How to Recover from Gaslighting in a Toxic Relationship
You leave the conversation feeling like you're the one who's difficult. Again.
Your stomach is tight, your thoughts are spinning, and you can't quite explain what just happened, only that somehow, you're now apologising for being upset about the thing they did. You replay the conversation in your mind, trying to find the moment it flipped, the moment your legitimate hurt became evidence of your "sensitivity" or your "overreaction."
You're exhausted from explaining yourself. From defending your own memory. From wondering if maybe, just maybe, you really are too much.
Here's what you need to know: this confusion isn't an accident. It's the result of a specific pattern of manipulation designed to make you doubt your own mind. And your nervous system has been absorbing this confusion for longer than you realise, learning to treat your own perceptions as unreliable and your own feelings as evidence that something is wrong with you, rather than with what's happening to you.
If you've started Googling phrases like "Am I crazy?" or "Why can't I trust myself anymore?" you're not losing your grip on reality. You're responding exactly as anyone would when someone systematically dismantles their sense of what's true.
This is gaslighting. And it doesn't just distort your memory, it destabilises your entire sense of self.
When Your Reality Becomes Negotiable
Gaslighting isn’t about occasional misunderstandings or different perspectives. It’s about someone making your experience of reality feel like something that’s up for debate.
You bring up something that happened last week, and suddenly it didn’t happen that way. Or it didn’t happen at all. Or you're “remembering wrong.” Or you're “making a big deal out of nothing.”
You express hurt about their behaviour, and within minutes, you're comforting them. Your pain has been reframed as an attack on them.
You walk away from conversations more confused than when you began. The facts shift. The timeline blurs. What felt clear becomes murky.
Gaslighting makes closeness feel like quicksand.
And here's the most disorienting part: sometimes they’re kind. Sometimes they're everything you want them to be. And you think, “Maybe I am overreacting… maybe if I just explain it differently…”
But gaslighting isn’t a misunderstanding waiting to be fixed.
It’s a pattern of control that keeps you off-balance, questioning yourself, and dependent on them to tell you what’s real.
What Gaslighting Actually Looks Like
Gaslighting rarely announces itself. It doesn’t begin with blatant lies or dramatic contradictions. It starts quietly, in moments small enough to brush aside but unsettling enough that something in you tightens.
They deny things that clearly happened. You bring up a conversation, a promise, an event, and they meet you with calm confusion. “I never said that. You’re remembering wrong.” Their certainty makes you question your own.
They rewrite history in real time. Yesterday’s cruelty becomes today’s joke. “Obviously, I was kidding.” Last week’s boundary breach becomes your overreaction. “You’re making this into something it’s not.”
They turn your emotions into flaws. You’re not hurt - you’re “too sensitive.” You’re not setting a boundary - you’re “being difficult.” You’re not asking for accountability - you’re “starting drama.” Your feelings are reframed as evidence of your instability rather than a valid response to their behaviour.
They stay calm while you unravel. One of the most effective tactics is their composure. They appear reasonable—measured—even amused, while you become increasingly distressed trying to explain yourself. To anyone watching, you look like the unstable one. That is precisely the intention.
They weaponise your vulnerabilities. If you have anxiety, a history of dismissal, or old wounds about being “too much,” they use those tender places against you. “You’re spiralling again.” “This is just like last time, you always overreact.”Your self-doubt becomes their strongest tool.
And over time, these moments accumulate. What once felt like isolated incidents becomes a pattern. Then the pattern becomes your atmosphere.
You stop noticing when you’re second-guessing yourself because you’re doing it constantly.
You stop raising concerns because it never leads anywhere safe.
You start protecting them from your feelings because every expression of hurt becomes proof, in their narrative, that you are the problem.
None of this happens because you're broken or bad at communicating. It happens because someone has learned that if they can make you doubt yourself, they never have to be accountable for how they treat you.
And your nervous system, striving to survive the relationship, adapts accordingly.
When reality becomes distorted, self-protection becomes a survival strategy.
The Patterns That Keep You Trapped
Gaslighting doesn't exist in isolation. It thrives in a specific ecosystem of manipulation tactics that work together to keep you destabilised, disconnected, and dependent.
These patterns don’t happen in isolation; many of them are also core tactics of coercive control, where psychological manipulation and power imbalance gradually replace freedom and emotional safety.
Isolation from validation. Slowly, subtly, you're cut off from people who might reflect back to you that what you're experiencing isn't normal. Maybe they criticise your friends. Maybe they create drama with your family. Maybe they simply monopolise your time and energy until maintaining other relationships feels too exhausting. Either way, the effect is the same: the only mirror you have for your reality is the distorted one they're holding up.
Blame-shifting that makes you responsible for their actions. You didn't make them yell. You didn't cause their coldness. You didn't force them to lie. But somehow, in their version of events, you did.
If only you hadn't brought it up.
If only you weren't so demanding.
If only you could just let things go.
The focus shifts seamlessly from what they did to what you're doing, and you end up apologising for reacting to harm instead of receiving an apology for the harm itself.
Intermittent reinforcement that keeps you hoping. The moments of warmth, of closeness, of them being the person you know they can be, these aren't random. They're part of the pattern. Just when you're ready to leave, just when you've had enough, they soften. They're sorry. They see you. They promise to do better. And because you're desperate for the relationship to work, you believe them. Again.
If a part of you is wondering why walking away feels impossible, even when you know something is wrong, that’s a very common response to trauma dynamics. I talk about this in more detail in Why Do They Stay: The Complex Reality of Leaving Abuse.
This push-pull dynamic doesn't happen because you're naive. It happens because intermittent kindness is one of the most powerful tools of control. It keeps your nervous system in a state of anxious attachment, always scanning for signs of safety, always hoping the next time will be different.
(If this resonates, read When Love Hurts: Understanding Trauma Bonding.)
Public personas that contradict private cruelty. To the outside world, they're charming, thoughtful, reasonable. People like them. People trust them. So when you try to talk about what's happening behind closed doors, you sound paranoid. You sound bitter. Because how could someone so lovely be doing what you're describing?
This discrepancy doesn't just confuse others—it confuses you. Maybe they're right. Maybe you are the problem. Because if they can be kind to everyone else, why can't they be kind to you?
These patterns don't make you weak for staying or for struggling to name what's happening. They make you human.
Your attachment system is wired to seek connection, to hope for repair, to believe that if you just try hard enough, you can make the relationship safe. Gaslighters exploit that wiring, not because you're gullible, but because you care.
And here's what I want you to hear: the fact that you still care, the fact that you're still trying to understand what's happening, the fact that you're reading this right now, these aren't weaknesses. These are signs that your inner compass is still there, still trying to guide you toward truth. It's just been buried under so much distortion that you can't quite hear it anymore.
But it's still there. And recovery begins by learning to listen to it again.
Why Your Body Knows Before Your Mind Catches Up
Gaslighting isn’t just psychological, it’s physiological. Your nervous system registers danger long before you have words for what’s happening. I explore this process more deeply in Why You React Differently on Different Days: Your Window of Tolerance Explained.
You walk into a room and your stomach drops. Not because anything obvious has happened, but because your body remembers. It recognises the pattern: calm doesn’t last, kindness has conditions, and speaking up often leads to consequences.
You freeze mid-sentence during conflict—not from uncertainty, but because your nervous system has learned that expressing yourself isn’t safe. A deeper part of you has decided that silence is the more protective strategy.
You feel shaky, nauseous, or dissociated after conversations that should be simple. That isn’t oversensitivity. It’s your body responding to emotional manipulation the same way it would respond to any threat: by activating your survival system.
Gaslighting teaches your nervous system to distrust itself. Each time your gut said something was wrong and you were told you were imagining it, your body learned that danger signals weren’t valid. Each time you expressed hurt and were treated as the problem, your attachment system learned that closeness comes with punishment.
Over time, this creates chronic dysregulation. You might become hypervigilant, scanning for threats even in safe situations. Or you might shut down, disconnecting from your feelings because feeling became dangerous. Many people alternate between the two, unsure which version of themselves will show up.
None of this is a character flaw. It’s your nervous system adapting to an environment that was unpredictable, invalidating, and emotionally unsafe.
And here’s why that matters: you can’t think your way out of gaslighting. Insight alone won’t bring clarity, because the impact lives in your body, not just your mind.
Healing requires reconnecting with the signals your body has been sending all along—the tightness in your chest when they start rewriting events, the urge to flee during familiar conflict patterns, the relief you feel when they’re not around.
Your body has been telling the truth the whole time.
The work now is learning to trust it again.
How to Protect Yourself and Begin Healing
Recovery from gaslighting isn't about winning an argument or getting them to finally see what they've done. It's about returning to yourself and rebuilding the connection to your own inner knowing that someone worked very hard to sever.
Here's what that process looks like, not as a checklist to get through, but as a gradual reclamation of your own mind, your own feelings, your own reality.
Trust the Signals Your Body Sends
Gaslighting taught you to distrust your instincts, to dismiss your gut feelings as overreactions or misunderstandings. Healing begins by listening again, not to their version of events, but to what your body is telling you.
Does your stomach drop when you see their name on your phone?
Do you feel relief when they cancel plans?
Do you rehearse conversations beforehand, trying to find the exact words that won't set them off?
Do you feel smaller, quieter, more apologetic in their presence than you do with anyone else?
These aren’t overreactions.
They are information.
Your body is telling the truth, even when the other person insists otherwise.
Start Documenting Things
When someone repeatedly distorts reality, keeping a record of what actually happened becomes a form of self-preservation. This isn’t about preparing for confrontation. It’s about giving yourself something solid to return to when they insist your memory is wrong.
Keep a private journal. Write down conversations while they’re fresh: dates, times, what was said, and how it felt in your body. Save text messages. Screenshot exchanges you know will later be denied. Track not just isolated moments but the pattern: apologies that never lead to change, concerns that get minimised, the way you end up apologising for things that weren’t yours to carry.
This isn’t paranoia. It’s clarity in the middle of deliberate confusion. And when they say, “That’s not what happened,” you’ll have something more reliable than their shifting narrative.
You’ll have your own.
Seek Reality-Reflections From Safe People
Gaslighting often isolates you from outside perspectives because outside perspectives would reveal the distortion. Healing begins with reconnecting to people who can reflect back what you've been too close to see.
This might be a friend who’s noticed you becoming smaller, a therapist who understands trauma dynamics, or a support group where others recognise the pattern immediately. Anyone who can listen without judgment and say, “That’s not normal. You’re not imagining this.”
You may feel hesitant or embarrassed to open up, especially if you previously minimised the relationship or defended the person. That shame is part of the gaslighting, too, the belief that you should have known better, or that no one will understand why you stayed.
But connection is the antidote. Speaking your experience aloud and hearing someone respond, “I believe you,” breaks through the confusion. The distortion loses power. And you begin to remember that your perception wasn’t the problem, but the way you were treated was.
Talk to someone who understands emotional abuse, or explore: Recognising Emotional Abuse: Signs and Impact
Set Boundaries (When It's Safe to Do So)
If you're still in contact with the person gaslighting you, boundaries can help protect your reality while you decide what to do next.
A boundary might sound like:
“I’m not continuing this conversation if you deny what I experienced,” or
“I need space to process this. I’m not available to talk right now.”
But here’s the truth: with someone who gaslights you, boundaries usually won’t be respected. They will be tested, minimised, or punished. That’s why the boundary isn’t for them. It’s for you. It’s a way of practising, “My reality matters, even if you refuse to acknowledge it.”
And if setting boundaries makes things worse: if they escalate, retaliate, or your safety feels threatened, the boundary you need isn’t verbal. It’s distance. Silence. Separation.
You don’t owe anyone access to you, especially someone who uses that access to dismantle your sense of self.
Regulate Your Nervous System
Gaslighting keeps your nervous system in a constant state of confusion and alertness. Your body learns to stay braced, anticipating the next distortion, monitoring every shift in tone, never fully able to relax. Healing begins with helping your system return to a baseline of safety, even if the external situation hasn’t completely changed yet.
This often starts with very simple practices:
Breathwork: something as gentle as inhaling for four counts, holding for seven, exhaling for eight.
Grounding: feeling your feet on the floor, noticing five things you can see, pressing your palms together and sensing the pressure.
Movement: walking, stretching, or lightly shaking your body to release stored activation.
These aren’t distractions from the “real” work. They are the real work. Until your nervous system feels safe enough to experience emotion, you can’t fully process what has happened. And without that processing, the cycle of confusion that gaslighting creates tends to repeat.
It can also help to intentionally notice small moments of safety—what therapists call glimmers. The relief you feel when you’re alone. The ease of a conversation with someone who doesn’t twist your words. The way your body softens when you’re with people who let you simply be yourself.
These moments teach your nervous system that not all relationships are destabilising, that your reality can be met with respect, and that a trustworthy connection is possible.
(If this resonates, you may also like Breadcrumbing & Emotional Abuse and Why Healthy Love Feels Uncomfortable After Abuse.)
Consider Trauma-Informed Therapy
Gaslighting is relational trauma. It's not something you can simply "get over" or talk yourself out of. The patterns it creates, the self-doubt, the hypervigilance, the difficulty trusting your own perceptions, they live in your nervous system and your attachment wiring. They need more than insight to heal. They need repair.
A therapist attuned to trauma, attachment, and nervous system work can help you rebuild:
• self-trust
• clarity
• reality-testing
• emotional safety
This kind of therapy isn't about rehashing what happened endlessly. It's about creating enough safety that your system can finally process what it couldn't process in the moment. It's about learning to trust again, not them, but yourself.
Your Reality Is Worth Protecting
Gaslighting erodes your connection to your own inner wisdom. Recovery is the slow, steady work of rebuilding that connection, learning to trust your perceptions again, honouring your feelings, and believing your own memory. It means finally recognising that you are not at fault simply because someone repeatedly told you that you were.
You don’t need their validation to know your experience was real.
You don’t need their acknowledgement for it to count as harm.
You don’t need to wait for an apology that may never come before you begin offering yourself the care and respect you deserved all along.
This process isn’t linear. There will be days when doubt resurfaces, when you wonder if you were too sensitive, too reactive, too unforgiving. That’s part of healing from a relationship where your sense of reality was constantly questioned. Recovery doesn’t eliminate those moments; it helps them pass more quickly and with less force.
And please know this: you’re not crazy. You’re not too much. You’re not the problem.
You are someone who trusted, who tried to make sense of contradictions that weren’t yours to hold, who adapted to a dynamic where your reality was continually dismissed.
Your confusion wasn’t a flaw. It was a response to deliberate manipulation.
Now, with support, time, and compassion, you can return to yourself, not the version they preferred, the one who stayed small and apologetic to keep the peace, but your authentic self. The part of you who knows what you know, feels what you feel, and deserves relationships where your truth is met with respect rather than distortion.
That self is still here. And they are worth coming home to.
If part of your healing involves trying to understand whether the behaviours you’ve experienced fall under conflict or abuse, it may help to read When Does Relationship Conflict Become Abuse?
Support for You
If you recognised yourself in this article, you’re not alone.
At Safe Space Counselling Services, I support people navigating gaslighting, coercive control, attachment wounds, and complex relational trauma.
Together, we can help you rebuild:
• your inner compass
• your sense of safety
• your trust in yourself
📧 kat@safespacecounsellingservices.com.au
📞 0452 285 526
Free Resource: Reclaiming Sanity Workbook
A trauma-informed workbook designed to help you:
recognise gaslighting patterns
reconnect with your inner voice
rebuild self-trust
set boundaries rooted in dignity
Frequently Asked Questions
-
Gaslighting doesn't just affect you during the relationship; it can leave lasting imprints on how you relate to yourself and others. Many people experience chronic self-doubt, difficulty trusting their own perceptions, anxiety when expressing needs, and hypervigilance in new relationships. You might find yourself over-explaining, apologising excessively, or constantly seeking external validation for things you should be able to trust yourself about. These aren't permanent character changes; they're adaptive responses to relational trauma that can heal with support and time.
-
Here's the difference: In healthy relationships, when you express hurt, the other person is concerned about your feelings. In gaslighting, your feelings become evidence of your dysfunction. If someone consistently responds to your pain by making you question whether you have a right to that pain, that's not sensitivity, that's manipulation. Your feelings might be strong, but strong feelings about being dismissed, invalidated, or hurt are completely reasonable. "Too sensitive" is often what people say when they don't want to be accountable for the impact of their behaviour.
-
Some people begin healing on their own, through journaling, supportive friendships, reading, and time away from the relationship. But therapy, especially trauma-informed therapy, can significantly accelerate and deepen that healing. Gaslighting affects how you relate to yourself at a fundamental level, and having a trained professional help you rebuild that relationship, separate your truth from their narrative, and regulate your nervous system can make the difference between surviving and truly recovering.
-
Lying is telling an untruth. Gaslighting is telling untruths specifically to make you doubt your own reality. It's not just about the lie itself; it's about the cumulative effect of repeated distortions that leave you questioning your memory, your sanity, your right to your own experience. A single lie is painful. A pattern of lies designed to destabilise your sense of what's real. That's gaslighting.
