Blogs Archives - Robin Stern

Amanda Knox. You know her name. You know her story. Or do you?---a line from my recent article I published on Psychology Today

After enduring years of sensationalized media coverage that distorted her image and exploited public opinion, Amanda Knox has finally found her voice to share her story, her truth. Join us on The Gaslight Effect podcast as Amanda recounts her harrowing journey through the dark waters of manipulation and the pursuit of justice. We extend our deepest gratitude to Amanda for her unwavering courage, resilience, and unwavering commitment to unveiling the truth, inspiring us all.

The Trauma Begins: A Murder in Perugia

The stage was set for Amanda’s most picturesque adventure yet: she was a 20 year old college student studying abroad in the idyllic hilltop town of Perugia, the green heart of Italy. Just weeks into her stay, there was nothing to suspect and no reason to assume the trauma she was about to endure against this scenic backdrop. That is, until a burglar broke into her home and brutally assaulted and murdered one of her roommates, Meredith. In the wake of Meredith’s death, Amanda’s life changed forever.

Gaslighting Tactics: Manipulating Amanda's Reality

“The gaslighting started from the very beginning,” she says. Within days of the murder, Amanda was locked in a jail cell, accused of playing a part in her roommate's death. Thus began her gaslighting odyssey from 2007 to 2015 with nearly four years in an Italian prison and eight years on trial for a murder she did not commit.

Without any contact with the outside world, interrogators tried to take control of Amanda’s reality. Wielding power and control, they used textbook gaslighting tactics to manipulate her version of events. “They told me my real memories were false,” Amanda says. She was prompted to remember something differently and, if she couldn’t, they hit her. Why? To help Amanda jog her memory, they said, determined to find her guilty.

Amanda’s emotional turmoil did not remain private, however. Outside prison walls, media outlets worldwide spread the version of Amanda that interrogators were convinced existed: a murderer.

The Power of Media: Spreading the Narrative

The depth of gaslighting Amanda experienced was simply paralyzing. She recalls what it was like to sit in the courtroom “as an innocent person and have a judge say to your face, you're guilty and you are going to spend the next 26 years of your life in prison because you're an evil person.” And there was nothing she could do about it. Amanda was defenseless against a justice system intent on gaslighting her into guilt.

Survival, for Amanda, meant taking each day as it came. She could not imagine how to be okay with 26 years of life spent in prison. Who could? Instead, she “broke it down to how can I be okay today? What can I do today to make life worth living regardless of the situation?”

The Paralyzing Grip of Gaslighting: Amanda's Courtroom Ordeal

Although acquitted and released from prison, Amanda’s prosecutor appealed and overturned her acquittal, trying her again for the same crime while she was in the United States. Thus began another four years of her life spent in unbearable limbo, this time facing extradition. Ultimately and definitively acquitted of murder in 2015, Amanda can still feel the ghost of gaslighting haunting her. “When you've been hit by lightning once, you can't help but walk through the world trembling at everything that sounds like a thunderstorm,” she says. Amanda now lives with a kind of automatic suspicion as a result of her years spent suffering from gaslighting.

Finding Hope Beyond the Trauma: Amanda's Path to Healing

Yet, Amanda’s life is evidence that there is hope beyond the trauma of manipulation and exploitation. After years of being silenced, she is ready to be heard and has since become an author, an advocate for criminal justice reform and media ethics, a wife, and a mother. In return, she is an inspiration to all those navigating the paralyzing grip of gaslighting.

After witnessing her entire life change in a blink of an eye, Amanda has undergone intense self-work, recovery, and healing- confronting what it means to take risks and to be vulnerable in pursuit of her goals. She says, “To be married and have kids, these are not just hopes and dreams, but they're risks that we're taking. We're making ourselves vulnerable over and over and over again… Because that's the stuff that makes life worth living.”

Indeed, it is.

Amanda Knox: A Voice for Justice and Reform

Amanda has her own podcast called Labyrinths that she co-hosts and co-produces with her husband, Christopher. She is also an author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, Waiting to Be Heard, and subject of the critically acclaimed Netflix documentary, Amanda Knox. You can find her speaking and advocacy work at knoxrobinson.com. On social media, she is @amamaknox.

Learn more about gaslighting in its many forms from The Gaslight Effect Podcast.

You can also identify if you are a part of a pattern of emotional or relationship abuse involving gaslighting and pull yourself out of that dynamic with the help of The Gaslight Effect Recovery Guide, an interactive workbook that will help you reclaim your reality.

Inside The Cult Of Larry Ray

At the start, college student Daniel Levin didn’t have any reason to question Larry. He was Talia’s beloved father. Who was Levin to oppose giving father and daughter space to reunite and connect? Larry grew closer with each member of "Slonim Woods 9," the name of their communal dorm and, later, the name of Daniel Levin’s memoir. So, when Larry traded in the couch at Slonim Woods for his own apartment on the upper East side of Manhattan, he invited others, including Levin and Sarah Lawrence students to join him.

It was here where the “special connection” that Levin describes between himself and Larry was fostered, through private conversations around his relationship with his parents, his body, and his sexuality. But “connection” quickly evolved into weaponization of the household’s interpersonal dynamics through coercive control and gaslighting at the hands of Ray, who began manipulating the group’s eating and sleeping habits, initiated nonconsensual sexual encounters, and regularly exploited their labor.

“I was experiencing these things, which in retrospect were extreme,” confessed Levin, even though he once thought, “I'm not someone who would be abused or would be in a cult, or would be manipulated.”

As many gaslighters so skillfully do, Levin was shamed into believing nothing he could say or do would be good enough for Larry Ray. Even as Larry recorded his victims undergoing different forms of abuse as punishment for disappointing him, Levin thought, “He hasn't slapped anyone, he hasn't punched anyone, he hasn't pushed anyone to the ground, you know?”. Without an understanding of what qualifies as abuse, Levin continued to live in fear of what would happen if he stayed and what would happen if he left.

That is, until Levin finally tapped into his gut feelings. To survive, he knew he needed out. Still in the fog of gaslighting, Levin struggled with conflicting thoughts and “spent so much time trying to figure out the best way to leave, the safest way to leave… in the meantime, I was staying in this situation where I was being abused every day.”

In 2013, Levin finally managed to slip out and begin his life beyond the cult that later gained national attention. The FBI arrested Larry Ray, 7 years later in 2020.

Surviving And Now Thriving Beyond the Cult of Larry Ray

Looking back, Levin would want himself, and anyone else feeling stuck in similar reality-spinning circumstances, to trust the instinct to leave. Gaslighters thrive on making you feel stuck or trapped; that is right where they want you. Thus, ‘the right time’ to leave that many victims of abuse wait for may never come. But once you escape, you can begin to heal. For Levin, this includes telling his story, ultimately one of vulnerability, hope, and aliveness.

“I wish none of this had ever happened,” Levin wrote in his memoir Slonim Woods 9: A Memoir. Still, “one thing you can control is it being over for you… after it’s ended, it’s up to you to decide how to live with it. More than anything, that’s what I hope you do: live.”

Daniel’s commitment to telling his story is a gift, written to help others think about boundaries and the kinds of behaviors that are acceptable and unacceptable in relationships—and to help those in similar experiences hear more stories on what "breaking free" can look like.

Thank you, Daniel, for wanting to speak out.

Daniel not only survived the ordeal, but is now thriving as an author, teacher and an executive producer of Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence, a three-part series streaming on Hulu, that documents "A group of bright Sarah Lawrence College students" that fall under the dark influence of a friend’s father, Larry Ray.

Stuck Inside A Cult Or Recovering From A Gaslighting Relationship?

You can learn more about all the many forms of gaslighting on The Gaslight Effect Podcast.

You can also identify if you are a part of a pattern of emotional or relationship abuse involving gaslighting, and pull yourself out of that dynamic with the help of The Gaslight Effect Recovery Guide, an interactive workbook that will help you reclaim your reality.

Unveiling the Truth: Amanda Knox’s Battle Against Gaslighting and Injustice