Gaslighting
What It Is and Why It Isn’t Your Fault
If you’ve ever walked away from a conversation feeling confused, doubting yourself, or wondering if you’re “too sensitive,” you may have experienced something called gaslighting.
Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse that makes you question your own thoughts, feelings, and memories. It can be subtle at first, but over time it chips away at your confidence and sense of self.
Gaslighting often shows up in repeated phrases or behaviours that make you doubt what you know to be true. Let’s explore some of the things you might hear.
❌ “You’re too sensitive.”
❌ “That never happened.”
❌ “You’re imagining things.”
❌ “You always overreact.”
❌ “You’re crazy, everyone else agrees with me.”
❌ “You can’t trust your own memory.”
Hearing these things over and over can make you feel like you can’t trust yourself anymore. That’s the intention — to shift power away from you and into the hands of the abuser.
How Gaslighting Can Make You Feel
If you’ve been gaslit, you might:
Feel like you’re always second-guessing yourself
Apologise more often than you should
Struggle to trust your own decisions
Wonder if you’re the problem
If this feels familiar, please know: you are not the problem. The feelings you’re experiencing are a natural response to someone deliberately undermining you.
Why It’s Not Your Fault
Abuse is always a choice made by the abuser, never by the survivor. Gaslighting works because it preys on trust, love, and the hope that things will get better. If you’ve believed gaslighting in the past, that doesn’t make you weak. It means you were doing your best to survive in a difficult situation.
Final Reminder
Gaslighting is confusing and painful, but recognising it is a powerful first step. Your feelings are real. Your memories are valid. And you are not “too sensitive”, you are human.
If you’re experiencing gaslighting or other forms of abuse, please know support is available:
📞 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) – 24/7 confidential support in Australia
📞 Lifeline: 13 11 14 – Crisis support
📞 MensLine: 1300 789 978 – Support for men
You deserve safety, respect, and love that doesn’t hurt.