Gaslighting The Truth

“God loves us not because we’re lovable, because He is love. Not because He needs to receive, because He delights to give.” C. S. Lewis

^^^^

Having a 'no-contact' boundary in place on and off for a fair number of years, I am unable to (officially) diagnose my mother’s eccentric personality. Having said that, my older sister, who feels compassionately obligated to keep in contact, describes Mum as:

“Away with the fairies.”

One of the reasons for this idiom is that my sister has no time for Mum's religiosity, unorthodox prophesies, and extreme beliefs.

She also interprets mum's sometimes harsh and often offensive demeanour as the onset of dementia, even though our mother has sadly represented these behaviours throughout our lives.

Mum, in more recent years, had terrified me by telling me that God had irrefutably cursed me for ignoring the prophecies she’d given me over my personal life, telling me, "The consequences from Him would be heavy!"

Panic-stricken, I consulted with a client, who I knew practised Christianity. She also had a long career in nursing and was promoted to conduct training services for the NHS. I trusted and respected her professionally and personally.

I told her that I was bewildered and distraught by my mother’s detachment and indignation at my ignoring her upsetting prophecies, bearing in mind I was in my forties.

I asked: “Could I really be cursed, seeing that my life is chronically difficult and that I internally suffer so often?”

My client sympathetically replied, “It sounds to me like your mother has a personality disorder or even two!”

I reflected on my client’s words with some relief, only to then be stabbed by memories of Mum's previous defiance — how she would compare our family’s ridicule of her prophecies to that of Moses and Noah from the Torah — how they, too, were mocked for the prophecies they had both declared to their people.

As time moved on, I continued to mentally battle between what my client had assured me to my mother’s religious manipulation, which had been deeply embedded in my psyche growing up. The fear of going to hell and her other predictions caused massive fear in my young mind.

Having been brought up around the religious love and discipline of a loving heavenly Father was something I welcomed as some sort of support in my adult life, particularly having dysfunctional and separated parents.

I would more often than not pray and ask for protection and help.

Even so, my sister — quite the opposite — became an unwavering atheist — her anger taking hold that: “Religion stole our mother’s focus and love away from us.”

I had considered whether this had more to do with the projection of my sister's pain of having an emotionally unavailable parent.

For me, even though I would turn to God for comfort, my mother’s words of God’s wrath on my life for not taking her words seriously, triggered my perfectionism — I felt I was undeserving and an unworthy human, not just of God’s love, even another person’s love.

I was only able to focus, until recently, on every wrong thing I had done, and never able to highlight anything of value I had accomplished or any of my good intentions. It never seemed enough.

“It’s not about finding ways to avoid God’s judgment and feeling like a failure if you don’t do everything perfectly. It’s about fully experiencing God’s love and letting it perfect you. It’s not about being somebody you are not. It’s about becoming who you really are.” — Stormie Omartian

I write from my perspective about my emotionally jagged relationship with my mother. I'm aware that she will have reasons for her behaviour somewhere deep inside her unconscious Self.

Far from being self-aware, and brought up in an entirely different generation, she endured her own difficult experiences and hardships, with little available therapy back then.

In the past, my mother would speak about God’s wrath over my late father, who had emotionally and physically betrayed her, and add his curse to mine. She also spoke of others who would receive God’s anger — those who had clashed with her religiosity and rigidness.

I believe Mum clings to the idea of 'God's wrath' because she had been abandoned by my grandmother as a young toddler. Her father was strict and unfeeling, and so I see my mother's soul yearning for justification.

Perspectives are comparable to kaleidoscopes in that each person’s view on life greatly differs from person to person.

We have all been brought up in life with a unique set of experiences — from our environment and culture to expectations and emotions mingled with personal journeys, which influence us to interpret life differently from one another.

Self-awareness helps us to have the flexibility to acknowledge another person's perspective and opinion, as well as allows us to be part of our one common humanity.

Yet how far do we empathise and appreciate another person’s interpretation at the detriment of our own feelings and mental health?

Would it mean that my emotions and exposure to others’ words hold little to no value and extinguish my truth?

What does God say about His love for You? Well, I know that God's love for us is unchanging. I searched online, and I found this statement that reassured me:

MCC Online Church says:

If you’ve ever questioned your worth, remember this: God’s love for you is unchanging. No matter what you’ve done or how you’ve been made to feel, you are not “used up,” “unworthy,” or a “failure” in His eyes. He is a Father who loves you unconditionally, and His belief in your potential is unwavering.

God’s love is the steady anchor in our lives, the foundation upon which we build our self-worth. The Bible assures us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14) and that we are His masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10). These verses reflect the truth of our intrinsic worth, created by a loving Father who cares deeply for each of His children.

Slowly, over time, I am learning to unglue myself away from indoctrination and fear and start to accept that I am loved — not because of who I am, but because of Him, our Heavenly Father—Abba.

© Chantal Weiss 2025 All Rights Reserved