Healing After a Partner Undermines Your Voice
“You’re imagining things.”
“You’re overreacting.”
“You’re just guessing.”
[followed by a sneer or a laugh]
If you’ve heard these phrases over and over in a relationship, you’ve experienced more than rudeness or poor communication. You’ve experienced a subtle and devastating form of emotional abuse known as gaslighting.
🚨 What Is Gaslighting?
Gaslighting is when someone manipulates you into questioning your perception, memory, or sanity. In long-term relationships, this can be slow and insidious — especially when done by someone you trusted.
You begin to wonder:
- “Did I imagine that?”
- “Maybe I am too sensitive.”
- “What if I am just guessing?”
But here’s the truth:
You weren’t guessing. You were sensing. And you were being dismissed.
🧠 The Psychology Behind Decades of Dismissal
When a partner never gives you straight answers, mocks your instincts, or laughs at your emotions, they are doing more than avoiding conflict. They are:
- Eroding your self-trust
- Undermining your intuition
- Training you to doubt your inner wisdom
Over time, this creates emotional paralysis. You become afraid to speak, afraid to be wrong, afraid to even feel.
🧬 The Neuroscience of This Type of Abuse
Your nervous system is wired to respond to threat — even emotional ones. Long-term gaslighting activates your stress response in damaging ways:
- ⚡ Chronic cortisol and adrenaline release
- 🧠 Disrupted prefrontal cortex function (decision-making, clarity)
- 🔁 Repetitive self-blame and confusion from an overactive default mode network
This is why you may have felt:
- On edge for no clear reason
- Confused and forgetful
- Anxious or “frozen” in conversations
- Like you were slowly disappearing
Again — this was not you being weak. This was your nervous system surviving.
💡 What Healing Looks Like
The damage is real — but so is the recovery.
✅ Your Healing May Begin When You:
- Say, “That was gaslighting.”
- Reconnect with safe people who affirm your truth
- Work with a trauma-informed therapist
- Journal to reclaim your voice
- Let go of needing validation from your abuser
🛑 What Healthy Relationships Do NOT Look Like
A safe, loving partner will never:
- Sneer when you speak
- Laugh at your concerns
- Refuse to give clear answers
- Make you feel like your instincts are “just guesses”
Instead, healthy partners:
- Answer with respect
- Make space for your emotions
- Want you to feel safe and seen
- Are curious about your experience — not contemptuous
🌱 You Are Allowed To:
- Speak up without fear
- Ask questions without ridicule
- Trust your gut again
- Walk away from mockery
- Be loved without shrinking
🧘♀️ From “Guessing” to Knowing
Your nervous system will recognize safety again. The tightness in your chest will ease. The hypervigilance will soften. You’ll feel the difference when someone truly sees you.
Because you were never too much.
You were never crazy.
You were never guessing.
You were surviving.
