Gaslighting is a form of manipulation that leads someone to question their own perception of reality. This form of psychological manipulation and emotional abuse makes a person question their memory and state of mind. It involves a deliberate deception of one’s memory and doubt of their mental stability.
There is a scarcity of valid reliable methods to measure the severity of gaslighting, because of its complex and subtle nature. Being a relatively new concept, there is a lack of conclusive investigative research making it difficult to assess.
Andrew Mayinja (not his real name), an acquaintance, shared what he went through during the lockdown, and his experience, characterized by visual and audio cues that followed a consistent pattern, had him doubting his sanity. With movement restricted and curfew as early as 7 pm, according to Andrew, it was relatively easy for the perpetrators to gaslight him prolongedly.
The perpetrators of this psychological manipulation and reasons for carrying it out are varied and could range from domestic abusers, political figures, governments, workplace colleagues, intelligence agencies, and even social media influencers, but ultimately are variations of the same theme.
While political figures might gaslight to manipulate public opinion and undermine the opposition, a co-worker could gaslight to undermine a colleague’s reputation while making him or herself appear more competent. They could also do the same to hide their inadequacies and shift focus to someone else.
Governments and Intelligence agencies may employ gaslighting techniques for propaganda and psychological operations, surveillance and monitoring, or disinformation campaigns. This could be to influence public opinion, direct thoughts, feelings, and behaviour of individuals, or to shape narratives.
To believe or not believe Andrew is a balancing act. Did he actually see the things he says he saw, or hear what he says heard, or was he mistaken about the things he remembered and his perception of the way events occurred skewed?
Gaslighting is so well disguised, that often, even the victim will find it difficult to realize it is taking place. Because it is covert, considerable effort is required to observe, investigate, and research. For someone who is not being gaslit, this might be too much to ask—awkward and inconvenient.
Besides, there is not much that a third party can do even after discovering a few tell-tale signs that indicate the victim is telling the truth. Â We like to watch TV shows where a character is being hounded, the more intense, the more interesting. However, interesting is the last thing that will cross your mind if the TV show Psycho crosses paths with you in the real world.
Could some of Andrew’s neighbours, for monetary gain, have been co-opted to participate in a clandestine exercise to which end, purpose, and severity they had no idea?
With the whole world in some form of lockdown and not much to do, Andrew took to exercising regularly to keep fit, but not before a healthy breakfast. One morning, he went down to the neighbourhood kiosk to buy some eggs for breakfast and found a fairly long queue, neighbours lined up to buy groceries.
As Andrew joined the queue, for no apparent reason, all but a few—some of them acquaintances—turned to look at him and laugh repeatedly. When he inquired what was funny, they only laughed harder. Clearly, he was the joke, and he knew not why.
This was not an isolated incident Andrew says. In various places, at random times, the above scenario repeated itself. And it was not just the laughter, as he went about his day-to-day business, he would catch onto bits of conversation of passersby or random people at the market, bits of conversation that he now in hindsight realizes were intentionally spoken out aloud intended for his ear.
These conversations were about someone with a similar name to his, making him wonder if it might be him being discussed. Sometimes, what he heard was about a family he knew or a close friend, and other times, it was about a number of his contacts.
This happened every other day, for the better part of the lockdown, and all these bits of information he picked up daily either insulted, looked down on, or had an abusive connotation to the subject in discussion.
When Andrew went jogging, he encountered runners wearing gear that had statements seemingly directed at him. He recalls passing a teenage jogger running past him wearing a vest with the wording ‘Andrew is such an ****’ plastered on the front of his shirt, and a few minutes later encountering a lady wearing a t-shirt with ‘Indeed Andrew is such an ****’ inscribed on her back.
In the following days, it would be a variation of his name, Drew, Stone (Mayinja), or Dre, with different offensive jabs aimed at him. And Andrew could not un-see or unread what he had seen. Was this a concerted community effort targeted at selected individuals?
As the lockdown came to an end, so did Andrew’s psychological torture. It is like they were never there. Did the perpetrators get away with it, or was Andrew just seeing things?
