WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.459 I want you to close your eyes for a second. Imagine 00:00:02.459 --> 00:00:05.240 you're in a room with someone you trust. Maybe 00:00:05.240 --> 00:00:08.580 it's a partner, a parent, a boss. Someone whose 00:00:08.580 --> 00:00:12.300 opinion matters to you. Deeply. And you clearly, 00:00:12.519 --> 00:00:15.259 with your own eyes, see a coffee cup on the table. 00:00:15.380 --> 00:00:17.140 You point to it. You talk about it. It's right 00:00:17.140 --> 00:00:19.719 there. It's an undeniable fact. And then the 00:00:19.719 --> 00:00:21.679 other person looks you dead in the eye with zero 00:00:21.679 --> 00:00:24.079 irony and says, what coffee cup? There's nothing 00:00:24.079 --> 00:00:27.120 on the table. And they're so calm, so certain. 00:00:27.219 --> 00:00:29.969 So certain that for a split second. Your brain 00:00:29.969 --> 00:00:32.409 just short circuits. You blink. You look again. 00:00:32.670 --> 00:00:34.810 And you start to wonder, not if they're lying, 00:00:35.009 --> 00:00:39.259 but if your own brain is broken. That feeling, 00:00:39.380 --> 00:00:41.719 that is the most destabilizing feeling a human 00:00:41.719 --> 00:00:43.799 being can experience. It's the dismantling of 00:00:43.799 --> 00:00:46.060 the self. That stomach drop sensation of reality 00:00:46.060 --> 00:00:48.179 just slipping away, that's where we are living 00:00:48.179 --> 00:00:50.439 today. And while we hear the word thrown around 00:00:50.439 --> 00:00:53.179 constantly on Twitter, on TikTok. Oh, everywhere. 00:00:53.579 --> 00:00:56.320 The actual mechanism behind it is much darker, 00:00:56.479 --> 00:01:00.079 much older, and much more calculated than most 00:01:00.079 --> 00:01:02.320 people realize. We are, of course, doing the 00:01:02.320 --> 00:01:05.540 deep dive on gaslighting. And I have to admit, 00:01:05.640 --> 00:01:08.540 when I first saw this on our slate, I kind of 00:01:08.540 --> 00:01:10.579 rolled my eyes a little. I think a lot of people 00:01:10.579 --> 00:01:12.620 do. Right. I thought, OK, great. We're going 00:01:12.620 --> 00:01:14.500 to talk about the Internet's favorite buzzword 00:01:14.500 --> 00:01:17.719 for someone I'm mad at. But looking at this stack 00:01:17.719 --> 00:01:20.579 of research you've brought today, this is not 00:01:20.579 --> 00:01:25.120 just about bad breakups, is it? Not even close. 00:01:25.239 --> 00:01:27.420 I mean, if you think gaslighting is just about 00:01:27.420 --> 00:01:30.819 a boyfriend lying about texting his ex, you are 00:01:30.819 --> 00:01:33.620 seeing the absolute tip of the iceberg and completely 00:01:33.620 --> 00:01:36.390 missing the glacier underneath. Wow. OK. We're 00:01:36.390 --> 00:01:38.409 talking about a psychological weapon, a weapon 00:01:38.409 --> 00:01:40.349 that's been used by abusers. Yes, of course. 00:01:40.409 --> 00:01:44.290 But also by doctors, by therapists and by totalitarian 00:01:44.290 --> 00:01:47.609 regimes to paralyze entire populations. That 00:01:47.609 --> 00:01:50.390 is a massive claim, paralyzing populations. We 00:01:50.390 --> 00:01:52.730 will get there. I promise. But we have to start 00:01:52.730 --> 00:01:54.209 with the confusion because you're right. The 00:01:54.209 --> 00:01:56.569 word is everywhere. It's completely unavoidable. 00:01:56.849 --> 00:01:59.590 It feels like, I don't know, since around 2016, 00:01:59.829 --> 00:02:02.269 the usage of the word gaslighting has just gone 00:02:02.269 --> 00:02:05.200 vertical. The data supports that perception entirely. 00:02:05.500 --> 00:02:07.760 It's not just a feeling. If you pull up Google 00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:10.300 Trends, the line is basically flat for years 00:02:10.300 --> 00:02:13.860 and years. And then right around 2016, it starts 00:02:13.860 --> 00:02:16.419 what they call a substantial increase. A substantial 00:02:16.419 --> 00:02:18.719 increase. That's putting it mildly. And then 00:02:18.719 --> 00:02:22.639 by 2022, Merriam -Webster names it the word of 00:02:22.639 --> 00:02:28.819 the year. They reported a. Get this? A 1 ,740 00:02:28.819 --> 00:02:32.460 % increase in lookups. 1 ,700%. That's not a 00:02:32.460 --> 00:02:35.360 trend. That's a cultural obsession. It is. And 00:02:35.360 --> 00:02:37.439 it's not just them. The American Dialect Society 00:02:37.439 --> 00:02:40.520 called it the most useful new word all the way 00:02:40.520 --> 00:02:43.000 back in 2016. Which is such a weird compliment 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:45.360 for a word describing abuse, isn't it? Useful? 00:02:45.360 --> 00:02:47.990 Yeah. It is weird, but it implies we had a gap 00:02:47.990 --> 00:02:49.710 in our language. It means we were experiencing 00:02:49.710 --> 00:02:51.849 something we literally couldn't name. We didn't 00:02:51.849 --> 00:02:53.810 have the vocabulary. That is the key. We had 00:02:53.810 --> 00:02:56.090 words for lying. We had words for manipulation. 00:02:56.449 --> 00:02:58.930 But we didn't have a mainstream word for manipulating 00:02:58.930 --> 00:03:01.669 someone into questioning their own sanity. So 00:03:01.669 --> 00:03:04.990 the mission for this deep dive is to rescue that 00:03:04.990 --> 00:03:07.759 definition. To rescue it, we need to cut through 00:03:07.759 --> 00:03:10.139 all the buzzword noise and really understand 00:03:10.139 --> 00:03:12.539 the mechanics. Because if we can't distinguish 00:03:12.539 --> 00:03:16.580 between real psychological abuse and just, you 00:03:16.580 --> 00:03:19.840 know, standard disagreement, we're in real trouble. 00:03:19.960 --> 00:03:22.419 Right. Because if I say, I didn't like that movie, 00:03:22.539 --> 00:03:25.110 and you say that movie was a masterpiece... You 00:03:25.110 --> 00:03:27.289 aren't gaslighting me. No. You just have different 00:03:27.289 --> 00:03:29.289 taste. You just have different taste. And confusing 00:03:29.289 --> 00:03:31.909 the two dilutes the suffering of actual victims. 00:03:32.169 --> 00:03:34.710 So to really understand this, we have to go back. 00:03:34.810 --> 00:03:37.229 Way back. We have to leave the Internet age and 00:03:37.229 --> 00:03:40.189 go back to a time of fog and cobblestones and 00:03:40.189 --> 00:03:43.810 shadows. We need to go to 1938. I love this. 00:03:43.830 --> 00:03:46.729 I love that the origin of this, like, ultra -modern 00:03:46.729 --> 00:03:50.020 Internet slang is actually vintage theater. It 00:03:50.020 --> 00:03:51.840 wasn't coined by a psychologist, right? Freud 00:03:51.840 --> 00:03:53.599 didn't come up with this. No, no. Freud had nothing 00:03:53.599 --> 00:03:55.439 to do with it. This comes purely from the arts. 00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:58.599 Specifically, a play by a man named Patrick Hamilton 00:03:58.599 --> 00:04:01.060 called Gaslight. Which then, of course, became 00:04:01.060 --> 00:04:03.500 a movie. Two movies, actually. There was a British 00:04:03.500 --> 00:04:07.759 one in 1940, but the one that etched this concept 00:04:07.759 --> 00:04:10.319 into history is the 1944 American adaptation. 00:04:11.020 --> 00:04:13.620 Ah, the famous one. George Cukor directed it. 00:04:13.780 --> 00:04:16.980 It starred Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, and 00:04:16.980 --> 00:04:19.819 Joseph Cotton. And I really want to dwell on 00:04:19.819 --> 00:04:21.579 the plot of this film for a minute because it 00:04:21.579 --> 00:04:24.259 isn't just a story. It's a perfect diagram of 00:04:24.259 --> 00:04:26.060 the psychological mechanism we're discussing. 00:04:26.240 --> 00:04:28.699 Okay, set the scene for us. This is Victorian 00:04:28.699 --> 00:04:31.100 London. Victorian London. We're in high society. 00:04:31.639 --> 00:04:34.220 We have Paula, played by Ingrid Bergman, who 00:04:34.220 --> 00:04:36.870 is an heiress. She's young, she's a bit vulnerable, 00:04:37.069 --> 00:04:40.550 and she falls head over heels for Gregory, who's 00:04:40.550 --> 00:04:43.170 played by Charles Boyer. And Gregory. Let me 00:04:43.170 --> 00:04:45.569 guess, he's not what he seems. Not at all. He 00:04:45.569 --> 00:04:48.649 presents himself as this perfect, genteel gentleman. 00:04:48.910 --> 00:04:52.250 He's charming, he's attentive, but he has a very 00:04:52.250 --> 00:04:55.230 specific, very predatory goal. He wants her money. 00:04:55.560 --> 00:04:57.939 He wants her jewels, specifically. There are 00:04:57.939 --> 00:05:00.399 priceless rubies hidden somewhere in the attic 00:05:00.399 --> 00:05:02.800 of the house she inherited. But here's the problem. 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:05.120 He can't just go up and get them. Right. He can't 00:05:05.120 --> 00:05:07.120 just go up and get them while she's around. He 00:05:07.120 --> 00:05:09.360 needs to search the whole attic, but he needs 00:05:09.360 --> 00:05:11.839 her to be out of the way. And more importantly, 00:05:12.060 --> 00:05:14.139 he needs to isolate her so that if he gets caught, 00:05:14.319 --> 00:05:16.819 no one will believe her. So his plan isn't just 00:05:16.819 --> 00:05:20.079 steal the jewels. It's convince the world and 00:05:20.079 --> 00:05:23.250 my own wife that she is completely insane. That 00:05:23.250 --> 00:05:27.089 is the entire strategy. He begins the slow, methodical 00:05:27.089 --> 00:05:29.730 campaign to make her believe she is losing her 00:05:29.730 --> 00:05:33.629 mind. He hides things, a brooch, a picture, and 00:05:33.629 --> 00:05:36.009 then blames her for losing them. He tells her 00:05:36.009 --> 00:05:38.529 she's forgetful. Little things at first. Plausible 00:05:38.529 --> 00:05:41.610 deniability. Exactly. But the centerpiece, the 00:05:41.610 --> 00:05:45.189 reason we have this word. is the gas lights themselves. 00:05:45.730 --> 00:05:47.670 Okay, explain the physics here because I think 00:05:47.670 --> 00:05:50.529 we all take flip switches for granted now. How 00:05:50.529 --> 00:05:53.069 did these lights actually work? Well, in a Victorian 00:05:53.069 --> 00:05:55.610 home like that, the gas lines were all part of 00:05:55.610 --> 00:05:58.930 a single closed system. So if you turned on a 00:05:58.930 --> 00:06:02.110 heavy gas lamp in one room, say the attic, the 00:06:02.110 --> 00:06:04.050 pressure would drop slightly in all the other 00:06:04.050 --> 00:06:06.709 rooms. The lights elsewhere would physically 00:06:06.709 --> 00:06:08.689 dim. You would see it happen. So it's kind of 00:06:08.689 --> 00:06:10.490 like hydraulic pressure. One goes up, the other 00:06:10.490 --> 00:06:12.709 goes down. Simple cause and effect. Exactly. 00:06:13.160 --> 00:06:15.920 So every night, Gregory tells Paula he's going 00:06:15.920 --> 00:06:19.019 out, but he doesn't. He sneaks out of the house, 00:06:19.160 --> 00:06:21.819 circles back around, and goes into the boarded 00:06:21.819 --> 00:06:24.600 -up attic to search for these rubies. And when 00:06:24.600 --> 00:06:26.579 he's up there... When he lights the gas lamp 00:06:26.579 --> 00:06:28.899 in the attic to see what he's doing, the lights 00:06:28.899 --> 00:06:30.980 downstairs in the drawing room where Paula's 00:06:30.980 --> 00:06:33.939 sitting all alone... They dim. They physically 00:06:33.939 --> 00:06:36.740 go down. She sees this. It is a real physical 00:06:36.740 --> 00:06:38.920 event happening in front of her. She sees it 00:06:38.920 --> 00:06:41.540 with her own eyes, and she hears footsteps upstairs. 00:06:41.579 --> 00:06:43.459 So naturally, when he comes back home later, 00:06:43.560 --> 00:06:46.180 she says, Gregory, the lights went down again. 00:06:46.240 --> 00:06:48.720 I think someone is in the attic. And this is 00:06:48.720 --> 00:06:51.279 the moment, the namesake moment. This is the 00:06:51.279 --> 00:06:52.879 moment. He doesn't just say, I don't know what 00:06:52.879 --> 00:06:55.899 you're talking about. He looks at her with this 00:06:55.899 --> 00:07:00.000 sense of pity. and concern that's what makes 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:02.959 it so sinister yes he says paula darling the 00:07:02.959 --> 00:07:04.639 lights didn't flicker you're imagining things 00:07:04.639 --> 00:07:07.379 again you're so tired you're becoming hysterical 00:07:07.379 --> 00:07:10.660 he denies the physical reality she just witnessed 00:07:10.660 --> 00:07:12.939 and he enlists the servants in this too doesn't 00:07:12.939 --> 00:07:15.079 he they're not in on the crime but they're part 00:07:15.079 --> 00:07:17.970 of the manipulation They are. He manipulates 00:07:17.970 --> 00:07:20.810 the entire environment so completely that the 00:07:20.810 --> 00:07:23.430 servants, who are just unaware, reinforce his 00:07:23.430 --> 00:07:25.509 narrative. They tell her nobody was upstairs. 00:07:25.750 --> 00:07:28.750 They confirm her forgetfulness. So Paula is left 00:07:28.750 --> 00:07:31.649 with two options. Option A. Her husband, the 00:07:31.649 --> 00:07:34.449 man she loves and trusts, is a criminal mastermind 00:07:34.449 --> 00:07:38.189 lying to her face. Or, option B, her own brain 00:07:38.189 --> 00:07:41.410 is failing her. She is going crazy. And because 00:07:41.410 --> 00:07:43.689 of the power dynamic, because she loves him and 00:07:43.689 --> 00:07:46.290 relies on him for her sense of reality, option 00:07:46.290 --> 00:07:49.769 B actually feels more plausible to her. That's 00:07:49.769 --> 00:07:52.300 the tragedy of it. She breaks. She completely 00:07:52.300 --> 00:07:55.199 stops trusting her own eyes. She accepts his 00:07:55.199 --> 00:07:57.800 reality over her own. It's so chilling because 00:07:57.800 --> 00:08:00.300 it's so claustrophobic. The threat isn't physical 00:08:00.300 --> 00:08:02.759 violence, not at first. It's the complete erosion 00:08:02.759 --> 00:08:05.139 of her mind. It's an assault on her autonomy, 00:08:05.300 --> 00:08:07.980 on her very selfhood. And what's really interesting 00:08:07.980 --> 00:08:10.620 is that the word gaslighting as a verb, like 00:08:10.620 --> 00:08:13.180 he's gaslighting her, it wasn't in the script. 00:08:13.339 --> 00:08:15.500 It wasn't used in the movie at all. Really? So 00:08:15.500 --> 00:08:18.180 Ingrid Bergman never says, stop gaslighting me, 00:08:18.259 --> 00:08:20.040 Gregory? Not once. The movie was just called 00:08:20.040 --> 00:08:22.790 Gaslighting. The term gaslighting, as a gerund, 00:08:22.790 --> 00:08:25.050 you know, the verb form, it didn't appear in 00:08:25.050 --> 00:08:27.829 recorded language until 1961. And even then, 00:08:27.829 --> 00:08:30.149 it was incredibly obscure. It was basically underground. 00:08:30.899 --> 00:08:33.500 Deep underground. I mean, it popped up in a New 00:08:33.500 --> 00:08:36.360 York Times column by Maureen Dowd in 1995, but 00:08:36.360 --> 00:08:38.480 even that didn't spark a trend. So people read 00:08:38.480 --> 00:08:41.299 it and just moved on? They did. In the 20 years 00:08:41.299 --> 00:08:44.100 after that 1995 column, the New York Times only 00:08:44.100 --> 00:08:47.240 used the word nine times. Nine times? In two 00:08:47.240 --> 00:08:51.000 decades? That's wild. It is. So for almost 80 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:53.379 years, this perfect metaphor was just sitting 00:08:53.379 --> 00:08:55.720 there gathering dust, known only to like film 00:08:55.720 --> 00:08:58.179 buffs and maybe a few psychologists, and then 00:08:58.179 --> 00:09:01.539 boom. 2016 happens. And suddenly we needed a 00:09:01.539 --> 00:09:05.460 word for reality distortion. On a massive scale. 00:09:05.639 --> 00:09:08.279 We did. Okay, so let's get into the gears of 00:09:08.279 --> 00:09:11.039 this. We have the movie metaphor, which is incredibly 00:09:11.039 --> 00:09:14.259 clear. But real life isn't a Hollywood script. 00:09:14.600 --> 00:09:16.659 How does this mechanic actually work between 00:09:16.659 --> 00:09:18.679 two modern people? Because I feel like I could 00:09:18.679 --> 00:09:21.059 easily, you know, accidentally gaslight someone 00:09:21.059 --> 00:09:23.159 if I just have a bad memory. This is a critical 00:09:23.159 --> 00:09:25.139 distinction, and it's where most of the online 00:09:25.139 --> 00:09:27.759 confusion comes from. We have to separate gaslighting 00:09:27.759 --> 00:09:30.159 from lying and from disagreement. They are three 00:09:30.159 --> 00:09:32.639 completely different things. Okay, play this 00:09:32.639 --> 00:09:35.440 out for me. Let's use an example. I eat the last 00:09:35.440 --> 00:09:38.159 cookie from the cookie jar. You come in and ask 00:09:38.159 --> 00:09:41.159 who ate it. I say, I didn't eat it. Is that gaslighting? 00:09:41.370 --> 00:09:44.450 No, that's just a simple lie. You're hiding a 00:09:44.450 --> 00:09:46.950 specific action to avoid getting into trouble. 00:09:47.070 --> 00:09:49.509 It's a cover -up. Okay, so what if I take it 00:09:49.509 --> 00:09:51.610 a step further? What if I say there never were 00:09:51.610 --> 00:09:54.529 any cookies in that jar? You're crazy for thinking 00:09:54.529 --> 00:09:56.470 we even bought cookies this week. Now we're getting 00:09:56.470 --> 00:09:59.350 warmer. We're moving towards the territory. But 00:09:59.350 --> 00:10:02.169 even that, if it just happens one time, is probably 00:10:02.169 --> 00:10:05.090 just a bizarre, elaborate lie. So what are the 00:10:05.090 --> 00:10:07.690 missing ingredients? Gaslighting requires two 00:10:07.690 --> 00:10:10.029 specific components that have to be present. 00:10:10.670 --> 00:10:13.730 A power imbalance and a pattern over time. It's 00:10:13.730 --> 00:10:16.169 not a one -off event. Okay, explain the power 00:10:16.169 --> 00:10:18.649 imbalance. Why is that so necessary? I mean, 00:10:18.669 --> 00:10:20.169 if a random guy on the subway tells me the sky 00:10:20.169 --> 00:10:21.970 is green, I don't start questioning my sanity. 00:10:22.070 --> 00:10:24.029 I just think he's, you know, maybe had a long 00:10:24.029 --> 00:10:27.470 day. Precisely. You have no emotional investment 00:10:27.470 --> 00:10:30.090 in that stranger's opinion of reality. You have 00:10:30.090 --> 00:10:33.379 independent autonomy. Gaslighting only really 00:10:33.379 --> 00:10:35.679 works when the victim needs the manipulator's 00:10:35.679 --> 00:10:38.419 version of reality to be true, either for emotional 00:10:38.419 --> 00:10:41.679 safety, financial security, or professional survival. 00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:44.360 So it has to be a spouse, a parent, a boss. Yeah. 00:10:44.440 --> 00:10:47.679 Someone whose opinion fundamentally defines your 00:10:47.679 --> 00:10:50.980 world. Yes. The dynamic requires the gas lighter 00:10:50.980 --> 00:10:54.299 to consistently, persistently put forth a false 00:10:54.299 --> 00:10:56.580 narrative. And the gas lighted person struggles 00:10:56.580 --> 00:10:59.279 to maintain their autonomy against that barrage. 00:10:59.379 --> 00:11:01.899 It's a war of attrition. So the goal isn't just. 00:11:02.330 --> 00:11:04.470 to win the argument about the cookies no the 00:11:04.470 --> 00:11:06.509 goal is to make you believe that your memory 00:11:06.509 --> 00:11:09.529 is so fundamentally faulty that next time you 00:11:09.529 --> 00:11:11.029 won't even ask about the cookies you'll just 00:11:11.029 --> 00:11:13.029 assume you were wrong to begin with it's training 00:11:13.029 --> 00:11:15.830 it's grooming it's conditioning the victim to 00:11:15.830 --> 00:11:18.210 outsource their reality testing to the perpetrator 00:11:18.210 --> 00:11:20.169 so instead of i think the cookies were there 00:11:20.169 --> 00:11:22.350 it becomes i don't know if that happened i better 00:11:22.350 --> 00:11:25.789 ask gregory that is just terrifying but i want 00:11:25.789 --> 00:11:28.529 to push back on something i feel like in genuine 00:11:28.529 --> 00:11:31.090 arguments especially with a partner We often 00:11:31.090 --> 00:11:33.309 remember things differently. I said X and they 00:11:33.309 --> 00:11:36.909 say, no, you said Y. Is that gaslighting? Because 00:11:36.909 --> 00:11:39.570 that happens all the time. No. And this is the 00:11:39.570 --> 00:11:42.049 absolute core of where the Internet gets it wrong. 00:11:42.509 --> 00:11:45.129 In a genuine conflict, I might be stubborn. I 00:11:45.129 --> 00:11:47.509 might be wrong. I might even be shouting. But 00:11:47.509 --> 00:11:49.470 I'm usually trying to convince you of my perspective. 00:11:49.570 --> 00:11:52.330 I'm listening to you, even if I'm angry and disagreeing. 00:11:52.350 --> 00:11:56.159 So there's a chaotic but real. Exchange of ideas. 00:11:56.360 --> 00:11:59.500 Right. Gaslighting is characterized by the constant 00:11:59.500 --> 00:12:01.539 negation of the other person's perception. It's 00:12:01.539 --> 00:12:04.519 not I disagree with what you felt. It is your 00:12:04.519 --> 00:12:07.320 feeling is wrong. It's your reaction is irrational. 00:12:07.639 --> 00:12:09.779 You are hysterical. You're being oversensitive. 00:12:09.960 --> 00:12:12.440 It attacks the validity of the person's emotional 00:12:12.440 --> 00:12:15.179 response, not the content of the argument. You've 00:12:15.179 --> 00:12:17.279 got it. It shifts the ground from what happened 00:12:17.279 --> 00:12:19.419 to what is wrong with you for thinking that happened. 00:12:19.500 --> 00:12:22.039 And the psychological impact is, well, it's severe. 00:12:22.259 --> 00:12:25.129 It's incredibly severe. We are not talking about 00:12:25.129 --> 00:12:28.330 being annoyed or frustrated after a fight. Victims 00:12:28.330 --> 00:12:31.450 of long -term gaslighting exhibit symptoms of 00:12:31.450 --> 00:12:35.149 severe anxiety disorders, major depression, and 00:12:35.149 --> 00:12:37.389 a complete and utter collapse of self -esteem. 00:12:37.610 --> 00:12:39.929 They lose themselves. They often describe it 00:12:39.929 --> 00:12:42.789 as a loss of self. They genuinely don't know 00:12:42.789 --> 00:12:45.289 who they are anymore without the abuser's constant 00:12:45.289 --> 00:12:48.309 input defining their reality. Which brings us 00:12:48.309 --> 00:12:51.710 to this problem of concept creep. It's a term 00:12:51.710 --> 00:12:53.610 I've been seeing a lot because the word is so 00:12:53.610 --> 00:12:56.090 popular it's being used for everything. The Washington 00:12:56.090 --> 00:12:59.090 Post called it out as therapy speak. Therapy 00:12:59.090 --> 00:13:01.429 speak is a great term for it. It's when these 00:13:01.429 --> 00:13:04.169 clinical terms escape the clinic and get sort 00:13:04.169 --> 00:13:06.149 of mauled in the streets. We see it all the time. 00:13:06.230 --> 00:13:08.049 Right, like OCD is just used for being neat and 00:13:08.049 --> 00:13:11.690 tidy or trauma is used to describe having a bad 00:13:11.690 --> 00:13:14.090 day at work. Or narcissist, for anyone who takes 00:13:14.090 --> 00:13:16.490 a selfie, it's the same phenomenon. And with 00:13:16.490 --> 00:13:19.970 gaslighting, the danger is dilution. Well, Robin 00:13:19.970 --> 00:13:22.409 Stern, who's a PhD at the Yale Center for Emotional 00:13:22.409 --> 00:13:24.210 Intelligence, I mean, she literally wrote the 00:13:24.210 --> 00:13:26.389 book on this, The Gaslight Effect. She's very 00:13:26.389 --> 00:13:28.649 worried about this. She notes that the word gaslighting 00:13:28.649 --> 00:13:31.610 is now often used in an accusatory way just to 00:13:31.610 --> 00:13:34.090 shut down an argument. It's a trump card. If 00:13:34.090 --> 00:13:36.610 I just yell, you're gaslighting me, I instantly 00:13:36.610 --> 00:13:38.769 win the moral high ground and you have to defend 00:13:38.769 --> 00:13:40.970 yourself. Exactly. It's become the new, you're 00:13:40.970 --> 00:13:44.210 being a jerk. But if we label every disagreement, 00:13:44.309 --> 00:13:48.049 every instance of someone being stubborn as gaslighting, 00:13:48.049 --> 00:13:50.929 we make it impossible to identify the real victim. 00:13:51.110 --> 00:13:53.429 We're crying wolf. We are crying wolf on a very 00:13:53.429 --> 00:13:56.509 specific and very dangerous predator. If a woman 00:13:56.509 --> 00:13:59.149 goes to the police or a therapist and says, my 00:13:59.149 --> 00:14:01.710 partner is gaslighting me and the world has decided 00:14:01.710 --> 00:14:03.950 that just means he disagrees with me a lot. She's 00:14:03.950 --> 00:14:07.029 in real danger. We strip the word of its red 00:14:07.029 --> 00:14:10.710 flag status. It's power to warn. We do. And we 00:14:10.710 --> 00:14:12.990 need to pivot here because while we're all debating 00:14:12.990 --> 00:14:15.809 the colloquial use of the term on Twitter, the 00:14:15.809 --> 00:14:18.129 actual clinical history of gaslighting, even 00:14:18.129 --> 00:14:20.490 before we had the word, is absolutely horrifying. 00:14:20.750 --> 00:14:23.549 It really is. We tend to think of this as a domestic 00:14:23.549 --> 00:14:26.429 issue, a husband and a wife. But the research 00:14:26.429 --> 00:14:29.970 you pulled on institutional gaslighting, honestly, 00:14:30.149 --> 00:14:32.129 it reads like a horror movie script. This is 00:14:32.129 --> 00:14:33.830 the section that really messed me up when I was 00:14:33.830 --> 00:14:36.990 prepping. The involuntary commitment strategy. 00:14:37.429 --> 00:14:40.169 It is so dark. So there's this study by Barton 00:14:40.169 --> 00:14:43.169 and Whitehead published way back in 1969. They 00:14:43.169 --> 00:14:45.429 weren't using the word gaslighting per se, but 00:14:45.429 --> 00:14:47.690 they were documenting the specific phenomenon 00:14:47.690 --> 00:14:50.690 where family members use these exact tactics 00:14:50.690 --> 00:14:53.730 to get relatives locked away in psychiatric wards. 00:14:53.870 --> 00:14:55.429 Just to get rid of them. To get rid of them or 00:14:55.429 --> 00:14:58.230 to get their money. They documented one case 00:14:58.230 --> 00:15:00.870 where a wife wanted to elope with her lover. 00:15:01.090 --> 00:15:03.610 She didn't want the mess of a divorce. She just 00:15:03.610 --> 00:15:05.509 wanted her husband. gone. So what did she do? 00:15:05.629 --> 00:15:08.169 She started framing him as violent. She would 00:15:08.169 --> 00:15:10.549 provoke him, start huge fights, then run to the 00:15:10.549 --> 00:15:12.970 neighbors crying. She would lie to their friends, 00:15:13.129 --> 00:15:16.250 create these public scenes. She manipulated the 00:15:16.250 --> 00:15:18.450 social reality around him until the authorities 00:15:18.450 --> 00:15:20.950 believed he was the danger. So he gets locked 00:15:20.950 --> 00:15:23.009 up and she's free to run off with the lover. 00:15:23.129 --> 00:15:26.129 And just imagine the husband is sitting in a 00:15:26.129 --> 00:15:28.690 padded room telling the doctors, I didn't do 00:15:28.690 --> 00:15:31.590 anything. She's lying. Which, of course, in that 00:15:31.590 --> 00:15:34.250 context, just makes him sound paranoid and delusional. 00:15:34.409 --> 00:15:36.789 It's the perfect trap. The more you protest your 00:15:36.789 --> 00:15:39.330 sanity, the crazier you sound. That's a catch 00:15:39.330 --> 00:15:41.730 -22. There was another case they documented involving 00:15:41.730 --> 00:15:44.990 a pub owner. His wife wanted the business. She 00:15:44.990 --> 00:15:47.809 claimed he was a violent alcoholic. She gaslit 00:15:47.809 --> 00:15:50.750 him and the doctors to get him committed so she 00:15:50.750 --> 00:15:53.049 could take over the pub license. It's pure greed. 00:15:53.309 --> 00:15:56.029 It is. But the one that really stays with me... 00:15:56.460 --> 00:15:59.419 This one is truly sinister. It was a retirement 00:15:59.419 --> 00:16:01.759 home manager. She wanted to get rid of a resident 00:16:01.759 --> 00:16:04.600 she just didn't like. So she started secretly 00:16:04.600 --> 00:16:07.740 dosing the woman's food with laxatives. Oh, my 00:16:07.740 --> 00:16:10.960 God. Yes. The resident obviously starts having 00:16:10.960 --> 00:16:12.919 accidents. She's losing control of her bowels. 00:16:12.940 --> 00:16:14.980 She's humiliated. She's confused. I can't even 00:16:14.980 --> 00:16:17.080 imagine. And the manager then points to this 00:16:17.080 --> 00:16:19.379 and says, look, she has advanced dementia. She's 00:16:19.379 --> 00:16:21.919 incontinent. She needs to be in a secure psych 00:16:21.919 --> 00:16:25.220 ward, not here. That is monstrous. Because the 00:16:25.220 --> 00:16:27.399 victim's own body. body is betraying her. She 00:16:27.399 --> 00:16:30.799 is having accidents. The evidence is real, but 00:16:30.799 --> 00:16:33.159 the cause is completely manufactured. That is 00:16:33.159 --> 00:16:35.519 the ultimate gaslight. When the manipulator turns 00:16:35.519 --> 00:16:38.279 reality itself, your own body, into the weapon 00:16:38.279 --> 00:16:40.080 they use to prove you're crazy. And there was 00:16:40.080 --> 00:16:43.720 another case, the paranoia case from 1977, Lund 00:16:43.720 --> 00:16:46.759 and Gardner. Yes, this one just breaks my heart. 00:16:46.840 --> 00:16:49.440 It was an elderly woman who kept getting committed 00:16:49.440 --> 00:16:52.399 for episodes of psychosis. She would be sent 00:16:52.399 --> 00:16:55.279 to the hospital screaming, agitated, completely 00:16:55.279 --> 00:16:58.559 disoriented. Okay. But the weird thing was, the 00:16:58.559 --> 00:17:00.700 second she was admitted to the hospital, the 00:17:00.700 --> 00:17:03.799 symptoms vanished. She'd become lucid. She was 00:17:03.799 --> 00:17:05.940 calm. She was perfectly rational. That should 00:17:05.940 --> 00:17:07.920 have been a massive red flag to the doctors. 00:17:08.099 --> 00:17:10.359 It was eventually. They investigated. And it 00:17:10.359 --> 00:17:12.539 turned out the staff at her retirement home were 00:17:12.539 --> 00:17:14.960 systematically gaslighting her. But here's the 00:17:14.960 --> 00:17:17.880 twist. This woman actually did have a history 00:17:17.880 --> 00:17:21.480 of psychosis from about 15 years prior. Ah, so 00:17:21.480 --> 00:17:24.160 they had the file. They knew her history. They 00:17:24.160 --> 00:17:26.440 had the file. They knew her trigger points. They 00:17:26.440 --> 00:17:29.279 knew exactly how to harass her to induce a state 00:17:29.279 --> 00:17:31.539 of panic. They knew that if they pushed her enough 00:17:31.539 --> 00:17:34.220 to make her scream and shout, the doctors would 00:17:34.220 --> 00:17:36.339 just look at her chart, see history of psychosis 00:17:36.339 --> 00:17:38.980 and ignore anything she said. They weaponized 00:17:38.980 --> 00:17:41.400 her own medical history to discredit her present 00:17:41.400 --> 00:17:44.269 reality. Exactly. It really goes to show that 00:17:44.269 --> 00:17:47.170 you can't gaslight this effectively without some 00:17:47.170 --> 00:17:50.190 form of institutional power backing you up. The 00:17:50.190 --> 00:17:53.069 doctors, the charts, the system, they all become 00:17:53.069 --> 00:17:56.410 unknowing accomplices. And speaking of accomplices, 00:17:56.549 --> 00:17:58.849 we have to talk about the therapists themselves. 00:18:00.109 --> 00:18:01.990 Because we like to think the therapist's office 00:18:01.990 --> 00:18:04.609 is the safe space, the one place you can go for 00:18:04.609 --> 00:18:06.970 a reality check. It's supposed to be. But Theo 00:18:06.970 --> 00:18:10.569 Dorpat's book from 1996 says otherwise. Gaslighting, 00:18:10.589 --> 00:18:13.109 the double whammy, interrogation, and other methods 00:18:13.109 --> 00:18:15.690 of covert control and psychotherapy. It's a mouthful 00:18:15.690 --> 00:18:18.769 of a title, but it's a groundbreaking book. Dorpat 00:18:18.769 --> 00:18:20.750 argued that therapists can be the most dangerous 00:18:20.750 --> 00:18:23.130 gaslighters of all. How is that even possible? 00:18:23.430 --> 00:18:26.809 Their entire job is to listen and validate. Yes. 00:18:27.200 --> 00:18:29.500 but they also hold what he called the interpretive 00:18:29.500 --> 00:18:33.779 power. Let's say you are my patient. You come 00:18:33.779 --> 00:18:35.619 into my office for your appointment and I'm 20 00:18:35.619 --> 00:18:38.359 minutes late. You're annoyed, understandably. 00:18:38.750 --> 00:18:41.349 You say, it's disrespectful that you kept me 00:18:41.349 --> 00:18:43.869 waiting. Which is a completely valid complaint. 00:18:44.109 --> 00:18:47.529 A normal human reaction. But if I am a gaslighting 00:18:47.529 --> 00:18:49.529 therapist or even just a very defensive one, 00:18:49.630 --> 00:18:52.289 I might say, your anger right now isn't about 00:18:52.289 --> 00:18:54.890 me being late. It's actually a projection of 00:18:54.890 --> 00:18:57.170 your unresolved issues with your father who abandoned 00:18:57.170 --> 00:19:00.390 you as a child. Wow. So I can't just be mad that 00:19:00.390 --> 00:19:02.210 you're late. My feeling has to be a symptom of 00:19:02.210 --> 00:19:04.970 something else. Exactly. Your reality is pathologized. 00:19:05.150 --> 00:19:07.529 Your valid reaction is mislabeled as a symptom. 00:19:08.279 --> 00:19:11.039 Dorpat called this covert control, and he warned 00:19:11.039 --> 00:19:13.279 that this kind of unintentional abuse can cause 00:19:13.279 --> 00:19:15.960 severe nervous breakdowns. I can see how. He 00:19:15.960 --> 00:19:17.960 even linked it to patient suicides in the most 00:19:17.960 --> 00:19:20.559 extreme cases. Because if the one person you 00:19:20.559 --> 00:19:22.579 pay to be your reality anchor tells you that 00:19:22.579 --> 00:19:24.960 your feelings are a sign of sickness, where do 00:19:24.960 --> 00:19:26.839 you go from there? You have nowhere left to stand. 00:19:27.059 --> 00:19:29.039 It sounds like the ultimate ego trip for the 00:19:29.039 --> 00:19:31.440 therapist. I know your mind better than you do. 00:19:31.779 --> 00:19:33.619 Which brings us right back to the question you 00:19:33.619 --> 00:19:37.730 asked earlier, why? Who are these people? What 00:19:37.730 --> 00:19:40.970 is going on in the brain of a gaslighter? Are 00:19:40.970 --> 00:19:43.470 they all just villains twirling their mustaches? 00:19:43.710 --> 00:19:46.809 Right. Is it calculated evil or are they broken 00:19:46.809 --> 00:19:48.930 in some way too? And the uncomfortable truth 00:19:48.930 --> 00:19:52.450 is that for many, gaslighting is a defense mechanism. 00:19:52.710 --> 00:19:55.210 It's all about their own anxiety regulation. 00:19:55.630 --> 00:19:57.970 Wait, hold on. They gaslight other people to 00:19:57.970 --> 00:20:00.869 calm themselves down. Think about it. A gaslighter 00:20:00.869 --> 00:20:03.369 is often someone with an incredibly fragile sense 00:20:03.369 --> 00:20:06.779 of self. Ironically, they cannot handle being 00:20:06.779 --> 00:20:08.940 wrong. They cannot handle being the bad guy in 00:20:08.940 --> 00:20:11.119 any story. So when they forget to pick up the 00:20:11.119 --> 00:20:13.319 kids from school or they cheat on a partner or 00:20:13.319 --> 00:20:15.720 they make a huge mistake at work, the shame and 00:20:15.720 --> 00:20:18.660 anxiety are so intolerable that they must rewrite 00:20:18.660 --> 00:20:21.420 reality. So saying I never agreed to pick up 00:20:21.420 --> 00:20:24.000 the kids isn't just a lie to get out of trouble 00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:26.359 in that moment. It's a way to protect their own 00:20:26.359 --> 00:20:29.140 ego from the reality that they failed. Exactly. 00:20:29.319 --> 00:20:31.700 It restores their sense of control. It quells 00:20:31.700 --> 00:20:33.819 their own internal payoffs. It absolutely destroys 00:20:33.819 --> 00:20:38.559 you, yes. But for them, in that moment, it feels 00:20:38.559 --> 00:20:41.599 like survival. Is it something they learn? Or 00:20:41.599 --> 00:20:43.819 are people just born this way? It's widely considered 00:20:43.819 --> 00:20:46.420 a learned trait. It's social learning. You grow 00:20:46.420 --> 00:20:48.559 up and you watch your father do it to your mother. 00:20:48.680 --> 00:20:51.359 You see that when dad denies reality, the argument 00:20:51.359 --> 00:20:53.720 ends and he gets to sit down and watch TV in 00:20:53.720 --> 00:20:56.880 peace. And you learn, ah, this is a tool that 00:20:56.880 --> 00:20:59.940 works. It's an efficient tool for conflict avoidance 00:20:59.940 --> 00:21:03.440 and self -regulation. Ruthlessly efficient. Now, 00:21:03.500 --> 00:21:05.440 of course, there is a strong correlation with 00:21:05.440 --> 00:21:08.539 certain personality disorders. Like what? Narcissistic 00:21:08.539 --> 00:21:11.059 personality disorder, or NPD, is the classic 00:21:11.059 --> 00:21:13.680 one. Also, borderline personality disorder, BPD, 00:21:13.839 --> 00:21:16.799 and antisocial personality disorder, or sociopathy. 00:21:17.579 --> 00:21:19.700 People with these profiles are much more prone 00:21:19.700 --> 00:21:22.180 to using manipulation to regulate their environments 00:21:22.180 --> 00:21:24.599 and their emotions. But not everyone who gaslights 00:21:24.599 --> 00:21:27.180 has a personality disorder. Not at all. Plenty 00:21:27.180 --> 00:21:29.160 of otherwise normal people stumble into these 00:21:29.160 --> 00:21:30.960 behaviors just because they're emotionally immature 00:21:30.960 --> 00:21:33.839 and terrified of conflict and shame. We've talked 00:21:33.839 --> 00:21:35.519 a lot about the individual, the one -on -one 00:21:35.519 --> 00:21:38.519 dynamic. But I want to zoom out now because the 00:21:38.519 --> 00:21:41.079 outline here pivots to these broader contexts. 00:21:41.480 --> 00:21:43.680 And some of these affect millions and millions 00:21:43.680 --> 00:21:47.099 of people. They do. The core mechanism of gaslighting. 00:21:46.890 --> 00:21:49.130 Gaslighting, denying someone's reality in order 00:21:49.130 --> 00:21:52.529 to maintain power, it scales up perfectly. Let's 00:21:52.529 --> 00:21:55.349 start with one that is huge right now, especially 00:21:55.349 --> 00:21:58.589 on social media. Medical gaslighting. I see women 00:21:58.589 --> 00:22:01.329 sharing stories every day about years of pain 00:22:01.329 --> 00:22:04.750 being ignored by doctors. It is a massive systemic 00:22:04.750 --> 00:22:08.170 issue. Medical gaslighting is when a patient's 00:22:08.170 --> 00:22:10.769 direct, firsthand report of their own symptoms 00:22:10.769 --> 00:22:14.230 is dismissed, downplayed, or minimized by a medical 00:22:14.230 --> 00:22:16.980 professional. And the statistics are clear. This 00:22:16.980 --> 00:22:19.059 disproportionately happens to women and people 00:22:19.059 --> 00:22:21.119 of color. It's the old don't worry your pretty 00:22:21.119 --> 00:22:23.980 little head about it diagnosis or it's all in 00:22:23.980 --> 00:22:26.859 your head. Or it's just stress or it's just anxiety 00:22:26.859 --> 00:22:29.299 or the classic maybe you should try losing some 00:22:29.299 --> 00:22:31.559 weight. I was reading a case about a woman who 00:22:31.559 --> 00:22:33.720 went to doctors for years with severe abdominal 00:22:33.720 --> 00:22:36.440 pain. For years they told her it was anxiety. 00:22:36.880 --> 00:22:39.380 They told her it was just her period. And what 00:22:39.380 --> 00:22:42.279 was it? It turned out to be stage four ovarian 00:22:42.279 --> 00:22:45.839 cancer. That is infuriating. And tragic. The 00:22:45.839 --> 00:22:49.359 delay in diagnosis caused by doctors prioritizing 00:22:49.359 --> 00:22:51.700 their own biases over the patient's reported 00:22:51.700 --> 00:22:55.720 reality was ultimately fatal. That is gaslighting 00:22:55.720 --> 00:22:57.619 with a death count. Then there's the workplace. 00:22:57.940 --> 00:23:01.559 We have Kate Abramson's 2024 book on gaslighting. 00:23:01.710 --> 00:23:03.430 She talks about this a lot. Abramson makes a 00:23:03.430 --> 00:23:05.569 great point about how it functions in a professional 00:23:05.569 --> 00:23:09.490 setting. Imagine an employee goes to HR to report 00:23:09.490 --> 00:23:12.750 harassment. She says, my boss made a sexist comment 00:23:12.750 --> 00:23:15.230 to me in a meeting. Okay. And the HR manager 00:23:15.230 --> 00:23:17.849 or the boss's boss responds with, oh, you know 00:23:17.849 --> 00:23:19.349 he didn't mean it like that. You're being too 00:23:19.349 --> 00:23:21.819 sensitive. Can't you take a joke? That phrase, 00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:24.180 you're being too sensitive, it seems to be the 00:23:24.180 --> 00:23:26.380 universal slogan of the gaslighter, doesn't it? 00:23:26.460 --> 00:23:28.859 It's the skeleton key. It unlocks everything 00:23:28.859 --> 00:23:31.299 because it immediately shifts the problem from 00:23:31.299 --> 00:23:33.200 the action, the harassment, to the reaction, 00:23:33.359 --> 00:23:36.140 the victim's sensitivity. It protects the institution 00:23:36.140 --> 00:23:38.740 by pathologizing the person who complained. Which 00:23:38.740 --> 00:23:41.740 leads us directly into racial gaslighting. This 00:23:41.740 --> 00:23:44.299 is a heavy term, but help us unpack it. How is 00:23:44.299 --> 00:23:47.059 this different from just regular racism? That's 00:23:47.059 --> 00:23:50.509 a great question. If racism is the structural 00:23:50.509 --> 00:23:53.730 oppression itself, then racial gaslighting is 00:23:53.730 --> 00:23:56.470 the psychological defense mechanism used to deny 00:23:56.470 --> 00:23:59.549 that the oppression exists. It's the pathologizing 00:23:59.549 --> 00:24:01.609 of dissent. Can you give me an example of that? 00:24:01.710 --> 00:24:03.990 Sure. When a black employee points out that a 00:24:03.990 --> 00:24:06.670 company's hiring policy seems to be biased and 00:24:06.670 --> 00:24:09.109 the response from management is you're being 00:24:09.109 --> 00:24:11.910 divisive or you're always obsessed with race 00:24:11.910 --> 00:24:15.369 or my favorite, that's actually reverse discrimination. 00:24:16.349 --> 00:24:18.509 So instead of addressing the actual data of the 00:24:18.509 --> 00:24:21.730 hiring policy, the conversation is shifted to 00:24:21.730 --> 00:24:23.910 attack the perception and motive of the person 00:24:23.910 --> 00:24:26.130 pointing it out. Exactly. It's a way to coerce 00:24:26.130 --> 00:24:28.349 marginalized people into doubting their own lived 00:24:28.349 --> 00:24:30.829 experience of racism. It forces them to ask, 00:24:30.890 --> 00:24:33.769 am I just being paranoid? Is it just me? It upholds 00:24:33.769 --> 00:24:36.289 the existing power hierarchy by making any challenge 00:24:36.289 --> 00:24:39.210 to that power seem irrational or crazy. And that, 00:24:39.250 --> 00:24:41.490 my friend, is the perfect bridge to the biggest 00:24:41.490 --> 00:24:44.250 stage of all, the politics. The macro scale. 00:24:44.309 --> 00:24:46.880 This is where it gets really big. I saw a reference 00:24:46.880 --> 00:24:50.279 to a 2008 book, State of Confusion, that argued 00:24:50.279 --> 00:24:52.519 political gaslighting is basically what you get 00:24:52.519 --> 00:24:55.660 when modern marketing techniques meet old school 00:24:55.660 --> 00:24:59.000 propaganda. It is. And the goal in politics often 00:24:59.000 --> 00:25:01.019 isn't even to make you love the leader. It's 00:25:01.019 --> 00:25:03.119 just to confuse you so much that you disengage 00:25:03.119 --> 00:25:05.539 entirely. If you don't know what's true anymore, 00:25:05.680 --> 00:25:07.539 you can't fight back effectively. You just give 00:25:07.539 --> 00:25:10.039 up. And we have to be really clear here. Our 00:25:10.039 --> 00:25:12.619 sources point out that this is a tool, not an 00:25:12.619 --> 00:25:14.779 ideology. It happens on both sides of the aisle. 00:25:15.019 --> 00:25:17.279 Absolutely. It's a tool of power, not a partisan 00:25:17.279 --> 00:25:20.140 policy. Anyone with the ambition to use it can. 00:25:20.440 --> 00:25:24.440 So on the right, journalists use the term constantly 00:25:24.440 --> 00:25:26.759 during the Trump years. It really exploded then. 00:25:26.839 --> 00:25:29.779 Things like alternative facts. The idea that 00:25:29.779 --> 00:25:32.440 you could just say the crowd size at the inauguration 00:25:32.440 --> 00:25:34.960 was the biggest in history, even when photos 00:25:34.960 --> 00:25:37.400 clearly showed empty space. That was a textbook 00:25:37.400 --> 00:25:39.960 example, a direct challenge to visual reality. 00:25:40.160 --> 00:25:42.660 The message was, don't believe your lying eyes. 00:25:42.720 --> 00:25:44.799 Believe what I tell you. But then you see it 00:25:44.799 --> 00:25:47.839 on the left, too. The sources point to a moment 00:25:47.839 --> 00:25:51.680 in 2025 when Jake Tapper on CNN asked Minnesota 00:25:51.680 --> 00:25:54.599 Governor Tim Walz if the Democratic Party had 00:25:54.599 --> 00:25:57.539 engaged in gaslighting the public regarding the 00:25:57.539 --> 00:26:00.440 2024 election. Right. The essence of the question 00:26:00.440 --> 00:26:03.950 was. For months, we were told everything was 00:26:03.950 --> 00:26:05.890 fine. The polling data said everything was fine. 00:26:06.049 --> 00:26:09.210 But now we see that it wasn't. Were we being 00:26:09.210 --> 00:26:11.730 managed? Were our perceptions being managed? 00:26:11.970 --> 00:26:14.470 So when any political party controls the official 00:26:14.470 --> 00:26:17.410 narrative so tightly that it starts to conflict 00:26:17.410 --> 00:26:19.269 with what voters are seeing and feeling with 00:26:19.269 --> 00:26:21.670 their own eyes, that's political gaslighting. 00:26:21.670 --> 00:26:23.549 That's the charge. But if we want to see the 00:26:23.549 --> 00:26:26.609 final boss of political gaslighting, the most 00:26:26.609 --> 00:26:30.130 extreme, terrifying example. We have to go to 00:26:30.130 --> 00:26:32.789 East Germany. The Stasi, the Ministry for State 00:26:32.789 --> 00:26:35.029 Security. The Stasi. I read about this technique 00:26:35.029 --> 00:26:37.450 they perfected, a method called Zersetzung. It 00:26:37.450 --> 00:26:40.089 translates to decomposition or biodegradation. 00:26:40.190 --> 00:26:41.950 Which is just a horrifying name for a government 00:26:41.950 --> 00:26:43.950 program targeting its own people. It's chilling. 00:26:44.130 --> 00:26:47.269 It was pure psychological warfare. See, in the 00:26:47.269 --> 00:26:50.910 1970s and 80s, the GDR, East Germany, wanted 00:26:50.910 --> 00:26:53.190 to look respectable to the West. They couldn't 00:26:53.190 --> 00:26:55.190 just keep arresting every dissident and throwing 00:26:55.190 --> 00:26:57.529 them in jail. It looked bad on international 00:26:57.529 --> 00:27:00.900 television. So they needed a quieter way to neutralize 00:27:00.900 --> 00:27:04.339 opposition. Exactly. They developed zersetzung 00:27:04.339 --> 00:27:07.200 to psychologically paralyze hostile negative 00:27:07.200 --> 00:27:09.859 people without ever having to arrest them. How 00:27:09.859 --> 00:27:12.859 on earth did they do it? They gaslit them. On 00:27:12.859 --> 00:27:16.039 an industrial scale, Stasi agents would break 00:27:16.039 --> 00:27:17.680 into a dissident's apartment while they were 00:27:17.680 --> 00:27:19.839 at work, but they wouldn't steal anything. That 00:27:19.839 --> 00:27:21.339 would be too obvious. So what would they do? 00:27:21.579 --> 00:27:24.079 They would move the furniture, just slightly, 00:27:24.359 --> 00:27:26.599 an inch to the left. They would take a picture 00:27:26.599 --> 00:27:28.400 off the wall and hang it on a different wall. 00:27:28.539 --> 00:27:30.180 They would change the time on the person's alarm 00:27:30.180 --> 00:27:32.059 clock so they'd be late for work. They would 00:27:32.059 --> 00:27:34.059 go into the kitchen and replace the brand of 00:27:34.059 --> 00:27:36.119 tea in the cupboard with a different brand. That 00:27:36.119 --> 00:27:38.380 is just maddening. You'd come home and your entire 00:27:38.380 --> 00:27:41.880 house would just feel long, off. Imagine that 00:27:41.880 --> 00:27:44.140 happening every single week. You tell your friends, 00:27:44.220 --> 00:27:46.180 I think someone is breaking into my apartment 00:27:46.180 --> 00:27:48.799 and moving my tea. Your friends look at you like 00:27:48.799 --> 00:27:51.519 you finally lost it. Why would the secret police 00:27:51.519 --> 00:27:53.920 break in just to change your brand of tea, Hans? 00:27:54.059 --> 00:27:56.779 You're just stressed. So you become totally isolated. 00:27:57.019 --> 00:27:59.000 You start to doubt your own memory, your own 00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:02.220 sanity. And they did more. They would order embarrassing 00:28:02.220 --> 00:28:05.299 items, like sex toys, to be delivered to the 00:28:05.299 --> 00:28:07.599 person's workplace to create shame and suspicion. 00:28:08.299 --> 00:28:10.680 They would send doctors to the person's home 00:28:10.680 --> 00:28:12.500 to tell them they were sick when they weren't. 00:28:12.519 --> 00:28:14.859 It's a complete manufactured reality. The goal 00:28:14.859 --> 00:28:18.619 was to induce a total crisis of confidence. They 00:28:18.619 --> 00:28:20.880 wanted the dissident to be so consumed by their 00:28:20.880 --> 00:28:24.079 own personal psychological chaos that they simply 00:28:24.079 --> 00:28:26.460 didn't have the mental or emotional energy to 00:28:26.460 --> 00:28:37.700 organize a protest. And it worked. The state 00:28:37.700 --> 00:28:40.319 never had to lay a hand on them publicly. It 00:28:40.319 --> 00:28:42.740 is the ultimate proof that gaslighting is a weapon 00:28:42.740 --> 00:28:46.779 of control. Okay. We have stared into the abyss. 00:28:46.779 --> 00:28:49.000 We've seen the Stassi. We've seen the bad therapists. 00:28:49.059 --> 00:28:52.359 We've seen the husbands in the attic. Now, for 00:28:52.359 --> 00:28:54.460 the listener who is sitting there and feeling 00:28:54.460 --> 00:28:56.220 a tightness in their chest, because some of this 00:28:56.220 --> 00:28:59.259 sounds way too familiar, we need to talk about 00:28:59.259 --> 00:29:02.259 habilitation. How do you get out? It's one of 00:29:02.259 --> 00:29:04.500 the hardest things a person can do. Breaking 00:29:04.500 --> 00:29:07.460 free is incredibly difficult because by definition, 00:29:07.559 --> 00:29:11.259 your primary escape tool, your own mind, your 00:29:11.259 --> 00:29:14.099 own judgment has been compromised. Right. You 00:29:14.099 --> 00:29:16.859 can't just trust your gut when your gut has been 00:29:16.859 --> 00:29:19.359 systematically retrained to distrust itself. 00:29:19.559 --> 00:29:22.359 Exactly. So trust yourself is actually terrible 00:29:22.359 --> 00:29:24.160 advice to start with. It's like telling someone 00:29:24.160 --> 00:29:26.480 with a broken leg to just walk it off. You need 00:29:26.480 --> 00:29:28.579 external tools. You need crutches. Okay. Give 00:29:28.579 --> 00:29:30.779 us the toolkit. What are the crutches? Step one, 00:29:30.859 --> 00:29:33.200 and this is the most important, the reality diary. 00:29:33.299 --> 00:29:35.599 You have to externalize your memory. You can't 00:29:35.599 --> 00:29:37.640 trust it, so write it down. When a conversation 00:29:37.640 --> 00:29:39.700 happens, when a promise is made, write it down 00:29:39.700 --> 00:29:43.059 immediately. Date, time, what was said, verbatim 00:29:43.059 --> 00:29:45.279 if you can. So when the gaslighter says two weeks 00:29:45.279 --> 00:29:47.119 later, I never said that, you're making that 00:29:47.119 --> 00:29:49.359 up, you can look at your book. You have a transcript. 00:29:49.680 --> 00:29:52.279 You have a transcript. And it's not for showing 00:29:52.279 --> 00:29:55.339 him or her. Don't argue with it. They'll just 00:29:55.339 --> 00:29:57.039 say you wrote it down wrong or you misheard. 00:29:57.460 --> 00:29:59.460 It's for you. It's a private anchor you can look 00:29:59.460 --> 00:30:02.460 at and say, I am not crazy. This happened. Okay, 00:30:02.559 --> 00:30:04.640 that makes sense. What's step two? Step two, 00:30:04.779 --> 00:30:09.160 the reality proxy. or what I call a board of 00:30:09.160 --> 00:30:12.140 directors. You need a trusted friend, a sister, 00:30:12.339 --> 00:30:15.619 a therapist, a good one who is completely outside 00:30:15.619 --> 00:30:18.079 the bubble of the relationship. Someone you can 00:30:18.079 --> 00:30:20.920 call and say, Am I crazy or is this really weird? 00:30:21.059 --> 00:30:23.579 Yes, and you have to be totally honest with them. 00:30:23.799 --> 00:30:26.119 People who are being gaslighted often hide the 00:30:26.119 --> 00:30:28.460 abuse because they feel ashamed or stupid. You 00:30:28.460 --> 00:30:30.599 have to open the books. Let someone else help 00:30:30.599 --> 00:30:33.019 validate your reality until you are strong enough 00:30:33.019 --> 00:30:35.380 to do it for yourself again. And what about the 00:30:35.380 --> 00:30:37.440 practical side? I feel like a lot of people stay 00:30:37.440 --> 00:30:40.000 because the gaslighter controls the money or 00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:42.750 the house. That is almost always part of the 00:30:42.750 --> 00:30:45.710 trap. Financial control is a huge component. 00:30:46.029 --> 00:30:49.369 So the habilitation plan must include a logistical 00:30:49.369 --> 00:30:52.950 exit strategy, quietly gathering important documents, 00:30:53.089 --> 00:30:54.970 saving a little bit of money in a secret account 00:30:54.970 --> 00:30:58.549 if you can. You cannot heal your mind while you 00:30:58.549 --> 00:31:00.730 are still dependent on the poison for your survival. 00:31:00.910 --> 00:31:03.170 It's a full rebuild of the self from the ground 00:31:03.170 --> 00:31:06.480 up. It is. But the ultimate goal, the thing you're 00:31:06.480 --> 00:31:09.079 working towards, is to reach a point where you 00:31:09.079 --> 00:31:11.559 don't need the other person to agree with you 00:31:11.559 --> 00:31:14.279 for your reality to be true. That's the heavy 00:31:14.279 --> 00:31:15.880 lift, isn't it? That's the final graduation. 00:31:16.420 --> 00:31:18.519 I know the light's dimmed. I don't need you to 00:31:18.519 --> 00:31:20.279 sign off on it. I know what I saw. I know what 00:31:20.279 --> 00:31:22.980 I heard. I know what I felt. That is the mantra. 00:31:23.220 --> 00:31:25.279 We've covered so much ground today, from the 00:31:25.279 --> 00:31:28.819 fog of 1938 London to the Google trends of 2022. 00:31:29.759 --> 00:31:32.059 from a single attic to the SCSI headquarters 00:31:32.059 --> 00:31:34.599 in Berlin. It's a journey through the fragility 00:31:34.599 --> 00:31:37.279 and the resilience of the human mind. And I think 00:31:37.279 --> 00:31:39.220 the reason this topic hits so hard for so many 00:31:39.220 --> 00:31:42.039 of us right now is that, in a weird way, we're 00:31:42.039 --> 00:31:44.380 all feeling a little bit like Paula in that house. 00:31:44.619 --> 00:31:47.500 How do you mean? Well, look at our world. Deepfakes. 00:31:48.059 --> 00:31:51.700 AI -generated images. Social media algorithms 00:31:51.700 --> 00:31:54.519 that feed you a completely different news reality 00:31:54.519 --> 00:31:56.920 than the person living next door to you. We are 00:31:56.920 --> 00:31:59.099 living in that state of confusion. We absolutely 00:31:59.099 --> 00:32:01.680 are. The entire modern information ecosystem 00:32:01.680 --> 00:32:04.740 is in some ways designed to make us question 00:32:04.740 --> 00:32:07.279 what is true. So the provocative thought I kind 00:32:07.279 --> 00:32:10.240 of want to leave everyone with is this. In an 00:32:10.240 --> 00:32:13.420 era where reality itself is constantly being 00:32:13.420 --> 00:32:17.140 edited, filtered and spun. are we all being slightly 00:32:17.140 --> 00:32:19.759 gaslighted by the sheer volume of the noise? 00:32:19.920 --> 00:32:22.339 It's a very valid fear. It's hard to find a solid 00:32:22.339 --> 00:32:24.299 footing. And if so, then the lesson from that 00:32:24.299 --> 00:32:26.220 old black and white movie is maybe the only one 00:32:26.220 --> 00:32:28.680 that matters anymore. When the lights dim, don't 00:32:28.680 --> 00:32:30.859 let anyone, no matter how powerful or convincing 00:32:30.859 --> 00:32:33.480 they are, tell you they didn't. Trust your eyes. 00:32:33.599 --> 00:32:35.839 Trust your eyes. That's it for this deep dive. 00:32:36.180 --> 00:32:37.759 Take care of yourselves, and we'll see you in 00:32:37.759 --> 00:32:38.099 the next one.