Institutional Gaslighting: The Fear of Being Watched, Then Being Dismissed - November 2022

The notification disappeared. The record remained.

On 21 November 2022 at 9:11 pm, a friend of mine received a Facebook notification:

“Clayton Lwood wants to be friends on Facebook.”

By the time she went to investigate, the request and profile were no longer available.

The notification remained. We preserved it.

Viewed in isolation, someone might say: “It’s just a friend request. Delete it.”

But this was the same friend who had contacted my university’s Work Health and Safety Manager and a former dean of campus because she was concerned about my safety. The same friend who had been told by the National Manager of Employment Relations and Safety that communication must go through Clayton Utz.

See:

http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/01/a-whs-turning-point-i-will-never-forget.html

http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/02/when-safety-is-denied-at-threshold-may.html

I had also previously recorded an unsettling LinkedIn incident involving a profile described as a “Soldier / Military Officer at Australian Catholic University.”

See:

http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/03/a-workplace-harassment-incident-that.html

The Facebook request arrived around the time I was calling out correspondence from Clayton Utz that I experienced as threatening and intimidating, and raising concerns with SafeWork NSW and SIRA.

See:

http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/10/where-was-boundary-my-emails-about.html

That surrounding history explains why this notification mattered.

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When my friend’s concern was treated as harassment

In A WHS turning point I will never forget, I described what happened on 9 March 2021.

A friend I have known since high school contacted the university’s WHS & Wellbeing Manager because she was deeply concerned about my health, safety and isolation.

She checked that she was speaking to the correct person. She raised concerns about coercion, victimisation and deliberate isolation. She asked that HR be kept away from me to prevent further harm.

Less than thirty minutes later, she received a callback from the National Manager of Employment Relations and Safety, the very individual that I had repeatedly informed both my employer and the insurer must stay away from me. 

As recorded in my earlier post, my friend was questioned about her authority to call, accused of harassment and told she had no right to speak to colleagues about my safety. She was directed to cease communication and go through external lawyers at Clayton Utz.

My friend described that interaction as intimidating. I experienced its consequences as silencing.

She had reached out because she cared about me. I felt that her intervention had been treated as a threat to those controlling the response to my situation.

What was threatening about a friend asking that I be kept safe?

——

The earlier LinkedIn incident

In A workplace harassment incident that crossed into stalking, I described what happened around 10 pm on Friday 24 September 2021.

LinkedIn showed that a profile had viewed my account. The description read:

“Soldier / Military Officer at Australian Catholic University.”

The display also included the university’s logo alongside a military-officer description.

LinkedIn displayed a profile-view notification described as “Soldier / Military Officer at Australian Catholic University.” Screenshot preserved from my account.

When I searched for that description with the university filter applied, LinkedIn returned:

“No results found.”

My filtered search returned “No results found.” The screenshot records the unsuccessful search; it doesn’t establish why the account couldn’t be located.

In my earlier account, I described the profile as disappearing within minutes. I preserved the screenshots because the incident was so unsettling.

They establish what LinkedIn displayed to me. They don’t identify the person operating the account or verify any genuine university affiliation.

But the experience was frightening. I was already psychologically injured caused by the national manager of employment relations and safety, navigating regulatory complaints and trying to secure protection. Then, late at night, a profile using my employer’s branding and a military description appeared among my viewers.

I felt watched. Even at home, away from the workplace, I didn’t feel free of what was happening.

——

9–10 November 2022: I put the concerns directly to the regulators and Clayton Utz lawyers

In Where Was the Boundary? My Emails About Clayton Utz, My Family and SafeWork NSW, I have now published the surrounding circumstances in greater detail.

On 9 November 2022, I sent SafeWork NSW and SIRA a chronology of my attempts to obtain workplace protection, communicate with colleagues and return safely to my work. I described the correspondence from Clayton Utz that my family and I experienced as threatening and intimidating.

On 10 November 2022, I followed up with selected records, an annotated workplace safety strategy and references concerning the firm’s earlier conduct.

I copied in both Clayton Utz lawyers involved: the senior associate whose communications I was questioning and the more senior lawyer who had been copied into that correspondence.

I was putting my concerns directly before them, as well as before the regulators. I wanted an investigation, an end to the distressing contact and a safe return to the work I had done for two decades.

The involvement of the more senior lawyer raises an oversight question: what did he know, what did he approve, and what responsibility did he take for the communications and their consequences? Being copied into correspondence doesn’t, by itself, establish authorisation. It does make knowledge, supervision and any response important matters for investigation.

——

Then the Facebook request reached my friend

Then, on 21 November 2022 at 9:11 pm, my friend received the Facebook notification bearing the name “Clayton Lwood.”

That was 11 days after my follow-up email.

This was the friend who had already been directed towards Clayton Utz when she tried to raise concerns about my safety. The notification appeared shortly after I had challenged the firm’s communications and copied both lawyers into my reports.

Facebook friend-request notification bearing the name “Clayton Lwood,” dated 21 November 2022 at 9:11 pm. The recipient’s identifying details have been removed.

The resemblance of the name and the timing don’t identify the account’s operator. There could be an unrelated explanation. But these surrounding circumstances are precisely why I found the incident suspicious and why it belongs in the chronology.

For the person living through it, the fear comes partly from that uncertainty. You have spoken up. You have identified the conduct and the people involved. Then something unsettling reaches the friend who tried to protect you, and it’s gone when she tries to examine it.

You are left wondering whether the two events are connected, while knowing you can’t establish that connection yourself.

Against the background of correspondence I experienced as intimidation, isolation and repeated failures to obtain protection, this intensified my fear. Dismissing it as “just a friend request” would leave out the very circumstances that explain its impact.

——

What manipulative intimidation feels like to the person receiving it

People often imagine intimidation as an explicit threat: clear words, an identifiable sender and an obvious demand.

My experience of fear has been more complicated.

There was already correspondence I experienced as threatening. There were already restrictions on communication and attempts by others to seek help for me. Against that background, an unusual online approach could make me wonder whether the intrusion was continuing into another part of my life.

Something appears. You see it. You try to investigate. You cannot find it.

You’re left with a screenshot and questions.

Who was behind it? Why did it appear then? Why that description or name? Why my friend? Was it connected, or was it coincidence?

The uncertainty follows you after the screen is closed. You check again. You preserve the record. You wonder whether speaking up has exposed someone who tried to help you.

I can’t establish that these accounts were created to produce that fear. I can explain the fear they produced in the circumstances I was living through.

That’s the part a detached observer may miss. The person receiving the notification is also carrying everything that preceded it.

——

What I mean by institutional gaslighting

When I describe institutional gaslighting, I’m describing my experience of having documented concerns repeatedly minimised, reframed or treated as a problem with my perception.

My friend raised concerns about my safety and was accused of harassment.

I experienced correspondence as intimidation, while it was presented as ordinary communication or procedure.

An unsettling digital incident could then be dismissed as something too small to matter.

When each event is separated from the others, the accumulated experience disappears. Yet I continue to live with its consequences.

There’s a painful bind in that experience: you’re expected to explain why you’re afraid, but the background necessary to understand the fear is treated as irrelevant. You preserve more records, reconstruct more dates and repeat yourself, hoping someone will finally examine the whole picture.

Meanwhile, your distress can become another reason for people to doubt you.

That’s profoundly destabilising. It can make you question whether you’re allowed to trust your own observations, even when you have kept the notification or screenshot.

Not knowing who was behind an incident doesn’t mean I imagined the incident.

It means there’s a limit to what the available record can answer.

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Why “just delete it” is inadequate

Deleting an unwanted request may remove it from a screen. It doesn’t explain what happened or undo its impact.

By November 2022, my friend and I had already experienced the response to her safety intervention. I had already recorded the LinkedIn incident. I was already reporting correspondence that I experienced as intimidation.

The Facebook notification arrived within that history.

The similarities gave me reason to preserve it and ask questions. They don’t prove a common author or coordinated intent. An independent examination must consider possible connections and alternative explanations.

But uncertainty should prompt careful examination, rather than automatic dismissal.

——

The chronology belongs together

These are the dated events:

• 9 March 2021: my friend contacted the WHS & Wellbeing Manager out of concern for me. A subsequent call directed communication through Clayton Utz.
• 24 September 2021: I recorded the unusual LinkedIn profile-view notification and an unsuccessful search.
• 21 November 2022: my friend received the “Clayton Lwood” Facebook notification. The request or profile was unavailable when she tried to examine it.

The records preserve the events. The surrounding correspondence and witness accounts provide context. Questions about identity, intent and any connection remain to be investigated.

My friend was trying to protect me. I was seeking a safe environment in which to return and recover in my role.

Instead, we were left carrying fear, uncertainty and the burden of documenting what happened.

I continue to seek an independent external investigation, with findings published publicly, into the conduct surrounding my case. It needs to examine the records together and hear from the people who witnessed these events.

The notification disappeared.

The record remains. So does the need for answers.

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Document 564.

——

Further reading: why I describe this as institutional gaslighting

David Yamada’s writing on Minding the Workplace helps explain why gaslighting is more than an unpleasant interaction or a disagreement.

In “Gaslighting as a workplace bullying tactic” (17 December 2012, revised March 2017), he describes manipulation that undermines a person’s confidence in their perceptions. His examples extend beyond an individual aggressor to HR responses that feign disbelief when someone reports mistreatment. He discusses how harassment accompanied by denial can leave a targeted person off balance and afraid. (https://newworkplace.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/gaslighting-as-a-workplace-bullying-tactic)

In “Gaslighting at work” (27 March 2017, subsequently revised), Yamada examines power imbalances and organisational messaging that contradicts workers’ actual experience. He also makes an important distinction: honest disagreement, misunderstanding, confusing instructions or incivility do not, by themselves, establish gaslighting. The concern is deliberate manipulation that undermines someone’s understanding of reality. (https://newworkplace.wordpress.com/2017/03/27/gaslighting-at-work)

These discussions help me articulate the institutional dimension of my experience: seeking safety and encountering responses that left me more frightened; watching my friend’s concern reframed as harassment; and repeatedly having to explain the surrounding circumstances before the significance of an incident could be understood.

The psychological burden isn’t only fear. It’s the exhausting need to defend the legitimacy of that fear, to reconstruct the chronology, preserve the records and explain why something that appears minor to an outsider was deeply unsettling to the person receiving it.

These articles don’t establish who operated the social-media accounts or prove that those incidents were coordinated. They provide a framework for understanding why manipulation, dismissal and unequal power need to be examined together, rather than reducing everything to the targeted person’s reaction.

That’s the connection I draw with institutional gaslighting: the conduct and the institutional responses must be scrutinised, not simply the distress of the person asking for protection.

Yamada, D. (2012, 17 December; revised March 2017). “Gaslighting as a workplace bullying tactic.” Minding the Workplace, New Workplace Institute.

Yamada, D. (2017, 27 March; revised June 2018 and April 2024). “Gaslighting at work.”  Minding the Workplace, New Workplace Institute.