On Being Gaslit by Your Own Brain
How to anchor yourself when trauma and self-doubt team up to convince you that you're the "crazy one."
The Fictional Facts Department
My brain has a whole department dedicated to creating alternative facts about my life, and honestly, they deserve a raise for their creativity. This week alone, the Fictional Facts Department has convinced me that:
Everyone who's ever complimented my writing was just being polite (clearly they were all in on some elaborate conspiracy to spare my feelings)
That awkward pause in last Tuesday's conversation means the other person definitely thinks I'm insufferable
My memory of that family argument is completely wrong, and I'm probably the manipulative one after all
The reason I haven't heard back about that opportunity is because they've discovered I'm a fraud
The department works overtime, churning out these little gems with the efficiency of a factory line. They're particularly productive at 3 AM and during any moment when I'm actually feeling good about myself.
Can't have that, can we?
What makes their work so convincing is how they mix just enough truth with the fiction.
Yes, that conversation was awkward. Yes, I do have flaws. Yes, sometimes I am wrong about things.
But somehow, in the hands of my brain's most creative storytellers, these normal human experiences become evidence of a grand theory: that I'm fundamentally broken, untrustworthy, and probably making everything up.
When Your Compass Spins
Here's the thing about growing up in environments where reality was constantly questioned, where your feelings were dismissed, and where you learned that love came with conditions: your internal compass gets damaged.
The needle that's supposed to point to "true north" starts spinning wildly, and you lose the ability to trust your own perception of what's real.
This is what makes gaslighting so insidious—it doesn't just happen in the moment. It installs a little gaslighter in your head who continues the work long after the original perpetrator has left the room.
Your brain, trying to protect you from future harm, becomes hypervigilant about questioning everything. (I wrote about this kind of invisible internal struggle last week when talking about high-functioning depression and the exhausting work of appearing competent while drowning inside.)
Was that conversation really as bad as I remember?
Am I being too sensitive?
Maybe I'm the problem after all.
The self-doubt feels rational, even protective. If you constantly question yourself, you can't be blindsided by someone else pointing out your flaws, right?
If you assume you're wrong, you can avoid the devastating experience of being told you're wrong. It's a survival strategy that outlives its usefulness by about three decades.
The cruelest part is how this internal gaslighting shows up precisely when you're trying to heal or set boundaries.
You finally work up the courage to say "that behavior hurt me," and immediately your brain springs into action:
But are you sure?
Maybe you're remembering it wrong.
Maybe you're being dramatic.
Maybe you're just like them after all.
It's exhausting to live in a world where you can't trust your own narrator.
Where every emotion gets fact-checked by a committee that seems determined to find you guilty of overreacting. Where standing up for yourself feels like the most dangerous thing you could possibly do.
Finding Your True North
The path back to trusting yourself isn't about perfecting your judgment or never being wrong again. It's about learning to distinguish between the voice of wisdom and the voice of old wounds. Here's what's been helping me navigate when my internal compass starts spinning:
Write it down. When you're doubting your memory or your feelings, put the facts on paper. Not your interpretation, just what happened. "They said X. I felt Y. This occurred after Z." Something about seeing it in black and white helps quiet the revisionist historians in your head.
Check your body. Your nervous system knows the truth even when your brain is spinning stories. That tight feeling in your chest, the way your shoulders creep up toward your ears, the sudden exhaustion—your body is a more reliable narrator than your anxious thoughts.
Find your reality-check person. This isn't about getting validation for everything you feel, but having someone who knows you well enough to say, "That sounds like your trauma talking," or "No, you're not being crazy." Sometimes you need to borrow someone else's compass until yours starts working again.
Remember: healing feels threatening to hurt. When you start trusting yourself, setting boundaries, or refusing to accept treatment that doesn't feel good, the wounded parts of you will panic. They'll throw every defense mechanism they have at you to get you back to the "safety" of self-doubt. That spiral of "maybe I'm the problem" often means you're on the right track.
The goal isn't to become someone who never questions themselves—that's how you become insufferable.
The goal is to develop the discernment to know when your self-reflection is coming from wisdom and when it's coming from fear. To trust that you can handle being wrong about some things without being wrong about everything.
Your perception matters. Your feelings are valid data points. Your memory, while imperfect like everyone's, is yours to trust. And that voice telling you you're crazy? It's probably the craziest thing in the room.
You're not gaslighting yourself by asking hard questions or examining your behavior. You're gaslighting yourself when you dismiss your own experience, minimize your pain, or assume you're always the problem. There's a difference between accountability and self-erasure.
Learn it. Live it. Trust it.
Your compass will find true north again. Give it time. Give it patience. Give it the radical gift of not apologizing for existing.
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What's your take on this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Sometimes the bravest thing we can do is remind each other we're not alone in the struggle.