This is a picture of Luc Sabourin who was in the military and then the Canadian Border Services Agency. The picture is taken from an article by journalist Sam Cooper on the immense suffering Sabourin has endured in Canada as a whistleblower. We don’t protect individuals in our nation who speak truth to power. We let them suffer.

Lying, coverup, retaliating against truth-tellers

I wrote The Gaslit Brain not only because my employer, the leader of my organization tried to gaslight me, but because I was very concerned about normalized lying. I was distraught about the War on Truth and the Post-Truth Era. I capitalize those terms because they should startle us every time, and never be accepted as normal.

As a whistleblower in 2015, after repeat attempts to support my leaders in doing the right thing, while they failed at every turn, I knew that speaking truth to power would come with extremely harmful retaliation which it did. But for me, it was the only path if indeed the truth is valuable. It is the only path when children are being harmed.

Regardless of the suffering, I would do it again, not because I am self-righteous, I am very aware of my own weaknesses and flaws and failings. I would do it again because I believe we all need to speak the truth to the very best of our ability. I would do it again because children - and other vulnerable people and creatures - cannot protect themselves and there are those who lie about them and look away when they are hurt.

Speaking truth to power

Eleven years after I spoke to national media about the coverup of child abuse by teachers, award-winning journalist Sam Cooper refers to my act of whistleblowing again. I am quoted and my words express clearly why I care so much about gaslighting and the risk it brings to my country:

“The public don’t understand the jeopardy our country is being placed in by the potential entry of bad actors due to the wrongdoing and inaction of responsible authorities, including Parliament,” Sabourin told The Bureau.

Jennifer Fraser, PhD, vice-president of the Whistleblowing Canada Research Society, said Sabourin’s experience strongly resonated with her own case as a whistleblower in British Columbia’s education system.

Fraser went public in 2015 with allegations that a private school, enabled by failures of the Commissioner for Teacher Regulation, had covered up psychological and some physical abuse of students. Fourteen students provided testimony concerning conduct spanning about five years, and the case was subsequently examined by the Toronto Star and CTV’s W5.

“Luc Sabourin’s speaking up about dangerous, corrupt conduct, only to be maltreated, threatened, retaliated against, felt painfully familiar. His finances are being eroded,” Fraser said. “My finances are being eroded. His children are threatened. My children are threatened. Canada is on a slippery slope where the electorate cannot trust our institutions. The abject failure of lawmakers to protect whistleblowers has led us to this vulnerability as a nation.”

On Saturdays, I’m joined by workplace trauma expert Dr. Heliana Ramirez (check out the Substack she has just started: https://substack.com/@helianaramirez). If you miss a session, she’ll send you a recording. She’s created an anonymous survey so we can improve and learn with each chapter read out loud and discussion that follows. Highlights of the survey responses include responses to the question:

“How is this group impacting you?”

“It is helping me heal and understand what has happened to me. As an introvert I am not a joiner. Yet joining this group is exactly what I need. So many times during the past 18 months, I have held back from asking “why?” knowing that there wasn’t a good answer available to me at those points. Dr. Fraser’s work has answered that enormous question I needed to ask but couldn’t in ways that are transformative. Every week I anticipate learning more and more of the answer. This is freeing and healing. It is not me, it was never me. I also know that I need to not be silent. I promised myself after surviving abuse I would never again be silent about an abuser and their abuse. I kept saying throughout to myself and the amazing people who love and support me that, I will not be silent. In the beginning I spoke only about the wrongdoing I was trying to help make right. What I needed more is to not be silent about what was done to me, by whom and the impact with people who have sadly walked similar paths. So grateful.”

“By further exposing me to patterns of institutional gaslighting/DARVO and regulatory capture (and to fellow survivors of both) the group is helping me to reclaim my trust in my own perceptions and to strengthen my motivation to continue speaking out in the name of reform.”

“Don’t feel so isolated with a community that is having/had the same experiences. Great to hear how others are dealing with the same issues. Experiences is less lonely and frightening. Will feel more informed and empowered when I return to work. Understanding what is happening and why is empowering. Community and support is invaluable There are so many benefits Helping me to keep my sanity and health”

“This was my first time to attend, and it’s lovely to see that this space has been created. While I’m hesitant to share anything personally due to my current employment situation, I’m grateful that so many people were able to share their stories within a safe and supportive community.”

Refuse the imposed isolation

One of the key goals of the abuser and gaslighter is to isolate targets and especially truth-tellers. A strategy to push back, create healthier, less manipulative and false community around yourself, a book club on gaslighting and the brain!

Register for The Gaslit Brain Book Group at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Kq6sQgByQqm01Px2KNK0hw

Here’s a series of assessment questions, grounded in brain science, that can prevent the trauma of gaslighting whether it’s in person or online. Ask these six questions when you’re getting the sense that someone might not be truthful.

Question #1. How sharp are your senses? Are you seeing and hearing clearly? Is there anything being used to distract you, confuse you, create haze to blur your vision or chatter to disrupt your hearing? In The Gaslit Brain, there is a chapter on ways to sharpen your senses which brain scientists call your exteroception system. The way your brain gathers data through your senses impacts all higher level cognition. One way to identify a gaslighter is the way they use sense interference (haze and chatter) to throw you off.

Question #2. What is your internal system telling you? Does your stomach feel off? Is your heart-rate rising? Are you sweating? Are your muscles tensing up? Your gut is the site of your gut instinct. When your body feels uneasy around an untrustworthy person, you can start to feel hot or light-headed or off-balance. You might start breathing quickly and shallowly. All of these body indicators can sense a liar before you have the thought: ‘can I trust this person?’ In The Gaslit Brain, there is a chapter on how to work with your interoception system to get more accurate readings from it.

Question #3. If you rated your sense of how safe you feel from 1 to 10, with 1 being extremely unsafe, to 10 being fully safe, what number leaps to mind when you’re with the possible gaslighter? Your nervous system - brain and body - is always measuring safety. Gaslighters may well use fear to destabilize you, make you dependent on them. Your neuroception system is a threat detector and it can read people according to how safe you feel. In The Gaslit Brain, there is a chapter with strategies on how to work with your neuroception system.

Question #4. In The Gaslit Brain, there is a chapter on perception which I apply specifically to the way we assess the trustworthiness of a person. There is one simple question to ask here that can save you: do you trust the person because of their position or because of their track record? If you’re placing trust in position, you are putting yourself at risk. Our brains are vulnerable to believing people who are in positions of power, credibility, and social standing. There are endless examples of the ways people use their position to gaslight and ruin others. Here’s a few: Coach Mike Rice, Harvey Weinstein, Dr. Larry Nassar, entrepreneurs Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried, religious figures…

Question #5. Ask yourself if you are being asked to think fast or slow. With a gaslighter, they benefit when you are mentally rushing. They approach you with urgency. They need you to decide right now! They need you to sign, send cash, agree as quickly as possible. They will tell you someone can’t be trusted, or is an enemy, based on categories: gender, race, economic status, disability, their age, their laugh, their religion etc. Bias is a great way to think fast; it’s just that it’s massively inaccurate. There is a chapter in The Gaslit Brain that looks at how our brains make poor decisions when they use short-cuts, and make way better decisions when we put in the time for meta-cognition, asking critical questions, looking at facts and sources and evidence.

Question #6. Ask yourself, does the possible gaslighter appear motivated by Opportunism or Altruism? Do they benefit from what they’re saying? Is there an advantage to them for making you self-doubt, self-critique, not believe in your own memory, perception, or interactions with others? In The Gaslit Brain, there’s a chapter on our brain lateralization which is that the left brain hemisphere’s focus is on opportunity while the right hemisphere’s focus is on a sense of connection, compassion for all, a wide encompassing of the universe and the divine and the bliss of being a part of such a whole. Gaslighters live in the left and are motivated by opportunism. You can learn how to see it in action.

Democratic strategist Max Burns gives a master class in exposing gaslighter strategies. He does not apply the term “gaslighting” or use the definition “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone, especially for one’s own advantage.” However, his methodical juxtaposition of words versus deeds undermines faith in what’s said versus what’s actually done.

Burns zeroes in on Maine Senator Susan Collins’ announcement that she would oppose Todd Blanche’s nomination for Attorney General. He puts her public condemnation of Todd side by side with her track record that has supported, year after year, the very actions for which she condemns him. We could say she’s a hypocrite, but Burns suggests her about-face has more to do with misleading for her “own advantage.”

In essence, “Collins lambasted the acting attorney general for presiding over ‘actions that have further eroded the [Justice] Department’s independence.’” Burns’ response to Collins is to ask tough questions. It seems so simple, but it’s actually not done enough. Burns asks:

“Most pointedly, if Collins really believes what she’s saying, why is she only speaking up now? And why has she fought against Democratic efforts to bring accountability and independence back to the DOJ?”

In short, the Senator has a track record of actively blocking attempts to maintain an accountable and independent Department of Justice, but in the moment, when it may benefit her, she’s suddenly a staunch advocate for accountability and independence in the justice department.

Collins’ track record is vital because it offers an account of her deeds, not her self-serving words, that Burns reveals are in fact, lies. Her words at present suggest accountability and independence are critically important in the DOJ, but as Burns shows, this is misleading. When put beside her track record, Collins’ ethical stance appears hollow and opportunist.

Always ask if this speaker is lying, who benefits?

Burns asks what’s the motivation for her public outcry on Blanche? And he finds an answer in the polls that show Collins is trailing her challenger. In a bid to regain her power, popularity, good-standing with voters, she’s trying to dress herself in sheep’s clothing. Burns reveals the wolf she actually is by going through her track record of actions, not spin-doctored statements and speeches.

Burns does not offer his opinion. He provides facts that carry the truth about Collins and undermine her speaking points: “Despite positioning herself as a check on Trump’s corruption, public voting data reveals she supported the MAGA agenda nearly 95% of the time.”

Burns gives his readers the opportunity to join him in the act or practice of meta-cognition. Collins says one thing, but Burns looks at whether or not it’s factually true according to her actions. Especially in a stressful and overloaded time like now, our tendency is simply to trust someone in a position of power, credibility, and social standing when they make a public statement.

We want to believe them. We want to be in a world where we can trust them. It’s demoralizing and destabilizing to admit that a person in a position of immense power and influence is not telling the truth.

Our brains are not wired to ask: “is that person grossly misleading me?”

Burns sums up by looking back on Collins’ political career. What he finds is a pattern of deception. When you are trying to identify gaslighting, look at the track record of actions, and look for patterns. People don’t tell the lies of bullying and gaslighting out of the blue. They do it repeatedly. Here’s Burns’ summary on Collins.

“The gap between actions and words is nothing new for Collins, who has made a long career out of expressing concern with MAGA extremism while either standing aside or voting to inflict it on the American people. It’s ironic, for instance, that Collins now finds Blanche’s pledge to expand Trump’s war on women disqualifying, given that she bears more responsibility than most for making that war possible in the first place.”

Rebecca Solnit writes about how the war on women and the war on truth are intertwined. Both are linked to dictatorship.

Those in the Dark Triad are adept at making others responsible for their harm. They are quick to reverse victim and offender. They turn critique inside out to claim they are the target of a witch hunt. They don’t feel guilt, remorse or anguish like people with healthy brains. They inflict violence against facts and truth.

Join us in the Gaslit Brain Book Club

Gaslighters just want to win and will do whatever it takes to win include harming people and telling repeat self-serving lies. Recognizing these dysfunctional brains can provide psychological safety. At the Gaslit Brain Book Club on Saturdays, we are launching into Part 2 which focuses on the Dark Triad and the Science of Evil.

Join us. If you can’t make it, we’ll send you a recording. This week, it’s an opportunity to hear a reading of Chapter 5, and engage with workplace trauma expert Dr. Heliana Ramirez.

Register at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Kq6sQgByQqm01Px2KNK0hw

We have become accustomed to gaslighting in the news cycle to the point where most don’t even notice it. Individuals in positions of power, credibility, and social standing state that those who disagree with them, or question their conduct or integrity, are ‘deranged’, or ‘lunatics’, or ‘crazy’ etc. This form of defamatory gaslighting is not followed swiftly by a lawsuit. It just simply hovers as a weapon in the War on Truth.

Being in a Gaslit Era, where it is normal to grossly mislead, not just someone or a group behind closed doors, but a global audience in public, allows corruption to flourish. When you grossly mislead for your own advantage, it should set alarm bells ringing, but now, it’s just normal.

In a Gaslit Era, corruption is the name of the game

As reported by David Cummings for CBC, Presidnet of FIFA, Gianni Infantino’s conduct is a case in point. He’s been featured in the news a great deal lately, not for good governance or a successful world cup, but for a series of controversial at best, significantly corrupt at worst, conduct.

First, he awarded the President of the U.S. an award for “peace” even though this award was conjured out of thin air. It had no history. It didn’t even make sense in a sporting arena. Most appalling was that it was awarded to someone who doesn’t have a track record of creating any form of “peace.”

Second, he received a phone call from this same falsely, embarrassingly awarded President and did his bidding which was to cancel the red card issued to an American player so he could compete in the next game. There was no attempt to cover this up even. It was enormously public like a display of war ships to instil fear in the enemy.

Third, - and usually in sports it’s three strikes you’re out - but not during the Gaslit Era - Infantino announced a glaringly corrupt plan for FIFA that he had kept hidden from his own people, his own advisors. The plan was even linked to the President’s son-in-law’s brother, but nepotism is fine in the Gaslit Era; you’re meant to not see it.

Prime Minister Mark Carney weighed in on the corrupt private equity plan by highlighting the lack of trust he now has in Infantino:

“‘I’ve run a few organizations in my time,’ Carney said. ‘The idea that proper governance is not to disclose to your closest advisors, your chief operating officer, your fellow board members, something of consequence that you're even considering let alone proposing, that should be fatal and you lose confidence in that individual.’”

It should be fatal. Do think in the Gaslit Era it will be?

“You’re fired!” morphs into new series: “I resign.”

Then Carney focused on the advisor who resigned in protest.

“Carlos Cordeiro is someone I’ve known for more than three decades,” Carney said. “Very high integrity individual and he was [Infantino’s] adviser and had expertise in all the aspects of what was proposed and he was not consulted.”

Carney’s focus is on the manipulation, the deception, the public announcement that would normally push those involved - who had been blindsided - into supporting, or lose their position, livelihood, career hopes, reputation. If Cordeiro responded to Infantino’s corrupt plan by fawning, he would most certainly have been rewarded.

Instead, he resigned in protest. It was a rare moment of integrity.

Repeat corruption are “mistakes” in the Gaslit Era

“In a release, FIFA said its secretary general and management board ‘reaffirmed their full support’ for Infantino at a meeting in Rabat, Morocco.

It also said the meeting addressed the FFE proposal, ‘where mistakes made were acknowledged,’ and that an apology letter was sent to the FIFA council and member associations.”

Interestingly, sex abusers use the same approach. They try out small grooming gestures which they can dismiss as “mistakes” if they get called out. They cast a wide net. They commit less heinous acts - but still harmful ones in public - to normalize what happens behind closed doors.

Victims don’t see anyone stopping the destructive conduct, so they fall prey to the manipulation. They believe it must be them that has the problem. It’s effective gaslighting. Corruption apparently works in a similar way.

James Talarico is a politician hoping to get elected to the U.S. Senate in November. His campaign is a masterclass in cutting through the lies and manipulations that fuel gaslighting. He is an expert in seeing clearly. He cuts through the haze and the chatter that confuse the brain and disrupt its ability to assess sense data accurately.

Listen to his exposure of gaslighting

“The biggest divide in this country is not left vs. right. It’s top vs. bottom. Billionaires want us looking left and right at each other instead of looking up at them. The people at the top work so hard to keep us angry and divided because our unity is a threat to their wealth and power. So their cable news networks and their social media algorithms tear us apart.”

Let’s unpack it: billionaires are gaslighting; they are grossly misleading the nation for their own advantage. They are using divide and conquer, the tried and true method of abuse cultures. They want to pit people against each other because there’s power in numbers. There’s power in unity which we’ve all seen through unions establish rights for workers when wealthy leaders seek to exploit them.

When wealthy leaders join with tech leaders, the combination becomes gaslighting on steroids. People are conditioned through “cable news networks” and “social medial algorithms” to hate one another, rather than notice the manipulation. It would be like workers tearing each other apart, rather than focusing on the wealthy exploitative owners of the company.

See clearly

Talarico strives for voters to see clearly along with him. He speaks about how the 1% of trans people are not causing division and destruction in the country. The 1% of migrants aren’t either. He specifies that it’s the 1% of billionaires who are tearing the country apart.

“They divide us by party, by race, by gender, by religion so we don’t notice they’re defunding our schools, gutting our healthcare, and cutting taxes for themselves and their rich friends. It’s the oldest strategy in the world: divide and conquer.” When he calls those who do the billionaires’ bidding, selling out their country, he calls them “puppet politicians.”

As discussed in neuroscientific detail in Part 2 of The Gaslit Brain, when there are puppet masters - in this case the billionaires - you are in the dangerous presence of those who have “eroded empathy.” They do not feel the pain of others. They do not care about destroying the planet. They don’t have emotions and they don’t have affective empathy. It is the definition of psychopathology.

When we think about gaslighting, we tend to focus on the impact. We note how this kind of manipulative behaviour is designed to disorient, confuse, erode the confidence a target has in their own mental stability and perception.

When I was being gaslit at work, my focus was on the leaders and the way they were using words to change reality. My question was: why are they trying to disorient, confuse, and erode my confidence? In short, why are they lying. I knew that if I was going to keep my job, I had to participate in their illusion.

I learned the answer to my questions. They were lying and gaslighting because they were negligent. Child abuse was occurring on their watch and they were well-informed about it and had done nothing effective to stop it. They needed me to replace reality with their illusion and all would be fine; however, I refused.

All it takes is words to transform one reality into another. The leaders replaced serious damage being done to teenagers with words that minimized and dismissed what had happened and what was happening, regardless of the increasing risk to the targets and the school. Their false reality was exposed in national media.

Gaslighting about imprisonment

Today in The Guardian there is a frightening and heart-breaking article about gaslighting, although the word is not used. Journalist John Washington slams the use of manipulative words to describe the inhumane, cruel, and sick treatment of people in America’s so-called “detention centers.” It’s an excellent example of gaslighting and can teach valuable lessons about this slippery and dangerous act and practice.

Washington describes the reality for the targets who have done nothing but be on the wrong side of a border. They are denied connection to their families, lawyers, medical care, sunlight, nutritious food, warmth, and oversight. The detention center makes them invisible.

They cannot be seen or heard from or cared for. Their reality is replaced by an illusion: no one to see here. Washington reports that tens of thousands have been put into solitary confinement and this is why he wants us to use the term “camp” with its echo of concentration camp rather than the gaslighting term “detention center.” Listen to Washington decode how and why gaslighting is being used.

“Calling such facilities ‘detention centers’ sanitizes their brutal and increasingly deadly reality. Calling them ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ or the ‘Cornhole Clink’ sensationalizes them. As a journalist who has spent a decade reporting on immigration and border enforcement, I’ve dedicated much of my career to trying to expose a reality glossed over and concealed by whitewashing official designations. Which is why I’ve started to call them camps, not only because of the accurate historical resonance of the term, but as a warning. The word camp best captures the political function they serve: concentrating, immobilizing and excluding populations deemed unwanted.”

Your relationship to shared reality hinges on words

Words really matter if you want to get an accurate handle on what’s happening. You can believe children had “unhappy experiences” - a nice, sanitizing term - which is what the leaders told faculty at the school I resigned from, or you can face the facts which were reported by multiple teenagers about the systemic abuse they suffered year after year at the hands of teachers. It’s your choice.

You can believe that migrants and immigrants and people without documentation are being “detained” in a “center,” or you can face the reality - with its terrifying historical track record - where people are locked up in a “camp” without a trial and held in dangerous, dehumanizing, and in some cases, deadly conditions. People don’t usually die in detention centers.

How you read assess, analyze, and read reality is your choice. Your brain’s ability to hear the words and terms being spoken by those in power and then decide whether they accurately and fairly depict what happened and what is happening is where your power resides. You don’t have to share reality with self-serving liars.

Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) protects the nation from threat, but whistleblower Luc Sabourin has discovered first hand that a dangerous reversal is at work. What happens when the bureaucrats in the public service and the politicians in parliament enable wrong-doing, rather than protect the country and its citizens?

In The Gaslit Brain, this phenomenon is referred to as “institutional complicity” where the protector becomes the saboteur, eroding the very fabric of trust, safety, and justice. When those who abuse, are fraudulent, harm others, and commit crimes are protected while victims and truth tellers are re-victimized, there’s a breakdown in the system that is infectious.

If incompetence and wrong-doing are protected and promoted, whereas expertise and integrity are punished, society tilts towards normalized abuse and corruption. When you follow protocol, mandated reporting, and suffer retaliation, you realize you are in a corrupt system. Pointing out corruption means holding up a mirror to the institution. It’s why truth tellers must be silenced.

Canada does not protect whistleblowers

Alex Zoltan’s article for the Western Standard is chilling. It’s not criminals in Canada who need to keep a low profile; it’s whistleblowers. Notice the way in which bullying and gaslighting entwine to threaten and punish the truth-teller.

“After a series of appearances on podcasts and media programs in recent weeks highlighting systemic abuse and failures in one of Canada’s protection agencies, a former government whistleblower has decided to stop talking about his experience publicly after an insider advised him to resume a low profile for his own safety.”

The key word here is “systemic.” This isn’t a one bad apple phenomenon. The institution itself is rotten. Even more concerning, Members of Parliament (MPs) act like they care, but it appears to be only a show. The truth-teller has learned that the only crime not tolerated is in fact telling the truth. It puts him and his family at risk.

“Sabourin believes his personal information was leaked by someone in the agency because several weeks later, carloads of men began suspiciously driving by and parking in front of his house, making threats and shouting obscenities at him. Shortly before he was to testify in court in the case, he said a man was waiting for him on his street and said, “You better think about what you're doing and what you're going to say. Think about your kids. Nice kids.”

Gaslighting used to threaten those with integrity

While gaslighting in 2022 was defined as “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone, especially for one’s own advantage,” in Sabourin’s case it takes a more traditional application whereby the gaslighter strives to make their target believe they are insane, or appear insane.

A smear campaign begins where the gaslighter tells the community that the target is “crazy” in order to discredit them. They don’t want the facts known, the truth shared. They are covering up and need to silence the person with integrity. As Sabourin explains: “‘I had been told in 2025 via an anonymous phone call to shut up, or they would discredit me and say I am crazy.’”

The use of anonymity is a threat as it appears to come from nowhere, no one can be questioned, or asked to produce evidence, and it is echoed by institutional leaders or political leaders who reply to queries with silence or “no comment.” The lies are left hanging in the air. They insinuate, get repeated, until people think they’re true.

It’s disturbing when the threatening voice on the phone is aligned with those in positions of power, credibility, and social standing - like Members of Parliament - who abdicate their responsibility putting the whistleblower in danger.

Their failure to protect suggests the whistleblower isn’t in danger. The implication is Sabourin might be exaggerating, worrying unnecessarily about his family, maybe he’s crazy? Their abandonment of Sabourin in his moment of need as he does a dangerous, risky service to his country is a message to others: don’t report abuse, fraud, wrong-doing, international threats to the nation, just keep quiet and look the other way.

Is this a one-off or is there a pattern?

Those who coverup want targets to believe it’s a one off. Those who enable wrong-doing, rather than stop it, bank on the fact that we’re all overwhelmed and stressed and don’t remember last week’s news. There’s such a bombardment, the public will forget and move their attention to the next crisis.

Those who focus on the pattern are the ones who can make a difference. Let’s end off on the pattern of Canada’s leaders failing to protect whistleblowers as reported by the co-founder of Whistleblowing Canada Research Society, Pamela Forward. This kind of record-keeping holds leadership’s feet to the fire to do the right thing.

In 2022, Bill C-290, a bill to amend the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act was introduced, because of a 2017 report that outlined the critical importance of protecting whistleblowers, but had not led to any legal protection for five years. It could protect whistleblowers like Sabourin.

Now hear from Forward what has happened over the last decade that has left Sabourin, a man described as a “national hero” and a “true patriot” exposed to suffering and danger because the protection was never established.

“‘It’s very clear they don’t want to protect whistleblowers,’ Forward said. ‘There was a task force announced maybe six months after Bill C-290 was introduced. We’ve always thought it was very strange when suddenly the government said they’re going to have a task force, and they’re going to review C-290, and the 2017 report that they suppressed and blocked from ever being discussed in Parliament.

‘We would have had the best whistleblower protection law in the world, actually, if that one had been allowed to move forward. And it was a unanimous report by parliamentarians. Imagine all the parties agreed, we want to correct that law and here’s the report. And it was blocked from ever being debated in Parliament.’”

Yes, let’s imagine.

What would you do if your employer asked you to lie? What would you do if your employer asked you to make up events that never happened? What if you were a journalist and your profession was about reporting as honestly as possible to the public? Now, what would you do if your job was on the line? Would you choose truth-telling over livelihood?

Let us review in this context, while you think about what you would do, how we define “gaslighting” since it was chosen Word of the Year in 2022: “A driver of disorientation and mistrust, gaslighting is the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage.” When a news agency, whose job is to report the news, not spin it, grossly misleads, not just someone but the public, for their own advantage, we’re entering into a dangerous time.

When journalists lie to save their jobs

Doesn’t seem all that long ago that journalist Tucker Carlson was fired from Fox News, but not for lying. His reputation hinged on being a conspiracy theorist, lack of evidence for wild claims was all the rage or rage-bait. It was exposed in the Dominion lawsuit that Carlson was saying one thing on the news to the public, while saying the opposite on private texts.

Carlson was fired shortly after Fox lost and was fined close to 800 million dollars. In other words, Carlson manifested the textbook split personality of abuse culture, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Hide) and apparently, Fox drew the line or needed a fall-guy.

Carlson believed, according to Brian Stelter, author of Network of Lies: “He could say anything, do anything, and never be held accountable, so long as he commanded the attention and affection of millions.” Abusers are adept at gaslighting because it’s an excellent strategy for never being held accountable.

Journalists, by definition, according to professional standards, are truth-tellers. Some of them don’t just risk their jobs to report the truth, they risk their lives. The deaths of journalists in the field, in recent years, has been extremely high. Carlson is the breed of “journalists” who are actually talk-show hosts, spin doctors, media darlings.

In the Gaslit Era where instead of truth-telling we have media that operate as a “Network of Lies,” and journalists like Carlson who don’t feel constrained by the truth, facts, evidence, it’s hardly surprising that we feel disoriented and full of mistrust.

Journalists who risk their jobs for the truth

It is heartening to hear from journalists who draw a line in the sand when it comes to lying. All people, including journalists are at risk for unconscious bias, but that is a world of difference from lying or purposefully deceiving or manipulating or gaslighting.

It is inspiring and deeply concerning to hear from a journalist like Cecilia Vega who is on the public record stating that she was asked by her editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and other executives at CBS to report on “events that never happened.” That’s not bias. That’s confabulating, conjuring, lying, gaslighting. It’s grossly misleading.

“Vega’s account of Weiss interfering with independent reporting is similar to those of two other veteran ‘60 Minutes’ correspondents, Scott Pelley and Sharyn Alfonsi, who were fired after David Ellison, the CEO of Paramount Skydance, appointed Weiss to her position last year.”

Is it possible Vega is lying? Of course, but a way to assess is to see if there’s a pattern. Is she the only one who reports these deceptive practices? No, two other prominent journalists make the same report. On top of that, when Weiss was brought in, there was an “exodus” of other staff who refused to work under her leadership.

Also indicative that Vega is fighting for the truth and telling the truth is that although attempts by Weiss and CBS executives - or the typical “no comment” - will be made to cast doubt on the truth-teller, you can feel pretty confident you’re only listening to more gaslighting.

If you are a senator in a country where every eleven days a man kills his female partner who would you hold accountable for the harm? Is it the man who committed the violence and/or the murder, or do you fault the woman, or do you think both are responsible for the violence?

If you decided that the man who commits the violence is at fault, would you look for reasons as to why he did it as your focus? If you decided that in fact it’s the woman’s responsibility not to be hit or killed, would her failure to stay safe be your focus? As a politician, would your over-arching goal be to change domestic violence or merely provide your thoughts on who is at fault and why?

Is domestic violence a two way street?

Let’s look at an example of politician Pauline Hanson in Australia who recently made public statements about domestic violence. Listen to what she says and see if you can identify the gaslighting.

“On Wednesday, senator Pauline Hanson claimed domestic and family violence is “a two-way street”, blamed the cost of living for perpetrators’ actions, and suggested women experiencing abuse should simply “not put up with it”.

If a man punched Hanson in the face and then kicked her son - and this was a man she was dating or married to - she sees herself and even her child as participants in the violence. That’s a mental stretch. If this man murdered her, she wants to take the blame for the murder. That requires major mental acrobatics.

Imagine living in a nation where politicians, where lawmakers state that it’s not the murderers who needs to go to jail, it’s the victims (which is tricky because the victims are dead). That’s what Hanson’s gaslighting is asking you to think: when one person hits another person, that blow was struck by both of them; when someone puts up with violence at home, it’s their fault it happens because they are putting up with it.

As always with gaslighting, we need to figure out what exactly is Hanson’s agenda?

Why does she want us to blame the victim and exonerate the perpetrator?

Faced with gaslighting, ask: what’s the agenda?

In 2019, Hanson claimed that victims of domestic violence were lying in order to take advantage of family court. Does she want to save government money? Maybe. But if we dig a little deeper we find a more clear agenda. In 2016, Hanson’s son was accused of breaching a domestic violence order. He pled guilty, and Hanson claims he was falsely accused.

Hanson herself commits violence against facts and truth to echo Rebecca’s Solnit’s description of gaslighting. She and her son are both violent: one beats up reality; the other beats up his female partner. He admits to it. Hanson says the partner is lying.

Hanson’s son pled guilty, but she still wants to change that reality. In a position of power, credibility, and social standing, Hanson uses words as a weapon against her son’s victim. Instead of empathy for the target of her son’s violence, she calls her and domestic violence victims in general “liars.”

This is the ultimate gaslighting trick. The gaslighter is the liar, but claims the truth-tellers are telling lies. It confuses brains.

Here’s more of an agenda.

In late 2025, Hanson stated publicly that paid family and domestic violence leave were actually a “holiday.” She claimed they were a scam and complained that the police commit too much time intervening on domestic violence when they should focus on “real crime.”

Yesterday, Hanson said that it’s victims’ fault for putting up with violence, but months ago, she was condemning victims for seeking safety and for getting away. Gaslighters have no problem contradicting themselves. It’s why they can cause brain fog in those who listen to them. Confusing, destabilizing, faulting victims for perpetrators’ abuse is the name of the game.

Hanson changes an escape from violence, that could lead to death, by using words to turn it into a “holiday.” The brain stops seeing a woman and children being beaten - to the point where every eleven days one woman will die - and instead sees this same woman frolicking on the beach and going swimming with her kids. She’s not putting up with violence, but she’s a scammer according to Hanson.

Hanson puts the focus - that could land on how she’s using language to coverup violence and gaslight the public - by saying these women getting help is a “scam.” Women are scammers is her response to domestic violence.

Gaslighters tell you what you see or hear is not real

Hanson’s final gaslighting insinuates that the crime of repeat violence and even murder every eleven days is not “real.” She wants the police to focus on “real crime.” Hanson exposes her gaslighting very intensely in this moment. Hanson is simply telling the public that in her leadership position, she gets to say what’s real and what’s a hoax or a scam or a lie.

Hanson makes it clear that she controls the narrative. If reality - objective facts like her son pleading guilty or women dying at the hands of their white Australian husbands - does not align with Hanson’s agenda, she changes reality and from her position of power, credibility, and social standing, she insists the public also see the world through her falsehoods.

As a leader, as a lawmaker, with every death, every eleven days, one might argue that in fact it’s Hanson’s inertia, lack of action, failure to protect. Gaslighters want to move your gaze to targets in order to fault them. Gaslighters do not want you to ask pointed questions about them and their role in enabling violence and murder.

Hanson does not offer any plans or strategies or laws or education or anything effective to stop domestic violence. Instead, she offers deception and confusion that has distressed the public who express concerns that her words and statements will enable more violence against women and children. Gaslighters enable abusers.

Inciting hate for victims, that the gaslighter falsely calls liars and scammers who waste the police’s time, should be criminal. I look forward to the day when those who gaslight, especially from positions of power, credibility, and social standing, are held accountable by law.

Take a moment to look at the picture of basketball coach Mike Rice at Rutgers University. He was fired for his abuse - layered with homophobic slurs - right at the same time we were battling to see students protected from the same abuse, but in a high-school.

I became interested in gaslighting because I was exposed to it in the workplace. I was a teacher at the school where Mike Rice style abuse was well-documented to have occurred for years.

Here’s an example of the way gaslighter’s contradict themselves and apparently think others believe their manipulations and lies: multiple parents are reporting psychological and physical abuse being done by two teachers who are coaching basketball. I discover these two teachers have targeted our son. We meet with the Head of the School.

Afterwards, the Head sends us an email saying he met with the two teachers and they said that they didn’t know what they were doing was harmful, and they regret especially what they did to our son. Sounds maybe, just a bit believable. I mean it begs a lot of questions, but it kind of draws you in, instils in you a wish to let them off the hook, give them a second chance. I mean they just didn’t know.

A day or so later, the Head sends another email to us saying that he must conclude that the teachers are “innocent” for the sake of due process. That’s a complete reversal that makes no sense. It’s a glaring contradiction. How can you assume innocence of two teachers who have already told you they did the abuse, but didn’t know it was harmful? If they did the abusive acts, they are not innocent. It’s not complex.

Changing story of abuse scrutinized in the media

This story of abuse, gaslighting, coverup landed in national news and the following paragraph is an excellent example of gaslighting. It starts with a quote from one of the teachers who abused our son and multiple athletes over years. It’s an excerpt from a letter he wrote to parents who had complained about his abuse of students, including their son. Listen to how gaslighters explain themselves.

“‘I freely admit I am competitive to a fault, with my burning desire for the team to perform well and win too often resulting in outbursts I wish I could take back,’ reads his email response, obtained by the Star. ‘I need to do a far better job controlling my frustration when mistakes or lack of effort take place.’”

Hmm, this is the same thing he said to the Head of School about what he did to our son and again - as the Head told us - he regretted the harm he did. But here, he’s more obvious with his gaslighting. He is telling these parents that their son’s “mistakes” and “lack of effort” are the real cause of his abuse.

The teacher is explaining that he is activated by these bumbling, lazy student athletes. It’s their weakness, their lack of character, their inability to perform that leads to repeat scenes of abuse. And, he is so noble, so dedicated to the sport, so full of “burning desire” that he’s going to try and no longer be angry about all these student failures.

It’s manipulative and the Head is not only informed he does this kind of manipulation on repeat, but he’s willing to enable it and echo it. Okay, so this is a microcosm of how gaslighting works to facilitate, coverup, and preserve abuse culture. Let’s look at a macrocosm version on the world stage.

Glaring contradiction doesn’t bother gaslighters even when it’s about war

Maria Bartiromo on Fox News asked a simple question about a very serious contradiction that she has identified in the statements the president has made and is making about the war he launched in Iran. She wants to know how Iran continues to fight when the president claims he has “obliterated” their military capability.

It’s become a high-stakes question recently as American soldiers suffer injuries and casualties. Bartiromo identifies the glaring contradiction.

“‘I don’t understand how it’s possible that Iran has the capabilities to fight this way and continue to try to lash out at Gulf countries and U.S. military bases,’ the conservative host said Sunday morning, “‘because the U.S. has obliterated Iran’s military, and [Donald Trump] continues to reiterate that.’”

Gaslighters don’t like to answer questions

Gaslighters expect their targets and audience to simply go with their narrative flow as they create a reality that serves their agenda. The brain science shows that pathological liars become comfortable on a neurological level telling self-serving lies. They don’t get increased heart-rate or sweat or suffer. It’s natural to them.

Liars who do it for decades are supremely comfortable as shown in the microcosm and macrocosm, but it doesn’t mean the harm they unleash is safe. Their attempts to lull their listeners into a non-thinking, confused, self-reflective state, leaves the audience wondering if maybe their recognition of the contradiction is their own problem, their own weakness, their own mistake or lack of effort.

Those who listen to gaslighters are encouraged to conclude: the weakness must be their own. And that conclusion is soothing because it’s a devastating discovery to realize that the person speaking to you about abusing children or engaging in war is actually lying to you.

Those who gaslight hope to instil in their targets the sense that they’re losing their minds. In that sense you can call it premeditated. The goal is to undermine someone else’s sense of reality and make them feel as if they’re slipping into madness and it’s planned, calculated, intentional.

But when gaslighting is done by those with power, social-standing, and credibility - due to their position - gaslighting is used to anticipate exposure. The gaslighter doesn’t want their fraudulent narrative and conduct to be identified so they warp perceptions leading up to exposure or criticism.

Multiple international journalists today are signalling this kind of serious manipulation that should put all of us on high alert. Let’s take a step back for a moment.

In The Gaslit Brain, I interviewed Mary Inman, a leading lawyer for high-level whistleblowers. Inman does presentations with her client Tyler Schultz who was one of two whistleblowers who exposed the fraud behind Elizabeth Holmes’ blood-testing startup “Theranos.”

I wanted to interview Inman because I am interested in why people believe lies, even obvious ones. Inman was remarkably insightful after spending decades of her career working with people who risked everything to tell the truth in a world that has normalized lying and manipulating. Telling the truth is dangerous. Lying is normal.

Gaslighter Elizabeth Holmes

In one presentation with Schultz, Inman was struck by how premeditated the behaviour was of gaslighter extraordinaire Elizabeth Holmes who was a master of words and their effects on people. Holmes would speak to her people and her board about how the traditional blood-testing companies would come after Theranos.

When they did, when they raised concerns about data and authenticity, when they expressed doubts about Theranos’ innovation, Holmes would look knowingly at her people and her board and exclaim ‘see…I told you they’d come after us.’ Inman realized in that moment just how premeditated these crimes against the truth and facts are.

Prepping the populace to believe falsehoods

Today, journalist for The Guardian, Arwa Mahdawi wrote this chilling paragraph.

“Trump’s claims about the electoral system being compromised aren’t just false: they’re a calculated attempt to undermine future elections. Trump is a master of projection. Whenever he accuses others of wrongdoing, you can bet that it’s because he’s up to something himself. As numerous Democrats and voting rights groups are warning, the president appears to be laying the groundwork to interfere with the upcoming midterms.”

In abuse culture, the projection onto others of one’s own internal corruption is textbook. It’s when a deranged individual accuses others of being “deranged,” but it appears that they are stable, and have merely dared to speak up, report fraud or abuse, demonstrate integrity.

The administrators at my son’s school lied to cover up their negligence and so they publicly communicated that in fact, it was the children reporting teacher abuse who were lying. That’s the microcosm.

Today, what Mahdawi is signalling is the macrocosm. We saw it earlier in comparable form on January 6, 2021 when a legitimate election was re-positioned as a stolen election. And now we’re being put through the same manipulation, and yet, the law looks on because gaslighting is not criminal. In fact, it’s normalized.

Jenny Kleeman interviewed lawyer Mark Lanier who has just defeated Meta and Google in a precedent-setting case. The tech company lawyers thought gaslighting would be a winning strategy, but it failed. Lanier argued - using alphabet blocks A, B, and C, - that Meta and Google were “Addicting the Brains of Children.”

“Then Meta lawyer Paul Schmidt delivered his opening statement, pushing back. ‘Was it Instagram or other causes?’ he asked. He told the jury the root of Kaley’s mental health issues lay in her chaotic upbringing; that her home life and learning disabilities meant these problems would be inherent in her life anyway.

The Meta lawyer is trying to make the jury believe that it’s Kaley’s own fault that she has mental health issues because she has learning disabilities. They are using reversal to make Kaley into the perpetrator while the tech companies - in a lawsuit - are the real victim. They are victim-blaming Kaley.

The Meta lawyer also faults her parents arguing her mental health issues are not because of technology and how addictive they’ve made it, her issues are because her upbringing was chaotic. In short, Kaley is mentally unstable. Meta and Google are not harming her.

Lanier cuts right through the gaslighting

“Lanier bats away this idea. ‘Just because someone has a headache doesn’t give you the right to bash them over the head with a rock and say, ‘They already had a headache! Don’t blame me!’”

Lanier and his team did the hard work of finding evidence that Meta and Google knowingly addict children to their platforms. It’s painful but necessary to acknowledge Lanier has shown in this lawsuit that tech bros are making grotesque amounts of money off of the systemic destruction of children’s brains. And, they have scientists who help them do it.

“Internal documents showed the companies had deliberately sought out ‘casino science’ to turn their products into what Lanier calls ‘addiction machines’. Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok all use intermittent variable rewards, giving their users little unpredictable dopamine hits, just like slot machines with their micro-payouts that keep you sticking around for a big jackpot that may never arrive, endlessly scrolling on your phone instead of pulling a handle. A 2012 Google memo about YouTube said its ‘goal is not viewership; it’s viewer addiction’. Another document from Google referred to its products as ‘slot machines’. ‘These are attention casinos,’ it read. ‘The house always wins.’”

Next time you read a message from Meta or Google about how much they care about kids, how much time, effort, and resources they pour into making their platforms safe for kids, just remember that they are gaslighting. They are committing violence against facts and truth. They are lying.

Kaley is one child who has “body dysmorphia, anxiety, and depression.” How many others have had their brains addicted and harmed?

Once again abuse of power, instead of being behind closed doors, instead of occurring in the hushed corridors of privilege, instead of taking place through untraceable phone calls or triple-deleted emails, is unfolding right before our eyes. In fact, the ones abusing and corrupting, want it to be seen, noted, talked about. Why?

It strikes me that we are at a worrisome stage where it’s not a question of right or wrong, fair or unfair, manipulative or honest. No, this is about a display of power. It’s a message to the world (yet again) that some people don’t need to obey rules or even laws. They write the rules. They make the laws. They are above both.

Gaslighting microcosm and macrocosm

When soccer play Falorin Balogun received a red card and one game suspension, it could have been unfair, a referee’s overreaction, or it could have been accurate, a penalty for foul play, regardless, it’s that it became a display of presidential power that has narrowed the global debate.

As Guardian journalist Marina Hyde points out, the president “spent Monday gibbering to the news cameras that he’d acted hideously inappropriately over the weekend by interfering because ‘I’m good at this stuff’.” It’s a boast about overturning a rule that is just in a game, but is it just a game?

As Hyde stresses the president is defaulting to his “chicanery,” namely his “use of trickery, deception, or dishonest manipulation to achieve a goal” (no pun intended). He is proud of his “artful subterfuge,” but really it was just plying on the pressure to someone he already knows will bow before him. It’s simply about displaying power.

What fascinated me was the impact it had on the team, on the players. Instead of being inspired by this manipulation to achieve greatness, they were lost, deflated, couldn’t rise to the occasion. ESPN journalist Sam Borden notes how absolutely brilliantly they played throughout the cup, until the chicanery took place. And…

“Against Belgium, the U.S. had nothing. Pulisic was a turnover machine in the first half, losing the ball 11 times. Sergiño Dest was such a liability on the right that Pochettino pulled him at halftime. Malik Tillman hit a nice free kick but was otherwise invisible. Defenders Tim Ream and Antonee Robinson were victimized constantly. Goalkeeper Matt Freese had a nightmare error to gift Belgium its third goal.”

Individuals, the team as a whole collapsed. They were not inspired or motivated by the president’s artful subterfuge designed to mislead others or gain an unfair advantage. They were demoralized, embarrassed, shamed.

Sport organizers, investors, owners and coaches sometimes treat athletes as pawns, commodities, money-makers. They objectify them and say they have to be humiliated in order to achieve greatness. The USMNT revealed a painful truth about how this kind of lie, no matter how powerful the position it’s issued from, is simply a lie.

Today in the Guardian, there is a news story about a couple of unmarried twenty-somethings who were publicly caned for kissing and uploading it to TikTok. This is the picture that accompanied the story.

In researching and writing The Gaslit Brain, I learned how difficult it is for our brains to distinguish between position and person. When people put on costumes and uniforms, we should encourage our brains to be skeptical.

Let’s look at this individual.

In Indonesia, this person represents religious law. That apparently gives them the right to whip people with a cane, publicly, for something as mundane and irrelevant and normal and healthy as kissing. The outfit is meant to terrify as it removes identity and creates the aura of the law itself, the power and control of the state. It is an outfit that says: “one wrong step and you could be next.”

It misleads in that it tells a healthy brain that kissing is evil and must be punished, whereas violently harming people is spiritual and good. What’s the agenda? The power of the state. The leaders are enforcing their own whims and dressing it up as religion.

Watch out for costumes, masks, and uniforms

It’s a sharp reminder that individuals who put on costumes to interact with others should put your brain on high-alert, especially when the costume covers up your identity: this supposed religious enforcer, Ku Klux Klan, police officers with masks over their faces and sunglasses.

As we’ve talked about, the phrase wolf in sheep’s clothing is biblical and attributed to Jesus. It’s not a new idea, but it’s as if our brains need reminders, training, pushes to do critical-thinking about these costumes. They are fabric versions of coverups staring us right in the face.

Now, it gets more complicated when a person who is supposed to be a protector, is corrupted into being harmful like a police officer, or a person who is supposed to care for your soul is exploiting you for your body or for power or whatever like a religious figure. The brain may well fall for the costume that conveys the position and not know the person in the outfit is a wolf.

But look at this image again, a religious figure, dressed like an executioner, whipping twenty-somethings with a cane for kissing? Why doesn’t it cause a riot? Why would a hundred people go to watch? Do we crave authority that badly that we’ve lost the ability to use our own brains’ affective empathy? It concerns me.

Join us on Saturdays for a Gaslit Brain Book Club

No segue sorry, just need to share info with you. We have shifted the video sessions to LinkedIn. Here are the details if you’re interested. If you sign up and miss the session, the recording will be sent to you.

Protect your brain from the lies of bullying, gaslighting and institutional complicity with gaslighting and bullying expert Jennifer Fraser, PhD and workplace trauma therapist Heliana Ramirez, PhD, LISW. Log in to hear Dr. Fraser read from her new book The Gaslit Brain and join the conversation Saturdays at 10 am PST / 12pm CST / 1pm EST on Zoom. Register at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Kq6sQgByQqm01Px2KNK0hw

After each reading from her Amazon bestseller and critically acclaimed book, Dr. Fraser will discuss the book’s implications for workers in abusive workplaces, along with leaders and HR professionals seeking to create psychological safety. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to bring your questions and thoughts to this deep dive into the ways that gaslighting impacts the brains of people targeted by workplace abuse and how to heal. Learn how leaders, managers, and HR are also vulnerable to manipulators. Critically important for safety, learn about the brains of workplace abusers who use gaslighting to destabilize and disorient the targets of their abuse and how workplaces can heal from bully culture.

Watch a replay of the first Book Group session at https://www.linkedin.com/events/7468757466730725376?viewAsMember=true

This podcast is 27 minutes.

https://debbiewilliamspodcast.com/episode/the-gaslit-brain-jennifer-fraser/

It’s a storytelling podcast so I talk about my own path to writing a book like The Gaslit Brain. Trigger warning, I’m an abuse victim so I respond to questions about how abuse works. The grooming for me started at 13 in my school by one teacher. At 15, I was lured by him into an outdoor education program where there were two other abusive teachers. The three of them abused together.

I did not escape them until I was 17 years old.

I never told my parents as I did not have any words to articulate that three middle-aged teachers were abusing us emotionally, physically, and sexually. I resisted the pressure to engage with the three teachers sexually - as fifteen and sixteen year old friends did - and became a target for the teachers’ intensive public shaming in front of my peers.

That is the story behind The Gaslit Brain. I do not talk about my own abuse story. I told it in The Bullied Brain. In The Gaslit Brain, as one of four case studies, I tell the story of my son. It is a tragedy that I will always carry. I failed to protect him.

Teachers - thirty years later - still abuse students and get away with it. This is why I am working with others to see laws changed that will far better protect kids in school, and in sports, and in religions, and everywhere.

While war rages, earthquakes destroy buildings and people, infants and children are being specifically targeted in a gut-wrenching clash that does not end, cease-fires in a newly destabilized Middle East are too fragile, economic pain causes intense suffering, the world has focused a great deal of attention on a reflecting pool.

Unfortunately for me, who seeks to show people how gaslighting works and ultimately convince them it should be against the law, the reflecting pool is an excellent example of a gaslighter taking his manipulation a step too far.

Guardian journalists Jonathan Freedland and Arwa Mahdawi discuss the reflecting pool in terms of three things that are textbook for those of us who study abuse cultures: 1. Creating spectacle 2. Blaming others when the spectacle collapses 3. Lying to the point where you expect people to see the spectacle, even though their own eyes show them it’s not what you say it is.

“The reflecting pool looks fantastic; I just got pictures of it” affirms the president (spectacle). “But somebody went in with a knife and cut it up good” (blame for collapse of the spectacle). The president claimed he had “defeated the algae like he had defeated the navy in Iran.” (lying about the pool and the war that has been an abject failure on multiple levels including the defeat of the navy). We all can see both failures, but we are being told to follow the leader’s alternative facts.

The president is grossly misleading the populace and it is for his own agenda which is to replace meaning with spectacle, debase critical-thinking with illusion, fuel a dependence on him as a kind of saviour for the crises he himself conjures up. In short, he’s gaslighting.

Just to add insult to injury, the president posted an AI generated image of himself and his at-the-moment favourites in the reflecting pool. Usually gaslighting is kept in the dark corners of a culture; it’s done behind closed doors. What has been remarkable to watch is world leaders who do it openly, publicly. It’s worrisome because we only need to glance at history to see the way our brains normalize, habituate to repeat lies. It’s why you don’t want to smile along with this seemingly silly picture.

In a disturbing story today, we see the most pure form of gaslighting where the perpetrator says the target is mentally ill. Dan Collyns and Jakub Krupa reported in The Guardian about the “suicide” of a whistleblower that turned out to be a homicide.

The suicide of the anti-corruption activist was staged. She was found with a noose around her neck, but it turns out she suffered a blow to the head and strangulation. She was celebrated for her integrity and courage in voicing opposition against the Ecuadorian president’s family business for its corruption and environmental crimes.

“Campaigners in Ecuador say a Polish anti-corruption activist who investigated allegations against the family business of the country’s rightwing president was murdered to silence her.”

Staging a suicide to send a gaslighting message

Silencing truth-tellers is all the rage at present, but this is an extreme version. What disturbs me is not just the killing of a single mom of two little girls, not just the lengths people go to hide their corruption, but what also disturbs me is that the killers staged a suicide that they knew would be exposed as a lie.

With gaslighting, we always need to look at the agenda. Why grossly mislead the populace, and in this case an international audience, with a false suicide that turns out to be a targeted killing? It’s an effective way not only to silence the activist, but to silence anyone else who might want to advocate against corruption and environmental crimes.

Gaslighting is an effective way to threaten

Corruption is normalized in our time, in the same way that the truth is devalued and the narrative doesn’t need facts, just position, power, and platform to be taken as “true.” While it’s fine to be corrupt, it’s not fine to expose it, speak up about it, or rebel against it. Those acts lead to silencing. In this case, they led to murder.

The gaslighting adds a haunting layer whereby speaking up, being anti-corruption and vocal about it, is seen as suicidal. It’s self-harm. It’s a risk to yourself. You are crazy to do it. As per usual with gaslighting, the focus shifts to the target and drifts away from the perpetrator. The target is positioned as deranged and the perpetrator as the one who gets to speak up about it with impunity.

Former president Barack Obama’s wife Michelle celebrated him at the opening of the new Obama Presidential Center. This is the image of a man (from CBS) who is not a war-monger, but has won the Nobel Peace Prize. This is the image of a man who is moved to tears by his wife celebrating his “unshakable moral fiber.”

Michelle celebrates Obama as a true leader

“Eight years in the crucible and not once did you melt from the heat.”

Obama kept his cool, kept his clarity, wasn’t thrown off the path regardless of just how high the temperature got. Obama lets us see the incredible challenge of staying calm, cool, and collected by means of his tears in response to his wife highlighting his unshakable ethics.

“Not once did you let it harden you.”

There are those who accuse others of being “fu**ing soft” as if it’s a weakness to care about others, to feel the pain of others, to try with every ounce of oneself to protect and save others. In today’s world, all too often this courageous capacity is positioned as “soft”, while Michelle knows it’s the fundamental core to Obama’s stunning legacy.

“Instead, you used it to reveal your truest essence.”

All too often, leadership is used as a way to coverup actual intention, to manipulate the public, to disguise self-aggrandizing, and to pretend to serve while strutting about like a king. Michelle celebrates a different kind of leadership done by Obama. Instead of hiding his truth, he used leadership to reveal his “truest essence.”

Then Michelle cuts to the smear campaign, the lies told publicly about him:

• “that a constitutional lawyer and U.S. Senator wasn’t qualified for the job”

• “the lies about your birth right”

• lies about “your faith”

• lies about “your patriotism”

What’s the truth about Obama?

Here is the truest essence of Barack Obama according to his wife: “your stubborn optimism and unflinching courage, your dazzling brilliance and unpretentious decency, your ferocious work ethic and absolutely unshakable moral fiber.”

Not only did Obama have to survive the heat, not only did he have to try and protect the softness of his heart in a world hell-bent on turning us all to stone, he also had to stand tall while lies about him were issued repeatedly with impunity.

The Obama Presidential Center is many vital things, including being a bastion against lies. It’s a monument that stands for the truth in a society engaged in a war on truth. As we learned in the bible “the truth shall set you free.” Happy Juneteenth.

When you study abuse culture, you hear again and again a target or a complicit individual exclaim: “I trusted them. I believed in them. They were so concerned. They acted like they cared. They responded with kindness.” For me, that sets off warning bells.

We’re aware that in romantic relationships, you must be aware of love-bombing, but in work relationships, you need to also be on high alert. Let’s call it “care-bombing” or “kindness-bombing.” With abusers, manipulators and gaslighters, expressions of care, concern, and kindness are mirages and what lies behind is a desert.

Care-bombing

In the same way that love-bombing is a tactic used by the Dark Tetrad to draw you in, care-bombing at work is intentionally designed for you to drop you guard. You share your hopes, dreams, and vulnerabilities, and rest assured they will be used against you.

ONE You tell your higher-up that you’d like to be part of the team doing X and when you take a long overdue holiday, you receive an email at 11 at night, saying the day you return, you’ll need to do a presentation to see if you’re a good fit for X.

Your holiday mindset disappears and your brain laser-focuses on all you need to do for the presentation. The holiday now feels like a stressful time away from the work you need to do to show that you have what it takes to be part of X.

TWO You return in such a state of stress from the failed holiday, and the past build up of stress, that you get really ill, and have to take a health-leave. Your higher-up moves the presentation to when you come back in a week or two or three or whenever.

THREE Now your “concerned” higher-up emails you, asking how you’re faring, and wants to set up regular weekly meetings while you’re off. There’s no talk of the presentation. You’re told you can’t be part of X for some bureaucratic reason.

How do know it’s care-bombing?

Although it’s time-consuming, the way to identify someone who weaponizes care and kindness is to develop language for your gut-feelings. This is drawn from the research of Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett. If you don’t have words for your physical warning signs, your brain doesn’t know how to keep you safe.

Warning sign #1: your higher-up writes you late at night and your stomach clenches; #2: your expansive mindset collapses into a kind of stressed tunnel vision; #3: they assign you something that’s high-stakes for the day you get back which puts your anxiety through the roof; #4: on sick leave, you realize the date of the presentation was used by your higher-up to stress you out. You feel a dawning sense of threat.

#5: they reach out during your health-leave. If they’re reaching out, chances are very good that they’re not concerned about your health despite saying they are. They should not ask for updates on your health - except for required form-filling - and certainly not for regular meetings. These are surveillance and pressure tactics. Your threat detector is now on high alert.

The brain manages the body-budget

As Feldman explains, all it takes is your higher-up to walk into the room for your body to undergo a loss or deficit that will have to be made up. If that higher-up is actually threatening, unpredictable, kind one minute and abusive the next, or concerned and caring in their words, but unkind and uncaring in their actions, your body loss of energy is significant.

Oftentimes you can tell because after exchanges or encounters with this higher-up - or colleague or collaborator, but power intensifies it - you find yourself feeling low energy. You feel drained. Maybe a bit depressed or activated and anxious. These may well be signs your body is suffering.

How do we compensate for these losses? We need sleep; we need food but too often seek sugar and carbs for quick relief of the drained feeling; we opt for alcohol, pain killers, drugs to calm us, numb us, stop our body’s warning signs that something’s off. Instead, we need to listen and create vocabulary for our body’s messages.

If you develop a set of words for these kinds of experiences with someone who uses kindness to manipulate, you will far better handle the brain-body dialogue that’s unfolding. You won’t miss the signs that the stress is getting to be too much. Long before burnout and health-leave, you’ll be aware and empowered to keep well.

A chapter in The Gaslit Brain is an in-depth discussion on how to train your “interoception.”