The Fallacy of Memory: When the Mind Becomes Its Own Gaslighter
The Fallacy of Memory: When the Mind Becomes Its Own Gaslighter
By Adam Steffens |The Mental Wolf Research Initiative
thementalwolf.com
We like to think of memory as a truth we can trust — a recording of what we’ve lived. But your brain is not a camera; it’s a storyteller. And like any storyteller, it edits, reshapes, and occasionally lies to protect its narrative.
This is what neuroscientists call reconsolidation — each time you recall a memory, your brain rebuilds it. The emotions you feel now, the beliefs you hold today, and even the state of your nervous system all blend into the memory, subtly altering it before the brain “saves” it again.
Over time, the line between what happened and what you feel happened blurs. And that’s where the fallacy begins — not because you’re dishonest, but because you’re human.
The Self-Gaslighting Mechanism
Gaslighting is typically understood as emotional manipulation — someone distorting your reality to gain control.
But what if, long before anyone else gaslit you, your own brain was already doing it?
Every time you revisit an event, your mind reinterprets it through the lens of who you are now.
You remember your childhood through the adult’s logic, not the child’s innocence.
You remember heartbreak through the pain, not the nuance.
You remember trauma through survival, not accuracy.
In a very real way, you gaslight yourself — not out of malice, but biology.
Your brain rewrites stories to make the past emotionally cohesive. If it can’t handle the truth, it changes the angle until it can.
That’s why you might swear you “remember” someone yelling at you, only to later find they didn’t — or you might recall being calm when in reality, you shut down completely.
The moment your brain edits that scene to make sense of your current identity, the truth of the original moment is lost.
Unintentional Gaslighting: When Biology Meets Human Interaction
Now add another mind into the equation — another nervous system reconstructing its own version of events.
Two brains. Two realities. Both certain of their own truth.
When you argue with someone about “what really happened,” neither of you may be lying.
You may both be telling the truth as your nervous system encoded it.
That’s why so many conflicts feel like brick walls — because from a biological standpoint, both parties are right and wrong.
So when we talk about gaslighting, it’s crucial to differentiate:
Malicious gaslighting: a conscious, strategic effort to distort your perception and gain control.
Unintentional gaslighting: a natural byproduct of how human memory works — two nervous systems remembering different versions of the same story.
Not all gaslighting is evil. Some of it is just the inevitable clash of faulty memories colliding in emotional time.
The Dangerous Power of Repetition
Here’s where talk therapy — and sometimes even healthy communication — can accidentally backfire.
Each time you retell a painful story, you’re not “processing” it as much as you are reconsolidating it.
You make the neural pathway stronger, embedding the emotional charge deeper into your biology.
That’s why venting often feels good in the moment but leaves a residue of exhaustion or anxiety afterward.
You reactivated the circuit, but you didn’t close it.
And this is where MST (Maladaptive Stability Theory) offers a different lens.
It views trauma, anxiety, and even distorted memory as stabilized biological patterns — not flaws, but equilibrium states the body has chosen for predictability.
MST doesn’t talk about the past; it reprograms the present biology so the past loses its grip.
By changing the body’s chemistry and rhythm, the emotional charge of a memory dissolves — no retelling required.
How to Tell the Difference: Memory vs. Manipulation
You can often distinguish biological misremembering from manipulative gaslighting by noticing one thing:
Intent.
Biological distortion seeks comfort.
Psychological manipulation seeks control.
The first is your brain protecting you.
The second is someone trying to own your perception.
But the result can feel the same — confusion, self-doubt, the erosion of your confidence in your own mind.
That’s why understanding the biology of memory is power: once you know your mind is editing the film, you stop mistaking the edit for the truth.
The Takeaway
Gaslighting doesn’t always come from others — sometimes it’s a symptom of a mind trying too hard to protect itself.
And while traditional talk therapy can help surface insight, it often fails to rewire the biological loop that keeps you stuck in the replay.
You don’t heal by rehearsing pain; you heal by retraining the biology that stores it
Memory isn’t truth — it’s adaptation.
And understanding that might just be the most liberating insight of all.
The Mental Wolf Research Initiative
Rewriting the Science of the Mind
thementalwolf.com
