I work with many victims of gaslighting around the country. We learn from each other. Those who have lost their licenses to work can follow these steps to regain their licenses and resume their careers.

First, acknowledge that any victim of gaslighting suffers some degree of PTSD. Severe gaslighting leads to complex PTSD. The federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) laws put in place before 2000 state that those suffering from complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) define our disabilities. Judges, lawyers, and clinicians do not define our disabilities. We do, and we are a protected class of innocent citizens.

Second, draft a one-page ADA letter that summarizes your story of unfair treatment by state institutions. Address your letter to at least three institutions. Two of the three should include the governor’s office and the attorney general’s office. The third, and perhaps others, should include those institutions that were part of the collusion that denied you your constitutional rights. Gaslighting of competent clinicians typically involves denial of due process, meaning our Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

Most state institutions will ignore your complaints. They want to hide their mistakes. You need to persist in filing complaints with your state institutions.

Third, file complaints with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). There is no need to file complaints with the state divisions of the DOJ. Attorneys general, judges, and lawyers have entrenched corrupt systems to protect those in the legal profession. The U.S. DOJ website is very easy to use. They will likely reject your initial complaints, but this should not deter you from filing again.

I will digress to liken this dynamic to academic medicine. One develops a tough skin after enough rejections of papers submitted to academic journals. We persist and eventually get published, even in top-notch journals.

Fourth, file complaints with the Office of Inspector General (OIG), which works with the FBI. This is where we can report fraud and abuse. I’ll share a silver lining story from 2007. A former colleague of mine filed an anonymous complaint to the OIG. This “whistleblower” falsely claimed that my business partner and I were promising nursing homes that we would send our patients there for skilled care if they gave us medical directorships. We emerged from this grueling process stronger than before. Yes, some of our clinicians made mistakes in their documentation. However, we learned how to bill Medicare based on the time we spent with our patients. This allowed our practice to grow and flourish more than we had expected.

I work with victims of government abuse around the country. I explain that robust institutions outlast the “placeholders,” meaning the politicians, who are abusing the power given to them by the citizens in elections. I close with this age-old aphorism. The wheels of justice turn slowly, but they do turn. It’s up to good citizens, we the people, to hold corrupt politicians accountable.

Donald J. Murphy is a geriatrician.