When you’re in a relationship where your reality keeps getting questioned, where your memories are constantly corrected, and where your perceptions are repeatedly told they’re wrong, you can start to feel like you’re losing your mind. That feeling isn’t a sign that something is wrong with you. It’s a sign that something is wrong with what’s being done to you.
Feeling like you’re going crazy is actually a common experience for people in emotionally abusive relationships. It happens when someone consistently changes your reality, tells you things didn’t happen the way you remember them, or convinces you that your feelings and reactions are invalid. This is called gaslighting, and it’s one of the most damaging forms of emotional manipulation because it makes you doubt your own mind.
When someone tells you that a conversation never happened, that you’re remembering things wrong, or that you’re being too sensitive about something that clearly hurt you, they’re not helping you see things more clearly – they’re making you question yourself.
Over time, this erodes your confidence in your own perceptions. You start second-guessing everything. You replay conversations in your mind, trying to figure out what’s real and what isn’t. You begin to rely on them to tell you what actually happened because you no longer trust yourself.
This is exactly what gaslighting accomplishes. It shifts the power dynamic so completely that you stop trusting your own mind and start trusting theirs. Once that happens, they can get away with almost anything because you’ll doubt yourself before you doubt them. You’ll think maybe you are too sensitive, maybe you did misunderstand, maybe it wasn’t as bad as you thought.
The truth is that your perceptions are valid. If something felt hurtful, it WAS hurtful to you. If you remember a conversation going a certain way, that IS your memory of it.
When someone consistently tells you that your version of events is wrong, they’re not correcting you out of care or concern. They’re controlling the narrative so they don’t have to take responsibility for their behavior.
Feeling like you’re going crazy is also a result of the constant stress of walking on eggshells. When you never know what’s going to set someone off, when the rules keep changing, and when you’re always trying to prevent the next conflict, your nervous system stays in a heightened state. You’re anxious, hypervigilant, and exhausted. That’s not you being weak or unstable; that’s your body and mind responding to an environment that isn’t safe.
If you’re questioning your sanity, ask yourself this: Did I feel this way before this relationship?
If the answer is no, then the relationship is likely the problem, not you. Healthy relationships don’t make you feel crazy. They don’t leave you constantly doubting yourself or wondering if your feelings are legitimate.
You’re not losing your mind. You’re reacting to someone who is trying to make you lose trust in it. That’s a completely normal response to an abnormal situation.
Suggested listening:
https://loveandabuse.com/what-do-you-do-when-theyre-gaslighting-you/
https://loveandabuse.com/when-manipulative-people-change-your-reality-crazymaking-and-gaslighting/
