Kids on Fire: How Gaslighting is Fueling Bullying

In 1940, and again in 1944, playwright Patrick Hamilton’s masterpiece Gas Light (1938) was adapted into a whirlwind film, first by British director, Thorold Dickinson (1940), and then in America by MGM (1944). The plot is filled with the psychological abuses propagated against Paul’s wife, Bella; and thus today, we have the psychological term gaslighting which means: the psychological abuse of another which causes them to doubt their own sanity.

Over the next couple of weeks, we’re going to talk about the growing phenomenon of gaslighting in all its nefarious forms. We’re going to start today with a subject that is dear to my heart: bullying in school.

One of the first recorded cases of school violence was in Bethel, Alaska in 1997, where sixteen year old Evan Ramsey entered the school with a loaded Mossberg 500 12 gauge shotgun. But, how did that happen? What led to the tragic day of February 19, 1997?

Evan was a frequent target of bullying. That’s what all the newspapers said, but what did that even mean? Kids can be mean; right? It should have been fine. He should have grown out of it. He should have been able to handle it and move on with his life.

The key phrase is “frequent target of bullying”. Prolonged exposure to abuse leads to toxic stress, and toxic stress leads to fight or flight – otherwise known as violence or suicide.

Gaslighting itself is mostly associated with domestic abuse. However, it applies to any relationship – including friends and schoolmates. It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s something that grows so subtly it’s hard to pinpoint just when it began in any individual situation.

Signs (adapted from the National Domestic Abuse Hotline):

Withholding: The bully pretends not to understand or refuses to listen. For example: Holding the relationship hostage. This is a form of negative peer pressure. The bully baits the victim into believing they are their friend and wants them in their circle, but in reality is attempting to control the victim by forcing them to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do; except for a deep-seated desire to be included. The bully feeds on the victim’s desire to be cool or included. The bully pretends they don’t understand, or refuses to listen to the victim’s rational thoughts behind not wanting to do the things the bully wants them to.

Countering: The bully questions the victim’s memory of events, even when the victim remembers them accurately. For example: Countering is blaming or scapegoating. When things get hot, the bully is one step ahead of the victim. The bully will twist the words of the victim in an attempt to make the victim (and others) believe it was the victim's fault. In the bully’s telling of the events, the bully becomes the victim.

Blocking/Diverting: The bully changes the subject and/or questions the victim’s thoughts. For example: The victim questions the bully’s story of events, and the bully either changes the subject – nullifying the victim’s point of view, or engages in belittling the victim – most often in front of others. The bully oftentimes in blocking or diverting will tell the victim they are paranoid or imagining things. This is often related to the victim’s questioning of the relationship between the bully and themselves, when the victim realizes that something is wrong.

Trivializing: The bully makes the victim’s needs or feelings seem unimportant. For example: When the victim questions the bully, the bully retaliates with name calling and shaming – again, usually in front of others. When trivializing starts, this is where it becomes dangerous for the victim in respect to toxic stress. They are already questioning what is happening, and second-guessing their thoughts and feelings.

Forgetting/Denial: The bully pretends to have forgotten what actually occurred or denies things like promises made to the victim. For example: The bully promised to hang-out with the victim at a specified place and time, and then pretends to have forgotten, or denies ever making the promise.

In gaslighting, the narratives above are not isolated incidents. They go on every day, sometimes for months or years. The prolonged exposure to them causes the victim to become confused, anxious, isolated and depressed. At the point of no-return, the victim will lose all sense of what is really happening to them.

Contrary to adult victims of gaslighting, kids generally won’t reach out for help until the ambulance shows up – either at the school after an act of violence, or to take them to the hospital after a failed suicide attempt.

As parents, grandparents, teachers and other trusted adults in the world, it is our responsibility to understand what gaslighting is and how it plays a role in school bullying; to recognize the signs and then to do something constructive about it. Our kids are involved in a game of psychological warfare that they have no idea how high the stakes really are – until it’s too late.

Sticks and Bones Synopsis

Available on Amazon for 99 Cents

I am very excited today! The new cover for "Sticks and Bones" has been completed!

I have to say I was skeptical of the whole Amazon Kindle publishing process at first, but after two months of using it I now wish I had done this from the beginning. I have now joined the thousands of Indie publishers and I have no regrets.

"Sticks and Bones" is my first published novel. A murder mystery that is directed towards the 16+ audience that takes the reader on a journey through the modern American high school.

Set in the small(ish) town of West Fargo, North Dakota, Detective Marcia Grant finds herself in the midst of an investigation no detective, male or female, wants to be involved; the murder of a high school student with no apparent motive.

Detective Grant finds out that high school isn't for the meek or timid. You have to be pretty enough, thin enough, strong enough, straight enough, and brave enough just to make it through the day unscathed. But is this daily struggle enough to constitute murder?

Small towns have a unique attribute in that everyone knows everyone and everything about everyone; mostly. Clyde Jourdaine knows this more than any other resident of the community. He's a hateful old man whose abusive demeanor has caused his children to abandon him after the death of their mother leaving him with with a farmstead to maintain on his own. Falling victim to his alcoholism, Clyde moves into town abandoning the farmstead which becomes the party place of choice for the A-List students. And also the scene of a brutal murder with no real suspect; except Clyde.

The holiday season becomes one of suspicious eyes and whispered accusations with no arrests in sight. Detective Grant and her team of investigators, whom are no more than your average beat cop, work around the clock tracking down dead-end leads. The investigation, even with the assistance of the Fargo Police Department CSI team, is botched from the beginning with key pieces of evidence overlooked due to inexperience with homocide cases. West Fargo hadn't had a murder case in fifty years and Fargo's last murder had been fifteen years ago.

While back tracking over the crime scene, Officer Jonathon Drake engages in an explosive, violent episode with Detective Grant and disappears without a trace; casting suspicion on himself. Without Jonathon, Marcia is left with rookie officer, Bruce Jefferson, and a veteran officer, Arnie Paulson who's biding his time to retirement.

"Sticks and Bones" allows the reader to identify with each character as friends, neighbors, leaders and followers we all love to hate. But which character will act on their love hate relationships is a mystery that unfolds and promises an ending the reader will never forget.

Sticks and Bones is currently available on Amazon for Kindle and Kindle Apps. The print version will be available the week of June 16th for $8.99. Get your Kindle version today for 99 cents before the price goes back to the original published price of $2.99.  It will be made available for Nook and other e-readers on Smashwords after the print version is released.

The Realism of Characters

I am the analytical reader and writer. Everything I read is thoroughly analyzed for realism. With that said, it should be a given that everything I write is also analyzed for realism.

I'm often questioned by young people, who are also aspiring to be authors, why can't characters just be whatever you want them to be or do whatever you want them to. The answer is quite simple - if the character is not believable then the story is not believable. If the story is not believable it will not sell. Today, although many readers are reading for escapism, they still require a certain degree of realism in order to be able to relate to the characters and the events that occur in the story.

My first finished full-length novel, "Sticks and Bones" is written with a stark dose of realism to drive home a point to young people. I won't give a story spoiler here, but in order to write for young people they need to be able to see themselves in the story. Not always as they are in their own real life, but even as they might be in a fantasy story. "Sticks and Bones", a mystery crime thriller for young adults, required a certain amount of realism regarding high school students of today and why they do what they do in order to spark the interest of young people.

It was a fascinating adventure spanning four years immersed in the world of high school students of today so that I could demonstrate that realism in the book. This, in itself, is a testament to why characters can't just be what you want them to be. In this particular case they had to be as real as the reader and the friends of the reader. The characters of the book and their worlds are easily identified in the lives of the readers. A young adult will be able to say, "That sounds just like so-and-so," a person well-known to themselves. At the same time, I had to create adult characters that were just as realistic as the high school students of the story. If I had not created these realistic characters neither adults or young adults would understand the crime and why it occured thus diminishing the point of the book.

"Sticks and Bones" has yet to be published, however, I am hopeful that it will be picked up by a traditional publishing house and disseminated across the world. As arrogant as it might sound, I feel that the message carried in this book will send it soaring to the top of the readers lists all around the world.

The novel I am currently working on, "The Ten Thousand Hands Project" will astound even the most critical or skeptical reader. It is a work of fiction that has a very real place in the world in which we live. It will cause readers the world over to take pause and question what they honestly believe to be true in the world and what they don't. Why? Because of the realistic nature of the characters. Building characters is difficult. Characters require knowing everything about them - what they like or don't like and why they do or don't like those things; what are their physical attributes as well as their psychological attributes and how do each of these connect with the world in which they live - a world that must be created by the author with just as much realism as the characters themselves.

"The Ten Thousand Hands Project" is the prequel to the series, "The Malakai Chronicles". There are fantasy books, books on the occult, books based on religious history - but there are few books out there that touch the subject matter in "The Ten Thousand Hands Project" or "The Malakai Chronicles". I am hopeful for publication with this series as well and know that it will take the reader world by storm.