When Emotional Trauma Bonding Is Mistaken for Anointing
- Sondra Louise
- Jul 29
- 6 min read
You have prayed and asked God to help you through a difficult season.
Someone comes alongside you, encourages you through the Word of God, prays with you, and reminds you of who you are in Christ. They reassure you that God has not forgotten you and that He will bring you through this season.
Your faith becomes stronger.
Your hope begins to return.
You know that God has answered your prayer and that only He can receive the glory.
Then someone else comes along.
This person has experienced almost the exact thing you are facing.
They understand how you feel.
They know the pain, rejection, confusion, or betrayal.
The emotional connection feels immediate.
There is nothing wrong with connecting with someone who has survived a similar experience. God can use our testimonies to comfort others.
The danger begins when that person causes you to question the spiritual encouragement you previously received.
You begin asking:
Was that first person really sent by God?
Was that truly the anointing of the Holy Spirit?
Why does this new person relate to me more?
Does their similar experience make them more qualified to speak into my life?
Sometimes these questions are not the result of discernment.
Sometimes they were planted.
A person may use shared pain to gain emotional credibility, then use that influence to redirect your trust and turn you against someone they already resent.
Shared Pain Is Not Spiritual Authority
Someone can understand your experience without possessing the wisdom to guide you.
A person can survive something without healing from it.
They can relate to your wound while reinforcing bitterness.
They can affirm your feelings while deepening suspicion.
They can identify with your rejection while encouraging you to reject someone else.
Shared pain can create compassion, but it can also create vulnerability.
Someone who speaks the language of your wounds may gain access to you quickly.
That emotional familiarity must still be tested by its fruit.
Jesus said:
“You will know them by their fruits.”
Matthew 7:16 NKJV
Ask yourself:
Did this relationship draw me closer to God?
Did it strengthen my faith?
Did it produce truth, humility, wisdom, mercy, and peace?
Did it help me heal?
Did it encourage forgiveness and healthy boundaries?
Did it point me toward Jesus?
Or did it produce confusion, suspicion, isolation, bitterness, and emotional dependency?
Good fruit will always lead back to God.
Galatians 5:22 and 23 tells us that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
The fruit of the Spirit is not jealousy, gossip, manipulation, division, or character assassination.
True Anointing Points Back to God
A faithful minister understands that they are only a vessel.
They may pray with you.
They may encourage you.
They may speak truth.
But God is the healer, deliverer, restorer, and source.
Acts 17:28 says:
“For in Him we live and move and have our being.”
True anointing does not make people dependent upon the minister.
It strengthens their dependence upon God.
A genuinely anointed person does not need to undermine someone else’s ministry to prove their own value.
They do not need to convince you that they are the only person who understands.
They continually point you back to God and give Him the glory.
Absalom and False Empathy
Absalom gives us a biblical picture of false empathy being used to gain influence.
People came to King David seeking justice.
Absalom met them near the city gate, listened to their grievances, affirmed their causes,
and suggested that the king had failed to provide someone who would hear them.
He then presented himself as the solution.
Second Samuel 15:6 says:
“So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel.”
Absalom did not begin with open rebellion.
He first made people feel heard.
He listened.
He agreed.
He embraced them.
Then he redirected their loyalty.
He used legitimate disappointment for an illegitimate purpose.
This same pattern can occur today.
Someone identifies a hurting person.
They affirm every complaint.
They present themselves as the only one who truly understands.
They suggest that another person has failed, controlled, or mistreated them.
They gain loyalty, then use that loyalty against the person they already resent.
Jonadab and Agreement Without Truth
Jonadab recognized Amnon’s emotional distress.
When Amnon confessed his sinful desire for Tamar, Jonadab had an opportunity to confront him and speak truth.
Instead, he devised a deceptive plan that enabled Amnon’s actions.
The result was violence, hatred, grief, murder, and family division.
Jonadab understood Amnon’s distress, but he did not minister truth.
This teaches us that empathy without truth can become enablement.
Agreement is not always compassion.
Proverbs 27:6 says:
“Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”
A faithful friend does not simply tell us what we want to hear.
They tell us the truth.
Are You Being Used as a Pawn?
When someone’s presence causes you to doubt, deny, or disconnect from everything you previously experienced with another person, seek God carefully.
The new person may have legitimate concerns.
But it is also possible that you are being used as a pawn in someone else’s resentment.
The conflict may not have begun with you.
There may already be jealousy, family rivalry, competition, envy, or unresolved offense operating behind the scenes.
The person may resent your relationship with someone else.
They may resent that person’s influence or anointing.
Instead of confronting their own feelings, they form an alliance with you.
They relate to your pain.
They affirm your emotions.
They gradually introduce doubt.
They reinterpret conversations.
They question motives.
Before long, you may be carrying an offense that did not originally belong to you.
You may begin repeating accusations you did not witness.
You may reject someone based upon another person’s interpretation.
You may become a weapon in a conflict you did not begin.
Proverbs 16:28 says:
“A perverse man sows strife, and a whisperer separates the best of friends.”
Try Every Spirit
First John 4:1 instructs us:
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God.”
Examine the source.
Examine the message.
Examine the motive.
Examine the fruit.
Does the relationship produce the character of Christ?
Does it lead toward truth, healing, accountability, mercy, and love?
Does it encourage you to seek God?
Or does it produce secrecy, fear, suspicion, isolation, dependency, and division?
James 3:16 says:
“For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.”
But the wisdom from God is pure, peaceable, gentle, full of mercy, and full of good fruit.
Seek God Before You Disconnect
Before severing a relationship based upon someone else’s interpretation, seek God.
Before repeating an accusation, seek God.
Before assuming motives, seek God.
Before rejecting the person who prayed with you, encouraged you, and pointed you toward Christ, seek God.
Ask:
What fruit did this person produce in my life?
Did they lead me toward God?
Did they give Him the glory?
Did they strengthen my faith?
Did they make me dependent upon them?
Did the new relationship bring truth or only emotional agreement?
Am I responding from healing or offense?
Have I heard both sides?
Am I being recruited into someone else’s conflict?
Proverbs 18:17 reminds us:
“The first one to plead his cause seems right, until his neighbor comes and examines him.”
Do not allow one person’s pain to become unquestioned evidence against another person.
Do not allow emotional similarity to replace spiritual confirmation.
Not everyone who understands your pain has been assigned to your healing.
Not everyone who agrees with your feelings is speaking truth.
Not everyone who appears to defend you is protecting you.
Not everyone who shares your experience has healed from it.
Do not mistake emotional intensity for spiritual authority.
Do not call agreement wisdom.
Do not call jealousy discernment.
Do not call control protection.
Do not call gossip concern.
Do not call division healing.
Do not call emotional trauma bonding anointing.
Test the spirit.
Examine the fruit.
Seek God’s face.
Walk in truth and love.
Give all the glory to God.
Life After The Comma GETS BETTER!
#LifeAfterTheComma, #LifeAfterTheCommaGetsBetter, #SondraLouise, #AnointingOrTraumaBonding, #EmotionalTraumaBonding, #SpiritualManipulation
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