Ever had someone get in your face and swear up and down something you know occurred. didn’t? That’s infuriating and it’s also a psychological tactic called gaslighting. The underhanded but profoundly degrading emotional manipulation erodes your confidence in your own perceptions, feelings, and memories, leaving you doubting yourself at every turn.
Gaslighting is not always overt. It might be cloaked in “jokes,” presented as concern, or even masquerading as an apology. It can make you feel over time like you’re the issue when actually, the manipulation is the problem. As therapist Shannon Thomas explained to HuffPost, “People who can’t actually argue their position or stand behind their words resort to gaslighting as a means to get what they want.”
The silver lining? Once you’re aware of the red-flag lines, you can begin catching them and guarding yourself before they take hold. Below are seven of the most prevalent gaslighting statements experts recommend being on the lookout for, along with why they’re so poisonous.
1. “That never happened.”
This traditional denial strategy aims to make you doubt your memory. Licensed clinical social worker Lisa Ferentz explains that when an abuser outrightly denies something you remember, it “heightens a sense of dependency on the abuser” because you begin to believe their account rather than yours. Gradually, it makes you doubt your own instincts.
It’s not about the isolated incident it’s about sowing seeds of doubt so that you’ll look to them in the future. Keeping a written or digital log of conversations can aid you in maintaining your reality when one is attempting to rewrite it.
2. “You’re too sensitive.”
At first glance, it seems like feedback. In fact, it’s a means to invalidate your feelings and make you feel silly for having them. Psychotherapist Beverly Engel comments that if once a partner destroys your trust in your own perceptions, you will be more likely to accept their actions.
This expression is particularly manipulative because it turns your emotional sensitivity into a fault. In healthy relationships, emotions are recognized not used as a weapon.
3. “You’re crazy and other people think so, too.”
In this situation, the gaslighter is not just testing your sanity but also enlisting witnesses. Ferentz cautions that perpetrators will go out of their way to give false information to friends or family members in order to get you isolated from your support group. And that isolation makes reality-checking more difficult.
The social smear campaign has two functions it destroys credibility and makes you more dependent on the abuser for approval.
4. “You have a terrible memory.”
We all forget sometimes, but gaslighters take common mistakes and turn them into a story that you can’t believe yourself. According to Shannon Thomas, this is at the heart of the manipulation: “When a victim no longer trusts their own observations, the abuser is in total control.”
Slowly, you might catch yourself going along with their version simply because you’ve been instructed to the point where you doubt yourself that yours is wrong.
5. “I’m sorry you feel that I hurt you.”
The non-apology apology it blames you for “misinterpreting” things. Clinical psychologist B. Nilaja Green says this strategy gets you to think you’re irrational or too sensitive, so you’re more reliant on the other’s interpretation.
Real apologies own up. This one quietly informs you the issue is not their action it’s your interpretation.
6. “You should have known how I would react.”
This statement reverses the script so you’re not just to blame for staying silent, but also for the abuser’s overreaction. Thomas labels it a method of “avoiding personal ownership” by distorting reality. It’s a double bind: you’re in the wrong if you remain silent, and you’re in the wrong if you say something.
Healthy communication doesn’t hold somebody in contempt for voicing a need or a concern it seeks to understand.
7. “It was only a joke, can’t you laugh?”
Passing off insulting remarks as jokes enables the gaslighter to avoid responsibility. If you complain, you’re accused of being stuffy or humourless. This is similar to what experts term trivializing downplaying your emotions to question their existence.
As Women’s Aid CEO Katie Ghose has noted, these behaviors “gradually erode your confidence and autonomy” and can have a horrific effect on mental health.
Gaslighting loves the darkness when you can’t yet name it or see it. Knowing to identify these statements is step one in taking back your reality. Whether you establish stronger boundaries, record interactions, or rely on trusted confidants, each move you make to verify your own observations moves you away from manipulation and toward trusting yourself. You’re not “too sensitive” or “forgetful” you’re catching on, and that is powerful.
