Oh boy. Do I? Yes. I gaslight my “inner knowing.” Far more often than I would like to admit.

First, let me explain what I mean by this phrase. As I grew up, as we all grow up, we have an “inner knowing” that points us in a direction. This direction may lead us to good places. It may lead us to bad places. Oftentimes, it leads us to places that have some good and some bad. And this is how we learn and grow and refine our inner knowing.

Gaslighting is the process of manipulating someone’s environment to alter their understanding of reality. As a child, I learned to do this to myself because I learned that if I expressed the wrong emotion at the wrong time, I might not survive. So I would gaslight myself and my inner knowing.

Given that I have been using this pattern for so long, I have trouble being confident in my inner knowing. I think that my reality may collapse if I prioritize my inner knowledge.

In fact, my body sometimes feels like it’s going to explode, and that I’ll die if I don’t get myself back to the patterns of my youth, if I don’t gaslight myself back to safety.

Thank you, dear reader, for being with me through this. Even having written these words makes the burden a little bit lighter.

I don’t know if I’ll ever entirely stop gaslighting myself, but I know that I’m making progress. If this article has resonated with you, I hope that it may be able to help you on your journey.