Something You Should Know - The Real Science of Aliens, UFOs and Life On Other Planets & How to Handle Manipulative People

Episode Date: November 22, 2018

You most likely have a preference for either a neat or a cluttered work environment. So which is better? Well it depends on what type of work you are doing. Those two types of environments have an impact on you that affect your thinking. We begin this episode by exploring that. https://www.medicaldaily.com/clean-environment-leads-healthier-behavior-messy-desk-inspires-creativity-249383 What are the chances that there is life on other planets? Have aliens visited earth? There is no shortage of speculation on the topic and a lot of anecdotal stories about encounters but what does the science say? Michael Wall, senior writer at Science.com and author of the book Out There: A Scientific Guide to Alien Life, Antimatter, and Human Space Travel (For the Cosmically Curious) (https://amzn.to/2S9oJl7) joins me to examine the possibilities and the evidence of other life in our galaxy. Have you ever seen someone talking to themselves on the street or in a store? Your immediate reaction is probably to think it is really weird. But in fact you most likely talk to yourself out loud all the time. We all do. In fact there are several common behaviors we all do that we somehow think are strange when we see other people do them. We’ll explore what they are and why we think this way. http://mentalfloss.com/article/54126/6-embarrassing-things-you-do-and-why The world is full of manipulative people who try to control other people’s thoughts and/or actions. You most likely have come across some of them at work or in your personal life. These people have a name – Gaslighters. And since we all have to deal with them at some point, Stephanie Sarkis, licensed mental health counselor and author of the book Gaslighting (https://amzn.to/2S0NMXa) offers a fascinating explanation of who these people are, what they do, why they act this way and what you can do to identify and avoid them.  This Week's Sponsors -LinkedIn Talent For $50 off your first job posting go to www.LinkedIn.com/podcast -Robinhood Go to http:something.robinhood.com to get your free account and receive a share of stock! -BetterHelp For 10% off your first month of counseling go to www.BetterHelp.com/something, promo code SOMETHING -Stitch Fix For an additional 25% off when you keep all the items in your box go to www.StitchFix.com/something -Madison Reed For 10% off plus free shipping on your first order go to www.Madison-Reed.com/something Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on Something You Should Know, neat or cluttered? Which is a better work environment? Well, it may depend on what you're trying to accomplish. Then, are there aliens among us? Is there life on other planets? What does the science say? There's probably 100 billion stars in our galaxy, and if 25% of them, and that's a conservative estimate, you might have a habitable planet, and you're talking about 25 billion habitable planets. I mean, when you get into the numbers game, it's just overwhelming. Also, I'm sure you talk to yourself out loud. Everyone does. So why do we think it's so weird when we see other people do it? And manipulative people. They try to make you think you're wrong and they're right. They're called gaslighters. For gaslighters, lying is

like breathing. And the only way they know how to interact with people is through manipulation. So if you try to leave, the gaslighter will say, everything will be different this time. Please come back. That's called hoovering, just like the vacuum. They're trying to suck you back in. All this today on Something You Should Know. As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know was all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on

Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu. She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Something You Should Know.

Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome. This episode of Something You Should Know is being released in the early hours of Thanksgiving morning. So if you're listening on Thanksgiving, happy Thanksgiving. And if you're listening after Thanksgiving, well, I hope you had a good one.

First up today, neat or messy, which is better? Albert Einstein was quoted as saying that if a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, what then of an empty desk? When he said that, he was defending his own habit of being less than neat. But what does science say about messiness and neatness? For an experiment, volunteers were placed in either a clean, organized room or a cluttered, messy room. They were then asked to complete a series of tasks in these rooms, such as choosing a snack, donating money,

or figuring out different uses for a ping-pong ball. Results revealed that both rooms had measurable effects on those tasks. For instance, those people placed in a neat room ended up more likely to donate to charity or choose healthy snacks. Those in the messy rooms, meanwhile, tended to outperform their neater counterparts in creative tasks. When the volunteers were asked to choose between a new product or an older, well-known product, those in the cluttered room chose the new product more often, while those in the orderly room went for the classic, more reliable item.

According to the lead researcher, these results suggest a neat atmosphere encourages convention and playing it safe, while messy environments seem to inspire breaking free of tradition, which can produce insight. Okay, that's fine, but being messy also has its downside. Several studies have shown that a messy environment causes stress, and an organized home has been linked to improved levels of happiness. So you can argue both sides of the issue. And that is something you should know. A topic I've never discussed before on this podcast is UFOs and are there aliens out there?

Because, well, the conversation can get a little wacky. Yes, there are plenty of people who claim to have seen a UFO and have encountered aliens, but the hard evidence that these events really involve creatures from another planet, it's pretty sparse. And I've always believed that if aliens are going to come all the way to Earth from some galaxy far, far away, why would they do that? Why make the trip and then just visit a guy sitting in a rowboat in a swamp in the middle of the night? Why not just land the spaceship at noon in the middle of Times Square and say, we're here? Still, it's an intriguing idea that there is life out there, whether or not any of these

life forms have traveled to Earth. So what does the real science say? Joining me to discuss that is Michael Wall. He's a senior writer at Space.com, whose work has appeared in Scientific American and on NBC television, and he is author of the book Out There, a scientific guide to alien life, antimatter, and human space travel for the cosmically curious. Hey, Michael, welcome. Hi, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. You bet. So, since you're a science guy, where do you come down on this topic?

Have we been visited by aliens? Are there aliens out there? What's your take? There's a lot going on right now that's kind of like reshaping our own thoughts about our own place in the universe and whether we might be alone. And I mean, I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't think that the US government has found aliens and is kind of hiding them away in a meat locker in Area 51 or anything like that. But what we found out over the past few years

is that there are a lot of exoplanets out there that might be suitable for some form of life, probably like, I mean, little microbes and stuff like that. And there are even worlds in our own solar system that might be habitable. That's stuff that we've just been learning in the last decade or so. So my own personal hunch is that I think that we're not alone. There's just too many stars out there with planets, too many planets that actually might be good for life. And then, I mean, based on what happened here on Earth, I mean, microbes got started here on Earth about four billion years ago. So that was pretty much as soon as our planet had cooled down enough after its

formation to actually support life, that's when life got going. So that suggests that it's not that hard for that to happen, which further suggests that it's probably happened elsewhere too. But it's still speculation. Right, because just because it's possible doesn't mean we have evidence of it. Yeah, I mean, I don't think that we found evidence of a visitation or of intelligent life. I mean, people have been looking for that. And I mean, I know there, there are a lot of people out there who, who, who, who see strange things in the sky or claim to

have been visited. And I'm not discounting those people and saying that they're crazy or they have ulterior motives or anything like that. I just don't think that, that the evidence for intelligent life is like kind of meets that standard that, that we can accept that it's out there. I mean, we're trying to find it, and I'm optimistic that it's out there somewhere, but I don't think that we've found any conclusive signs of intelligent life yet. What about non-intelligent life? Yeah, that's an interesting question. There are some people out there who claim that we have found evidence of it.

They're a group of scientists who still think like the Viking Mars missions back in the 70s They actually found evidence of of some kind of microbial life on Mars And I mean most scientists don't think so so that there are reputable Scientists who think that we we may well have have already found evidence of some kind of alien microbes I mean chiefly Mars microbes. But yeah, it's just the standard of proof is so high. And this is one of those finds that will go down in human history as maybe the greatest scientific discovery ever. So there's a huge hurdle to sort of clear for that to be accepted. You know, this is one of the epical discoveries of all time that we're talking about.

Scientists aren't just going to be like, yeah, that's probably right. They're going to demand something really convincing. The conversation about life elsewhere, is there any sense of when that started? You know, I mean, is this a fairly recent phenomenon with the advent of modern science? People started to think, hey, well, maybe there's something out there. Or have people been speculating about this for, you know, thousands of years? Or is it somewhere in the middle or what? Yeah, this goes back to the ancient Greeks, pretty much. They were looking up in the skies and kind of thinking about what might be out there. And that's been an undercurrent, I mean, throughout scientific thought for ever since then. But it had always been kind of a fringe proposition or a fringe field.

But that's really changed in the last 15, 20 years or so. And that's the result of some discoveries we've made. I mean, we know there's a ton of exoplanets out there. I mean, every star that you see in the sky on average has at least one star. And probably 25% of those stars have a planet in the habitable zone that's about the same size as our own planet. So like a world that we think might be capable of actually supporting life as we know it. And that's just a huge number. I mean, you're talking about there's probably 100 billion stars in our galaxy. And if 25% of them, and that's a conservative estimate, might have a habitable planet, and you're talking about 25 billion habitable planets. I mean, when you get into the numbers game, it's just overwhelming.

And so people have started taking this seriously. And we, I mean, this is something that's just dawned on us in the last 10 or 15 years. I mean, people always kind of suspected that there were a lot of planets out there, but it's one thing to suspect and it's another thing to go find them. And that's what scientists really started to do in the last decade or so. But just because planets have life on them, and the numbers seem staggering, that the chances are so likely, doesn't necessarily mean they have spaceships, and silver suits, and helmets.

It just means there could be plant life, there could be dinosaurs, there could be microbes. I mean, it's a big jump to go from there's life on other planets to we must have been visited. Yeah, yeah. And that's a really good point because, I mean, if you look at our own Earth, I mean, life got going here probably about 4 billion years ago. But it stayed microbial only for actually more than 3 billion years after that. So we don't see animals in the fossil record. I mean, multicellular organisms don't start popping up

until about 600 million years ago. So there was a long stretch of like 3.4 billion years where there were only microbes on Earth. And that suggests that, I mean, while it might not be too hard for microbial life to get going, there is some like pretty high hurdle that you have to cross to actually start forming animals, plants, complex organisms. And then there are all these other hurdles along the way. I mean, after that happened, it still took hundreds of millions of years for us to evolve. You know, I mean, we're only here, I mean, our species is probably about 200,000

years old. And only in the last 100 years have we become truly technological. So I mean, life on Earth, it took probably about 4 billion years from when the first microbes got going to the time when we are capable of actually reaching out to other planets, I mean, building spaceships, sending radio waves out into space, that's taken 4 billion years. So it seems like that's a pretty hard thing to do. Can science, do you think, with its very high bar, can it just write off all of the UFO sightings and the alien contact, all the stories of, you know, I was captured by an alien? Is it just human nature that people will be people and they'll make stuff up like that, or they'll be delusional and actually think that? And science

can just say, uh-uh. I don't want to discount people's personal experiences. I don't claim to know what people think they saw or what like happened when somebody had a traumatic experience or thought they were visited. I mean, what I will say, though, is that people need to keep an open mind. I mean, I think like a year and a half ago or so, it hit the news. It was a big story that these Navy pilots, so there was that footage of that weird light blob thing, like zooming off of the coast of San Diego. And it was seen by like Navy pilots and nobody knew

what it was. It was on the front page of New York Times. I mean, I'm not somebody who would immediately just claim that that's nothing and that we shouldn't investigate it. I mean, I don't think that that that that was an alien spacecraft. I think there are probably other explanations for what it could have been. But I think what people just need to keep an open mind and actually think about that as like a real possibility and to investigate it. Don't just like dismiss it out of hand. You know, I think that's, that's important. And that's, that's part of a scientific mindset is to not just, just like dismiss one hypothesis out of hand because it seems weird or crazy. Michael Wall is my guest. He is a senior writer at space.com and he's author of the book Out There, A Scientific Guide to Alien Life, Antimatter,

and Human Space Travel for the Cosmically Curious. So, Michael, it seems that every discussion about aliens and UFOs at some point always comes back to Area 51, that this place in the desert, Area 51, is where the government has something going on they've captured an alien and they're keeping it there and so what is area 51 and why is it so tied to this discussion it is a real facility and yeah it was a military facility i mean i think it still is and it's like over the years it was pretty much like an advanced aircraft testing facility, which would explain all the secrecy.

They were developing military aircraft technology there, and there were signs up for people to stay out. And it was all cryptic, and nobody would talk about what was happening there because they were actually developing advanced military technology there. And when you have secrecy, that's when you can get conspiracy theories. And so that's like the kernel at yeah like at the heart of the area 51 myth there there are no alien spacecraft there there are no alien bodies there that also speaks to to who we are as a species we like i mean our like brains like to connect dots that aren't necessarily there and of course if the dots form a very interesting picture then we seize on them it's just more fun to actually believe that there's something crazy going on there. It just makes us happy.

It makes us excited to think about. And I think that's sort of part of the psychology that goes into these conspiracy theories, too. Even if there is life on other planets, aren't they so far away that to go there would be, I mean, impossible because it would take hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of years to go there would be, I mean, impossible because it would take hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of years to get there. Yeah. I mean, with our current technology, just to give you like a little perspective, the closest star, Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the sun is about 4.2 light years away. I mean, it doesn't sound like a lot, but like a light year is very, very far. And it would take us about 100,000 years if we launched like a traditional spacecraft with a chemical rocket that's how long it would take for us to actually

get there people are trying to find i mean trying to invent faster technology faster propulsion technology but we aren't really close to anything that would be capable of like propelling humans at any kind of fraction of the speed of light, which is what we'd need. Yeah, that is one explanation for possibly why we haven't gotten a visit. Because even if these intelligent aliens are out there, it would just be so hard to go across all the huge depths of space. And you'd have to be really motivated to actually do it, to spend all that energy and all that time. And it's just unclear if the reason that we haven't had a visit

is because there's nobody out there at least nobody around in our neighborhood or if there just hasn't been significant motivation for them to mount that kind of mission which would take so much time and so much effort i mean a lot of people who actually wonder about why we haven't been visited with all those numbers that we were talking about earlier if it seems like there should be somebody out there why haven't we gotten any peeps out of them or any visits? And yeah, that's just one of the possible explanations. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast.

And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back,

and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Rob Benedict. And I am Richard Spate. We were both on a little show you might know called Supernatural. It had a pretty good run, 15 seasons, 327 episodes.

And though we have seen, of course, every episode many times, we figured, hey, now that we're wrapped, let's watch it all again. And we can't do that alone. So we're inviting the cast and crew that made the show along for the ride. We've got writers, producers, composers, directors, and we'll of course have some actors on as well, including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers. It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible.

The note from Kripke was, he's great, we love him, but we're looking for like a really intelligent Duchovny type. With 15 seasons to explore, it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes. So please join us and subscribe to Supernatural then and now. Often in the news, I saw something not too long ago. There's always the, you know, those blurry videos of people that take this thing up in the sky, and it looks like lights, and it disappears, and it's a UFO. It's an unidentified flying object.

And, of course, just because you can't identify something doesn't mean it's an alien. It just means you can't identify something. But does anybody ever follow up with those and figure out what they were? Or are a lot of those really, we have no idea? And that's a really good point. UFOs do exist because there are things people see that they can't identify. So it's not like those are myths. People do see things and they're like, what is that?

And if you can't identify it, it's a UFO. But yeah, there are astronomers out there who do sort of keep a catalog of those and try to check them out and try to figure out what people saw yeah usually it's actually a planet it's it's usually Venus or something you know because because people look up in the skies and they're they aren't like astronomers and they're not like totally clued into what's up there so they see a bright light and maybe they're they're like driving down a road or something it looks like the light's moving and they hadn't noticed it before i mean it turns out a lot of times that's actually a bright planet such as like venus or or actually saturn can get pretty bright too jupiter can get

pretty bright so that's what it is a lot of times i mean a lot of times it's it's an airplane or some other aircraft um that's usually what it turns out to be but i mean yeah i mean that being said there are cases over the years that people have investigated and still don't know what they were. I mean, it doesn't match up with the planet and it doesn't seem like it was an aircraft, but nobody really knows. And so, yeah, I mean, you can't discount everything and say we have all the answers to everything. There are still some sightings that people have actually looked into and don't really know what they were. But because they don't know what they were doesn't mean they were alien spacecraft coming to colonize and take us over. Right. I would agree with that very much. I mean,

just because we don't know what something is doesn't mean you should immediately jump to the most exotic explanation. Chances are that it's something that we just hadn't thought about here on Earth. That's far more likely than it was an alien spacecraft because i mean and yeah i mean if you think about it a little bit i mean alien spacecraft they would they would have to be incredibly advanced to actually make it here far more advanced than than we are so you would think that if they wanted to stay hidden from us then they could easily do that so it seems weird that they would sort of they would come here and stay hidden to most of us but expose themselves to a few people out in the boonies.

And for some strange reason, I mean, it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Yeah, right. Well, as I said in the beginning, they never land in Times Square. They're always out in a swamp or in some very rural area where hardly anybody is. And the person who's there either doesn't have a camera or manages to get some very blurry images that, yeah, sort of maybe look like, I guess that could be an alien. Yeah, yeah. And if an alien spaceship did descend on Times Square and 500,000 people got pictures of it with their cell phone, then we could talk. You're right.

Okay, now that's what I call proof. That's really something. And it is interesting that, in popular culture anyway, that there is sort of a theme commonality of what aliens might look like. And I wonder where that comes from. Is it just somebody's creation? I mean, why do people think they would look so different than us? Or would they look different than us? Or? Yeah, that those are all really interesting questions. And I mean, I think there are a couple answers to the like, why do we think that they that they look like us sort of thing? I mean, first of all, because in the golden age of sci fi, which is really started in the 50s, and went through the 60s with Star Trek and all those shows. I i mean there was no cgi back then really so you had to have like a human in a costume playing an alien so it was

just easier and it was a lot cheaper to just paint their faces blue or put some bumps on them or give them horns or something but they still had like a very humanoid shape because that just was practical so that kind of became enshrined as like as as like, sort of as the alien. And I mean, we relate more to creatures we can identify with in stories and film. So if we see something that's so alien, it doesn't kind of grab us. I mean, if you do a show about a sentient blob of gas or something where it's just not going to hook us as much as if, if the protagonist kind of looks like us and acts like us us and we can identify with it. Where are we now and where are we headed with space travel in general? It doesn't seem like we

do a whole lot of it like we used to, or at least it doesn't get the press that it used to. But I mean, there are people on the space station. I mean, there's stuff going on. So what's it look like? Are there any big advances in space travel? There's a lot going on in the private space sector. Obviously, Elon Musk is an obvious one. I mean, SpaceX, they are working to actually get a human settlement going on Mars. Elon Musk wants to have like a million-person city on Mars in the next century or so. And he's serious about that.

That's not a stunt. That's why he founded SpaceX in 2002 was for that reason. So that's really exciting. I don't know if it's going to happen as quickly or to the dramatic extent that that he hopes it does, but I would not like discount what they're trying to do at all. And there are other people with very deep pockets trying to accomplish similar things. I mean, Bezos, like the richest man in the world, has his own private spaceflight company, which is called Blue Origin. Like, they don't get as much press as SpaceX. They've been a little more under the radar. But they have similar aims.

I mean, they've said that their main goal is to get millions of people living and also working in space. And so they're also working to kind of get us out there in a sustainable way. I'm not sure when all this stuff is going to happen. People have been dreaming these sort of utopian space dreams for a while, but now there's people with deep pockets and advanced technology who are actually doing it. So I'm pretty optimistic about that as far as human settlement, going to the moon, going to Mars, getting off Earth for the first time in a real sustainable way. I think that's coming in the next generation or so.

So what keeps you up at night? What's the thing that you're most excited about when you look to the skies and look up at the stars? What is it that's really pumping you up? Based on what we've learned in the past 10 years or so, with like how many exoplanets there are, how many of them might be suitable for our own type of life? I mean, what we define life to be. And I mean, how many, there are a handful of places in our own solar system. There are these moons in the outer solar system, Jupiter moons, and it's like one moon of Saturn, two moons of Saturn, actually, that have subsurface oceans that could support life. I mean, I think that we're going to discover some sort of simple life fairly soon, maybe the next 10 years, 20 years. I mean, that's just a hunch. I'm just predicting it.

But I mean, I think we're getting to the place where we can actually be optimistic about that. And like we can mount missions that will really answer one of the most fundamental questions in the universe is are we alone? And that's what I'm most excited about. I think we're in a good spot to actually start tackling this amazing question that people have been thinking about for thousands of years. One thing I meant to ask you about earlier, and because it's one thing for people out in the swamp to say, you know, they've been visited by aliens, but we do hear sometimes airline pilots see things, military pilots see things, and theoretically these people are more knowledgeable about what's out in the sky to see. So does anybody ever come back and say, well, yeah, we figured

that out or, or no, that's, we, we don't know what he saw. Yeah. Yeah. And Dan, those are some of the sightings people take, take the most seriously. People who, who are used to looking at the sky and light and know what they're looking at most of the time. So yeah, if, if an airline pilot, military pilot sees something weird, then that, that would get a little more credence than just some person out in, out in the boonies who saw a weird light in the sky and wasn't sure what it was yeah and so the ufo investigators people who kind of try to get to the bottom of this um they like they would probably take like an airline pilot sighting a little more seriously and investigate it a little more rigorously maybe than the average sighting definitely and when they do

what happens typically yeah well i mean usually it turns out to be something like very prosaic just just like in most cases but yeah there are some that they haven't explained where they're not quite sure what it was and um and in some of those cases you know i mean it might be an advanced aircraft that was being tested by the military and moves really fast. And we're not sure where it came from, or like the government won't talk about it. That's always like a possibility too. And maybe, maybe even like military fighter pilots aren't privy to what that like machine is that was being tested and wouldn't know about its movements. That that's always a possibility when you're talking about like seeing sights in the sky. It's just important to keep an open mind, I think.

I don't think we should dismiss any of these out of hand. Well, like everyone else, I have looked up at the stars at night and wondered, are we alone? Will creatures come to visit us? Have they already? It kind of boggles the mind and it's fun to speculate, but it's also good to have a bit of a grounding in the science of it all. Michael Wall has been my guest. He is a senior writer at space.com and his book is called Out There, a scientific guide to alien life,

antimatter and human space travel for the cosmically curious. There's a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks for being here, Michael. No, no, I really appreciate it. You asked really good questions and yeah, that's really fun to his book in the show notes. Thanks for being here, Michael. No, no, I really appreciate it. You asked really good questions, and yeah, it's really fun to talk about.

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if you don't do what they want or think the way they do. There's a term for this. It's called gaslighting. And it refers to a play from the 1930s that was made into a movie in the 1940s called Gaslighting, with Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman, where the husband manipulates his wife to try to make her think she's going crazy by telling her that the lights that she sees flickering are not really flickering, that she is hearing and seeing things that aren't there when they clearly are, that she has somehow lost valuable items that he has purposely removed,

to the point where she can't trust herself anymore. She must trust him because she must be going crazy. Now, there is a book about this called Gaslighting by Stephanie Sarkis. She's a licensed mental health counselor who says that gaslighters use your own words against you, lie to your face, deny your needs, plot against you, turn family and friends against you, and more. I suspect you've come across these type of people or maybe even have them in your life today.

And Stephanie joins me to discuss this. Hi, Stephanie. Welcome. Thank you for having me. So my first question is, where's the line? Because we're all trying to manipulate and persuade other people. I mean, we're human and that's what we do. As we navigate through life, we try to get people to do what we want them to do. So when does it become abusive?

Because we're all manipulating others to some extent. That's an excellent point. We all use influence to get what we want. We see that in advertising, we see that in sales. Again, yes, we do that to each other too. This is where it's used deliberately to abuse people, to control. And usually when we're using influence, we're not trying to control or abuse people. We're just trying to get them to see our way. This is very different. This is taking someone's reality and completely lying about it and turning it on its head and blatantly lying to the point where you don't notice the little lies because they seem so inconsequential compared to the huge lies you're being told.

So it has a whole different flavor to it. So give me an example. Sure. Someone saying that what you saw or heard never happened. Someone hiding their stuff and then blaming you for you stealing it or hiding it on them when they in fact did it. Also pitting you against people saying, you know, so-and-so said something about you. And instead of going to so-and-so, you just get mad at that person. And that's what the gaslighter wants. The gaslighter wants you to get mad at other people so you cling closer to the gaslighter.

Also, sabotaging you at work, taking credit for your work. But it goes beyond that. It's also going to the boss and lying to the boss about something that you didn't do. Also, telling you things would be better if only you did blank. This happens a lot, especially couples I see in therapy. One will say, well, if you just fix this person, then everything will be fine. That's a tip off to me that there's some gaslighting going on. So why is it, and I don't know if there's any numbers or what percentage of the people are gaslighters, but why would I do this? Why would I, other than to just be a jerk,

why would I tell you something that isn't true or sabotage you? I mean, why do people do this? For gaslighters, lying is like breathing. It's essential to their well-being. And the only way they know how to interact with people is through manipulation. They do something called cognitive empathy. And what that means is they'll express to you feelings, but they aren't really feeling them. They'll express feelings the way that they think you want to hear them. So they may apologize for something, but it's not a heartfelt apology. It's an apology that's made

in order to get you back into their grasp. So if you try to leave, the gaslighter will say, everything will be different this time. Please come back. That's called hoovering, just like the vacuum. They're trying to suck you back in because when gaslighters no longer

have that narcissistic attention, they will seek it out. And again, they'll try to get you back in the relationship. So I tell people, if you're leaving a gaslighter, you need to go no contact, no phone calls, no emails, block all of that, because the person will try to get you back if they haven't already moved on. So from the perspective of the person on the receiving end of this, help me understand what that's like. What does it feel like? What beginning of the relationship, gaslighters will do something called love bombing. They will tell you how wonderful you are, and that feels good to anybody, but the gaslighter overdoes it. They'll push for commitment very quickly. But then you fall off that pedestal they placed you on. And then they do something called devaluing, which means you can do nothing right no matter

how hard you try. The gaslighter will tell you that you're not paying enough attention to them, that you need to quit your job and pay more attention to them, but that need will never get filled. So you're in this constant struggle of trying to fill somebody's needs are never going to be met. And it's incredibly frustrating for people. Well, and this gets back to my first question, I guess, is to where is the line? Because the things that you just mentioned, you know, lying, I mean, people do things to try to get their way sometimes, but that doesn't make them a gaslighter. Right. We can lie just once in a while because we're human, right?

But this is a pattern of behavior. So, yeah, when you leave a relationship and you want to get back with that person, you say, oh, things will be different this time. And you could really mean it. But a gaslighter, it's a means to an end. There's a big difference between I'm going to work on changing this and I just want you back so I can fulfill that need to get attention. It's a whole different scheme. And it also depends on what behaviors led up to that. So if you do have someone saying that what you saw and heard isn't real, that's a real tip off. You're with a gaslighter rather than just someone that just occasionally tells you white lies. What about in an argument when someone says, well, that's not what I said?

That sort of sounds gaslighting, but that's not really gaslighting because that could just be a legitimate difference between what I said and what you heard. That's not gaslighting. And even if you tell your partner, hey, I have an issue with this thing you did and let's talk about it. That's not gaslighting. And even if you tell your partner, hey, I have an issue with this thing you did, and let's talk about it. That's not gaslighting. But telling someone, I don't like the color of your eyes, or you need to lose weight, that's more gaslighting type behavior. And again, we have to look at the whole scheme of their behaviors. But if you did have a concern with your partner's weight, you say, hey, can we talk about this? I'm really concerned about your health. You don't go up to them and just make a really crass comment about their weight.

And so it really depends on how it's done and also the motivation behind it. And again, when the gaslighter makes comments and criticisms, it's to control you rather than to work together to solve an issue. I don't like the color of your eyes. Really? They'll even get into that type of behavior because what they're trying to do is they're trying to just set you off. They want to keep you off kilter because what the other thing they do is they'll criticize you and then compliment you in the next sentence.

And that's really confusing because gaslighters, they may act bad, you know, 80% of the time, but 20% of the time they could be fine. And that's what gets people kind of reeled into these relationships is because the people aren't bad all the time they could be fine. And that's what gets people kind of reeled into these relationships is because the people aren't bad all the time. But my feeling is if the relationship's good 80% of the time and bad 20% and abusive, it's still an abusive relationship and it's best to get out. And one might wonder why you got into the relationship in the first place.

Or at least when this behavior started showing up, little sirens don't go off saying, I got to get out of this is nuts. I got to get out of here. Because these gaslighters are so good at hiding their behavior. There have even been people that are mental health specialists have gotten into these relationships because on the first date, again, these people act completely normal. They do cognitive empathy.

They look like they're completely normal. They're not sociopathic. They will act just the way you want them to. And then when they know that they've got you sucked into a relationship, then they'll start revealing these behaviors little by little because they cannot keep that mask of normalcy on for that long. You'll see it start slipping and they'll start trying to get into these behaviors. And the other interesting thing is even if you record these people saying stuff, if they've told you that what you heard isn't real and you show them the recording and have them listen to it, they'll still deny it. Even though you have undeniable proof in front of you, they'll say, well, you just misunderstood it.

Or they'll focus on the fact, why did you record me? Instead of the fact that they were blatantly lying to you. Do we have any numbers? I mean, how many people do this? Well, people that have personality disorders, particularly sociopathy and narcissism, it's about 2% to 5% of the population. However, we don't have any solid percentages on gaslighting behaviors. It's not a diagnosis in our diagnostic manual.

But out of the couples I see, I see probably about 40% of them have at least one partner that engages in gaslighting behaviors. Now, I'll add to that, though, that I primarily work with people with ADHD and anxiety. And I think they tend to be more prey of gaslighters because they tend to be more concerned with how other people are feeling. They tend to feel like they are missing something in life.

And so they're more likely to accept the behaviors of the gaslighter. And I think gaslighters on a certain level sense that, and they know that. And they know that that person may tolerate more than other people would. It would seem to me, and I imagine to other people listening to this, I don't think I've ever been on the receiving end of a gaslighter, but it would seem to me that I wouldn't put up with this for a minute. I mean, if someone is telling me when the lights are flickering that they're not flickering,

if someone tells me that the sky is green when I know it's blue, I'm done. I mean, it doesn't seem like this would be hard to say goodbye to. And one would think that you would know right away when someone was doing this, and that you would be tough enough or strong enough or resilient enough to know this is happening. And that's one of the reasons why people tend to stay in these relationships, because they feel like other people aren't going to believe them that this person is so terrible, especially when this person projects a pretty good image to the outside world.

Image is very important to gaslighters. And they'll also tell other people that you're crazy. So if you go to those people, they'll say, oh, well, they already told me that you're a little off so that they aren't believed. So a lot of people think they would not be subject to this, but they have been. It's interesting to me how many people are very competent, intelligent people, and yet they have become a victim of gaslighting, whether it's in a relationship or on a global scale. Because if you start believing something, you cannot be deterred from that. And that's the really tricky part about gaslighting. And again, if you're in a relationship, it becomes kind of a Stockholm syndrome where you become attached to your captor, so to speak. But and also it's

very difficult for you to leave at the same time. It doesn't make a lot of sense from the outside, but people that have experienced this, they'll tell themselves, you know, how could I have believed this stuff this person was telling me? And again, it's one of the reasons why people are afraid to seek help, because they're concerned that people aren't going to believe them, that they are subject to this. Is there any concern that maybe we're just being a little too sensitive here about some of this, that just because somebody says something to you

doesn't make you a victim? That people are smart, and in many cases, not all. I'm sure there are gaslighters who are very convincing and really mess with people's minds, but just because someone attempts to try to manipulate you doesn't make you a victim. I mean, people are smart, people are tough, they can see what it is and move on. The people that are the victims of these relationships are tough. It's just they are with people that will do whatever it takes to erode them. So you have people that have been subject to years of abuse because gaslighting is emotional abuse.

So when we tell people that are victims of abuse that you're just being too sensitive, we're totally negating the fact that they are being abused. And again, it's one of the reasons why people that are in an abusive relationship tend to not leave, because they're really concerned that the outside world's going to see them as weak when they are anything but weak. But you've talked about this in terms of relationships. If somebody just says something like this to someone, you know, casually at a party, that's not gaslighting. I'm not, because someone said this to me, I'm not now a victim of it. Just somebody said something,

I don't know what they're talking about, and my life carries on just fine. It's a series of behaviors. I'll say that again. So it's not just one behavior, it's a series of things that you see. So if I just say to you, I don't like the shirt you're wearing, yeah, that's not gaslighting. But if I've been telling you repeatedly that you're worthless, or I've been telling you that, you know, you didn't see me cheat on you or see that on my phone. You just kind of, you were making it up and you shouldn't have been in my phone anyway. So I'm going to focus on that. And you are hiding your stuff and blaming somebody for it. That's gaslighting behavior. But somebody going up to you at a party saying, I don't like what you're doing, that's not

gaslighting. Again, it's a series of behaviors. It's within a relationship. It's anyone that has the ability to have power and control over others. So in most cases, does this just go on forever? I mean, it would just seem to me that at some point, almost everybody would say, wait a minute, enough is enough. I know what I saw. I know what the truth is.

I know I'm being manipulated. I'm out. I'm done. There's usually a watershed moment. And usually what that is, is a family member or a friend confronting the person saying, look, you know, we've talked about this before. This person isn't healthy. These are the behaviors I'm seeing. And we need to figure out how to get you out.

That's usually what gets people out of that situation. And, again, it's really tough because, you know, in some cases people's safety is threatened. And that's why I recommend that people are concerned about their safety to contact a domestic violence shelter for opinions or ideas about how to get out safely. Also, therapy has been found to be really helpful, particularly cognitive behavioral therapy, which is a style of counseling that, again, in research has been shown to help a lot of people that have been in these abusive relationships. Because it takes a while to build up your self-esteem and your ability to feel comfortable to trust other people again. Does it often escalate to violence?

It can quite a bit. In fact, I tell gaslighters that when they're leaving a relationship, make sure you take your pet with you because gaslighters will use manipulation techniques and use your pet against you and even abuse it or kill it. So it's very important that people take their pet with them. Wow. And do you, as an expert on this, do you see this getting worse, getting better, or has it always been there and we're just now talking about it? I mean, the movie was 70 years ago, the play was 80 years ago, so obviously the concept has been around, but how has it moved? What's the trend? It's been around for a while, but I think emotional abuse really wasn't taken as seriously as a form of abuse.

Because, oh, well, you're not being hit. But it's just as much of a form of abuse as any other. So I think, though, that the fact that we're seeing this on a global scale and more attention is being brought, I think people are recognizing more that this is happening to them in the workplace and at home and with family and friends. When I imagine a relationship where this is happening, I'm imagining that the male is the gaslighter and the female is the victim. But is that always or mostly the case? It's actually equal across genders. I may use the pronoun he just as a default, but it is equal across men and women equally can be gaslighters.

Well, I think that's a surprise. I think that, you know, from the movie on forward, I mean, you think of men that being much more male kind of behavior. I think, yeah, that can be a stereotype of it, but definitely I've seen where it's pretty equal across the board. Well, I remember watching the movie and watching Charles Boyer and thinking, boy, he's really good at this. I mean, he has really got her thinking she's crazy, but that it's just a movie. But as you point out, this is real life

too and worthy of discussion. Stephanie Sarkis has been my guest. She is author of the book Gaslighting, Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People and Break Free. There's a link to her book in the show notes. Thanks for being here, Stephanie. That was great. Thank you. Here's an interesting quirk of human beings. You do things that are embarrassing, that if you see other people do, you may laugh or judge them for doing them.

But you do them too. For example, talking to yourself. You've just done something stupid and you're reprimanding yourself out loud or you're asking yourself a question out loud when someone walks in the room. Suddenly, you look like a crazy person. But talking to yourself is not only insanely common, in fact, we all do it at least a couple of times a day, and some people do it much more than that, but it can also be a sign of good things.

Studies show that talking to yourself helps you keep more focused and alert. Repeating a story. While you probably know if you've told a story before, it turns out that people have a very difficult time recalling who they told it to. Lying about seeing a movie. When it comes to important movies or important books, people lie about it because they want to appear smart. A surprising number of people lied about seeing the Godfather movie in a 2011 poll. Getting song lyrics wrong. Song lyrics are, as you know, hard to make out sometimes, so we make up what we think we hear. This really irritates those people who really do know the lyrics, but those people probably get the lyrics to other songs wrong. So we shouldn't be too quick to judge.

And that is something you should know. We are now officially in the holiday season, and we have lots of great episodes coming up for you in the coming weeks, so please subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and share it with a friend. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community.

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