Are you still blaming your indecision when you were actually being gaslit?
| Section | Heading |
|---|---|
| Intro | Is confusion a sign of lack of safety rather than lack of clarity? |
| Concepts | How does self-doubt act as inherited programming? |
| Concepts | How does chronic invalidation break our inner compass? |
| Diagnostic | Where have you called yourself 'indecisive' when you were too scared to be wrong? |
| Mini Practice | Can you name three recent moments you knew what you felt but didn't act? |
| Reflection | What would it look like to treat feelings as evidence rather than error? |
| Neuro | How does trauma change the brain's clarity and create confusion trauma responses? |
| Validation | Why does validation repair emotional clarity where logic sometimes fails? |
| Self-Gaslighting | What is self-gaslighting and how does it keep you stuck? |
| Boundaries | How do boundaries and small experiments restore trust issues and trust healing? |
| Practices | Which everyday practices build emotional clarity and stop the internal gaslighter? |
Note: This piece uses research and contemporary articles to explain self-gaslighting and invalidation. Key findings from peer-reviewed work and reputable organisations are woven in to help you act, not just understand. Sources include experimental validation research, recent gaslighting studies, and global violence data.
Is confusion a sign of lack of safety rather than lack of clarity?
I used to think confusion was my personal flaw: a kind of soft, private failure that showed up when I couldn't choose a meal, a book, or a partner. Then I began to count not the decisions I failed to make but the times someone insisted I had misunderstood them — repeatedly — until I began to mistrust the map inside my head.
It turns out confusion often has a location. It sits in a body that has been told its sensations are wrong, in a mind that has been corrected so often the corrections have become authority. When someone — or a chorus of someones — tells you that your memory is unreliable, your emotions are exaggerated, or your perception is "dramatic", you stop taking your inner signals seriously. Rather than a lack of clarity, what you feel is a lack of safety: safety to be right, safety to be wrong, safety to be imperfect and human. This is the essential pivot: safety allows clarity to be trusted; without safety, our inner compass frays.
Clinical and sociological work on gaslighting shows that manipulative behaviour aims to make someone question their perception and memory — precisely the mechanics that create chronic confusion. Far from being eccentric or weak, a person who doubts themselves in this context is responding perfectly rationally to an unsafe environment. Learning to name that is the first win.
"Confusion can be a weather report, not a diagnosis."
Quick practice: for the next 24 hours notice how often you preface a memory with "I might be wrong, but..." — count quietly, without shame.
How does self-doubt act as inherited programming?
Let me tell you a small truth: self-doubt often feels like an intimate voice, but it is frequently an echo. That echo comes from caregivers, partners, or workplaces that invalidated you — not only once, but repetitively. Imagine a friend who misnames your cat every time they visit. After enough visits you might hesitate to call the cat by any name at all. The mechanism is similar, though the stakes are higher with emotions and decisions.
Researchers who study invalidation and family environments show that when emotions are repeatedly dismissed or labelled 'too much' or 'overreacting', children learn to censor themselves. Linehan’s biosocial theory (used in DBT) argues that an invalidating environment combines with biological sensitivity to produce chronic emotional difficulty. In short: some of your self-doubt is inherited programming — handed down in sentences like "You're too sensitive" or "Stop making a fuss." These phrases are not benign; they recalibrate how you read yourself.
This programming is sneaky because it borrows your language. It doesn't speak in external insults; it sounds like your voice. That makes undoing it feel like undoing yourself. But we can treat programming as code. Code can be read, debugged, and rewritten. The first debugging task is to notice the origins. Ask: who said that to you most often? In what tone? How old were you when you started to believe it?
Reflective prompt: Write the sentence you hear most often in your head when you second-guess yourself. Now write down who you first remember hearing that sentence from.
Want help decoding those sentences? I offer short consultations where we map your inner scripts and make a plan. Book a paid consultation — or start with a chapter from Burn the Old Map.
How does chronic invalidation break our inner compass?
I once worked with a woman who could remember every flavour of her childhood kitchen but could not trust her feeling that a relationship was unsafe. The reason? Every time she spoke up as a young adult, someone in authority — a family elder, a professor, a boss — minimised the feeling. When emotional experience is consistently met with dismissal, two things happen inside: the emotional response gets louder (because it hasn't been integrated), and the person learns to seek external permission to feel. Experimental research shows that validation reduces negative emotional intensity whereas invalidation escalates it, affecting both subjective feeling and physiological arousal. This is not mystical; it's measurable.
What chronic invalidation does is undermine your calibration. Calibration is the skill of matching sensation to reality — to know that a racing heart can mean both excitement and alarm, and to interpret it correctly. When your system is repeatedly told it's wrong, it stops trusting signals that used to be reliable. You become, in effect, chronically uncertain. The irony is that uncertainty is adaptive when you are in harm's way; it keeps you cautious. But when the uncertainty is manufactured by another's denial, it becomes corrosive.
There is also a social element: gaslighting is rarely a single act. It accumulates in patterns: trivialise, deny, deflect, repeat. Over time the person on the receiving end may begin “policing” themselves — second-guessing instincts and waiting for external validation before acting. That pattern is the heart of self-gaslighting.
Where have you called yourself 'indecisive' when you were just scared to be wrong?
If you had to map the last week, how many moments would you label as 'indecision' where the true experience was fear of being corrected or shamed? I find people often mislabel fear as indecision. Fear feels like hesitation; indecision sounds like a trait. There is a huge difference between "I hesitate because I'm afraid of being publicly wrong" and "I am indecisive by nature." One is situational and fixable; the other becomes an identity sticky-note stuck to your forehead.
Try this quick diagnostic: open your phone notes. For each of five recent moments you called yourself "indecisive," write a one-line context, and then answer: did anyone earlier (in that relationship or setting) make you feel small for being wrong? If yes, lean into the hypothesis that something external — a pattern of invalidation or gaslighting — is the real cause.
This is not about blaming others so you escape responsibility. It's about accurate diagnosis. If a doctor misreads a test, you don't call the patient "sick" — you fix the misreading. Naming source matters because it tells you what to do next: safety, boundaries, repair, therapy, or practical experiment.
Can you name three recent moments you knew what you felt but didn't act?
Here's a small practice I give people: in a quiet 10–15 minute slot, write three moments from the last month when you felt something clearly — irritated, relieved, frightened, curious — but you did not say or do anything. For each moment, answer three short questions: What did you feel? What did you not say? What did you fear would happen if you said it?
This exercise does two useful things. First, it helps you notice patterns. If the fear that shows up across the three items is "they'll call me dramatic", that's not about your present choices; it's about a learned repercussion. Second, it helps you rehearse small experiments. The next time a similar feeling arises, try a tiny, low-risk action: say "I feel X" and then leave the conversation if it becomes unsafe. The practice is about courage in miniature — micro-acts that re-teach your nervous system what it is permitted to feel and say.
Clinical literature on validation and invalidation supports this approach: validation reduces negative emotion and fosters learning, while invalidation increases emotional arousal and hinders skill-building. Repeated micro-validation (from within and from trusted others) re-calibrates the nervous system.
Mini practice instruction: Write the three moments now. If you prefer, speak them into your phone and listen back — hearing yourself say the truth is a small but powerful corrective.
Want a guided session? I take short paid consultations where we map those three moments into a small, safe behavioural experiment. Book here: Book a consultation.
What does current research briefly tell us about prevalence and harm?
Gaslighting is recognised in contemporary research as a form of psychological violence that alters a person’s perception and self-trust. Recent empirical studies identify patterns of gaslighting in young adult relationships and show links to reduced well-being and relationship quality.
More broadly, psychological and intimate partner violence is common worldwide: global reviews estimate that roughly one in three women have experienced physical or sexual violence by a partner or sexual violence from a non-partner in their lifetime — a context in which psychological tactics like gaslighting frequently occur. This is why learning to spot the pattern matters beyond personal discomfort; it is often a public-health concern.
Sources quoted in this step: peer-reviewed experimental work on validation/invalidation, recent gaslighting exposure research, and global data from the World Health Organization.
Quick links & further reading:
- https://www.tusharmangl.com/2008/05/youth-curry.html
- https://www.tusharmangl.com/2008/08/yeah-whatever.html
- https://www.tusharmangl.com/2008/08/hello-everyone.html
External references cited in this section:
- Experimental validation/invalidation study (Kuo et al., 2022).
- Gaslighting exposure and personality correlates (Bellomare et al., 2024).
- World Health Organization: Violence against women fact sheet.
- General gaslighting primer (Medical News Today / Psychology Today summaries).
What would it look like to treat feelings as evidence rather than error?
I learned this the awkward way: by mistaking my feelings for moral defects. I would feel angry and immediately whisper to myself, "That's wrong — you're overreacting," as if the feeling itself had committed a misdemeanour. It took practice to start looking at feelings like footprints in the snow — traces of something that happened — rather than criminal confessions.
Treating feelings as evidence is forensic, not fatalistic. It means asking—quietly—what a feeling signals rather than how it judges you. If your chest tightens when someone speaks in a particular tone, that tightness is data: when did you first notice it? Who was present when it got magnified? What decision does this evidence suggest you test or avoid? This turns feelings into clues you can investigate, not punishments you must endure.
Practically, here’s a small routine I use with clients and at home: notice → name → gather one small piece of external data → act very small. For example, notice "I feel dread", name it to yourself, check one simple piece of data ("Were they harsh just now or am I remembering old tone?"), and then act small — perhaps say, "I need five minutes" rather than launching into a crisis. The strategy reduces the chances that your automatic reaction (self-blame) will win the day.
Research backs the power of this approach. Experimental work shows that validation — which includes naming and accepting emotion — lowers reactivity and makes learning easier; invalidation, by contrast, escalates negative emotion. So when you treat feelings as evidence and then validate them (even self-validate), you are literally giving your nervous system a chance to calm and think.
If you want a guided script to rehearse this (so your body learns the new pattern), I offer short practical sessions and written scripts in my consultations.
How does trauma change the brain's clarity and create confusion trauma responses?
We tend to think of trauma as a memory problem: something that lives in the past. The brain shows up and says, "Nope — I will rewire the present to keep you safe." That re-wiring often involves the amygdala (our quick-response alarm), the hippocampus (where context lives), and the prefrontal cortex (our reasoning centre). Trauma can make the alarm overly sensitive and the reasoning centre less able to soothe it. The net effect? You feel fragmented and uncertain — not because you're weak, but because your biology is prioritising survival over neat cognition.
Neuroscience papers consistently show structural and functional changes in these areas after repeated stress and trauma: heightened amygdala reactivity, altered hippocampal volumes, and shifts in connectivity with the prefrontal cortex. These changes explain why people who have been repeatedly invalidated or manipulated often experience confusion, poor memory for details in stressful moments, and a tendency to mistrust their own instincts. The brain is doing what it believes will keep you alive — even if it makes life messier in calmer settings.
What that means for everyday life is deceptively simple: when your body alarms you, part of you is right — but the right response may not be to act immediately. Instead, we need a two-step habit: first, soothe the alarm (breathing, grounding, short pause), then do a small fact-check. This is not avoidance; it is tactical. By calming the physiological storm first, you give your reasoning brain a chance to test the evidence instead of reacting from the old wiring.
One tiny experiment I give people is the three-breath rule: when a familiar surge arrives (anxiety, shame, doubt), breathe in for four counts, out for six, three times. Re-assess. If the feeling persists and is still actionable, do a micro-step. Repeat. Over weeks this trains your nervous system to interrupt the "confusion reflex" and replace it with a calmer inquiry.
Why does validation repair emotional clarity where logic sometimes fails?
There is a ridiculous, human comedy in trying to argue your way into feeling calm. Logic can be persuasive on paper but useless when your chest is racing. Validation works differently: it meets the emotional system where it is and says, "I hear you. That was hard." That simple reception lowers the heat in the room and allows clarity to return.
In my practice, I have seen a dozen arguments dissolve when someone simply said, "It makes sense you'd feel like that." The moment of being heard changes the internal weather. Experimental analyses — including controlled studies — have found that validating responses reduce negative emotion and physiological arousal, whereas invalidating responses do the opposite. That’s why I place validation at the top of practical recovery: it is both a social repair tool and a neurobiological one.
How to validate (three easy scripts):
- Simple reflection: "I hear you; that sounded painful."
- Curiosity + permission: "Tell me more — that's allowed to be how it felt."
- Fact + empathy: "It makes sense you're upset; anyone would be after that."
Self-validation follows the same form but uses the first person: "I notice fear right now, and that's understandable." Practising these phrases aloud rewires your inner narrative. Perceived invalidation correlates with long-term distress across diverse studies, so the stakes are real: the more your feelings are validated — by yourself or trusted people — the more your clarity and confidence recover.
If you’d like a short, tailored validation script for a recurring relationship pattern, I write bespoke ones in my consultations.
What is self-gaslighting and how does it keep you stuck?
Self-gaslighting is the quiet habit of undermining your own reality. It looks like apologising before you speak, prefacing memories with "I may be wrong", or dismissing your needs because somewhere along the line someone else's version of events became louder than yours. The trickiest part is that the voice doing this sounds like your voice, so it feels intimate and inevitable.
Why does it happen? Repeated exposure to gaslighting (the external behaviour that insists you are mistaken or "overly sensitive") can be internalised until you become your own gaslighter. Empirical research on gaslighting and interpersonal manipulation has grown in the last few years; studies show that gaslighting operates as a pattern of denial, trivialisation, and contradiction that wears down self-trust. Over time, many people internalise these messages and begin to police themselves in advance of criticism — the essence of self-gaslighting.
Anecdotally, I once met a man who would rehearse his opinions silently for half an hour before offering them out loud — not because he loved the rehearsal, but because early voices in his life had taught him that his first take was usually "wrong." That rehearsal habit kept him small and exhausted. Breaking self-gaslighting starts by noticing the rehearsal, naming the pattern, and testing it with tiny truth-telling acts.
One practice I teach is "name the gaslighter." Give that inner critic a silly name — "Debby Doubt" or "The Footnote" — and when it speaks, address it as that. The small separation helps you see the voice as a learned behaviour, not as absolute truth. Another micro-strategy is the one-line correction: when your inner voice says "You misremembered," respond with a neutral fact-check: "I will check the message thread and confirm." Over time, micro-rights like this rebuild your evidential muscle.
For readers who want context, I sometimes point to relational pieces I've written that look at how early romantic scripts teach people to mute themselves — for example my post The Perfect Lover Tag, which explores how we learn what a "good" partner should be and subsequently silence parts of ourselves to match that script. That kind of social training is a common origin story for self-gaslighting; noticing it is the first act of reclaiming authorship of your inner life.
How do boundaries and small experiments restore trust issues and trust healing?
When your inner compass has been miscalibrated, the way back is not dramatic overhaul but faithful smallness: short experiments and clear boundaries. Think of this like muscle-building. Trust is a muscle — it grows with small reliable loads, not with one heroic lift. Start tiny, with experiments that are low-risk but revealing.
Examples of micro-experiments:
- The five-minute honesty: Say a small truth and allow someone to respond; note your physiological reaction.
- The boundary trial: Politely decline one request that drains you and observe the outcome.
- The evidence check: When you doubt a memory, take one minute to check your phone, notes or a witness.
Each successful micro-experiment gives you data: "I said no; they respected it" or "I checked the message thread; my memory was accurate." These tiny confirmations accumulate and rebuild trust in two directions — trust in yourself and better assessment of others. Therapies like DBT and CBT use similar behavioural experiments precisely because they are empirically effective in changing patterns over weeks and months. You do not need to be perfect; you need to be consistent.
Boundaries in speech are simple phrases you can practise: "I can't do that right now," "I need a moment to think," "That tone isn't okay for me." Say them before you are exhausted; the earlier you practise, the easier they feel. If a boundary is tested, treat it as information, not failure: who respects it? Who pushes? That answer tells you where to invest your energy.
Ready for a step-by-step plan? My consultation maps three micro-experiments tailored to your relationship patterns and gives you scripts to use.
Selected sources for the sections above:
- Kuo J.R., "The who and what of validation: an experimental examination of validation and invalidation", 2022.
- Ben-Zion Z., "Structural Neuroimaging of Hippocampus and Amygdala..." 2023.
- Belleau E.L., "Amygdala functional connectivity in the acute aftermath..." 2020.
- Tager-Shafrir T., "The gaslighting relationship exposure inventory" 2024.
- Linehan biosocial model & DBT theory reviews (applied literature).
Why do we confuse emotional safety with emotional comfort?
It’s funny how we crave peace but mistake numbness for it. I once thought emotional safety meant everyone liked me, nobody questioned me, and life remained a polite silence. What I really wanted was emotional comfort — the absence of friction. Emotional safety, however, is about being able to handle friction without breaking your self-worth. It’s the art of surviving honesty.
True safety is not the absence of discomfort; it’s the presence of truth. You can feel deeply unsettled and yet completely safe if you trust that your feelings will not be mocked or dismissed. That’s why so many of us, raised in households or cultures where disagreement felt like betrayal, confuse comfort with safety. We learned to stay quiet because quietness kept the peace — but that silence came at the cost of self-trust.
Emotional clarity grows not when you feel calm, but when you feel held. To build that, begin by testing your relationships: speak a truth and see if the connection holds. When it does, celebrate the small win. When it doesn’t, you’ve learned where your truth cannot safely land — and that knowledge is liberation, not failure.
How does confusion protect us until we are ready to remember?
Confusion is often painted as a flaw, but I’ve come to see it as a shield. When the truth feels too heavy to hold, confusion steps in and wraps it in fog. It buys us time. Sometimes the mind goes blurry because the heart isn’t ready to see what it already knows. And that’s not failure — it’s protection.
I met a young client once, a quiet boy who couldn’t recall why certain songs made him cry. He thought he was broken. In reality, those melodies echoed the rhythm of a long-suppressed memory — one his body was still guarding. Once he felt safe enough, clarity came, gently, like dawn light creeping into a dark room. That’s what emotional clarity really is: not a sudden enlightenment, but a gradual thawing of safety.
So if you feel confused right now, consider that maybe clarity is waiting for safety, not for effort. Don’t rush it. Create spaces — journaling, prayer, therapy, a walk with music — where your nervous system can lower its guard. The truth will appear naturally when it feels safe to land.
Can we rebuild trust with ourselves after betrayal and loss?
Rebuilding self-trust after betrayal is like learning to walk again with a leg you didn’t know was fractured. Every step feels suspicious. You find yourself overthinking, replaying, doubting — “Should I have known?” The real answer is: you did know, but you were taught to mistrust your knowing. Gaslighting thrives in that gap between intuition and permission.
To rebuild trust, start by listening to your body before your brain. Your body remembers truth before language. That knot in your stomach, that subtle relief when someone leaves the room — those are trustworthy sensations. Write them down, track them, build a pattern. When you realise your instincts have been quietly right all along, a small reconciliation begins: you start believing in yourself again.
And yes, betrayal isn’t just romantic. It can happen in workplaces, families, friendships — anywhere loyalty is weaponised. In my early writing days, I explored this theme through relational honesty in The Problem with Guys, a reflective essay on emotional mismatch and the courage to admit it. Looking back, I realise it was never about gender; it was about the universal ache of self-betrayal we endure when we keep playing roles that hurt us. Today, I write not to blame, but to guide — to help you rebuild what others tried to break: your relationship with your own inner compass.
What role does language play in healing confusion and trauma?
Language is the thread that re-stitches the torn fabric of perception. The words we use shape not only how we describe our world but how we survive it. “I’m confused” can mean “I don’t feel safe to know.” “I’m fine” can mean “I can’t risk you leaving.” When we reclaim the true meaning of our words, we begin to recover emotional clarity.
Studies in linguistic psychology show that naming emotion reduces its physiological intensity by as much as 30%. Labeling turns chaos into comprehension. So when you write or speak your truth, you’re not just expressing — you’re regulating. This is why journaling, therapy, and poetry work. Words metabolise pain into understanding.
Try this small exercise tonight: write one sentence starting with “I don’t want to admit that…” and finish it without editing. The first sentence might sting, but the second one will set you free. Healing is linguistic courage — it’s saying the unsayable out loud until it stops owning you.
How do relationships act as mirrors for our healing journey?
Relationships are not classrooms — they’re laboratories. Each one offers you a mirror, showing you the parts of yourself you forgot, denied, or disguised. The friend who drains you reveals where you overgive. The partner who criticises you exposes where you still seek approval. Even strangers can become mirrors, reflecting the unhealed edges of your story.
But here’s the grace: these mirrors aren’t punishments, they’re invitations. The moment you realise that every dynamic you enter is a reflection of your inner pattern, you move from victimhood to authorship. You stop asking, “Why are people like this?” and start asking, “What is this teaching me about me?”
This mindset doesn’t excuse bad behaviour, but it liberates you from endless blame loops. As you evolve, you’ll notice relationships that once drained you now simply fade — not because anyone’s evil, but because your frequency changed. Emotional clarity naturally edits your cast list.
Need help reading your relational mirrors? My mentorships are designed as sanctuaries for self-awareness. Visit TusharMangl.com to book a clarity consultation and start learning the language of your relationships.
What does gaslighting look like in everyday life?
Sometimes, it doesn’t look like shouting or manipulation. It looks like a quiet “Are you sure you’re remembering it right?” that makes you shrink an inch smaller each time. It sounds like “You’re too sensitive,” “You always overthink,” or “That never happened.” It feels like standing in a fog of your own emotions, wondering why every instinct you have is now suspect.
Let’s meet Zara.
Zara was twenty-four, bright, articulate, with a laugh that filled up whole rooms — until she met someone who made her feel like she was always wrong. It began subtly. He’d question the way she remembered things, tease her opinions, and make jokes that cut a little too deep. “You’re confusing again,” he’d say, as though her clarity was chaos. Slowly, Zara stopped trusting her memory. Then her emotions. Then her own voice.
Her story isn’t unique. Many of us have been Zara — smiling through gaslight, mistaking self-abandonment for love. One night, on her birthday, she realised she hadn’t made a single decision for herself in months. That night, she sat under the fairy lights, wrote a letter to her future self, and made a promise: “I will never again apologise for knowing what I feel.”
Her story reminds me of something I once wrote in Happy Birthdayyy Dreamland, where celebration became a metaphor for rebirth — the courage to start over. Zara, too, started over that night, reclaiming her emotional clarity one small act at a time: saying “no” without guilt, listening to her body, writing down her truths. Healing wasn’t glamorous; it was slow, shaky, sometimes silent. But it was hers.
How do we create a sanctuary of self-trust and emotional clarity?
The first step is radical gentleness. You cannot build trust with someone you constantly criticise — even if that someone is yourself. Most of us try to bully ourselves into clarity: “Why can’t I just decide?” “Why am I so confused?” But clarity doesn’t bloom under pressure; it blossoms under patience.
Think of your mind as a fogged mirror. Instead of scrubbing it aggressively, hold space. Let it breathe. Speak kindly to it. The fog will lift naturally. Emotional clarity is not a trait you’re born with — it’s a muscle you rebuild after years of self-doubt conditioning. And like any muscle, it strengthens with repetition and safety.
Practical steps to start today:
- Write a “truth journal.” Each night, record one small thing you felt that day without judging it.
- Replace “I don’t know” with “I’m learning to know.” Language rewires the nervous system.
- Surround yourself with truth-tellers — not comforters, but people who hold space for honesty without shame.
- Read stories and essays that nurture your self-awareness and perspective.
✨ Ready to stop gaslighting yourself? Book a clarity consultation with me. Let’s help you remember your truth.
Why are you not confused — just remembering who you are?
You were never confused. You were gaslit into believing that your clarity was chaos. Every time you doubted yourself, it was because someone else had taught you to. And yet, beneath the noise, your intuition never left you — it just waited for you to notice it again.
Healing, then, is not about becoming someone new. It’s about returning to someone ancient within you — the self that always knew, before the world interrupted. You are not broken; you are unlearning the lies that made you forget your wholeness. Once you stop seeking permission to feel, you step back into the centre of your own knowing. That’s where freedom lives.
Zara’s story ends not with a dramatic breakup but with a quiet sunrise. She wakes up one morning, makes coffee, and realises the silence no longer scares her. It comforts her. Because now, she trusts herself to fill it with truth. And maybe that’s what emotional clarity really is — peace that comes not from certainty, but from courage.
You were never confused. You were gaslit — and now you’re healing.
Gaslighting steals your sense of safety, but healing gives it back, one gentle truth at a time. Remember: confusion was never your identity. It was your body’s way of keeping you safe until you could bear to remember. Trust that your clarity is not gone — it’s just been waiting for a safer you to return home to it.
May this essay be your permission slip to trust yourself again. You deserve to feel emotionally clear, internally safe, and deeply connected to your truth. You are not broken — you are remembering. 🌿
💬 Share your reflections
Frequently Asked Questions
What is self-gaslighting?
Self-gaslighting happens when you internalise others’ invalidation and start questioning your own emotions or memories. It’s a survival response, not a flaw — and it can be healed through gentle awareness and safety.
How can I rebuild trust in myself?
Begin by honouring your small instincts. Keep promises to yourself. Journaling, therapy, and mindful reflection can help retrain your nervous system to trust your emotional data again.
Is confusion always a trauma response?
Not always, but often. When the nervous system associates clarity with danger, it clouds perception to protect you. Once you feel safe, clarity naturally re-emerges.
Can gaslighting happen in friendships or families?
Yes. Gaslighting isn’t limited to romantic dynamics. It can occur anywhere emotional safety is conditional. Recognising it early prevents deeper trust wounds.
What’s the first step to emotional clarity?
Stop apologising for what you feel. Your emotions are information — not inconveniences. Name them, honour them, and act on them gently.
Where can I learn more about healing trust issues?
Visit TusharMangl.com for more insights, and read Burn the Old Map for deeper reflections on self-trust and transformation.
About the Author
Tushar Mangl is a counselor, vastu expert, and author of I Will Do It, and Ardika. He writes about food, books, mental health, personal finance, and the art of balanced living. Blogging since 2006 at TusharMangl.com, his work helps unseen souls design lives, spaces, and relationships that heal and elevate — through ancient wisdom, energetic alignment, and grounded action.
For more inspiring insights, subscribe to the YouTube Channel at Tushar Mangl or follow on Instagram at @TusharMangl.
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