updated from January 6, 2025 with new links and information Let's be honest, the word "gaslighting" gets thrown around a lot these days. But for thos
Let’s be honest, the word “gaslighting” gets thrown around a lot these days. But for those of us who’ve lived it, it’s not a trendy buzzword; it’s real. 
It’s the insidious erosion of your self-worth and the slow twisting of your perception until you question your own sanity. And I’m here to tell you, you are not alone, and you are not crazy.
I’ve worked with countless Survivors, and I’ve seen the devastating impact of gaslighting firsthand. It’s not a single, explosive event; it’s a subtle, constant drip of poison, designed to dismantle your sense of self.
It’s the whispers that tell you
- you’re overreacting,
- that you’re imagining things,
- that you’re too sensitive,
- too emotional,
- too “hateful”,
- too… everything.
Victims of violence come to domestic violence advocates doubting their memory, their judgment, even their own perception of reality. After decades of meeting shattered women, men, and children in the midst of the worst seasons of their lives…..
It is THE reason, I refuse to be a loyal follower of concepts and ideologies I don’t believe in ever again. Say what you want about it, I don’t care.
All of the alternatives are worse.
Once you’ve had to rescue it from the clutches of someone who is dangerously separated from reality, you tend to develop a deeper appreciation of thinking for yourself. Once you have had to rescue your mind from the clutches of someone manipulating your mind for sport. Smirking in your face.
You can lose everything else in this life and do okay, but you can’t survive all if you lose yourself. If you surrender your values, beliefs, and voice to others. Essentially hollow out.
So along comes Rosa Parks.
She recognized systems of deceit — and refused to cooperate
Segregation based on race wasn’t just cruelty.
It was psychological conditioning designed to make Black people:
- doubt what they saw
- question their worth
- comply without resistance
- internalize humiliation as “normal”
Rosa Parks saw the game that was not based in truth and fact.
She had spent years documenting sexual assaults, investigating racist violence, organizing workshops, and learning exactly how oppression manipulates people into silence.
When that bus driver demanded obedience, she understood:
If I stand up, the lie wins again.
She did not raise her voice. She did not beg.
She withdrew her consent from the lie — calmly, fully, and with clarity.
That is high-level resistance.
She trained herself long before that bus ride. It is why she was chosen. It is why she accepted. Though there were others before her like Claudette Colvin, you have to understand how fatal and deadly those times were. Reading the brutal and graphic final chapter of Mary Turner and her family may give you a glimpse, but only a glimpse.
Rosa Parks was a warrior. Rosa Parks attended workshops at the Highlander Folk School where organizers studied:
- power and propaganda
- the psychology of submission
- nonviolent strategy
- building collective courage
She wasn’t “caught off guard.”
She was practiced in interrupting manipulation.
And she stayed soft-spoken — not because she was weak — but because she understood that racist oppressors thrive on chaos and distraction. She refused to give them narrative control.
Her power was quiet — and devastating
Manipulation says:
“Be nice. Don’t make trouble. Go along.”
Rosa Parks answered:
No theatrics. (She didn’t entertain it and she didn’t perform it. Just, no.)
No apology.
No bending herself into a smaller woman to make injustice comfortable.
That refusal — peaceful, steady, unwavering — exposed the deceit at the heart of segregation and catalyzed a movement.
Gaslighting isn’t your fault. It’s a tactic used by abusive, perhaps insecure people to maintain power and control. Getting free from it takes courage, but the rewards – reclaiming your sense of self, your confidence, your sanity – are immeasurable.