At his hearing yesterday on Capitol Hill, the nation’s secretary of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr. proved in plain sight and with gusto, that he is a gold medal, Olympic-level, champion gaslighter.
In fact, gaslighting may be his best sport, trumping his mastery of falconry, white-water rafting, and weightlifting. That’s because he is excellent at manipulating facts, telling anyone — even Nobel Prize-winning scientists, vast numbers of brilliant medical experts from around the world and absolutely anyone who disagrees with him — that he is right, and they are wrong. That’s confusing, and even immoral, because it is he who has presented — to an alarming, and yes, dangerous, extent — information he knows is not true.
RFK Jr. is a gaslighting genius, twisting the facts at an unprecedentedly dangerous level: People’s lives are at stake when you’re manipulating medical information that can mean the difference between life and death. He wants you to believe that you’re the crazy person, you’re inept, you have the wrong science. But — in fact, and in reality — you know better! And he is the one who’s off-base, and out of balance with the truth.
Chat GPT defines gaslighting as “a form of psychological manipulation where someone tries to make another person doubt their own memory, perception or judgment.”
The way it works is that the gaslighter denies, unflinchingly, that events occurred, never really happened, or that conversations did not take place, when they did. Or, in the case of RFK JR, fake versions of the truth get called reality.
When you’re in the grip of a gaslighter, you’ll be questioning your feelings by being told you’re “overreacting”, “too sensitive,” or “just wrong” — which is what RFK often says. And here’s the worst part of the whole gaslighting gig: it happens when you’re accused of the very thing the gaslighter is guilty of doing to you.
You become confused, you doubt your own truth, and find yourself wondering if you’re crazy, when deep inside, of course you know you’re not….right?
Romance, marriage, and any relationship, really — including the workplace — are fertile grounds for a gaslighter, so be on your toes. Because these days, gaslighting has become a dizzying and difficult dimension of our lives. Much of the current media content features story lines around it: TV shows, movies, and social media all reflect its widespread recognition.
And worst of all, think of all the women in the #METOO movement who are victims of gaslighting to such an extent that it nearly — and sometimes did — destroy their lives, causing profound trauma and excruciatingly complex recoveries. (Jeffrey Epstein’s entire world was centered around the flames of gaslighting; Ghislaine Maxwell is his premier protégée.)
Power. Control. Deception. These are the gaslighter’s goals. So what can you do to avoid being gaslit? Keep an eye out for some red flags:
- Someone keeps saying what you heard or saw never happened
- Your feelings get denied with a lack of empathy and/or lack of validation
- When in conflict, the blame is shifted onto you
- You walk away from a conversation feeling confused, doubting yourself, or feeling guilty for something you never thought you did wrong
And what do you do when this happens?
You take stock of exactly who you are. You anchor yourself by leaning on trusted friends, family, and facts. Keep notes if necessary! Write down what you know is true. Save emails and any other proof of your reality. Create boundaries and by all means, step away.
Your protection is your own moral compass, the voice you know so well, that keeps track of right and wrong, that part of you that ultimately leads you to the center of who you are. And no one can take that away from you.
Nancy Steiner is a life/career coach who can be found at Steinercoachingsolutions.com
