When you stop trusting your own mind, everything becomes harder.
Maybe something in your relationship feels wrong. Maybe you are constantly questioning whether you are overreacting. Maybe you are trying to understand emotional abuse, controlling behaviour, gaslighting, or experiences commonly described as narcissistic abuse.
Or maybe you have already left and are trying to rebuild trust in yourself.
Doubting My Own Mind is about recognising what is happening, rebuilding self-trust, and finding your way back to your own judgment.
Personal experience, practical reflection, and recovery support. Not diagnosis or therapy.
It often begins with doubt.
Not with certainty that something is wrong, but with questions that keep returning.
“Am I overreacting?”
“Maybe I misunderstood.”
“Why does every argument somehow become my fault?”
“Why am I always explaining myself?”
“Maybe I am the problem.”
“Why can’t I trust my own judgment anymore?”
For many people, the hardest part of a controlling or emotionally abusive relationship is not recognising one terrible event. It is the slow erosion of confidence in your own perception.
That is the experience behind Doubting My Own Mind.
Start wherever you are
You do not need to know exactly what you need yet.
Read the story from inside the confusion
Doubting My Own Mind is narrative nonfiction built from real-time conversations recorded while I was still trying to understand what was happening in my own relationship.
You see the doubt, repetition, rationalisation, recognition, leaving, therapy, and gradual return of self-trust as they happened.
Discover the Book →Talk it through with someone who understands the experience
Private one-to-one coaching for people who may still be in the relationship, unsure whether to leave, recently out, or rebuilding afterward.
The focus is clarity, boundaries, self-trust, confidence, decision-making, and independence.
₹1,000 for 50–60 minutes. English, Tamil, or Malayalam.
Learn About Coaching →Understand the patterns without losing yourself in labels
Articles about emotional abuse, controlling relationships, self-doubt, gaslighting, boundaries, guilt, no-contact, and rebuilding self-trust.
The goal is not to diagnose strangers. It is to make confusing experiences easier to recognise and understand.
Read the Blog →You do not have to leave before you are allowed to seek clarity.
You may still love the person. You may share children, finances, family, a home, responsibilities, or years of history.
You may not be ready to leave. You may not be able to leave right now. You may not even be certain that what you are experiencing is abuse.
You are still allowed to ask questions. You are still allowed to notice patterns. You are still allowed to think about your boundaries. And you are still allowed to take your own experience seriously.
Clarity can come before decisions.
Explore Recovery CoachingAbout the term “narcissistic abuse”
I identify as a survivor of what I describe as narcissistic abuse.
You will see that term used on this website because it is language many survivors use to describe patterns of manipulation, control, gaslighting, emotional instability, and erosion of self-trust.
I use the term to describe an experience and a pattern of behaviour. I do not use it to clinically diagnose another person.
Someone does not need a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder before their behaviour can be controlling, harmful, manipulative, or emotionally abusive.
The goal is not to replace your judgment.
If a relationship has already made you question yourself, the last thing you need is another person telling you what to think.
That principle applies to the book, the articles, and especially the coaching.
My job is to help you reach a point where you do not need me.
Who is behind Doubting My Own Mind?
I write publicly under the name Jared Hayes. It is a pen name.
I am a survivor of an emotionally abusive relationship and of an experience I describe as narcissistic abuse. This site grew from my own attempt to understand what had happened to me.
The book contains real-time conversations from the period when I was still confused. The blog explores some of the patterns and recovery lessons that became clearer afterward. The coaching service grew from informally helping other people think through boundaries, self-doubt, difficult decisions, and recovery.
I intentionally keep my legal identity off the public website. If someone becomes a coaching client, I am comfortable introducing myself privately and meeting by video.
Public privacy and private transparency can coexist.
Read about the book →
Doubting My Own Mind
How Real-Time Conversations with AI Helped Me Understand Narcissistic Abuse and Find a Way Out
By Jared Hayes
A first-person record of confusion gradually becoming recognition.
Not a guidebook. Not a diagnosis. A story from inside the experience.
Looking for recovery coaching?
Coaching may be useful if you are still trying to understand what is happening, struggling with boundaries, repeatedly doubting your decisions, unsure whether to stay or leave, preparing to leave, maintaining no-contact or low-contact, or rebuilding confidence afterward.
The first session is paid after the session. Before booking, you complete a short fit form so I can decide whether I am genuinely the right person to help.
See if Coaching Is a FitLatest articles
I Didn’t Know It Was Abuse. I Just Thought Something Was Wrong With Me.
For a long time, I never asked myself, Am I being abused? I was asking completely different questions. Why am I creating so many…
Read article →The Most Dangerous Part Was Not the Fights – It Was the Doubt
I thought the fights were the problem. The shouting.The accusations.The emotional breakdowns. That’s what I kept focusing on. That’s what I kept trying to…
Read article →It Wasn’t Always Bad – And That’s What Kept Me Stuck
If it was bad all the time, I would have left much earlier. That’s the truth. It wasn’t constant abuse.It wasn’t daily chaos.It wasn’t…
Read article →You do not need to have all the answers yet.
You may only know that something feels wrong. That is enough to begin paying attention.
You may still be inside the relationship. You may be deciding what comes next. You may already be rebuilding.
Wherever you are, the aim is not to tell you what your life should look like. It is to help you move toward greater clarity, stronger boundaries, and more trust in your own mind.