Gaslighting

Reflection & Prayer Prompts

Personal Reflection Questions

These questions are designed to help you reconnect with your own experience. You don't need to answer them all at once. Take your time. Be gentle with yourself.

Reconnecting with Your Experience

1. When was a time you knew something was true, but someone convinced you to doubt it? What happened? How did that feel?

2. Have you ever walked away from a conversation feeling confused — like things didn't add up, but you couldn't explain why? What do you remember about that experience?

3. Are there relationships where you find yourself constantly apologizing — even when you're the one who was hurt? What does that pattern tell you?

4. Have you ever been told you're "too sensitive" or "overreacting"? What effect did that label have on you over time?

5. Do you trust your own perceptions? If not, when did that change? Can you trace it back?

Finding Your Way Back

6. What would it look like to "tune into your own experience" this week? What might you notice that you've been dismissing?

7. Who in your life helps you see clearly? Who tells you the truth with love? Who do you trust to reality-test with?

8. What boundaries might you need to set to protect your sense of reality? What would it sound like to say, "I see it differently"?

Guided Prayer Language

Use these as starting points. Make them your own. God can handle your honesty.

A Prayer for Trusting My Own Experience

God, somewhere along the way, I stopped trusting myself. I started to believe that my perceptions were wrong, my feelings were the problem, my memories couldn't be trusted.

But you made me with the capacity to see, feel, and know. You gave me instincts for a reason. Help me reconnect with that God-given ability to perceive reality.

When someone tells me my experience isn't real, help me hold onto what I know. When I'm tempted to doubt myself into silence, give me the courage to say, "I see it differently."

Help me find my way back to myself — to the person you created me to be.

A Prayer for Clarity in Confusion

Lord, I'm confused. I don't know what's real anymore. Things that felt true have been questioned so many times that I don't know what to believe.

You are the God of truth. You know what's real even when I can't see it clearly. Help me find people who can help me see. Help me trust the small voice inside that says something isn't right.

I don't need all the answers right now. I just need enough clarity to take the next step. Show me that step.

A Prayer for Safety and Wisdom

God, I'm realizing that I may be in a situation that's more than confusing — it might be dangerous. I don't know what to do.

Give me wisdom. Show me who I can trust. Help me find the courage to reach out for help, even when I'm afraid. Protect me as I figure out my next steps.

And if I need to leave, give me a way out. Provide what I need. I'm putting this in your hands.

Journaling Prompts

Choose one or two of these to write about. Don't edit yourself. Just let the words come.

1. Write about a time your experience was validated by someone who cared. What did they say? What did it feel like to be believed?

2. Describe the person you were before you started doubting yourself. What were you like? What did you trust? What would that person say to you now?

3. What have you lost to gaslighting? Confidence? Relationships? Time? Yourself? Write about the cost — not to wallow, but to name it.

4. Write a letter to yourself from the future — from a version of you who has found clarity and freedom. What does future-you want present-you to know?

5. What is one truth you know — something you won't let anyone talk you out of? Write it down. Keep it somewhere you can see it.

A Practice: The Reality Anchor

When you're in a situation where your reality is being questioned, it helps to have anchors — things you know are true that no one can talk you out of.

Write down three to five truths about yourself or your experience that you're choosing to hold onto:

Examples:

• "I know what I heard."
• "My feelings are valid, even if someone else doesn't like them."
• "I am not crazy."
• "I deserve to be treated with respect."
• "I can trust my own instincts."

Keep this somewhere private. Read it when you need to.

A Final Thought

Dr. Cloud says that good, honest people are particularly vulnerable to gaslighting — precisely because they're open to being wrong. That openness is a strength, not a weakness. It's how you grow.

But you were never meant to use that openness against yourself. You were meant to use it in relationships where people are for you — where feedback helps you see more clearly, not less.

If someone's "feedback" consistently makes you doubt your own sanity, that's not feedback. That's manipulation.

You are not crazy. Your experience is real. And you can find your way back.

If You Need Help

If you are in a dangerous situation or need support:

National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233

You don't have to figure this out alone.