Stop Gaslighting Yourself: Betrayal Blindness and Self-Trust
Updated: Sep 30
Betrayal Blindness, Grief, and Learning to Trust Your Reality Again
Too Long to Read? Here’s What I Want You to Take Away
You can spend a long time telling yourself you’re overreacting, being too sensitive, or making a big deal out of nothing — even when something in you knows otherwise.
Betrayal can make you question your own memory, instincts, and judgment, especially when the truth feels painful or destabilizing.
You may be able to explain something away logically while your body is still reacting with anxiety, tension, irritability, shutdown, hypervigilance, or exhaustion.
If you keep replaying what happened, doubting yourself, minimizing your feelings, or feeling stuck between “I know what happened” and “maybe I’m wrong,” that conflict is worth paying attention to.
Healing is not about proving that what happened was “bad enough.” It is about learning to trust yourself again and understanding why your mind and nervous system adapted the way they did.
Counselling can help you sort through the confusion, understand the patterns underneath it, and stop dismissing what your own experience is trying to tell you.
After betrayal, manipulation, repeated disappointment, or dismissal, people often start talking themselves out of what they already know.
You minimize.
You explain.
You give another chance.
You tell yourself you’re overreacting.
You question whether it was really that bad.
Over time, that can weaken trust in your own perceptions.
Psychologist Jennifer Freyd uses the term betrayal blindness to describe the ways people may minimize or disconnect from betrayal when fully acknowledging it could threaten an important attachment, relationship, or source of stability. Betrayal Trauma Theory suggests that dependence on the person or institution causing harm can affect how betrayal is processed and remembered (Freyd, DePrince, & Gleaves, 2007).
If you want a deeper explanation of betrayal blindness, trauma bonding, and betrayal trauma, read: Trauma Bonding, Betrayal Trauma, and Betrayal Blindness.
Betrayal blindness and self-gaslighting are not the same thing. But after betrayal—especially when manipulation or actual gaslighting has occurred—you may start repeating those messages internally:
“Maybe I’m too sensitive.”
“Maybe I misunderstood.”
“Maybe they didn’t mean it.”
“Maybe I should give them another chance.”
“Maybe it’s me.”
Research suggests repeated challenges to someone’s perceptions and memories can erode confidence and self-trust (Darke, Paterson, & van Golde, 2025; Sweet, 2019).
A more useful question is: What am I having difficulty accepting, and why?
Betrayal Is Also a Loss
Betrayal can involve grieving more than the event itself.
You may be grieving:
the relationship you thought you had
the person you thought you knew
the future you imagined
the trust you placed in someone
the version of yourself who kept hoping or trying
Research on romantic betrayal has found that some people experience significant traumatic stress, anxiety, and depression afterward (Lonergan et al., 2021).
Grief is not linear. Denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, and acceptance can overlap, repeat, or appear in different orders (Maciejewski et al., 2007).
Denial: You explain away what does not make sense because accepting it may feel too disruptive.
Anger: You may become angry at the other person—and at yourself.
Be careful with hindsight. You are judging past decisions using information you have now.
Bargaining: “Maybe If I Just…” “Maybe if I communicate better.”
“Maybe if I give them more time.”
“Maybe if I find the right words.”
The important shift is from: “What can I change about myself so they behave differently?”
to: “What is their behaviour showing me?”
Acceptance: Acceptance does not mean approving, forgiving, staying, or leaving. It means allowing reality to exist without constantly explaining it away.
Your Nervous System May React Before You Are Ready
Understanding something intellectually does not mean your nervous system immediately feels safe enough to act.
Threat responses can include fight, flight, freeze, and appeasing behaviours. These are automatic physiological responses, not simply conscious choices (Kozlowska et al., 2015).
The goal is not to force a decision.
The goal is to create enough stability that your choices can come from clarity, values, boundaries, and choice rather than immediate survival.
How Do You Stop Gaslighting Yourself?
Start small.
Separate facts from explanations — What actually happened? What explanation have you created for why it happened?
Write things down — Track patterns, promises, boundaries, conversations, and what changed afterward.
Watch behaviour over time — Apologies matter. So does whether behaviour actually changes.
Notice what happens when you set a boundary — Does the other person listen and adjust—or blame, mock, retaliate, or ignore it?
Stop demanding an immediate answer — Instead of asking, Should I stay or leave? ask: What information do I need next?
Find people you trust — Supportive relationships can play an important role in trauma recovery and resilience (Calhoun et al., 2022).
Protect your safety and financial independence — If coercive control, violence, stalking, threats, or economic abuse are present, safety takes priority. Economic abuse can significantly increase dependency and reduce a person’s choices (Johnson et al., 2022).
Consider counselling — Betrayal can affect self-trust, attachment, boundaries, identity, and nervous-system regulation.
A useful question to return to is: What do I know to be true when I stop explaining it away?
If You're Ready to Start Trusting Yourself Again
If you recognize yourself in this article, you do not have to arrive at therapy already knowing what you want to do.
You do not need to know whether you are staying or leaving, have the whole story organized, or prove that what happened was “bad enough.”
We can start by understanding what happened, how it affected you, what your nervous system has been doing to help you survive, what is within your control, and what you need in order to move forward with greater clarity.
At Soma House Counselling & Psychotherapy, I work from a trauma-informed, neuroscience-guided and biopsychosocial lens, integrating approaches including EMDR, Internal Family Systems (IFS), somatic therapy, CBT, ACT, DBT-informed skills, and attachment-focused psychotherapy.
In-person in Nanaimo • Virtual across BC
If you're wondering whether counselling might be a fit, you're welcome to book a complimentary 15-minute consultation. You don't have to decide everything today. But you can begin by believing yourself. Move Beyond Survival.
About the Author
Farnaz Farrokhi-Holmes, MACP, RCC, CCC, EMDR Certified Therapist, is the founder of Soma House Counselling & Psychotherapy in Nanaimo, British Columbia.
She provides in-person counselling in Nanaimo and virtual psychotherapy throughout British Columbia, supporting individuals, youth, couples, and families navigating trauma, PTSD and Complex PTSD, betrayal trauma, grief and loss, anxiety, burnout, relationship challenges, ADHD, workplace stress, and nervous-system regulation.
Her clinical approach is trauma-informed, neuroscience-guided, appropriately directive, collaborative, and grounded in a biopsychosocial understanding of mental health.
References:
Calhoun, C. D., Stone, K. J., Cobb, A. R., Patterson, M. W., Danielson, C. K., & Bendezú, J. J. (2022). The role of social support in coping with psychological trauma: An integrated biopsychosocial model for posttraumatic stress recovery. Psychiatric Quarterly, 93(4), 949–970. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-022-10003-w
Darke, L., Paterson, H., & van Golde, C. (2025). Gaslighting and memory: The effects of partner-led challenges on recall and self-perception. Memory, 33(7), 828–844. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2025.2533253
Freyd, J. J., DePrince, A. P., & Gleaves, D. H. (2007). The state of betrayal trauma theory: Reply to McNally—Conceptual issues, and future directions. Memory, 15(3), 295–311. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658210701256514
Johnson, L., Chen, Y., Stylianou, A., & Arnold, A. (2022). Examining the impact of economic abuse on survivors of intimate partner violence: A scoping review. BMC Public Health, 22, 1014. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13297-4
Kozlowska, K., Walker, P., McLean, L., & Carrive, P. (2015). Fear and the defense cascade: Clinical implications and management. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 23(4), 263–287. https://doi.org/10.1097/HRP.0000000000000065
Lonergan, M., Brunet, A., Rivest-Beauregard, M., & Groleau, D. (2021). Is romantic partner betrayal a form of traumatic experience? A qualitative study. Stress and Health, 37(1), 19–31. https://doi.org/10.1002/smi.2968
Maciejewski, P. K., Zhang, B., Block, S. D., & Prigerson, H. G. (2007). An empirical examination of the stage theory of grief. JAMA, 297(7), 716–723. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.297.7.716
Sweet, P. L. (2019). The sociology of gaslighting. American Sociological Review, 84(5), 851–875. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122419874843
