The word “gaslighting” has caught fire in the past few years. It’s deployed during fights with romantic partners, between family members, and across the Internet. Gaslighting occurs when someone makes you doubt your sanity, memory, and experiences, but people overuse the term to describe even standard disagreements.
Yet there’s a type of gaslighting that therapists wish more people would recognize and talk about: self-gaslighting.
“Gaslighting is when someone manipulates you into questioning your own reality, and self-gaslighting is when you do the same thing to yourself,” says Lauren Auer, a therapist in Peoria, Ill. That makes it different from negative self-talk, or the harsh critic inside your head—which, while harmful, doesn’t necessarily involve denying or distorting your own reality. “A lot of times it happens because you’ve internalized that dismissive voice that’s now the voice in your own head, and you become your own worst doubter,” Auer adds. “Before anyone else even has the chance to invalidate you, you’re already doing it to yourself.”
We asked experts why self-gaslighting happens and how to overcome it.
What self-gaslighting looks like
You can gaslight yourself in subtle ways. After getting into a fight with your partner, you might think: “I’m overreacting” or “They didn’t mean it—I’m just too sensitive,” even though your feelings were hurt.
“When you set a boundary, you might tell yourself you shouldn’t need space,” says Ashley Pena, a licensed clinical social worker and national executive director for Mission Connection, an outpatient mental health care provider. Or perhaps you downplay a scary interaction with a date by thinking “It wasn’t that bad,” she adds, or excuse a friend’s unkind behavior by telling yourself, “They’re just stressed.” You’ll probably hear yourself say “I’m just being dramatic.”
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This is more than harmless reframing or self-reflection. It’s a kind of self-invalidation—doubting or dismissing your own feelings, experiences, memories, or needs. Yet people often confuse the thoughts, Auer says. “Self-reflection is really honest, like asking yourself, ‘What is my part in this? Could I have handled it differently? What can I learn here?’ It’s more grounded in reality,” she says. “You’re not dismissing what happened or how you felt—you’re trying to understand it, whereas self-gaslighting is more dismissive and immediately shutting down your experience.”
Say, for example, that your friend canceled plans with you at the last minute (for the third time). Self-reflection might look like this: “I feel hurt by this. Is there something I need to communicate? Have I been clear about my needs? Is this a healthy friendship, and a good friendship for both of us?”
Self-gaslighting, on the other hand, sounds more like this: “I shouldn’t care this much. She’s probably busy. I’m just being needy—other people wouldn’t be bothered.”
Why it happens
People don’t intentionally gaslight themselves. It’s usually a learned defense mechanism that stems from past experiences being invalidated, says Jill Vance, a clinical psychologist in Chicago. Maybe you grew up with parents who dismissed your emotions or punished you for speaking up, or were taught to prioritize harmony over honesty. Perhaps you gaslight yourself as a way to preserve relationships—even unhealthy ones—by convincing yourself the red flags are no big deal.
“It’s pretty common, especially with people who have experienced relational trauma,” Vance says. “I often see it with folks who are coming out of relationships with narcissists, or sometimes, in extreme cases, [partners] who are actually psychopathic. These are people who have been manipulated a lot over time by others, and they end up internalizing it to the point where they start to manipulate themselves.”
Read More: 7 Things to Say When Someone Gaslights You
No matter what triggered your tendency to self-gaslight, the effects can take a toll. For starters, you’ll likely experience diminished self-confidence and self-efficacy (the belief in your ability to change your circumstances). “That can lead to feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, and it can also affect relationships,” Vance says. “What we see with people who self-gaslight is a lot of reassurance-seeking, which can get frustrating for others.”
If you’re prone to self-gaslighting, you might lack the ability to make even basic decisions, like what to do over the weekend. Over time, going along with what others tell you to do can lead to unhappiness and lack of self-identity. “It really seeps into every area of your life,” Auer says. “When you’re constantly dismissing your own feelings or doubting your own perceptions, you’re disconnecting from your own internal compass, and it’s hard to know what you actually want, what you actually feel, and what you actually need.”
How to stop it
Learning to stop gaslighting yourself can be a slow, scary process, Vance acknowledges. “It feels risky to trust yourself, especially if you’ve been doing this your whole life,” she says. Yet it is possible to break the tendency to self-gaslight. Here’s how.
Name it when it happens
Overcoming self-gaslighting starts with noticing when you minimize your feelings. When you catch it happening, Pena suggests pausing and asking yourself: “What do I feel right now?” “Therapy 101 is that you learn that your body works for a reason,” she says. “You get anxious for a reason—it’s all to protect you. So you have to name what you feel and validate your experience.”
Fine-tune your validation skills
You can take steps to get better at validating yourself. “If something bothers you, resist the urge to dismiss it and try saying, ‘You know what, that bothered me, and my feelings make sense,’” Auer says. “You don’t have to explain it, you don’t have to justify it, and you don’t have to give reasons. Just let it be true that it bothers you.”
Keeping a list is also a good idea. Log all the times you trusted your gut and were right, Auer suggests, or that you wished you had gone with your intuition but didn’t. You might note a time that speaking up led to something positive, for example. “Having that concrete evidence can be really helpful,” she says.
Practice saying “no”—or “not now”
People who self-gaslight are often afraid to say no, because they don’t think their own schedule or priorities or feelings matter. The next time your partner asks you to take out the garbage when you’re focused on something else, practice being upfront about the fact that it’s a bad time, but you’ll do it when you’re able.
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“It’s these little practices of building up self-esteem, building up courage, and realizing that the world doesn’t end,” Vance says. “Because a lot of times people are like, ‘Well, if I do something that’s my opinion or my belief, everyone’s going to hate me, or something’s going to go terribly wrong.”
With time, and especially by working with a therapist, people are often able to overcome their tendency to self-gaslight. Pena sees the way her clients talk about themselves change over time as they begin to trust their own emotions. “Our brain can be rewired,” she says.
