Gaslighting is violence, and I’m beyond done pretending it’s not just because some people get uncomfortable when it’s named out loud. Discomfort is the whole point. Comfort is how this shit keeps getting excused.

Gaslighting is someone fucking with your head so consistently that you start apologizing for existing. It’s being told you’re wrong, crazy, dramatic, sensitive, unstable—over and over—until your own thoughts don’t feel like yours anymore. Until you hesitate before speaking. Until you check your tone, your memory, your reactions, your sanity. That’s not a disagreement. That’s psychological assault.

It’s waking up already doubting yourself. It’s replaying conversations at 3 a.m. trying to find the moment you “misheard” something that was said loud and clear. It’s needing proof for your own memories. It’s learning to shut the fuck up because speaking only gets you twisted into the villain. That kind of damage doesn’t happen accidentally.

And no, this doesn’t just hurt feelings. It rewires your brain. Gaslighting trains your nervous system to believe trusting yourself is dangerous. That clarity will be punished. That certainty will be mocked. It teaches you to freeze, fawn, over-explain, and second-guess every goddamn instinct you have.

Then the same people who did that look at you and ask why you’re anxious. Why you can’t make decisions. Why you’re angry. Why you don’t trust yourself.

Are you fucking serious?

You don’t get to dismantle someone’s reality piece by piece and then act confused when they’re wrecked. You don’t get to erase truth and then label the fallout “mental illness.” You don’t get to destroy someone quietly and then demand they be calm, polite, and reasonable about it.

Gaslighting is control without bruises. It’s domination without witnesses. It’s violence for people who want clean hands and plausible deniability.

So no, I’m not softening the language. I’m not calling it “emotional stuff.” I’m not watering it down so people who’ve never lived it can stay comfortable. If you survived gaslighting and now question yourself more than anyone else ever questioned you, that’s not weakness. That’s damage. Real damage.

And if calling it violence pisses you off?

Good.

That means it finally fucking landed.

Fuck ’em.

#GaslightingIsViolence #MentalWellness #BoundarySetting #TraumaTruth #CPTSD #PersonalDevelopment