Gaslighting (yourself)

Gaslighting yourself is the internal habit of dismissing, minimizing, or second-guessing your own emotions, memories, and perceptions. For me, I constantly gaslight myself by thinking my life experiences aren’t enough for me to get the labels and credit that I do get. A lot of it comes from trauma. I think things like “it was only one night”, “other people have had it worse”, and “it should have been harder for me to feel like this”. It’s also a constant in my mind that nobody believes me or I don’t actually have PTSD. I even questioned when I had the flu that I might have been making it up. All of this is gaslighting yourself. 

Internalized invalidation is when you repeat the dismissive or critical messages you’ve heard from the past. Never having validation for your feelings is a trauma in and of itself. It’s automatic to develop internalized invalidation and it can be even more difficult to stop doing it. There’s also reality checking- talking yourself out of trusting your own gut feelings or memory of events. I think I probably do this every day. I have gone crazy trying to find the real story and it only made my brain send me more false memories (which complicated the matter). Self-blame is when you then immediately assume you are at fault, overly sensitive, or dramatic when dealing with a conflict. I blame myself for my emotions everyday, and I can’t heal by doing that. 

So, why do we do this? It can be a survival tactic from having to doubt your reality in the past to keep the peace in unsafe environments. It can also stem from childhood conditioning when you invalidate yourself before anyone else can. And it is also done to avoid conflict. Gaslighting yourself almost always starts with trauma, and it’s hard to recognize it and stop it because it’s probably all that you’ve known.

One way I do this is to use clinical or distant language instead of admitting how I actually feel about something. When I discuss my trauma, I say “it wasn’t a big deal”, “I am probably remembering it wrong”, or “I shouldn’t complain when others have had it worse”. The day after I was sexually assaulted, the perpetrator told everyone before I could that we’d had sex. I still carry that feeling and I still gaslight myself that he was right. There’s also an aspect of it that I think since I haven’t discussed it with anyone recently, they don’t believe it’s actually true. I’m also now in the process of processing other traumas related to my mental health crisis, and I’m doing it again. How much worse do I need it to be to validate myself and my life experiences? 

People don’t understand survivors enough, and it causes them to gaslight themselves. Sometimes it’s a way to stay strong, and it can be especially difficult when your memories aren’t exactly formed. I think this happens a lot when traumatic memories start to come back. I never want to say it’s been so hard or harder than others, but that means I’m probably gaslighting myself.

xoxo