Picture this: you’re in a conversation with someone you trust, completely sure of what you saw or heard, but they insist you’ve got it wrong. Maybe your chest tightens, or your stomach drops. For a second, you wonder, “Am I going crazy?” That moment of self-doubt is classic gaslighting.
Gaslighting isn’t just a trendy buzzword. It’s a powerful form of emotional manipulation designed to make you doubt your own reality. If you feel like you can’t trust yourself, your instincts aren’t broken. This article can help you spot gaslighting red flags so you can take back control and reclaim the truth of your own experience.
What is Gaslighting?
Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse where one person systematically causes another to question their sanity, memories, feelings, or basic perception of reality. The term itself originates from the play and film Gaslight. In the story, a husband gradually dims the gas-powered lights in the house and then tells his wife she’s imagining it, all to make her feel “crazy” so he can control her and steal her inheritance.
These days, gaslighting isn’t limited to couples. It can happen at work, between family, friends, or even between a patient and their healthcare provider.
Is Gaslighting Emotional Abuse?
Absolutely. Gaslighting is a severe form of emotional manipulation used to invalidate what you feel and convince you that you’re wrong about your own experience. It is a covert type of emotional abuse because its effects aren’t visible.
Instead, the gaslighter chips away at your sense of self until you lose confidence in your own thoughts. After a while, you feel anxious, always confused, scared to trust your own mind. Worst of all, you might start depending on your abuser for answers, believing only they know what’s really true.
What makes gaslighting so difficult to spot is that it starts with small, seemingly harmless disagreements. Maybe they claim they never said something you clearly recall, or they tell you, “You’re overreacting. You’re being too sensitive,” whenever you challenge their behaviour. It happens so gradually that before you know it, you’re second-guessing everything, trapped in their version of the story.
Real Examples of Gaslighting
Gaslighting happens in everyday conversations. Learning to recognize these moments, such as a subtle lie or denial, is the first step toward taking back control.
Gaslighting in Relationships
Gaslighting in relationships often involves someone you trust. The gaslighter uses that trust and closeness against you. This can take several forms:
- Countering and Denial: They’ll flat-out deny things that happened. You remember an argument or a promise, but they shut you down: “I never said that. You’re making things up.” Or maybe, “That never happened, you’re being dramatic.”
- Withdrawing and Trivializing: They’ll refuse to talk, brush you off, or act like your feelings are nothing. You bring up something that’s bothering you, and they say, “I’m not listening to this nonsense,” “You’re being too emotional,” or “You’re just overreacting.” Suddenly, your feelings seem small or unreasonable.
- Blaming and Lying: They’ll flip the script or use your insecurities against you so you end up apologizing for their bad behaviour. “I wouldn’t get so angry if you didn’t push my buttons,” or, lying about past agreements, even though you’re sure they did.
- Isolation and Sanity Shaming: They may try to cut you off from outside support by insisting your friends are “toxic”. They may insist that you need help, as though you’re the problem, for raising concerns. Little by little, you find yourself doubting what’s real.
Gaslighting at Work and Medical Settings
Gaslighting in the workplace might look like a boss who “forgot” about that raise they promised or claims you got a clear instruction wrong, leaving you stuck questioning your own abilities. You know you heard them say one thing, but they swear it was something else.
In medical settings, gaslighting can be particularly dangerous. This occurs when a healthcare provider downplays your physical symptoms as being “all in your head” or dismisses serious concerns because of your age, gender or status. When a provider ignores your input because “you aren’t a professional,” they are effectively silencing your body’s own signals.
Systemic and Racial Gaslighting
It’s important to acknowledge that gaslighting can be systemic. Racial gaslighting occurs when techniques are used to undermine an entire ethnic community. For instance, labelling activists “irrational” or denying the existence of documented microaggressions and biases.
Minority groups, including BIPOC and LGBTQ2S+ individuals, are significantly more likely to experience medical gaslighting. This added layer of systemic trauma makes it even more difficult for these individuals to feel safe or heard in institutional spaces, further emphasizing the need for a trauma-informed, inclusive approach to healing.
Signs of Gaslighting
Gaslighting can feel like an invisible bruise because it’s something you can’t quite point to, but you carry it with you. The evidence isn’t in what the other person says out loud, but how you feel about yourself, and how you act around them.
If you feel like you’re always doubting your own instincts, it can be helpful to look at these signs of gaslighting:
- You Apologize All the Time: Maybe to your partner, boss or friend. You’re not even sure what you did wrong, but you assume you’re at fault and they’re disappointed in you.
- You Walk on Eggshells: You feel tense around this person, like there’s always a crisis about to happen. You shrink back from conversations or try to stay quiet, doing anything to avoid setting them off.
- You’ve Lost Your Sense of Self: You’ve become a shell of yourself. You can’t recognize who you used to be. You remember a time when you spoke your mind or stood up for yourself, but now you feel small and out of place, like you can’t get anything right.
- You Freeze When Making Any Decision: Every decision, big or tiny, feels impossible. You second-guess yourself over what to have for dinner or what words to use in a text, and no matter how hard you try, you leave conversations with this person feeling more confused than when they began.
- You Feel Isolated and Ashamed: You start hiding what’s going on from people who care about you, making excuses for the other person’s behaviour or keeping your worries to yourself. Maybe you’re embarrassed. Maybe they’ve convinced you not to say anything because everyone else thinks you’re unstable.
The “Honeymoon” Phase of Gaslighting
Gaslighting rarely starts on the first date or the first day of a job. Usually, there’s a warm, almost too-good honeymoon phase. The person showers you with affection or encouragement, doing and saying everything you want to see and hear.
These good memories get stored as proof that they care. So when they start lying and minimizing your concerns, it doesn’t set off any red flags. Because they were so kind in the beginning, your brain tries to justify the new, hurtful behaviour as a one-time mistake or a misunderstanding. But the sweet moments start fading, and before you know it, you start believing you’re the one at fault for everything.
How to Respond to Gaslighting
When you learn how to respond to gaslighting, you take the power from them and put it back in your hands. Here are some ways to help you reclaim your reality after feeling off for so long.
Don’t Engage in the “Truth War”
Gaslighters aren’t after the truth. They want control. You can’t convince someone whose survival depends on you being wrong. So, instead of getting lost in endless arguments trying to prove you’re right, use clear, personal lines to keep yourself grounded. Some responses you can use:
- “We remember this differently, and I’m not going to argue about my own experience.”
- “I know what I saw, and I’m not here to debate my reality.”
How to Respond to Gaslighting in Different Environments
When it’s your partner, friend or family member gaslighting you, staying calm is your greatest tool. They want an emotional reaction because it helps their case that you’re “unstable.”
- Use “I” statements: Instead of blaming, say, “I feel dismissed when my memories are questioned.”
- Identify the Pattern: Is this a one-off difficult conversation or part of a bigger cycle of abuse?
Protecting yourself from workplace gaslighting involves using a paper trail strategy:
- Communicate in Writing: After a meeting, send a summary email: “Per our discussion, here are the three goals we agreed upon.” This prevents them from claiming a conversation never happened.
- Document Everything: Keep a private log of dates, times, and specific comments. If their behaviour continues, you have the evidence needed to approach HR or legal counsel.
If a healthcare provider dismisses your symptoms, you have the right to advocate for yourself.
- Seek Clarification: Ask, “Can you explain why you ruled out [X condition] despite my symptoms?”
- Bring a Witness: Having a trusted friend at appointments provides emotional support and an objective witness to the interaction. Don’t hesitate to seek a second opinion.
How to Protect Yourself From Gaslighting
Here are some general strategies to protect yourself from gaslighting:
- Trust Your Instincts: Your gut feeling is a biological alarm system. Do not dismiss your emotions as “irrational.”
- Call It Out: Naming the behaviour as it happens helps set a boundary. Say, “That’s minimizing my experience”.
- Leave the Relationship: Remember that walking away is the ultimate boundary that prioritizes your sanity and safety above someone else’s control.
- Seek Professional Support: Working with a therapist at Lotus Therapy can help you rebuild your self-esteem and find your voice again
Safety Precautions and Evidence Gathering
When gaslighting is a form of ongoing abuse, gathering evidence may seem like a radical approach, but it’s a necessary one that protects you.
- Keep a Private Journal: Log events, save texts and screenshots to help you sort out your truth from manipulation.
- Protect Your Privacy: If you live with the gaslighter, store this evidence in a password-protected file, or send copies to a trusted friend and delete them from your own device.
- Create a Safety Plan: Identify safe places you can go, emergency contacts, and how you’d leave in an emergency. Emotional abuse can escalate into physical violence, so having a plan is an essential tool for your protection.
If you ever feel physically unsafe, reach out to friends, family, or a domestic violence hotline. Your safety comes first.
- VictimLinkBC: 1–800–563–0808 (toll-free, 24/7, multilingual service available)
- Battered Women’s Support Services Crisis Line: 1–855–687–1868
- BC 24/7 Community and Social Services Helpline: 211
At Lotus Therapy, we understand how gaslighting can destroy your self-trust. Healing begins when you stop going to the gaslighter for answers and start listening to yourself again.
Here’s something to reflect on:
What’s one thing you know about yourself right now that nobody else can take away?
If you’re struggling to regain your sense of self, you don’t have to go through it alone. Our trauma-informed team is here for you. Reach out to our Vancouver or Coquitlam clinics today.
References
Cleveland Clinic. (2022, July 7). Signs of Gaslighting and How To Respond. Cleveland Clinic. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/gaslighting
Johnson, V. E., Nadal, K. L., Sissoko, D. R. G., & King, R. (2021). “It’s Not in Your Head”: Gaslighting, ‘Splaining, Victim Blaming, and Other Harmful Reactions to Microaggressions. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 16(5), 1024–1036. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916211011963
Karakurt, G., & Silver, K. E. (2013). Emotional abuse in intimate relationships: the role of gender and age. Violence and Victims, 28(5), 804–821. https://doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.vv-d-12-00041
Kukreja, P., & Pandey, J. (2023). Workplace gaslighting: Conceptualization, development, and validation of a scale. Frontiers in Psychology, 14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1099485
Sebring, J. C. H. (2021). Towards a Sociological Understanding of Medical Gaslighting in Western Health Care. Sociology of Health & Illness, 43(9), 1951–1964. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13367
Thomas, L. (2018). Gaslight and gaslighting. The Lancet Psychiatry, 5(2), 117–118. https://doi.org/10.1016/s2215-0366(18)30024-5
Watson-Creed, G. (2022). Gaslighting in academic medicine: where anti-Black racism lives. CMAJ, 194(42), E1451–E1454. https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.212145
