this isn't just a one-time experience. It's part of a patterned history, sometimes rooted in childhood. Maybe you grew up with a parent who denied your experiences, dismissed your emotions, or insisted their version of events was the only valid one. If this resonates, you might find my blog on Emotionally Immature Parents helpful in understanding how these early patterns shape adult relationships.

In this context, gaslighting isn't just confusing; it's a re-wounding of something that never had the chance to fully form.

That's why the aftermath can be so complex. Even after the relationship ends, your body may still be bracing. You might:

• Feel hypervigilant in new relationships

• Struggle to speak up in moments of conflict

• Mistrust your anger, or bury it

• Find it hard to name what you want, because you've learned to shape-shift around other people's realities

This might look like:

• Rehearsing conversations beforehand to get your words “right"

• Keeping texts or emails as “proof" that you're not making things up

• Asking friends, “Did I actually say that?" or “Am I being unreasonable?"

• Feeling your heart race when someone says, “Can we talk?"

• Apologising reflexively, even when you haven't done anything wrong

This is not a flaw in you. It's what happens when your emotional world has been invalidated repeatedly.

What Gaslighting Does to Your Nervous System

When you're repeatedly told your reality isn't real, your nervous system gets stuck in a state of chronic threat. Your body can't find solid ground because the rules keep changing; what was true yesterday is “imagined" today. What you clearly remember is “never happened."

This creates what trauma therapists describe as a destabilised sense of reality. Your nervous system learns that trusting your perceptions is dangerous. So it starts to override them, to prioritise the other person's version of reality over your own felt experience. This happens beneath conscious thought; it's your system trying to maintain connection and avoid the pain of being told you're “crazy."

Over time, this shows up as chronic hypervigilance (scanning for threats, bracing for the next denial) or shutdown (numbing out, dissociating from your own knowing). Your window of tolerance, the range in which you can think clearly and feel your emotions without being overwhelmed, gets narrower and narrower.

If you're noticing these nervous system patterns and want to understand them better, my blog on Window of Tolerance explains how trauma shrinks your capacity and what helps widen it again.

If You're Still In It

If you're reading this while still in the relationship, you might be wondering: Is it safe to trust myself when I'm this confused?

Here's what can help while you're still navigating the dynamic:

Document without judgment. Keep a private journal or voice memos. Not to “prove" anything, but to give yourself a record when doubt creeps in. Write down conversations as you remember them, how you felt, and what was said. Later, when they tell you it never happened, you'll have your own testimony to return to.

Notice the pattern, not just the incident. One confusing conversation isn't gaslighting. But if you find yourself constantly second-guessing what happened, losing track of your own perspective, or feeling like you're going crazy, that's information worth trusting.

Talk to someone outside the relationship. A therapist, trusted friend, or support line can reflect back what's actually happening when you've lost your bearings. Sometimes you need another nervous system to help regulate yours, someone who can say “That sounds confusing" or “Your reaction makes sense to me" without trying to convince you of their version.

Trust the feeling, even when the logic gets murky. If you consistently feel destabilised, confused, or “crazy" after interactions with this person, your nervous system is telling you something true. The confusion itself is the signal.

Recognise when you're trauma-bonded. If you find it impossible to leave even though you know the relationship is harming you, that's not weakness—it's often trauma bonding, a powerful psychological attachment that forms through cycles of abuse and intermittent reinforcement. My blog on Trauma Bonding: Why Letting Go Feels So Hard can help you understand why leaving feels so complicated.

If you're concerned about your safety, whether emotional or physical, please reach out to 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) or connect with a trauma-informed therapist who understands coercive control.

The Path to Rebuilding Self-Trust

The antidote to gaslighting isn't just understanding what happened. It's learning, slowly and compassionately, how to reconnect with the parts of you that were silenced and to create new conditions where your reality can be honoured.

Here's what that can look like.

1. Validate What You Went Through

Gaslighting thrives in silence and minimisation. One of the most powerful things you can do is name the experience, not just factually, but emotionally.

Instead of:

“It wasn't that bad. I should have just left."

Try:

“That was confusing and painful. I didn't deserve to be made to question myself."

Validation isn't indulgence. It's the nervous system repair. When you name what happened without minimising it, you're sending your body the message: Your experience was real. Your distress made sense. You're not making this up.

2. Rebuild Safety in the Body

Gaslighting creates chronic doubt, often felt in the body as tension, collapse, or disconnection. Start noticing how your body responds to people, places, or conversations:

• Where do you tighten?

• When do you dissociate or freeze?

• When do you feel a little more expansive, even for a moment?

You don't have to interpret every signal right away. Just notice. Gentle attention is the first step toward trust.

One simple practice: the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique. When doubt floods in, pause and notice:

• 5 things you can see

• 4 things you can touch

• 3 things you can hear

• 2 things you can smell

• 1 thing you can taste

This isn't about "calming down." It's about anchoring yourself in present-moment sensation when the past tries to rewrite itself. Your body needs repeated experiences of: This is real. This is now. You can trust what you're sensing.

If you're finding it hard to stay connected to your body or regulate when emotions surge, my blog on Nervous System Regulation offers practical tools for building that capacity.

3. Differentiate Inner Voices

Often, after gaslighting, people internalise the voice of the gaslighter. It can show up as:

• Harsh inner criticism

• Minimising your own needs

• Assuming conflict means you've done something wrong

• Telling yourself you're "too sensitive" or "overreacting"

Ask yourself:

• Whose voice is this?

• Would I speak to a friend like this?

• What does my wiser self know?

You might even write two columns in a journal: “Gaslighted Voice" vs “Grounded Self".

Gaslighted Voice: “I'm probably making this up. I'm too sensitive. Maybe I am the problem."

Grounded Self: “I remember what happened. My feelings make sense. I don't have to convince anyone else for my experience to be valid."

Sometimes it helps to imagine: if a friend told me they experienced what I experienced, would I tell them they're overreacting? Or would I say, “That sounds really hard. I believe you"?

The voice you'd use with them, that's the one you're learning to rebuild for yourself.

4. Seek Relational Repair

Because gaslighting happens in relationships, healing often does too. Look for spaces where your emotions are welcomed, not judged. Where your truth doesn't need to be argued or defended.

This might include:

• Trauma-informed therapy with someone who understands coercive control

• Friendships with people who respect your boundaries and don't require you to prove your experience

• Support groups with others who get it without needing you to explain

• Online communities for survivors of emotional abuse

Feeling believed, consistently and without contradiction, is deeply healing. Your nervous system needs experiences of: I can say what I perceive, and it's received without dismissal.

5. Practice Boundaries That Honour You

One of the hardest parts of healing is learning to say no and to trust that you have the right to do so.

You don't need to justify, defend, or explain every decision. You're allowed to walk away from conversations that feel confusing or unsafe. You're allowed to rest, to ask for clarification, and to change your mind. You're allowed to end relationships that consistently leave you doubting yourself.

Boundaries aren't about being cold or rigid; they're about making your inner world a place that feels less like a battleground and more like a home.

If boundaries feel impossible to set or terrifying to maintain, my blog on Setting Healthy Boundaries can help you understand why and offers a gentler approach to reclaiming your right to say no.

To work with me, email at kat@safespacecounsellingservices.com.au

or phone 0452 070 738