Turn on your phone, scroll through social media, or open a news app, and you’ll notice a shift in how we speak. Over the last few years, clinical and psychological language has surged into everyday vocabulary (Paz, 2021). Words like narcissist, trauma response, boundaries, and gaslighting are thrown around in casual conversation, workplace debates, and online commentary.

While increased awareness around mental health is positive, it has a side effect: self-diagnosis and strict categorisation. We love putting people into neat boxes—the "healthy" vs the "toxic," the "victims" vs the "abusers."

The front page of The Mail on Sunday made headlines with a quote from Earl Spencer: "It's not every day you get gaslit by the King" (The Mail on Sunday, 2026).

It was meant to catch eyes, but it highlighted a deeper truth: no one is above gaslighting. Not politicians, not bosses, not your partners, not young people, and certainly not royalty.

The Spectrum: From Clinical Weapon to Everyday Reflex

Much like anxiety, mood fluctuations, or executive functioning traits in ADHD, gaslighting exists on a wide psychological spectrum

The Clinical End (Pathological): At the extreme end of the spectrum, gaslighting is a calculated, systematic form of psychological abuse (Stark, 2019). A person intentionally distorts reality to erode someone else's perception, memory, or sanity for power and control.
The Subclinical End (Everyday High-Functioning Use): At the other end—where almost all of us operate daily—gaslighting is subclinical. It isn't a villainous master plan. It is a high-functioning, subconscious reflex used to dodge embarrassment, protect self-worth, or maintain an advantage in an argument.

Everyday Gaslighting: A Universal Human Reflex

To understand everyday gaslighting, we have to start with an uncomfortable truth: no one is clear of this.

No one is perfect, and virtually everyone does it in small ways every single day. It isn't a trait reserved for manipulative villains or "toxic" personalities—it is a fundamental human defence mechanism that no one, regardless of status, intelligence, or emotional maturity, is above.

When we strip away the clinical abuse definition, everyday subclinical gaslighting shows up in mundane, reflexive ways:

Misplacing a key document and instinctively insisting, "You must have moved it," before checking your own bag.
Saying during a disagreement, "I never said that, you're misremembering," because accepting what came out of your mouth hurts your self-image.
Minimising someone’s reaction with, "You're just making a big deal out of nothing," because managing their discomfort feels overwhelming to you.

We don't do this because we are evil; we do it because our brains are wired to defend the ego at all costs. It's a high-functioning survival tool we rely on to navigate shame, fear of being wrong, and social conflict.

The Science of Protecting Our Ego

Why do we distort reality? Because human beings are wired for psychological self-preservation.

Cognitive Dissonance: When our view of ourselves ("I am a kind, competent person") collides with our actions ("I hurt someone's feelings" or "I made a mistake"), it creates uncomfortable tension (Festinger, 1957). Distorting the truth or shifting the blame resolves that tension instantly.
Self-Serving Bias: Our brains naturally take credit for success and push away responsibility for failure (Campbell and Sedikides, 1999). It’s far easier to believe someone else misheard us than to accept that we communicated poorly or acted out of line.
Naive Realism: We default to believing that our memory is objective reality (Ross and Ward, 1996). If someone else remembers a conversation differently, our immediate instinct isn't to doubt ourselves—it's to assume they are wrong, confused, or overly sensitive.

The Childhood Reflex We Forget to Unlearn

To understand why everyone gaslights, you have to look at childhood development.

When a young child breaks a lamp, their immediate response is often, "It fell!" or "My brother made me do it!" Why? Because to a child, admitting fault carries a perceived threat—loss of love, anger, punishment, or rejection (Lewis, 1992). Blame-shifting begins as a primitive survival tactic to stay safe and accepted.

As we grow up, we learn social norms, but that subconscious urge to protect ourselves from being accused never fully disappears. Under stress, fatigue, or conflict, the adult brain defaults right back to that childhood survival mode: Plausible deniability. Shift the focus. Protect the ego.

The Danger Isn't Doing It—It's Not Realising You Do It

If everyone operates on this spectrum, where does it become dangerous?

The danger arises when it remains unconscious.

When we lack self-awareness, our subclinical biases turn into chronic habits. We convince ourselves that we are always the reasonable party, always the victim of misunderstanding, and always in the right. Over time, this erodes trust in relationships, creates toxic environments, and stops personal growth.

The moment you pretend you are above gaslighting someone else is the exact moment you become most dangerous.

Where We Go From Here: Awareness and Empathy

Instead of using psychological terms as weapons to label everyone around us as "toxic," we need to turn the mirror inward.

Catch the reflex: The next time you feel the urge to say "You're misremembering," "You're being crazy," or "I never did that," pause. Ask yourself: Am I defending the objective truth, or am I just defending my ego?
Practice radical humility: It is okay to say, "Maybe I did say it that way," or "I didn't mean to hurt you, but I see why my words made you feel that way."
Extend empathy: Knowing that gaslighting often comes from fear and ego-defence rather than pure malice allows us to respond with calm boundaries rather than explosive accusations.

No one is immune—not you, not me, and not the King. Recognising our own capacity for narrative distortion isn't a weakness; it's the first step toward genuine self-awareness and healthier connection.

References

Campbell, W.K. and Sedikides, C., 1999. Self-threat magnifies the self-serving bias: A meta-analytic review. Review of General Psychology, 3(1), pp.23-43.
Festinger, L., 1957. A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Lewis, M., 1992. Shame: The Exposure of Self. New York: Free Press.
The Mail on Sunday, 2026. 'It's not every day you get gaslit by the King', 20 September, p.1.
Paz, I., 2021. 'Therapy Speak': How clinical language conquered everyday speech. The New Yorker, 22 November. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com [Accessed 21 September 2026].
Ross, L. and Ward, A., 1996. Naive realism in everyday life: Implications for social conflict and misunderstanding. In: E.S. Reed, E. Turiel and T. Brown, eds. Values and Knowledge. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp.103-135.
Stark, C.A., 2019. Gaslighting, epistemic injustice, and epistemic injustice in relationships. Hypatia, 34(2), pp.221-240.