In My Gaslighting at work: how to recognise it and what to do
"That meeting didn't happen the way you remember." "I never said that." "Everyone else understood the brief — why is this only a problem for you?" "You're being oversensitive." If sentences like these have become normal at your work — and you've started wondering whether you actually are misremembering things — this article is for you.
What gaslighting is (and isn't)
Gaslighting is a pattern of denying someone's accurate perception of events until they begin to distrust it. At work it usually looks like: commitments denied ("I never agreed to that deadline"), conversations rewritten ("that's not what was said in that meeting"), feedback that shape-shifts ("I told you to do exactly the opposite"), and your reactions pathologised ("you're taking this far too personally").
Honesty matters here in both directions: people also genuinely misremember, and two colleagues can walk out of one meeting with two sincere versions of it. A single disputed memory is not gaslighting. The pattern is the tell: if the "misrememberings" consistently favour one person and consistently cost you, that's not chance.
Why it works on capable people
Gaslighting works better on conscientious people, not worse. If you're the kind of person who asks "could I be wrong?" — a good quality — then someone who answers "yes, you're always wrong" with enough confidence can hijack that self-questioning and turn it against you. The dread, the constant re-checking of your own emails, the apologising for things you're not sure you did: that's not weakness. That's the predictable effect of the technique.
The habit that switches it off
Gaslighting has one dependency: the absence of a record. It cannot survive contact with contemporaneous documentation. So:
- Write things down the day they happen — date, time, place, what was said (verbatim where possible), who else was there. Store it on a personal device or personal cloud account, never on work systems.
- Confirm conversations in writing, politely. "Just to confirm what we agreed this morning: the deadline is the 14th and the scope is X — shout if I've got that wrong." One sentence, sent after every meaningful verbal exchange. It reads as diligence, and it quietly closes the door on "that's not what we agreed".
- Keep the replies. Silence in response to a confirmation email is itself informative later.
- Tell one trusted person what's happening, early. Not for action — for calibration. A sane witness to your reality is an antidote to doubt.
Notice what this does: you stop arguing about memory (an argument you can't win against confidence) and start relying on paper (an argument they can't win against evidence).
If it's linked to who you are
If the treatment tracks your race, sex, age, disability, religion, sexuality or another protected characteristic, what you're experiencing may be harassment in the legal sense — a different and stronger situation than bullying alone. The same documentation serves you; the routes multiply. Speak to ACAS (0300 123 1100), your union, or an employment adviser about your options — before making any big decision.
You don't have to work this out alone. In My Corner is a team of five AI companions for exactly this — one who listens, one who decodes letters and knows your deadlines, one who keeps your evidence organised, one for fresh starts, one who teaches. Private by design: conversations are never stored on our servers.
Talk it through — In My Corner