False Light, Hidden Fangs

A divine woman doesn’t fall to give up. She falls to allow the God in her to rise.

Not all abusers scream. Some whisper in the language of healing, only to turn it into harm.

When people talk about trauma and recovery, they often speak in hopeful tones. The brave climb upward. The inner child healed. The serenity prayer. The promise of new beginnings.

But what few talk about – at least not publicly – is what happens when a person in deep recovery is targeted by someone who recognizes their vulnerability and deliberately exploits it under the guise of safety and shared healing. Especially in spaces meant to be sacred, like 12-step programs.

This is what happened to me.

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Predators Study Their Prey

I met him in AA. I was doing the difficult, courageous work of reassembling myself after surviving years of abuse and betrayal – some of it from childhood, and some of it very recent. My nervous system had been wired early on to associate arousal with danger, intimacy with chaos, and love with the act of surviving someone else’s destruction. I was actively working to unravel this – to choose differently. To heal.

He knew this.

He studied me.

He chose me.

And I would later learn that I was not the only one.

At the time he targeted me, he was still involved with his previous victim – a much younger woman, more than fifteen years his junior. She was a gentle, innocent soul who was actively caught in the devastating cycle of addiction. He showed no interest in her pain, no compassion for her struggle. He was simply using her – exploiting her vulnerable state for his own gratification, with complete disregard for the suffering she was enduring.

After he discarded her, he sought me out – not because I was vulnerable in the same way, but because I was actively healing. And he thought that made me the perfect target. In his mind, someone like me – honest, loyal, hopeful, and self-aware – would keep fighting to heal, even as he tried to destroy me. He thought my very self-preservation instinct would make the game more satisfying for him, as he’d get a longer run out of my resistance. He believed he had secured the ideal victim.

But he made one fatal miscalculation:

He underestimated the power of a woman who has already survived hell – and refuses to go back.

He underestimated what happens when an empath walks with God.

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The Danger of Familiarity

For survivors of early sexual trauma, the body often becomes trained to respond to danger with arousal. This isn’t a flaw – it’s a survival adaptation. But predators know this. They exploit it. They provoke and destabilize until the survivor is once again in a confused, triggered, highly reactive state. Then, they accuse. They gaslight. They reframe your trauma response as your personality. As your failure. As the problem.

This dynamic is particularly devastating for those of us doing the real work to heal. You think you’re choosing differently – but if someone is pretending to be safe, to be different, then your nervous system still takes the hit when the mask drops.

This man did not just lie.

He did not just manipulate.

He weaponized my healing journey against me.

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A Pattern of Control, Not Love

The relationship eventually collapsed under the weight of its own deception. He became overtly cruel. Mocking. Admitting, at times, that he operated with intent. That he liked to “watch women unravel.” That he thrived on pushing boundaries. That he lied to maintain power. That once he’d gotten what he wanted, he discarded the person entirely.

What makes this so dangerous is not just the emotional fallout – but the neurological sabotage. When someone who knows you’re healing uses your very trauma as the hook, it doesn’t just hurt. It re-wounds the place you were trying to repair. The damage is not just emotional. It’s somatic. It’s spiritual. It’s cellular.

And yet – there is a force more powerful than trauma. And it lives within the woman who refuses to turn on herself.

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The God Force That Wouldn’t Bow

What he didn’t count on was that I had spent years – decades – doing the internal work. Learning to love myself. Reparenting my wounded parts. Regulating my nervous system. Building an unshakable relationship with a power greater than myself. Sourcing my worth from within and learning to sit with discomfort, not self-destruct from it.

So when he tried to break me – even screaming at full volume in my face – I didn’t shatter.

I stood in my truth.

I guarded my boundaries.

I refused to play his toxic game.

And in that moment of resistance, he revealed himself.

He said – exasperated – “I didn’t realize what I was up against.”

What he was up against was not just a trauma survivor.

He was up against the wrath of God.

Not wrath in the violent, punitive sense. But the divine rage of a woman who has surrendered again and again. Who has given grace upon grace. Who knows when to say: No more.

I fell to my knees – and let the God force in me rise.

The part that witnesses everything.

The part that cannot be gaslit.

The part that protects what is sacred within me.

And when we step aside and let God rise, there’s no place left for the devil to hide.

Mercy ends, and the reckoning begins.

There is no mercy for the devil.

God doesn’t ask us to endlessly suffer abuse or degrade ourselves in the name of compassion. God allows us to learn, to fall, to rise – but always makes a way out when we truly surrender. When we choose our safety over someone else’s destruction. When we stop absorbing the unhealed chaos of those too infested by demons to accept the grace we give.

That’s when the divine steps in.

That’s when the war ends.

And that’s when the healing truly begins.

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This Is Not an Isolated Case

I am not naming names here. I don’t need to. Those who recognize these patterns already know. These predators are not always loud, angry, or obviously abusive. Sometimes, they cry at meetings. Sometimes, they wear beaded bracelets. Sometimes, they call you “goddess” while eroding your boundaries. Sometimes, they tell you they love you while studying how to dismantle you from the inside out.

This is not a condemnation of AA or recovery programs – these spaces save lives. But it is a call to vigilance. Because predators often seek out vulnerable people in transitional spaces. And recovery – spiritual, emotional, or physical – is exactly that: a liminal state where we are both awakening and raw.

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A Message for Fellow Survivors

If you’ve been targeted like this, it wasn’t your fault.

If you saw the red flags but still hoped, it wasn’t your weakness.

If your healing was hijacked by someone pretending to help, you are not alone.

And you are not broken.

Keep doing the work.

Keep choosing truth.

Keep building that unshakable inner sanctuary where your own voice matters more than anyone else’s.

Because when the false ones come – whether they arrive in wolf’s clothing or whisper recovery slogans – you will recognize them. Not because you’re afraid. But because you’ve already met your own darkness. And now, you’re walking with the light.

This is not a cautionary tale.

This is a war cry.

And I made it out alive.