We are living today in a time that may accurately be considered post-truth and post-facts. Reality is woven by those who speak the most loudly and often the most confusingly. Creating a believable lie is considered a noteworthy skill, more impressive than searching for the truth or even telling the truth. In governments such as the United States, the most respcted person is the most confusing and uneducated person and that is who is, in fact, currently leading the federal government.

These are not deemed lies, but alternative facts or alternative truths, a concept that themselves have already been spun into existence by pundits and politicians. In more personal relationships, this spinning process is called gaslighting and can result in extreme trauma and complete breakdown of the victim. It is a technique used to groom the abused to accept further abuse and that is exactly how it is currently being used by the illegtimate federal government of the United States.

We psychologists and psychotherapists wrestle in our offices with false narratives or what may also be considered defenses against reality. Each of us invents herself in a manner that facititates early survival. We are shaped and molded neurologically by our experiences which actually go on to alter the brain and the genes. These genes then reproduce themselves in future generations in the process that we call epigenetics. The danger is in not only “breaking down” previously healthy minds, but in having that reduced capacity passed through the generations.

The human brain is characterized by its lifelong plasticity and will morph and change according to experience. The human genome is also malleable and will not only change according to mistreatment, but will pass those very genes to offspring for as long as fourteen generations.

For example, it has been noted by many psychologists and researchers that the levels of anxiety and depression are higher among the descendants of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and various pogroms. This statistic demonstrates the power of the combination of experience and biology.

To retain healthy cognition and healthy relationships is extremely difficult for citizens being lied to on a daily basis and we see in the example of the current administration the danger of insistent lying. Those who do not have strong defenses, and even some who do, succumb to the confusion and accept the lies. They have been groomed to be supportive and subservient citizens not just believing the implausible, but the impossible.

As humans, we are built to thrive in truth and in justice. As Americans, we are losing our way every day.