Gaslighting

It sounds like that never happened, you're too sensitive, or you're remembering it wrong, said steadily enough that you start to wonder. A single comment is just a disagreement. Gaslighting is the pattern: a slow rewriting of reality until your own read of a situation feels unreliable and theirs becomes the one you lean on.

It works by going after the thing a boundary depends on, your trust in your own perception. If you can be made to doubt that you were hurt, that a promise was made, or that the tone was sharp, then you have nothing solid to set a boundary around. People-pleasers are especially exposed, because the fawn response already nudges you to assume the fault is yours and to smooth things over rather than hold your ground.

The footing comes back from outside the conversation. Writing down what happened while it's fresh, telling one person you trust, and noticing the pattern across many small moments rather than arguing each one. You don't have to win the debate about what's real. You only have to stop handing them the pen.