Rewriting Gaslighting: Brain Science, Boundaries, and Staying Sane

Ever had someone you trust tell a story about your life that feels smoother than the truth...and somehow you end up doubting yourself? We unpack fresh research that reframes gaslighting as a brain-based learning process, driven by prediction errors and the shortcuts our minds use to make sense of trusted relationships. Instead of treating gaslighting as a vague moral failing, we explore a testable model that shows how contradictions, blame shifting, and selective context can erode epistemic confidence; the basic ability to believe your own perception.

We walk through the theories that knit this together (prediction error minimization, attachment dynamics, self-verification, symbolic interactionism, and shared reality) and translate them into plain language and practical steps. You’ll learn eight safeguards that reduce vulnerability without turning you into a cynic: pause when surprised, name the surprise, separate facts from interpretations, verify with neutral sources, track patterns over time, trust your body’s stress signals, keep a simple log, and reach out early for support. Along the way, we share a small real-life misunderstanding that spiraled, showing how quickly tone and context can warp meaning when we skip the pause and rush to explain.

We also tackle a subtle trap for the “rational” among us: using studies or logic to override someone’s lived experience can mimic the same prediction-error maneuver we’re trying to avoid. Curiosity and empathy come first; data lands better when the nervous system feels safe. And when stonewalling, image management, or refusal to do the work becomes a pattern, we talk about how to set clean boundaries and, if needed, walk away. If you remember nothing else, anchor to these three habits: pause when surprised, separate facts from feelings, and break isolation early. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs a reality check they can trust, and leave a review with the one safeguard you’ll try this week.

Chapters:

00:00 Why Gaslighting Hurts Differently
00:36 Gaslighting As A Learning Process
01:46 Theories That Explain Gaslighting
03:23 Prediction Errors And The Brain
04:16 Why This Research Matters Now
05:15 Anyone Can Be Vulnerable
05:55 Practical Guardrails To Reduce Risk
07:21 Pause, Name Surprise, Separate Facts
09:53 Patterns, Body Signals, And Logs
13:15 Reach Out Early And Break Silence
14:53 

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Episode Transcript

DanielBoyd (00:10):
Okay, I'm going to go ahead and interrupt the
19-part series that we'reworking on.
And I'm going to talk aboutsome new research and new ways
to frame gaslightingspecifically, has come out.
So this is a summary of thestudy called A Theoretical
Framework for Studying thePhenomenon of Gaslighting by

(00:32):
Kleinwood and Bartz in 2025 thisyear.
So the core idea is thatgaslighting is framed as a
learning process.
It's rooted in how the brainhandles prediction errors.
Prediction errors are thosejolts we feel when what we
expect doesn't match whatactually happens.

(00:53):
The authors draw on multiplepsychological theories
throughout this article.
Some of the theories they drawon are prediction error
minimization, symbolicinteractionism, attachment
theory, huge fan myself of that,self-verification, and shared
reality to explain howgaslighting works.
Not just that it works, becausewe all know that gaslighting

(01:15):
works.
If you've never been gaslightedbefore, then congratulations.
But all it takes is one time.
You'll never forget it.
So this is also going to getinto how to become virtually
gaslight proof.
Because remember, understandinghow something works is the

(01:35):
first step to being far lessvulnerable to it.
The key components of thisresearch were as follows.
So close relationships asepistemic leverage.
Because we rely on trustedothers to help us validate
what's real, gaslighters canexploit that trust.

(01:56):
The next one is predictionerror minimization, or PEM.
The victim expects consistencywith their model of reality.
When the gaslighter introducescontradictions, the brain
experiences prediction error.
Over time, repeatedcontradictions combined with
blame shifting will distort thevictim's internal model of

(02:18):
reality.
The next framework they lookedat was the erosion of epistemic
confidence.
So basically, with repeatedgaslighting, the target begins
to doubt their priors or theirbaseline assumptions about
reality, about the relationship,about anything else like that,
and is more likely to accept themanipulator's version of

(02:40):
events.
Many of us have likely seensomeone confuse disagreement,
misremembering, or somethingelse like that as gaslighting
when it really wasn'tgaslighting.
So one thing this paper reallyhammers home is distinguishing
it from related phenomenons.
So the authors correctlyclarify how gaslighting differs

(03:02):
from lying, misremembering, orcommon conflicts.
They emphasize its uniqueepistemic nature in that it
undermines the victim's capacityto trust themselves.
Quite literally, realgaslighting undermines the
victim's capacity to trust theirown mind.
So for a quick science sidebar,let's look at why prediction

(03:28):
errors matter.
Our brains constantly predictwhat should happen next.
And these are micro moments,like let's say how our partner
usually reacts to good news orbad news or sad news, etc.
We build these patterns in ourbrain, even little things like
where a chair or a couch shouldbe in the room.

(03:48):
When a trusted person acts in away that breaks that
prediction, the brain scramblesfor an explanation.
A skilled gaslighter exploitsthat scramble to slide in their
own explanation before you canslow down and check the facts.
The fix for this?
Slow the scramble, pause, namethe surprise, and keep a record.

(04:14):
So why does this matter?
Why does this new researchstudy matter?
Well, they're offering a moremechanistic, testable model
versus the older psychodynamicexplanations.
And what this does is thisopens space for empirical work
on who's vulnerable, whenthey're vulnerable, and how to

(04:36):
intervene.
The researchers also argue thatanyone can be vulnerable, which
is absolutely correct with allthe other research I've read.
Absolutely anyone can bevulnerable.
So that is accurate.
It's not about personalweakness so much as misplaced
trust.
And of course, then there's theinteraction between when we've

(04:58):
misplaced our trust, when we getgaslighted, and that ego hit
of, damn it, I got gaslighted.
And you got to separate thatfrom the actual harm or damage
that it can cause.
And that's something that'svery difficult for people to do.
So let's get into this.
How do we lower our own risk ofbeing gaslit?

(05:19):
Again, gaslighting isn't aboutbeing weak, it happens when
someone weaponizes our trust.
So, new research from McGilland the University of Toronto
shows how it hijacks the brain'sprediction error system.
When a trusted person doessomething that contradicts what
we expect them to do, our brainscrambles to explain the

(05:42):
mismatch.
If they then tell us that theconfusion is our fault, we
gradually start trusting theirversion of events more than our
own.
I've been through this, you'vebeen through this, this happens.
If you haven't been through it,then that's awesome.
You're not jaded yet.
But you should still listen tothis podcast.

(06:04):
Over time, that telling us theconfusion is our fault, either
directly or indirectly, it chipsaway at what psychologists call
epistemic confidence, which issimply the ability to believe
our own perception.
That's why gaslighting feels sodestabilizing.

(06:25):
It's not just arguing aboutfacts.
So, how do we stop and keepourselves from being gaslit?
Especially without being a dickabout it and holding space for
understanding that the personwho's doing the gaslighting may
not mean to be doing thatgaslighting, and we may be also

(06:47):
misreading things.
And not only is this useful inrelationships, this can also
help when you see even, let'ssay, a political post that seems
not true or out of whack orseems like it has an agenda
behind it, or you see a Facebookpost that seems to have a
nefarious agenda behind it, andwhat they're talking about seems

(07:10):
to be trying to bend people ina nefarious direction.
So the first thing we're gonnado is we're gonna pause before
agreeing with a surprisingclaim.
Always take a breath first.
The manipulator may call thisstalling or being defensive, but
in reality, all we are doing isslowing down that prediction

(07:33):
error loop so our brains do notdefault to their explanation.
The second thing we're gonna dois we're gonna name what
surprised us, either out loud orin a journal.
People forget that projectiongoes both ways.
We often do project thenegative or unhealthier side of

(07:53):
ourselves onto someone else.
But at least with the sameamount of frequency, most of us
also project the good parts ofourselves onto others and assume
that they are acting in goodfaith as we are.
People forget that projectiondoes go both ways like this.
That makes us excuse oddbehavior or chalk it up to past

(08:18):
trauma.
Trauma absolutely may play arole, absolutely, of course.
But trauma is rarely the fullstory.
Now, abusive people, they maycall this overthinking or making
drama, but you're simplylabeling the moment so it cannot
be rewritten later.
Just keep an eye on whetheryour reaction is ego-driven.

(08:43):
If it is mostly pride gettingpoked, that is a separate battle
that you need to fight.
And that has nothing to do withthe other person.
That is you.
That is your ego, that issomething that needs to be
gotten hold of.
And if you can get to the pointwhere you can notice when your

(09:04):
ego is being hurt or beingbruised or being challenged, and
you can recognize oh, this isliterally just my ego talking.
That is all it is.
If you can get to that point,your life will be so much
better.
So much better.
So, number three, let'sseparate the facts from the

(09:28):
interpretations.
Write down what we saw orheard, then what we felt or
inferred secondly.
A gaslighter may say we areignoring context, but the step
actually preserves context.
It keeps feelings fromrewriting the raw event.

(09:48):
Here's an example.
Once I gave someone a quickcongratulatory clap on the back
in public after something thatshe had done, and it was a lot
of work, and I was proud of her.
The fact was simple.
I clapped her on the back.
She immediately turned andsaid, Bro, I told you I'm not

(10:12):
into impact play.
So in my mind, impact play wasa private bedroom-only term.
And I thought she was jokingthe way I would, because we had
a lot of synchronicities, itseemed like.
So I answered back in the sametone.
And boy, did that make itworse.
The interpretations thatfollowed, hers about my

(10:34):
intention and mine about hertone, turned one harmless
gesture into a tense standoff.
Had I separated the rawreaction from the story that I
told myself from what she meant,I would have paused instead of
reacting, and thatmisunderstanding would have been

(10:54):
much harder to spiral or spin.
Looking back, I realized thatone small misread moment set the
tone for months of strain.
Even after I worked on myselfin therapy, the pattern between
us kept proving itself, eventhough I kept trying to prove it
wrong.

(11:15):
It taught me that sometimeswhat damages trust early can
stay unresolved.
Not always because of malice,per se, but when one party
refuses to work on themselves,neither person's story about the
moment ever really fully heals.
Let's look at the fourth thing.

(11:37):
Check your memory with aneutral third source.
And I cannot stress neutralenough.
For example, a text thread, areceipt, an unbiased friend's
recollection of the event.
A manipulator may say you'redragging other people in, and
often they share only the partsthat make them look good.
We have to remember that we arenot building a team against

(12:01):
them, and we better not be doingthat.
But we are protecting realityfrom selective storytelling.
The fifth thing to do is towatch for patterns of blame
shifting.
Healthy people admit mistakes.
We all make mistakes.
If you're someone that hasnever made a mistake, you are

(12:23):
mistaken.
But gaslighters will say youare stuck in the past or trying
to hurt them whenever you pointout a pattern.
Yet patterns over time is whatreveal whether behavior is
accidental or deliberate.
The sixth thing we gotta do iswe gotta trust our body's stress

(12:44):
signals.
Because a manipulator maydismiss your tension as being
too sensitive or too emotionalor too crazy.
And yes, you should look atyourself objectively.
Are you controlling youremotions as best you can?
Of course, because we want tomaintain that external
self-awareness of how otherpeople may take this.
But long-term tightness in yourchest, or shrinking your

(13:08):
opinions, or walking oneggshells around one person,
those are pretty valid warningsigns.
You need to look deeper at thatpoint.
Now, a gaslighter may say thatyou are keeping score or digging

(13:30):
for ammo, but it is neither.
If we're one of those peoplethat tend to forget bad behavior
because we truly want to seethe best in people, even if
we're constantly disappointed,or even if we're just somewhat
disappointed sometimes, a logbecomes a memory safety net that
shows trends where we wouldotherwise miss them.

(13:52):
So a log when it comes to thisstuff is important because that
way you can actually see what'sgoing on.
The eighth and final thing weneed to do is reach out early.
We have to talk to a therapistor a trusted friend as soon as

(14:12):
that pattern feels bigger thanwe can sort out alone.
If the other person agrees totherapy only to clear the air or
refuses joint sessions, thatjust often signals a focus on
appearance instead of change.
It's disappointing, it'sheartbreaking, but that is the
way it is.
People are who they are at theend of the day, and they will

(14:35):
show you.
Remember, gaslighting thrivesin silence and surprise.
We have to break the silence,we have to slow the surprise,
and then we reclaim the driver'sseat of actual reality.
So the key three things, if youtake nothing else out of this

(14:57):
episode, the key three things tomake yourself less vulnerable
to gaslighting is number one,pause when surprised, because
pausing slows down the brain'sprediction loop.
Number two is separating factsfrom feelings.
Separating facts from feelingskeeps the record clean.
Number three is break thesilence early.

(15:21):
Isolation, when you're beingstonewalled, all of that stuff,
or if you're just notinteracting with the other
person, it's all isolation andit all fuels distortions.
So, with all of this beingsaid, I do have to put in a note
for myself.
As someone who leans onresearch and data to explain

(15:42):
human behavior, I do have to beextremely careful not to
accidentally make someone doubttheir own perception.
I find facts and studies to beuseful because they are.
But if I do drop them into anemotional conversation without
empathy, or at least seeminglywithout empathy, it can feel to
the other person like I'm tryingto override their lived

(16:04):
experience.
Remember, everyone's experienceis valid, everyone's feelings
are valid.
Whether or not that is actualreality is a different story.
Because if it comes down totheir truth versus your truth,

(16:25):
and neither one of you can seeactual reality, or at least one
of you cannot see actualreality, then there is no
getting around that.
You cannot prove a negative,you have to pretty much walk
away at that point because atminimum they are certainly not
on your level when it comes tothat stuff.
They are not on your page.
But I do understand that whenit feels like we are overriding

(16:49):
their lived experience, that isa softer form of the same
prediction error effect,basically replacing their felt
reality with our explanation.
And it can unintentionallymimic gaslighting.
And I think this is where a lotof people confuse a real
manipulator and a realgaslighter with someone who is
just a rational person, alogical person, stuff like that.

(17:12):
So basically, even thequote-unquote rational people
among us need to slow down, askquestions first, and make room
for the other person's sense ofreality.
And remember, if the otherperson does stonewall you and
they refuse to engage and theywon't go to therapy, they won't

(17:33):
go, they won't work onthemselves, they won't go to
group therapy with you, andthey'll finally only cave to
going to therapy with you underthe guise of to clear the air,
then you've got to cut yourlosses at that point,
unfortunately.
But that's all I have fortoday.
Tell other people who could usethese steps, they work.

(17:55):
They really work.
Have a great day.