How to Trust Yourself Again After Gaslighting
Gaslighting doesn’t always come in loud, obvious forms. It can be soft-spoken, wrapped in concern, or disguised as “logic.” It often arrives subtly, through repeated micro-dismissals that teach you, over time, to doubt your instincts.
What makes gaslighting 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 believe 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.
Gaslighting, a term originally rooted in a 1940s play, describes how emotional manipulation can distort our sense of reality.
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:
“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.”
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.
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.
In this context, gaslighting isn't just confusing, it’s a re-wounding of something that never got 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 is not a flaw in you. It’s what happens when your emotional world has been invalidated repeatedly.
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 nervous system repair.
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.
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
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.”
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
Friendships with people who respect your boundaries
Support groups with others who get it without needing you to explain
Feeling believed, consistently and without contradiction, is deeply healing.
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.
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.
This Is What Healing Can Look Like
Healing after gaslighting often isn’t a straight line. It’s a spiral, one where old doubts resurface, but each time with a little more clarity, a little more self-compassion.
You might still have moments where you wonder, “Am I overreacting?” or “Did I make it all up?” That’s okay. The goal isn’t to never doubt again, it’s to know that your doubt is no longer in charge.
What matters is that, over time, your voice becomes stronger than the one that tried to silence it.
You are not too sensitive.
You are not imagining things.
You are allowed to take up space in your own life.
Need Support?
If you're navigating the fog of gaslighting and longing to feel more grounded in your truth, you’re not alone.
At Safe Space Counselling Services, I offer therapy that gently helps adults rebuild self-trust, reclaim their voice, and move through the complex grief that often follows emotional abuse.
Whether you prefer online or face-to-face sessions, I welcome you to bring your full self, even the unsure parts. Especially those.
Click here to book a free 15-minute consult
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Work with me:
To work with me, email at kat@safespacecounsellingservices.com.au
or phone 0452 070 738
