“Am I Crazy?” — Why You Start Doubting Yourself

I still ask myself this question sometimes.

Even now, after everything I’ve seen, everything I’ve written, every truth I’ve spoken—I still find myself circling back, wondering if maybe I am the one who’s off. Maybe I’m too much. Maybe I’m the narcissist. Maybe I’m the one who just couldn’t let go.

That’s how deep this runs.

That’s how far gaslighting goes—it burrows inside you.

You don’t just walk away and leave the doubt behind. You carry it like a ghost. You question your motives, even when your heart is clean. You wonder if speaking the truth is vindictive. You wonder if naming the abuse makes you the problem.

And yet… I know what happened.

I lived it. I survived it. I documented it.

And still, I wonder.

That is what gaslighting does.

Looking for the Truth in a House of Mirrors

From the very beginning, I approached our relationship like it was real. Like it was safe.

When things started going wrong, I did what any emotionally intelligent woman would do—I tried to understand. I tried to problem solve. I tried to reflect on my part.

That’s what made it so crazy-making.

Because none of it was rooted in truth. I wasn’t dealing with reality—I was dealing with a mask. A distortion. A man who didn’t even know himself well enough to tell me the truth. And maybe that’s the most confusing part of all: I don’t think he was lying on purpose most of the time. I think he believed his own lies. That’s how deep his distortion was.

So every time I brought something up, it was like trying to reason with smoke.

Nothing landed. Nothing resolved. Everything shifted.

Rage, Deflection, and the Shut Down

When I brought up inconsistencies or hurt feelings, the reactions were predictable. But that didn’t make them easier to take.

The first response was usually anger. Bristling. “How dare you.”

Then came deflection—“Well, you did this…”

Then confusion—“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

And finally, silence. Stonewalling. Not even acknowledging me at all.

I remember one time I drove two hours to see him after we hadn’t seen each other in weeks. I was excited. I had looked forward to it. But when I got there, he’d made other plans—his ex-wife decided she wanted a weekend with her boyfriend, so he took the kids.

I wasn’t upset he wanted to be with his kids. I was upset that I wasn’t even considered. That I wasn’t told until I walked in the door. And when I had an emotional reaction—confusion, disappointment, frustration—he told me to leave.

Just like that. I had driven two hours. I had cleared my schedule. And he told me to go.

Because my emotions were “getting in the way.”

Another time, I came in crying—completely falling apart over something that happened at work. He didn’t even pause his Xbox game. Didn’t look up. Didn’t ask what was wrong. He was mad I didn’t answer his call while I was in crisis, and that was all that mattered to him.

I stood there, sobbing. And he ignored me like I wasn’t even real.

The Proof I Carried in My Body

My body knew what was happening long before I could admit it to myself.

When I first met him, I weighed 135 pounds.

The day he moved out, I weighed 93.

That’s not a vanity metric. That’s survival mode. That’s what trauma does to a body when it’s trying to make itself small enough not to be hurt anymore. And he noticed—but didn’t care. He said maybe that was just my natural weight. As if my body wasting away was just a coincidence.

I would flinch when he touched me. I would feel my anxiety spike when I knew he was upset. I would physically tense up when I knew a conversation was going to “set him off.”

And still—I questioned myself.

So I started writing things down.

I took screenshots.

I made anchor points in my journal.

Moments that I couldn’t deny. Moments that, when the hoovering began again, would keep me tethered to the truth. Because I knew the pattern: love bomb, devalue, discard, hoover. Repeat. And I needed something to hold onto when the fog rolled back in.

The Internal War

Gaslighting isn’t just something they do to you. Eventually, it becomes something you do to yourself.

I would run every accusation he made through my own filter.

Did I push too hard? Should I have known better? Was I being too sensitive?

His voice became my inner critic.

And here’s the thing—I looked at myself. I was willing to self-reflect. I wanted to do better. I wanted to understand. I wanted to grow. And that’s exactly what made me easier to control.

Because the more I turned inward, the less I looked at him.

And that’s what he wanted. That’s what they always want.

Narcissistic people don’t need the truth.

They just need the outcome that works for them.

Truth is optional. Reality is flexible.

They aren’t trying to get to truth—they’re trying to get their way.

And when you’re someone who is trying to live in truth, it’s destabilizing.

Because the world you’re building has rules. Morality. Boundaries.

And theirs doesn’t.

The Moment You Realize

Eventually, it clicks.

You’re not crazy for reacting.

You’re not crazy for feeling hurt.

You’re not crazy for asking questions, for needing clarity, for wanting kindness.

What’s crazy is how long you tried to make sense of something that was never built on sense to begin with.

What’s crazy is that someone could hurt you, over and over again, and convince you it was your fault for bleeding.

Closing Reflection

The voice of self-doubt doesn’t leave easily.

It lingers long after the narcissist is gone.

It mimics their tone, their logic, their judgment.

It lives in your nervous system, in your memory, in your body.

But you can learn to recognize it.

And more importantly—you can learn to choose your voice over theirs.

You can stop asking, “Am I crazy?”

And start declaring, “No. I see clearly now.”

Because sanity was never the problem.

The problem was trying to build your sanity inside someone else’s delusion.