The Relationship Between Reacting, Overreacting, and Gaslighting
And how to know the difference.
He told me I was overreacting, and I believed him. Already, he’d learned just enough about my past relationships to know that they were a sensitive subject for me. So, when I reacted to what was going on in our relationship, he was quick to remind me that I had never been in a healthy relationship and couldn’t help but overreact to everything.
He was gentle and understanding. It wasn’t my fault. I hadn’t been treated well. I couldn’t navigate a healthy relationship because of my history. So, I believed him. I felt guilty for the way I had acted. I apologized. I tried to do better. And the cycle repeated.
But I wasn’t overreacting. Looking back, I can see that my reactions were reasonable. I wasn’t shouting at him or calling names. My reactions weren’t out of proportion to what was happening. I would draw attention to something in the relationship that made me feel uncomfortable, and he would spin it so that I was the problem.
I wish I’d gotten out of that relationship the first time he tried to make me think I was crazy. The abuse started with gaslighting, but it got worse. A lot worse. And by then, I didn’t trust myself enough to know how to feel or what to do. Although I was later able to leave the…
