00:00:00:03 - 00:00:23:14
Thais Gibson
So one of the most common questions I receive all the time inside PDFs is why do I find myself doubting myself all the time? And even going so far as to feeling like I'm disconnected from my intuition and gaslighting myself. So in this video I'm going to cover why you might find yourself gaslighting yourself and your own feelings and thoughts and opinions and needs.

00:00:23:24 - 00:00:44:07
Thais Gibson
And we're going to talk about the root causes of this and also some really important things that you can take action towards to improve that. And some of the most common causes for this are, number one, you were gaslit frequently in childhood, and this can be direct gaslighting where you were constantly made to believe that something happened other than it did.

00:00:44:18 - 00:01:10:10
Thais Gibson
Or it can be indirect gaslighting, and this is the much more common experience. So let's say, for example, that a pair that a child grew up with, a parent who was a covert narcissist in the household. One of the major common themes you'll see with covert narcissism is that you are constantly questioning yourself and your reality because something doesn't feel right, and yet it's presenting as if everything is right.

00:01:10:19 - 00:01:36:15
Thais Gibson
So let's say, for example, that, you know, the child grows up in this household and the parent is behaving in a really unhealthy, know, destructive manner where perhaps the parent is drinking too much or is being really verbally abusive. You know, when the child expresses hurt or pain, that reality for the child might be really glossed over. Like, oh, you know, you're making too big of a deal out of these things.

00:01:36:15 - 00:02:16:23
Thais Gibson
You're too sensitive. That's really the problem. So you'll see these dynamics and that's quite direct gaslighting, right? That's like really direct and clear that you're being made to self-doubt and self question. But a more indirect form of the covert narcissist could be that you were in a household where there's a lot of unhealthy dynamics that are transpiring, and yet despite knowing and feeling like your household is unhealthy, if you feel like you were supposed to explain it to somebody, explain the rocky dynamics, explain how uncomfortable things feel or how strange things feel on a regular basis, You don't really know where to start because to the outside world, the family presents itself as if it's

00:02:16:23 - 00:02:47:12
Thais Gibson
a really healthy, united dynamic. And maybe you're even shamed on a regular basis for expressing different things about the family to friends. So if you're a young child or maybe you grow up here in high school and you say, you know, things aren't going very well at home, and you know, that word gets back to a teacher that then goes back to a parent, The parent rather than inquiring to see why you're feeling that way and to express empathy and care for that situation might instead proceed to shame you for sharing family business outside of the household.

00:02:47:13 - 00:03:08:01
Thais Gibson
So we'll see these like versions of more direct gaslighting and then these indirect ways that somebody can experience their reality being gaslit. And a lot of these things, guess what they're doing because we talk so much on this channel about the subconscious mind and the impact of the subconscious mind. And the subconscious mind is impacted and imprinted through repetition plus emotion.

00:03:08:16 - 00:03:35:03
Thais Gibson
Constant repetition and emotion essentially have a huge part in firing and wiring neural pathways and creating neural networks. So you can actually pick up on if you're constantly doubting and question your reality, that becomes your subconscious comfort zone. That becomes what you bring out. Like let's say you leave the household and let's say you fast forward decades. If you haven't done subconscious reprograming on self doubt on your self-esteem.

00:03:35:03 - 00:03:54:21
Thais Gibson
This is one major thing and there's a lot of other ones. But if you haven't done a lot of reconditioning of this self-doubting all the time of the questioning your reality, that's your programing that you're willing to bring out into the world with you, into the workplace, into your future relationships, into your friendships still into your family relationships, and you go back and spend time around them.

00:03:55:02 - 00:04:21:09
Thais Gibson
So this is really important to pay attention to. Lots of questioning your own reality because you're conditioned to feel that way from the outside world, is going to lead to a lot of taking that with you everywhere you go and being in the space of self gaslighting because it's your subconscious comfort zone. Point number two and there's a few really big things we have to cover when you grow up in an unhealthy household, because it's not just narcissism or covert narcissism, it's these are not the only things.

00:04:21:09 - 00:04:39:22
Thais Gibson
Of course, those are really clear examples, but if you grow up in a household where there's just a lot of chaos, for example, and you have to go into survival mode to just survive and deal with the chaos at home. One of the big byproducts of that is that you get really out of touch with your own needs.

00:04:40:07 - 00:05:04:14
Thais Gibson
You can't deal with your own needs from a perspective of like, Oh, I need encouragement or validation or presence or you know, I need that presence. Like PR is yes, but presents like PR is. Ian C Right. Like presents from a caregiver. You don't have a room to express those higher level needs that you have as a human being because you're in your survival needs, right?

00:05:04:14 - 00:05:28:01
Thais Gibson
You just need the boat not to be rocked, the chaos to go away, baseline safety. And so you may only really connect to those needs of like safety and comfort because you're constantly feeling unsafe and uncomfortable. And so the more out of touch with your needs you are, the more confusing your life is going to feel, the more you're going to doubt yourself because you don't know who you are and what you want.

00:05:28:10 - 00:05:53:12
Thais Gibson
One of the most common manifestations of this, too, is like, If I don't know what I want, let's pretend as a career, then I don't know what opportunities that may come into my life or if I'm going to go fill a job. Applications. Let's pretend I don't know what to say. Yes and no to. So I'm going to constantly feel confused and and disoriented and doubt myself because I'm not in touch with my baseline needs.

00:05:53:12 - 00:06:08:08
Thais Gibson
I don't I don't know what I need as a human being. And I haven't done that introspection and reflection. So it's so much easier to be gaslit by others, but also to just gaslit myself into, Yeah, I think this is the thing I want to do, and then later to realize like, Hey, that's actually not a part of my reality and what I wanted.

00:06:08:15 - 00:06:37:05
Thais Gibson
And maybe I got swayed there from, you know, somebody else's opinion in my life and then said, Oh, you know, their opinions probably right. And I just gaslit my own feelings about something because I'm not in touch with myself. It's hard to tell. Right? So that's a big point number two. Point number three is and this goes hand-in-hand if you're disconnected with your your needs is if you're disconnected from your own feelings, a very common manifestation of a lot of chaos in the home, a lot of fears growing up.

00:06:37:05 - 00:07:12:03
Thais Gibson
It can be the fear of abandonment all the time. Or, you know, if you in fact did have a really unhealthy parent or set of caregivers who maybe did struggle with some sort of personality disorder, a really common manifestation is to be out of touch with your own feelings. If you are constantly having to navigate the feelings of others, or if you're in an engaged or codependent dynamic with a lot of chaos, you may find yourself being so focused on feelings of others that you disconnect from your own feelings, and it's hard to really tell what you're feeling and the less connected you are to your own feelings, the again, the easier it is to

00:07:12:03 - 00:07:32:00
Thais Gibson
accidentally gaslight yourself because you might feel a certain way about a topic or a belief or an idea. But then you might have a friend who says, No, no, no, that's not right. It has to be this way. And if you're disconnected enough from your own feelings, you don't. Feelings are your guidance signals right there, letting you know when something is in alignment or out of alignment for you.

00:07:32:06 - 00:08:00:21
Thais Gibson
And so you may be like, okay, if I'm disconnected from my own feelings, what they're saying, okay, I'm to buy into that because that person's answer certain and I don't really know how I feel about this topic or idea. So again, another major way that here you're on a track to self gaslighting, by the way, as we go through a whole bunch of this, because we still have a couple, we have three more big things to cover in here if you want to do a deeper dive into recovering from these types of patterns, we have a huge course in PTSD you can go through.

00:08:01:13 - 00:08:19:14
Thais Gibson
It really will help you recondition these things in a really fast period of time. And it's called overcoming narcissistic abuse. This is if you grow up in any sort of household with a narcissistic parent or if you're coming out of a past romantic relationship where there was narcissism from a partner, it really tackles all these things that trauma and this amount of detail.

00:08:19:20 - 00:08:45:18
Thais Gibson
There's a big sort of focus area on gaslighting and learning to rebuild trust. If you just struggle with self trust in general but didn't have any experiences, narcissism for any of these of the reasons we're talking about, that's why you're struggling to self trust. If of course, for that to feel free to check that out. Our next big piece here is if you are in a position where you have been, you've had your boundaries negatively reinforced in your childhood or upbringing, kind of be yourself.

00:08:45:18 - 00:09:05:11
Thais Gibson
Gosh, later, like, you know, not not conclusive, but if you have been taught that your boundaries, when you set boundaries, I'll give you some examples of this. Let's say you grew up as a child and you were really a authoritarian parent and they're really strict, they're really controlling, they're really intense. And let's see, when you try to say no to something, it's the parent's way or the highway.

00:09:05:17 - 00:09:27:09
Thais Gibson
So you get punished, right? You get shamed, criticized, spanked, whatever the punishment is in the home, and you get punished for saying no. Right. And how dare you defy that parent, Right. Who's the authoritarian sort of role model? So what happens is you get negative emotional associations to your own boundaries. You learn, okay, my boundaries are unsafe. My boundaries get me punished.

00:09:27:15 - 00:09:47:05
Thais Gibson
Other variations of this could be if you're an ape, you're like, all my boundaries make me abandoned. I don't want to do anything that's going to cause separation and lose proximity between myself and a caregiver. So in that case, you might find yourself getting your boundaries negatively were reinforced through the fear of being abandoned or through feeling like your boundaries are literally unsafe.

00:09:47:05 - 00:10:13:11
Thais Gibson
And so when your boundaries are negatively reinforced, guess what happens? You go into the world thinking you can't have boundaries because there will be negative consequences, because that's how you've been conditioned and thus these are your subconscious programs you're caring. And so then when you try to go into relationships or connect with other people and you have a know some things and know for you, you may repress your know in favor of people pleasing to avoid feeling unsafe or getting punished.

00:10:13:22 - 00:10:35:16
Thais Gibson
And so, you know, or avoid being advantage or whatever your fear is based on your attachment self. So then you are more likely to get into a position where you're like, okay, so this person wants me to do this. I don't feel comfortable doing this, but you repress that signal that says, I don't feel comfortable and you make that person right, you make yourself wrong, and this becomes a form of self gaslighting.

00:10:35:16 - 00:10:54:15
Thais Gibson
So all these things are, you know, they have such a big impact, right? You can see how these things sort of impact us over time. Now, the other big piece that can happen here is if we don't have healthy communication models and we don't know how to communicate our needs, we can easily get caught up in this idea of going, Oh, the person doesn't understand my needs.

00:10:54:15 - 00:11:19:09
Thais Gibson
They're not that important, right? So we can prioritize our needs. And yet another manifestation is if we struggle with boundaries as well and knowing our needs and being able to communicate them, we can just become chronic people pleasers. Chronic people pleasers are in a way gaslighting this themselves and their ability to consider themselves and others equally. Right? If I'm constantly people pleasing, I'm making somebody else more important at the expense of myself.

00:11:19:15 - 00:11:37:05
Thais Gibson
And it's not supposed to be that you are always more important than others. It's supposed to be that we take ourselves and others into like this healthy, equal consideration. Let's say, for example, that a neighbor comes over and they say, Hey, I need you to come over tomorrow and clean my whole garden. I need help, you know, clear my whole garden, pluck all the weeds, whatever it might be.

00:11:37:12 - 00:12:13:04
Thais Gibson
And let's say for me, I have a full busy day the next day. And that's really hard for me. You know, rather than gaslighting what my needs are, my boundaries are if I just I'm terrified of saying no. And I'm like, okay, you know, I have a whole bunch of stuff to do tomorrow, but it can wait, I guess, and I'll just go help them because it sounds like it's important and like in that is an inherent degree of self gaslighting because I totally contorted my reality into nothingness, made it unreasonable, made it wrong, made my needs not a priority, diminish them, put them down, totally violated my own boundaries, and said, Oh, this person

00:12:13:04 - 00:12:29:01
Thais Gibson
needs something. They must be right. They it has to be their way, not my way. There's no room for for me to take up space. And if somebody was doing that to you in a relationship all the time, I mean, it has a similar sort of feeling or output and, and over time that causes a lot of issues.

00:12:29:01 - 00:12:46:06
Thais Gibson
Right? A healthier response would be something like this. The person comes over, they say, I need help. I really need your help. Tomorrow. Come tomorrow. It has to take the whole day to do the garden. And I might say, hey, you know, tomorrow I've got a really busy day. I'm not available to spend the whole day. I wish I could help you more.

00:12:46:06 - 00:13:04:09
Thais Gibson
What I can do is stop by for 30 minutes at the end of my day as I finish my work on time. And, you know, maybe you can ask some other neighbors in the neighborhood and see if they can contribute as well. And so I'm able to see myself and what I can do, what I am available for, and say, hey, I have 30 minutes, here's some other suggestions.

00:13:04:16 - 00:13:27:01
Thais Gibson
That's what I can do. And I can still contribute and be of service, but in a way that takes their needs into consideration, but also my own. So when we grow up in an environment or we have tumultuous relationships, a condition, these things out of us that take away our ability to be in touch with our needs, take away our ability to be in touch with our feelings, negatively reinforce our boundaries in the world.

00:13:27:01 - 00:13:54:21
Thais Gibson
Right. Disconnect us from our sense of self. Show us that communication is not okay. It's not appropriate to communicate your needs or to take up space. And if we get into this space of chronic self-doubt because it's our programing, because this is our conditioned environment internally is to gaslight, because we were gaslit in those more extreme examples, then these major features are going to be things that impact us profoundly and make us have difficulty out in the world.

00:13:54:21 - 00:14:18:09
Thais Gibson
So, you know, again, if you want to do a deep dive into this stuff, it's rebuilding inner self trust. But that whole course that I was mentioning earlier around repairing self trust, so much of repairing self trust has to do with knowing myself and my needs, making space to communicate them, allowing myself to take up space, having boundaries so I can have my own back, getting in touch with my feelings because they navigate my truth, right?

00:14:18:09 - 00:14:38:01
Thais Gibson
They give me feedback about what my yes is. A nose are what feels comfortable or not comfortable. Learn to communicate. These and all these things that we've talked about have such an impact on repairing that self trust so that we can get into relationship to ourselves, not be in chronic gaslighting and feel more fulfilled, more confident and more rooted in our sense of self.

00:14:38:07 - 00:14:41:16
Thais Gibson
From there, again, if you want to learn more, check out that course. It's very detailed.