Gaslighting is a pattern of manipulation where someone causes another person to doubt their own perceptions, memory, or judgment — often to avoid accountability or maintain control.

Common tactics include:

• Denying things that happened — “That never happened” or “You’re imagining it.”

• Trivialising feelings — “You’re too sensitive” or “You’re overreacting.”

• Shifting blame — turning the other person’s concern back on them.

• Countering with false narratives — insisting their version of events is the only true one.

• Withholding — refusing to engage with or acknowledge the other person’s experience at all.

Over time, the effect isn’t a single incident but an erosion — the person starts to distrust their own instincts and reality. This is what makes gaslighting so disorienting compared with an ordinary disagreement or lie.

The term originates from the 1938 play Gas Light and its film adaptations, where a husband manipulates his wife into thinking she is losing her mind.

How to Spot Gaslighting

Signs can look different depending on whether the behaviour is happening in a romantic relationship, friendship, or family. However, the underlying pattern remains similar: someone is rewriting your reality to their advantage.

Gaslighting in Partners

A partner may:

• Deny things they clearly said or did, even when there are witnesses or evidence.

• Reframe your concerns as you being “crazy,” “too sensitive,” or “controlling.”

• Avoid apologising, while you find yourself apologising frequently.

• Isolate you from people who might validate your perspective.

• Cause you to rehearse conversations in your head before having them because you anticipate pushback.

Gaslighting in relationships can gradually affect your confidence, communication, and sense of emotional safety. You may begin to question whether your needs are reasonable or whether you are somehow responsible for every disagreement.

This is different from healthy conflict. In a healthy relationship, two people can remember an event differently, discuss what happened, and still acknowledge each other’s feelings. Gaslighting dismisses your experience and makes the disagreement about your supposed instability instead.

Gaslighting in Friends

In friendships, gaslighting may be less obvious at first. A friend may:

• Rewrite shared history to make themselves appear blameless.

• Mock or dismiss your boundaries as “drama.”

• Tell other people a version of events that makes you look unstable, then act surprised when you are upset.

• Leave you confused about what is true rather than simply accepting that you disagree.

A supportive friendship does not require perfect agreement. Friends can have different memories, priorities, or perspectives. The warning sign is a repeated pattern in which your feelings are dismissed, your boundaries are ridiculed, and the other person refuses to take responsibility.

Gaslighting in Family Relationships

Family gaslighting can be particularly difficult because it may have developed over many years. Common examples include:

• Long-standing labels such as “you always exaggerate” or “you were always the difficult one” being used to discredit anything you say.

• Your childhood memories or experiences being flatly denied by parents or siblings.

• Family gatherings becoming places where the group’s version of events overrides yours.

• Pressure to keep the peace by avoiding anything uncomfortable.

When these patterns begin in childhood, they can influence how you view yourself as an adult. You may learn to stay quiet, doubt your emotional responses, or prioritise other people’s comfort over your own wellbeing.

Gaslighting or an Ordinary Disagreement?

Not every disagreement is gaslighting. People can remember events differently, misunderstand one another, or become defensive during a difficult conversation.

A general tell across partners, friends, and family is that you leave the interaction less sure of your own perception than you were going in.

Ordinary conflict leaves you clear on what you think, even if the other person disagrees. Gaslighting leaves you questioning whether you are the problem.

Ask yourself:

• Can both people discuss the situation openly?

• Is there space for your feelings and perspective?

• Can the other person acknowledge that they may have contributed to the problem?

• Do disagreements lead to understanding, or do they repeatedly end with you apologising?

• Does the same pattern happen again and again?

One difficult conversation does not automatically mean someone is gaslighting you. The concern is the repeated pattern of denial, blame-shifting, minimising, and control.

How Do You Know You’re Not the Problem?

A few honest checkpoints can help separate genuine self-reflection from gaslighting-induced self-doubt.

Your concerns are specific

Your concerns may be based on actual incidents, words, or repeated patterns rather than only a vague feeling that “something is off.” When you can describe what happened clearly, that is a signal that your perception may be tracking something real.

You do not need to remember every detail perfectly for your experience to matter. Memory can naturally be incomplete, particularly during stressful situations. The important question is whether your concerns are repeatedly dismissed instead of discussed.

Other people notice the behaviour

Not everyone has to agree with you. However, if several independent people — not only those loyal to the other person — find the behaviour unusual or concerning when you describe it plainly, that outside perspective can be meaningful.

Speaking with someone you trust may help you reality-check specific incidents. Choose someone who can listen without pressuring you to make an immediate decision about the relationship.

You can take accountability when you are wrong

People who are capable of healthy self-reflection can usually acknowledge mistakes. You may apologise when your behaviour has genuinely hurt someone and think about how to respond differently in the future.

If you are able to be self-critical in other areas of your life, but one particular relationship makes you doubt everything about yourself, that contrast is worth noticing.

The doubt is disproportionate and constant

Healthy self-reflection is occasional and proportionate to the situation. Gaslighting-induced doubt can be relentless. You question yourself even when the facts seem clear, and you may repeatedly ask others whether your reaction is reasonable.

You feel worse after most interactions

Real friction may leave you upset because you disagreed with someone. Gaslighting often leaves you feeling that there is something fundamentally wrong with you.

You might feel confused, ashamed, anxious, or emotionally exhausted after ordinary conversations. You may also begin to lose confidence in decisions that you previously made without difficulty.

The Effects of Gaslighting

Gaslighting can affect your emotional wellbeing in several ways. You may experience:

• Low self-esteem.

• Anxiety and persistent worry.

• Difficulty making decisions.

• Emotional exhaustion.

• Confusion about memories and conversations.

• Fear of expressing your needs.

• Increased dependence on the person causing the self-doubt.

• Shame or the belief that you are “too much.”

• Difficulty trusting people in future relationships.

These effects are not signs of weakness. When someone repeatedly challenges your perception of reality, self-doubt can become a learned response.

Some people also develop unwanted coping behaviours, such as withdrawing from others, overworking, drinking, overeating, or constantly checking messages and conversations. In these circumstances, appropriate addiction therapy or wider mental health support may help address the underlying distress as well as the behaviour.

How Karen Helps People Affected by Gaslighting

Recognising the pattern is the first step, but rebuilding trust in your own perception and learning how to respond without losing yourself is where meaningful change happens.

At Karen Thomas, Karen helps clients work through emotionally difficult relationships, rebuild confidence, and develop practical strategies for responding to unhealthy dynamics. Her work combines hypnotherapy, Havening, NLP, and therapeutic coaching to support positive, lasting change.

Through Karen’s therapies and techniques, clients can explore issues connected with anxiety, trauma, confidence, self-esteem, stress, depression, anger, and unwanted habits. The approach is tailored to the individual rather than treating every person or relationship in exactly the same way.

Rebuilding your confidence

Gaslighting can make you question your judgement, boundaries, and ability to make decisions. Karen’s approach can support confidence coaching by helping you reconnect with your own values and recognise your emotional responses without automatically dismissing them.

The aim is not to make you suspicious of everyone or to encourage unnecessary confrontation. The aim is to help you develop a clearer understanding of what is happening, communicate more confidently, and make choices that protect your wellbeing.

Working with anxiety and emotional distress

If you are experiencing ongoing worry, panic, tension, or fear because of a difficult relationship, anxiety therapy may help you understand and reduce the impact of those responses.

Karen uses hypnotherapy to help clients access a relaxed and focused state. This can support new ways of responding to stressful thoughts and situations. For more information about the approach, visit the page about the best hypnotherapist in London and Cardiff.

Processing trauma and painful experiences

Gaslighting may occur alongside emotional abuse, coercive control, betrayal, or earlier experiences of trauma. You do not have to describe every painful detail before you can begin working towards change.

Karen’s Havening therapy in London and Cardiff approach is designed to create a safe therapeutic environment and help reduce the emotional intensity associated with distressing memories and deep-rooted emotions.

Havening therapy for trauma may be considered as part of a wider, individualised plan. It is important to discuss your circumstances openly with a qualified practitioner and seek additional support where necessary.

Changing unhelpful thought patterns

NLP can help people examine the language, beliefs, and mental images connected with their experiences. Karen’s NLP techniques page explains how visualisation and language patterns can be used to support positive change and help weaken old patterns that no longer serve you.

This may help you move away from thoughts such as:

• “Maybe I imagined everything.”

• “I am always the problem.”

• “I cannot trust my judgement.”

• “I have to keep everyone happy.”

The goal is not to replace one rigid story with another. It is to help you develop a more balanced, compassionate, and confident view of yourself.

Practical Ways to Protect Your Sense of Reality

Alongside professional support, the following steps may help you regain clarity:

• Keep a private record of significant incidents, including dates, words used, and how you felt.

• Save relevant messages or emails in a secure place.

• Speak with a trusted person who is outside the relationship.

• Notice repeated patterns rather than judging yourself by one conversation.

• Set small, clear boundaries and observe how the other person responds.

• Avoid arguing endlessly about your right to remember what happened.

• Give yourself time before making major decisions.

• Seek specialist support if you feel unsafe or controlled.

If you are in immediate danger, contact emergency services or a specialist domestic abuse organisation. Therapy can support emotional recovery, but it should not replace practical safety planning when abuse or threats are present.

You Don’t Have to Untangle This Alone

Recognising gaslighting is the first step. Rebuilding trust in your own perception, restoring your confidence, and learning how to respond to these dynamics without losing yourself is where real change happens.

That’s the work Karen does with clients at Change Your Life Therapy. Together, you can work through the specific relationships involved, rebuild confidence in your own understanding of situations, and develop practical strategies for setting boundaries and responding differently — so these dynamics stop having the same hold over you.

Come and see Karen at Change Your Life Therapy. Get in touch to talk about how you can work through it together.