I gaslighted myself into believing I was loved

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An old friend of mine who teachers music to young children shared with me recently via messaging that a young 4 year old student one day came up to her and matter-of-factly stated, "My mommy doesn't care about me."

I didn't ask my friend how she responded to that child, but what did strike me was my realisation of how I would have responded to that child before I started healing from complex trauma. I'm very sure (and I had probably done this before in my youth) that I would have responded to the little girl with, "I'm sure that's not true, of course your mommy loves you! Why do you think your mommy doesn't care about you?" And then, I probably would have proceeded to convince the little girl why in spite of what she had felt or observed, that her mother loved her and she just didn't understand it yet.

I would have probably gaslighted that child into believing that her mother loves her even if this was not what she felt and intuited in her little body. Why? Because in the past it would have been unbearable for me to let that little girl think that her mother didn't love her.

Yes, now I recognise now that I would have probably gaslighted that child into believing that her mother loves her even if this was not what she felt and intuited in her little body. Why? Because in the past it would have been unbearable for me to let that little girl think that her mother didn't love her. I needed to believe that her mother loved her and probably was just too busy taking care of things that needed to be taken care of to express that love in a way that a 4 year old would feel or understand.

What struck me next after realising that I would have probably gaslighted that little girl in the past was the realisation that I have been doing that my whole life to myself, and as I grew older I had continued to gaslight my inner child by rationalising and convincing her that we were loved even when I never felt it in my body.

I have been doing that my whole life to myself, and as I grew older I had continued to gaslight my inner child by rationalising and convincing her that we were loved even when I never felt it in my body.

Why did I do that to myself? In complex and childhood trauma recovery I have learned that I did it to survive. As young children we could not deal with the thought that our parents didn't love us, so we turned to different coping mechanisms to make our lived experience more palatable, such as coming to believe that there is something wrong with ourselves and that is why we don't feel our parents' love. It was better for us to believe that the problem lay within us rather than believing - even if it was true - that our parents were incapable of loving us in a way that attuned to us and that they did not act in our deepest interests (even if somehow they believed they did).

Learning in Catholic philosophy and theology that "love is an act of the will" did not help me to stop gaslighting myself. In fact, it gave me even more logical reason to believe that love can be devoid of any feeling because in the scholastic philosophy from which this line came from, the will is distinct and separate from reason and affect, and affect is where we locate feeling, emotion, attachment and attunement.

Learning in Catholic philosophy and theology that "love is an act of the will" did not help me to stop gaslighting myself. In fact, it gave me even more logical reason to believe that love can be devoid of any feeling

(Aside: I am not saying that love equates to affect - it certainly requires an act of the will, but to define love without affect leads to disastrous distortions of what love is too, such as gaslighting ourselves into believing we are loved even when we are being harmed by emotional neglect or emotional abuse)

Speaking for myself, I had learned to rationalise and "psych" myself into believing I was loved even when what I experienced in my emotions and my nervous system was that I was not seen, not understood and not attuned to. I had learned to believe in a "tough love" that was meant to shape and mould me into a particular kind of person "for my own good" even if there was a complete disconnect between my authentic self and the person I was being shaped into becoming.

I had learned to believe in a "tough love" that was meant to shape and mould me into a particular kind of person "for my own good" even if there was a complete disconnect between my authentic self and the person I was being shaped into becoming.

I came to think of love as "willing the good of the other" in a way that does not behold, delight in or honour the nature of that particular person, but rather as shaping that particular person into a certain rigid form of perfection and holiness. And so I came to think of God in that same way - I came to believe that was how God must love me. Forget about feeling seen, known and delighted in by God - that was not true love - love must be God moulding me (even if in a very clinical and detached way) into perfection.

I was always so hard on myself for not being able to trust this God whom I was intellectually convinced loved me. I even came to believe that God loved me unconditionally, but that belief was more in my mind than in my body. And that meant that in real situations when I needed to trust God, I realised that I could not. Because an intellectual conviction alone is not enough to move our will into action, especially when fear still rules our bodies and our hearts.

Forget about feeling seen, known and delighted in by God - that was not true love - love must be God moulding me (even if in a very clinical and detached way) into perfection.

So when we are told that "God is Love" and we can't trust that love, isn't it possible that it's because what we have come to understand as love is not the whole story? Can there really be love without attunement? Can there really be love without seeing the other person as who they really are apart from who we want or need them to be? Can there really be love if we are not affirmed in our personhood for being who we are, if all we experience is being moulded into some future more perfected version of ourselves? Is it really love if there is good intention but the other person's own unprocessed trauma and insecurity blinds them to how their "love" for us is really a way to meet their own unmet needs?

Is it really love if there is good intention but the other person's own unprocessed trauma and insecurity blinds them to how their "love" for us is really a way to meet their own unmet needs?

In trauma recovery one of the hardest thresholds to cross is acknowledging and accepting that we were not loved. That we were harmed by the very people whom we needed to love us and who perhaps even told us often (and believed) that they loved us. This requires us to really see our childhood, our caregivers and all the significant people who have formed us in a new objective light independent of the narrative they gave us, and independent of the narrative we created for ourselves to believe in so that we could survive in the systems we belonged to.

In trauma recovery one of the hardest thresholds to cross is acknowledging and accepting that we were not loved. That we were harmed by the very people whom we needed to love us and who perhaps even told us often (and believed) that they loved us.

Only when we can die to what we had believed was love in spite of what we felt in our bodies can we begin to regain our own connection to our God-given intuition and trust the wisdom of our emotions and our bodies. And only when we have begun to reconnect with our emotions and our bodies can we have actual interior freedom and power to see ourselves for who we are and love ourselves, and to see another person as who they are and love them in a way that affirms the fundamental goodness of their being.

In order to grow in my own capacity to love authentically, I need to be able to see reality for what it is in all its nuances. I need to be able to see and name harm readily rather than convince myself that it was all love just because I believe the other person had good intentions. And I need (very gently) to let myself behold reality as it actually is before I can truly love because if I can only "love" someone because I have gaslighted myself into believing they love me, then I'm not really loving them either.

I need (very gently) to let myself behold reality as it actually is before I can truly love because if I can only "love" someone because I have gaslighted myself into believing they love me, then I'm not really loving them either.

Let me close this sharing with a confession - even after so much work done in healing and integration, I still find myself gaslighting myself that certain harmful behaviour towards me is "not that bad" and that the problem is my own over-sensitivity. Sometimes, the path of least resistance still is trying to change my perception of reality so that I can believe I am loved when the objective reality is that I am being harmed. It is still hard to practice walking into truth when my wounded inner child just needs to believe she is loved, even when she isn't.

There is good news though! And that is that God actually loves me too much to let me live a lie. He continues to show me that true and authentic love cannot exist without truth or freedom, and that the fruit of true love is nothing less than full and whole human flourishing!

Reflection

Have you ever convinced yourself that you were loved by someone when your instinct, emotion and body said otherwise?
Have you lost your ability to trust your own intuition and wisdom because you are used to rationalising away your felt emotions and gut sensations?

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