It's Not That Serious...Or Is It?

Cecelia Ky-Lan Do
Jun 15
13 min read

by Ankita Mandal

art by Vivian Yang

I’m sorry you feel that way.

I would never do anything to hurt you; you know that. Are you sure you aren’t overreacting again? Because I don’t know what you think you saw, but you should know by now that that’s not in my character. At the end of the day, think whatever you want. I should’ve known you’d take it the wrong way. It’s just not that serious, okay?

But it is.

At first, these words may seem like heated responses to an argument. But imagine hearing them repeatedly—when you express concern about a situation, when you question something that doesn’t add up, when you try to stand up for yourself. The first time, you brush it off. The second time, you start to wonder if you overreacted. By the tenth time, you’re convinced you must have misheard. Maybe you are too sensitive. Maybe your memory is unreliable. Perhaps you need to check one more time.

Gaslighting, at its core, is a slow dismantling of self-trust. It doesn’t have to be loud, aggressive, or even obvious—it thrives in subtlety, quiet manipulation, and the private moments where no one is around to validate what you’re experiencing. The more it happens, the more its effects neurologically settle into your brain, altering both how you think and how you mentally process situations altogether.

Originating from Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play, Gas Light, where a husband dims the lights in his and his wife’s home while slowly convincing her of her inability to perceive the difference, leading her down a path to insanity, gaslighting has historical ties to manipulation. But like in Gaslight, the foundation of gaslighting is in lies, which begs the question: why does something that is rooted in falsehood have such a truly lasting grip? Well, it’s not just about manipulation—it's about what it does to the brain.

Gaslighting is not just a psychological attack—it is a neurological one. When someone is repeatedly told their reality is false, their brain’s ability to process their present situation correctly is damaged by the state of questioning that the brain is subjected to. This is how long-term gaslighting alters neural pathways, disrupts fear processing, impairs memory, and erodes cognitive function; it creates an environment in which the victim’s brain works against them, reinforcing self-doubt, confusion, and emotional paralysis [1,2].

This happens because gaslighting is not just an isolated experience—it becomes ingrained in the way your mind handles threatening situations. The brain is designed to handle and respond to acute stress, like escaping a dangerous situation. But when that stress becomes chronic, the brain changes physically. It begins to function in a state of survival, sacrificing logical thinking, emotional regulation, and accuracy of memory recall in an attempt to adapt to a new state of conditioned self-doubt. Over time, this rewiring of the brain makes it easier for the gaslighter to control the victim while making it harder for them to regain autonomy [3,4].

There are physiological changes in the brain that make this a victim’s new reality. We can start by looking at the amygdala, responsible for fear processing and threat detection underpinning the “fight-or-flight” reaction. This structure, which becomes engaged in situations that are stressful or demand reaction to a threat, becomes hyperactive under prolonged gaslighting. Think of it as the mental alarm system that goes off when you receive a "We need to talk" text message. In a healthy brain, the amygdala detects these threats, stimulates a reaction, and returns to a baseline when the threat is gone. However, gaslighting keeps the brain in a perpetual state of alarm. A 2023 meta-analysis of the relationships between emotional maltreatment as a child and anxiety found that affected individuals were more likely to perceive non-threatening situations as dangerous. This explains why many gaslighting survivors experience hypervigilance, anxiety, and an exaggerated fear response [5].

The feeling that is sparked by hearing altered versions of personal experience, or being unreasonably blamed when gaslighting occurs, becomes the new baseline. A survivor’s brain expects this hardship, making it harder to feel safe, even in neutral situations [6].

In addition to overactivity, the amygdala physically increases in volume [7]. As someone is repeatedly exposed to gaslighting, the reactions they develop may become exaggerated and lead to overthinking at the detriment of self-esteem. As the brain is repeatedly exposed to the same threatening situation, it endures physical changes in order to adapt. Since the amygdala is deeply connected to the fear response, it is one of the most affected regions, particularly through a neurological phenomenon known as dendritic arborization, where neurons in the amygdala work to create more extensive branches and form new synapses. Synaptic strengthening makes individuals more sensitive to gaslighting situations, increasing the likelihood that victims analyze the circumstances with greater severity and overcomplication [8]. Creating these branches increases the surface area available for the processing of neural inputs. With extra space, extra synaptic connections can be formed, leading to more complex, often negative emotional reactions. A recent cohort from 2022 exemplified this through a statistically significant increase in amygdala size for patients with depression and suicidal ideation [9]. "The amygdala’s hyperactivity fuels anxiety and self-eroding thoughts, intensifying emotional distress. In doing so, one’s sense of self is threatened [10].

While some structures like the amygdala grow and become overactive, the prefrontal cortex (PFC)—which is responsible for rational thinking, decision-making, and self-trust—is weakened. Imagine trying to reason that you have heard someone say something and they continuously respond that you have made it up; over time, you will start to believe it. This is why victims of gaslighting struggle with indecisiveness, second-guessing, and chronic self-doubt. The PFC normally fact-checks reality, but with repeated exposure to conflicting information, it becomes overwhelmed with conflicting inputs. For example, let’s say you were to confront your partner after catching them looking at another person. They sigh, responding by saying they were just looking at everybody who was walking by.

Well, who’s right? Your PFC now has not one, but two accounts of the reality it thought it could perceive accurately. Which should it believe?

Confusion like this makes the PFC less effective at distinguishing truth from falsity. As compared to the amygdala expanding from dendritic arborization, studies have shown that chronic exposure to stress leads to the retraction of apical dendritic arbors in the medial PFC [2]. The neural branches responsible for integrating information and guiding decision-making begin to shrink, leading the PFC to lose volume while the amygdala gains it [11]. Instead of overthinking, the brain chooses to make a shortcut and “underthink.” In doing so, it chooses the version of events that is easiest to digest, which often becomes the version that is supported externally as one’s internal trust in themself fades. In the last example, over time, the PFC would not choose to fight back or investigate whether the shift of perspective told to it was true [7]. Instead, it would settle with your partner’s account of the situation. This structural degradation directly correlates with an ability to transition between different thoughts and perspectives because of the number of perspectives imposed on the victim to sort through. By shortcutting these fail-safe neural connections, individuals become more vulnerable to confusion and manipulation [10,11].

The PFC is no longer a stable filter for reality in this weakened state; it loses its ability to fact-check and critically analyze what is true, leaving individuals susceptible to self-doubt and indecisiveness. Research has found that this form of chronic stress-induced PFC atrophy, or the weakening of neural connections by the shortening of dendritic branches, is also associated with impairments in working memory, reducing an individual’s ability to recall details and recognize inconsistencies in manipulative behaviors [2]. This explains why gaslighting victims often feel mentally paralyzed when making decisions, second-guessing even the simplest choices due to a fundamental loss of cognitive trust. Deficits in memory and creating connections from past to present also connect the PFC to the hippocampus, which is the brain’s memory processing center. Chronic stress floods the brain with cortisol, a stress hormone that gradually shrinks the hippocampus. This leads to memory lapses, difficulty recalling past events, and confusion about reality [11].

A 2006 study found that individuals who had experienced prolonged emotional abuse exhibited differences in the firing properties of hippocampal neurons which directly correlated with their difficulty in accurately remembering past events [12]. As these neurons fire less, they are unable to communicate efficiently with brain regions, limiting the hippocampus’s ability to interact with other brain-memory reliant systems, like the PFC, which uses past information and experiences to inform reactions [12]. When a gaslighter tells a victim, "That never happened," their already-compromised hippocampus struggles to retrieve the correct memory, making them more likely to accept the false reality being imposed on them.

In understanding how the PFC’s effectiveness works in conjunction with other brain regions, such as the hippocampus in its relations to false memory or the amygdala in its ties to hypervigilance and internal distress, we can see how gaslighting is more than just a psychological experience. It is a neurobiological event that can alter the brain’s ability to function effectively. These findings highlight the necessity of addressing gaslighting not just as an emotional issue, but as a neurological one that requires cognitive and therapeutic intervention to restore proper PFC function and rebuild self-trust [10].

Tucked within the sub-regions of the PFC lies the insula, a brain structure often undermined for its critical role in emotional processing and intuition, otherwise known as that subjective gut instinct [13]. Imagine the sinking feeling in your stomach when something feels off—that's your insula at work. However, gaslighting rewires the brain to ignore its instincts. A 2023 study on emotional abuse survivors found reduced insular activity, meaning that gaslighting victims were less likely to recognize manipulation, even when it was happening in real-time [14]. Many survivors of gaslighting dismiss their emotions and assume they are overreacting, even when their distress is justified, and the lack of activity in the insula following gaslighting can be a cause of this.

The insula is functionally linked through activation of neurons from the Default Mode Network (DMN). Think of it like your built-in savior during an identity crisis—it’s the system that helps maintain a stable sense of self, allowing you to trust in yourself and the reality you perceive. By allowing one to have a degree of self-trust, the DMN works with the insula and PFC to set up a system of intuitive belief [15]. The next time you’re questioning whether you saw that shadowy figure in the corner of your room (which ends up just being your coat on the back of your chair), you can thank your DMN for assuring you that there isn’t someone sneaking into your room.

However, when the DMN is fragmented by gaslighting situations, it loses its ability to communicate with other brain regions responsible for self-assurance. Effects ripple down the brain, from the PFC, which will have difficulty analyzing whether one’s emotions are valid or appropriate, to the amygdala, where it cannot relax from its hyperactive state [16]. Instead, the DMN will exacerbate this state of confusion because it is shaken by its new reality of uncertainty. Imagine constantly assuming that what you could’ve sworn was just a coat on your chair is actually an intruder and really, truly believing that. The constant state of uncertainty and confusion that results from the dysfunctionality of the DMN is a much more long-lasting impact of gaslighting. People lose trust in their perceptions, leading to chronic identity confusion and dissociation [17]. This can explain why gaslighting survivors often feel lost, emotionally numb, or disconnected from themselves, even long after the manipulation ends.

And this is what makes gaslighting so effective: it doesn’t just convince someone they are wrong; it rewires their ability to know what’s right.

One may feel obliged to keep the negative aspects of their interpersonal relationships private, but this contains the damage to the affected individual, limiting their ability to understand the wrong being done to them. The first step in healing is recognition—acknowledging that what happened was real, that the manipulation was intentional, and that its effects are not a reflection of personal weakness but rather a consequence of sustained psychological coercion.

Healing from gaslighting is a task that requires intention and often a concentrated effort. Our brains are malleable, which is why gaslighting can change in response to gaslighting in the first place. Through the wonder of neuroplasticity, we possess the ability to change our brains yet again and learn from these experiences. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is one of the most effective interventions, as it helps survivors identify distorted thought patterns, reframe their experiences, and rebuild trust in their perceptions [18]. CBT strengthens the function of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) through retraining how one’s mind analyzes situations [19].

Since this region is critical for executive functions like attention and decision-making, while also being interlinked with the amygdala, hippocampus, and more, individuals can improve their top-down control. This means that by improving the PFC, one can become more effective at regulating overactive emotional centers [20]. A prime example would be the amygdala, which eases its hyperactivity through decreased threat signaling from the PFC. Progressively fewer events would set off the alarm system in the brain as a victim’s fear of situations becomes more regulated. This would present as having less doubt about whether someone is speaking ill about you, not worrying that they don’t like what you’re wearing, and even just feeling confident in knowing that someone did something they assured you they didn’t. This is a hallmark of CBT— the cascading impacts of improving an area as essential as the PFC filters down to more specialized regions, such as the hippocampus, by promoting adaptive memory processing and reducing emotional reactivity tied to past events. Thus, the DMN fosters a more stable sense of self and reduces maladaptive thought patterns, which is added upon by the insula, decreasing insular hyperactivity and helping individuals better regulate emotional responses [20]. For survivors who must maintain contact with their gaslighter, such as in co-parenting or workplace settings, the Gray Rock Method is also a useful strategy. In this technique, the victim can focus on themselves and their perceptions rather than those of their gaslighter by forcibly showing a lack of emotion to the gaslighter’s words [21]. In doing so, the amygdala is taught to neutralize situations that it was previously sensitive to, garnering less activity in this area. By keeping interactions emotionally neutral and non-engaging, the victim deprives the gaslighter of the reaction they seek, reducing further manipulation attempts. The PFC is also able to make a distinction as to when a situation should be analyzed again, giving the insula and DMN more certainty in their regulatory functions. Through supporting one’s neurological processes and blocking those that are harmful, these brain structures can be strengthened and protected from negative physiological adaptations.

Gaslighting is not a situation to be ashamed of or silent towards. As a recognized form of psychological abuse, it is a potent instigator of harm to the brain, one with the ability to change how even the most specific brain structures function. However, just as it may change in reaction to a gaslighter, it is also able to change at your will. With time, intentional strategies, and a strong support system, survivors can reverse much of the damage, regain self-trust, and move forward with confidence.

But with all that said, it’s important to remember that gaslighting is usually silent, almost always private, and never your truth. So the next time anyone tells you that you have it all wrong, that you must have misheard, that it’s not that serious, just remember.

It is.

REFERENCES:

[1] Adolphs, R. (2013). The Biology of Fear. Current Biology, 23 (2), R79–R93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2012.11.055