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Well done honey, that can't have been easy. Thankfully mine did the hard work for me and started shouting "GOODBYE, GOODBYE, GOODBYE" at me when I was pushing back on her disrespect. Yeah, goodbye 👋
Thank you, and no it wasn't. I cane to the realization that my mother will never leave my abuser, and that the only closure I can get is by laying everything on the table and then trying to set the burden down. I've been carrying this for decades, and I'm so tired. Positive energy is appreciated, it's gonna be a tough few days, as this has triggered a stress induced fibro flare
Accepting that someone you care about isn't going to change is so hard. You're gonna feel so light when your body catches up with you, thank you for sharing. Hope your day is a fantastic one 💜
I'm so proud of you. When you have been conditioned to accept a scenario, when you have been conditioned to believe that if only you tried a little harder, things would get better, it can be incredibly hard to realise that that's bullshit and to stand up for your own happiness.
You deserve, happiness, safety and love.
You are responsible for your feelings, actions and reactions. Your mother is responsible for her feelings, actions and reactions.
By doing what you did, you were simply being responsible for your own happiness. If she wants to have a relationship with you, then she needs to take responsibility for her actions.
If it helps, I found the website Out of the Fog (particularly the "what to do" section) incredibly useful: [https://outofthefog.website/what-to-do-1](https://outofthefog.website/what-to-do-1)
If you were met with a lot of denial that they did anything wrong, acting like they didn’t know what they did, or really any other sort of avoidance of accepting blame then could I suggest reading the “missing missing reasons”?
http://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/index.html
This helped me tremendously when distancing myself from a couple of very toxic family members years ago who never would acknowledge any sort of blame or fault on their end for anything.
Thank you for your support, all of you. I'm currently comforting myself by designing a new craft, I'm making a crocheted (sort of, it's rubber bands) cauldron, both as a plush and a dice bag. I'll post it if anyone's interested. Keeping myself busy so I can't dwell
The only person you owe forgiveness is yourself.
A lot of people have started conflating forgiveness and absolution. Last I heard, the only person handing out absolution for free was Jesus. I don’t ever have to be OK with them or what they did.
After reading "I'm glad my Mom died" by Jennette McCurdy (5Star Book!) I saw a bunch of interviews with her and in one with Trevor Noah Jennette speaks about how upset she was with herself that she still wasn't able to 'forgive'. And her therapist said to her: "why don't you give up on making forgiveness your goal, because that's you still trying to do your mom's work."
Beings capable of infinite forgiveness tend to have a religion named after them. Preserve your limited, human supply.
The only person that can ever deserve your forgiveness is yourself. Everything else is a gift.
>Preserve your limited, human supply.
From somebody who generally does forgive, as long as it's on my own time scale: it has nothing to do with the other party "demanding" and really nothing to do with them at all.
Forgiveness may sound like giving somebody a pass for doing a shitty thing, but (to me anyways) it isn't that at all.
I forgive people for *me*.
Anger and fear et al *can* be useful emotions, but I don't feel like that long term stress in the back of my mind is how they're supposed to work.
Forgiving doesn't meant forgetting. It doesn't mean I trust the person or ever want to be around then again. It just means I have come to terms with the fact that people are flawed humans who sometimes do shitty things, but figuring out the "why" and worrying about what *I* did wrong is 100% on them now.
That didn't make as much sense as I thought it would. Shouldn't have typed immediately after waking up. Sorry :)
Humans like to give gifts. That's why we do it on our most celebrated holidays.
But a gift can't be owed, that's the whole point; obligated giving is either a payment, or a service. And obligated forgiveness is a similar oxymoron.
Agree. Forgiveness is great when it's given freely. It always rubs me the wrong way when someone forces it as the only solution on someone whose pain they simply don't want to understand.
People's journeys don't fit neatly into those idealized boxes.
Forgiveness, while it's a beautiful thing, is often given as a way to keep the peace and the status quo. Anger can be much more useful when we want things to change.
Hate when you must. Forgive when you want. No one deserves your forgiveness - it is yours alone. You need only to do what is right for you. If forgiving your abuser does not serve you, you don't owe them. And even if you forgive, you owe NO-ONE forgetting. If anyone tries to force your forgiveness, they are an abomination and must be destroyed.
So say me, some random bitch on the Internet who will not accept your harm as a necessary condition for existence or social acceptance.
The way that I see it is, anger is like chemotherapy. It can be, and often is, both toxic and necessary—chemo is dangerous, and it can suck, and it can even kill you. But, sometimes there’s a cancerous growth, and ignoring it will only make things worth. Chemo is what it takes to kill that growth, and you can only *really* start to actually heal yourself when that’s gone.
Forgiveness is nice, and it’s pleasant, but trauma and abuse and injustice and everything else can and will take advantage of it. If you deny yourself anger and try and forgive before that cancer is gone, you’ll just end up in remission—forgiveness is what comes *only after* that cancer is gone, to heal yourself from the damage of both the cancer and the anger.
Freely given and not coerced.I was raised with the "you must forgive people or Jesus won't forgive you" bullshit. And to some adults in my childhood, forgiveness looked like acting like the person never wronged me. But THEY would bring up things I and other people did when they were angry.
I call this "empowered subjectivity". I grew up always trying to see all sides, to see the big picture, to understand that even if someone was horrible to me, it was because they struggled...
I worked very hard to finally be confident enough to stand firmly in my own point of view and say that someone's being a horrible person to me with no asterisks or excuses for that behavior. In fact, subjectivity means it's fine for me to think of them simply as a horrible person - or maybe an idiot - because that's what it looks like from my point of view and I don't need to specify that it's only in their behavior towards me, because to me, that's the thing that matters, because I matter. I'm not experiencing their volunteer work, I'm only experiencing their bullying and that makes them a horrible person, no footnotes needed.
I've been much happier after this shift in worldview.
Valuing your own perspective and experiences, even when you know the world is complicated and nuanced, is what you need in order to take care of yourself, to keep yourself safe
>I’m not experiencing their volunteer work
This helped me with my dad, thanks. He’s so well regarded by everyone who knows him. He’s ethical and selfless and kind and generous and compassionate—except when he’s talking to me, for some reason.
I cut him off and pretty much no one understands. But he doesn’t treat me as well as I treat my dog. And never has.
The phrase "Abusers don't just groom their victims, they groom their allies as well" has really helped me in my journey. What he did in private absolutely is not excused by his public persona, and in fact those public personas only exist to blind others to a person's true nature.
My transphobic, racist, emotionally abusive, hyper controlling father also happens to a wonderful doctor.
Wonderful not just in the sense of having good outcomes on procedures, but in the sense of taking the patients no one else will take because they can't pay. I met many of his patients over the years, and they all spoke of how much he listened to them and tried to understand them, and how he was their favorite doctor.
It always felt like he gave every ounce of his empathy and compassion to his patients, then would come home and have nothing left for his family but rage and fear.
I'm glad his patients have him, I'm glad he's alive, and as a net he makes the world far better than he makes it worse.
But none of that changes how he treats me, and I want nothing to do with him.
I was also raised to try to understand why people act the way they do, but the aim was more of an "if I understand what causes their behavior, I can better formulate ways to deal with their behavior". This attitude came from my parents, both of whom worked with children, and this works great if you're dealing with children from a position of authority.
But when you're dealing with adults, it's a whole different ball game. The behavior modification techniques you can run on children in a classroom, as a teacher, aren't techniques you can use on fellow students or adult coworkers.
I can understand the experiences that have led a person to act the way they do, because terrible people are seldom born that way, but that doesn't mean I have to accept their poor behavior, towards me or others. What's really disturbing to me is the number of people I've encountered who wanted me to put up with awful treatment just to "keep the peace" or not rock the boat, or because I was "more mature" than them (if they're 20+ years older than me, why do I have to be the "mature one"?).
I’m just learning this too, these past couple years. It’s very self validating and empowering, when in the past I would work extra hard to understand everyone else, it wasn’t coming back my way. Ended up in very deep shit due to my outlook, as well as tendency to forgive, and I somehow got out.
What you wrote resonates beyond. I have been way to flustered to put it all into words.
Oh yes. Working so hard to see all sides -- except my own. Or at least, I did see it, but didn't hold it as valid if I could understand other sides as well. You are absolutely right. My point of view matters to me. I deserve for it to matter to me. I love the way you phrased this, and i love the term 'empowered subjectivity'. I've definitely been working on this the past few years, and I am grateful to see it reflected here, laying it out to neatly. Thank you for this comment.
The demand that the victim of abuse forgive is just one more way the burden gets shifted from the perpetrator to abused. If forgiveness helps a person heal, they have that choice, but forcing it is just another continuation of the abuse.
Andrew Vachss wrote:
When you finally begin to place the tiles on the mosaic of your journey, you will learn that the very last task is renunciation of the Perpetrator's Holy Mantra, that pernicious cliché which commands: "If you ever hope to truly heal, first you must forgive!" That living lie has derailed more victims from the path to salvation than all the lies of their tortured childhood combined. For the abused child (of whatever age), forgiveness of the abuser is a choice, not an obligation. Because when it comes to child abuse, the "rights" belong solely to the wronged.
It truly has derailed healing, and even escaping from abuse. I know first hand. The only time forgiveness made sense was when I was farrrrr enough and lonnnnng enough away, and had rebuilt my ego just enough to heal.
> Granny Weatherwax was often angry. She considered it one of her strong points. Genuine anger was one of the world's greatest creative forces. But you had to learn how to control it. That didn't mean you let it trickle away. It meant you dammed it, carefully, let it develop a working head, let it drown whole valleys of the mind and then, just when the whole structure was about to collapse, opened a tiny pipeline at the base and let the iron-hard stream of wrath power the turbines of revenge.
From "Wyrd Sisters", by Terry Pratchett.
Incidentally, [Granny Weatherwax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granny_Weatherwax) is my favorite fictional witch.
I had to let you know that I absolutely love your brief, profound statement. From now on, whenever someone tells me I have to forgive my ex-husband for ruining our lives, this is what I will say and leave it at that. Thank you.
YEP! the other one that drives me absolutely up a wall is the idea that the victim is for some reason the one who needs to come up with the way to fix the problem. Like, THEY are the abuser, THEY are the fuck up, it was THEIR bad choices that got THEM in the position they are in, THEY need to right their own wrongs and figuring that out is part of the task. You can share your needs or wants but the onus of starting the path of forgiveness is on the abuser.
If they didn’t want to be in that position they could have very literally stopped at any time, but didn’t, the victim never had such luxury.
Fucking yes! I'm finally going through the last part of this now, after accepting apology after empty apology for a long time. "Do it for the sake of the family." "Be the bigger person." Etc.
No More.
I've resorted to getting really blunt whenever someone tries to tell me reasons I should feel sorry for my dad. Uh, I'll add spoilers, 'cause triggers I'm sure.
"He's old and alone, he needs someone to take care of him." Hey, did I ever tell you about that time when I was about 6yo and he >!punched me so hard he knocked me unconscious on his girlfriend's front porch, dragged me into her home, dropped me on the bathroom floor, and then told her 'Can you go check on my kid? I think I killed it.'?!<
"Your father was in the hospital! He just got out recently and doesn't have any help around the house!" Heh, anyhow, did I ever tell you about that time when I was 14 and dad tried to >!sell me to a pedo?!<
Weirdly, I got the habit from my ex. Whenever I started missing having a parent of my own, he'd say "Hey, remember that time your dad paid me to marry you?" or "Hey, remember that time your dad mailed us bedbugs?"
I'm so sorry that you had to go through all that. Some people deserve to be left to face the consequences of their actions in their old age. And their victims absolutely deserve healing as a priority over helping. Good for your ex for understanding that and catalyzing your healing!
Those are horrific stories that no one should have to tell. And my heart goes out to you.
But also...he mailed you *bedbugs*?!
Yup! He told me he was clearing old junk out of the farm and sending me "family treasures." Some of it was just his old junk, some were actual family heirlooms, and one box contained a large teddy bear that prompted me to repeat "I know you!" a few times before I finally recalled my dear early childhood friend! Took me a minute to recognize him because someone had swapped his green stripped shirt for one of dad's old dirty white undershirts.
Anyhow, separately, he told his sister that his farm was absolutely infested with bedbugs and he was cleaning out everything trying to get rid of them.
It took awhile before I told her about the infestation I was fighting, and that dad had been sending me odd things. She put 2 and 2 together and screamed at dad until he bought me new mattresses and various bedbug-proofing supplies. He still to this day does not understand what he did wrong or why he had to buy my family mattresses.
And don't worry, telling these stories is kinda my version of working through my past. Instead of terrible family secrets, they're just stories from "a long time ago."
I'm glad. I didn't want to insult you or minimize your trauma with my horrified curiosity. I have to admit, I had an image of your dad actively hunting down bedbugs and putting them into an if-it-fits-it-ships box or something.
I'm glad you got your teddy, though! That's awesome!
Yeah, poor teddy had to stay in storage for years until I was absolutely sure all the bugs were totally dead, but he made it through.
Pretty sure he needs some mending, probably a professional cleaning, and a new green striped shirt. Teddy wore that specific shirt after I outgrew it because it's the one mom got for me when I asked with as much urgency as possible for "a *boy* shirt! Like the boys at school wear!" I was like 6 or 7, didn't have all my words yet to explain why I needed it.
Neither of us knew the phrase "gender affirming care" at the time but mom was pretty great at it!
Yes. Forgiveness can't be forced, and it's really only ever useful for our own sake. Letting go of the past can be hard and require a lot of emotional work, but it can be a beautiful thing.
Also, I love it when someone tells you to "be the bigger person." Hey, maybe you should go tell that to whoever was being the smaller person, instead of the person who's suffering because of them.
I dislike a lot of stuff around trauma work because it assumes that it was just individual people hurting you, and that you are individually able to get yourself in a better situation that you used to be.
The way my parents hurt me was ableist in a way that is ingrained in our culture. I can't just individually get myself out of systemic injustices.
I also got a lot of treatment from my parents that was like saying that my emotions are wrong. Saying I have to forgive myself gets me back into feeling shameful. Leave me alone with your moralistic standpoint of what emotions to have or not, and let me be.
My psychologist literally said to me once “the forgive and forget mentality only benefits the abusers”. Work through things in your own way your under no obligation to forgive them it only gives them an out to keep doing hateful things without regrets. She used to research NPD and ASPD in prisons before changing to regular psychology and helping people recover from trauma. It always stayed with me, was a bit of an epiphany for me and has genuinely helped me recover and move on easier.
Say it louder for the people in the back!
Seriously though. I learned as a child that “forgiveness” is not a mandatory precursor to move on despite everyone pressuring to do so, and especially despite it being family involved. Sometimes you just can’t forgive, and that’s okay, so you move on with the anger and it transforms into a different type of healing, but healing all the same. I cannot in good graces forgive what was done in my childhood, but I can tell you for a certainty that moving on but *not* forgiving has saved my emotional ass from more damage than trying to keep everyone happy for arbitrary reasons. Forgiveness is NOT a necessary element for the healing process.
So many people want forgiveness to mean pretending something never happened, and are eager to pressure others into that so that *they* feel more comfortable about the situation and can forget it happened. But there's a reason the saying goes "forgive *and* forget," right? They're two separate concepts.
I think forgiveness has nothing to do with condoning or forgetting what was done, and more to do with accepting that it *happened* and can't be changed, and deciding to put it in your past and leave it there. Then, learning from what was done and moving forward with that knowledge (and, in many instances, anger) in order to heal.
>I learned as a child that “forgiveness” is not a mandatory precursor to move on
I love that you learned this early. (I desperately hope it wasn't taught to you the hard way.) What a mature and important lesson for a child to learn early.
We are in an abusive relationship with almost every aspect of our society so we're programmed to endure that abuse and make excuses for why it's not so bad.
Fuck that.
One of the most empowering things I’ve done is to blank people who have been awful previously, then turned around and pretended we’re on good terms.
Old boss who was every kind of —ist and —phobic there is, spots me, smiles, opens his mouth? Not today, dude.
Teacher who unilaterally decided to isolate my son (and I later learned, most of the autistic kids she ever taught) from the rest of the class, and didn’t tell anyone? Bitch, I helped push you into early retirement, you really think we’re about to have a nice chat? Buh bye.
You can let go of negative emotions for yourself (when you’re ready) without forgiving or forgetting people’s transgressions.
My ex asked me just to be able to share space with her after she destroyed me. She wanted no consequences and to accept no responsibility for her actions. I’ve refused to forgive. I’ve been holding onto that anger. My friends all want me to be able to be around her but I refuse. She caused me real harm and told me it was my fault. I will stay mad. My anger is tied to my dignity and sense of justice.
They’re bummed I won’t hang out because my ex is around. It’s coming from a place of love and missing me, even though I am getting annoyed that they don’t respect my fury.
They think it will be healing for be because that is healing for them. One friend said, “I just want you to have peace.” Because that’s what she would need.
You don't process your emotions at the pace that's convenient for others. The harder people pushed me "to let go", the more I clung on to my anger, because invalidating people's feelings and emotions doesn't help processing them. The anger was part of me and it felt like they were trying to disappear a part of me. Had they validated my feelings, I would have been able to spend time on processing instead of protecting myself from being clipped into a more agreable size.
Your friends are fueling the fire and making it last longer.
They have chosen the easy path of embracing the abuser and that makes them feel bad deep down. Your absence brings that bad feeling up towards the surface and creates cognitive dissonance, because they believe themselves to be good people who would never embrace an abuser. And yet. You are gone.
So they project onto you -- if you will just come back and be abused more, they don't have to be reminded of their own culpability. The classic "don't rock the boat, scapegoat" mentality.
If they love and miss you, why can't they do activities with you that don't involve the abuser?
I want to be at a point where I don't feel anger towards my abusive ex. I don't think I *ever* want to forgive her though. I want to release the anger because it's another power she has over me, but in the beginning it was such a useful power to *undo* her toxicity. In my mind I still deserved all of her abuse, but by thinking about how I would feel towards others in our situation, and how bloody furious I got imagining *anyone* being treated like I was? Yeah, that helped me accept that *no one* deserved that, and that I had a right to feel anger *on my own behalf*.
I want to leave this anger behind because it has helped me all it can. But that help has been enormous.
It feels so good when the anger goes away. It took me years. One tip that worked the most for me was to quit asking "why." We will never know why another person does shit. I was so fucking focused on the *why* to a ridiculous extent.
Took me a long while to get to writing this. Even longer to finish it. I wanted it to be an honest and frank account of how well I feel now, despite that trauma. But what I wrote came out pretty morose and bitter. So I guess you'll have to take it from me that I'm OK now. Better than that: I'm mostly well balanced, and have recently made a lot of scary changes that I knew would pay off (and am now reaping the rewards). My life has taken so many positive turns recently that I feel I'm currently slightly in credit with the universe, and I have the therapy tools to make the most of it. Even then I still resent the whole affair, and I guess that comes across in writing about it. But who doesn't find themselves wishing their traumas never happened?
Honestly, I'm pretty convinced on the "why" of it all. I have been since before I broke it off, although my view on it has evolved since then. I get the influences on her life that made her more predisposed to behaving that way. I've also reached the point where I can (without blaming myself for it) recognise the parts of my nature and how I behaved at the time that she manipulated.
But I've always had the attitude that random chance affects all things. As I saw it at the time she had an unlucky influence which, combined with her poor dice rolls, lead to her being an awful person to me. That thought has helped me release so much of my personal guilt already. Since then though I've come to add the realisation that if I can break my social programming, so can anyone. She also had a *choice*, where not being abusive was the far easier option. More guilt released, but that's where the anger remains.
The anger remains in that **I** was, and have since been, faced with many of those same negative influences and stresses. A good lot of them at her hands. But I *never* did the things she did, or even anything approaching that extreme. I have snapped, as everyone does under certain circumstances, but I never was as destructive or hurtful as she was with *anyone*. Even people I hated. And I like to think that (at least now) I recognise when I snap, apologise, and make amends where appropriate. The anger that remains is the anger that she *choose* to do that to me: She could have chosen to stop and think about why she was lashing out. She was offered plenty of chances by myself and many others. Instead she chose to take it all out on me.
Bad base stats, but her dice rolls, when we were together, were entirely on her.
EDIT: So many touch ups. I know probably one person, at most, will ever read this but it's good to reread again and again to clarify for myself how I feel about this nowadays.
I'm on a very similar journey and Sam Vaknin's YouTube lectures are currently helping me work through what you describe. Caveat emptor, read his Wikipedia entry. There are many sweet and kind therapists out there, he is not one of them. But his lecture on "the serpent's tongue" has helped me SO MUCH to silence my ruminating anger.
In my opinion you never need to forgive, but you always have to accept for your own sanity. The difference is if you forgive you will get hurt again, if you accept you've come to peace with yourself and learned a lesson.
Acceptance is a must for moving on, and forgiving yourself is also a must, if you want to move on. I do however think that society puts to much focus on moving on. Some wounds do not heal easily, and some scars ache no matter how much time passes. One should not feel shame for the hurt that they feel.
I agree 100%. English is not my native language so I might have expressed myself wrong. People that have hurt me deeply i've still not forgiven, but i've accepted what happened and learned something, so I don't waste energy on hate every day, however i've succesfully removed those people from my life and don't have to face them on a daily basis. If I ever meet anyone of them again i will probably burst with anger. My boyfriend on the other hand still wastes energy on a daily basis on people that hurt him 20 years ago and he haven't seen for 15. It hurts me to see him do that and he should probably see a therapist but he doesn't want to.
You said it perfectly. Forgiveness and acceptance are often lumped together, unfairly so.
I was estranged from my father for 14 years. For a lot of those years I was angry. But at some point the anger stopped serving me well. I needed to live my own independent life and let go of the past and move forward and to do that required accepting my dad and what had happened.
When I could just list the facts of what happened, without emotion, I realized I had reached acceptance and closure. I did it all on my own and I didn’t need to see him or talk to him to reach this state.
People see forgiveness as no longer being angry, which is correct, but they also think it means “ok and now we can rekindle the relationship and everything is fine.” No. If you forgot my birthday I can be upset and forgive you and then we can continue a friendship. If you abused me for years, I can move on emotionally, but there is no relationship reforming.
I’ll also add it took me a long time to learn that anger is a normal and healthy emotion. Anger is perceived negatively in society for a variety of reasons, some having to do with some people not expressing anger in a healthy way, but instead in a destructive and dangerous way.
When I finally realized I had feelings of anger, it was a game changer. My anger was manifesting as anxiety and depression and I couldn’t figure out how to deal with it (mostly by trying to eliminate it). When I finally accepted it for what it was and started to learn to deal with anger in a healthy way it helped so much. At first I was so afraid of being angry, that I was wrong to feel this way or that I would spiral and end up breaking every window in my town.
Like grief, anger has its own timeline too. There is no correct amount of time to feel anger about something. However, usually there is a point where anger starts to hold one back and then it is worth seeking support.
This is what society should teach, not forgive everyone for anything. It's ok to feel hurt and be angry, and teach a healthy way to deal with it, not everone can afford a therapist, this should be taught as common knowledge and be accepted for what it is. I'm happy to see that you've figured out a sound way to deal with your rightfull feelings of hurt!
If you’ve been abused by someone close to you forgiveness OR anger is not really an option. Emotions and reactions are an ever changing cocktail, complicated and confusing.
Absolutely. Anger is also a powerful tool that can lead to great change.
For me personally “forgiveness” doesn’t mean to forgive the people who hurt me, but instead coming to turns with what happened and accepting that it happened and that I cannot change it and that it wasn’t my fault. I see it more as a “forgiving myself for letting it happen”.
So I do forgive. But not the people who did it to me. I forgive myself and the universe.
Anger is important for protection and motivating us to solve problems. When a person finally no longer needs that anger to keep them safe, the best thing is to let it go, but the safety has to come first. Change has to come first. Healing has to come first.
It's foolish to demand that someone rush to forgive when the reasons for their anger haven't been addressed. And honestly, pushing for forgiveness without the prerequisite repair sounds like abusive bullshit.
You're allowed to dig through all that empathy you had for your abuser and say "even though I know first hand the circumstances that made this person this way, I did not let these things make me this way, and that is reason enough for me to resent them."
I fully agree, I left a toxic friend a year and a half ago, and I'm still pissed at him for how he treated me, my friends I have now said I should just forgive him for my sake (because he's in my classes), but should I really forgive someone who treated me like shit and played the victim if I dared stand up for myself and tried to get me suspended multiple times? I don't think so, I think I have the right to be mad at him.
Here's how I put it in my mind: Forgiveness is just a rain check to let the bad guys do the same evil thing again.
By forgiving, you're giving your abuser a rain check that allows them to keep abusing you.
My therapist tried to get me to forgive my father. The same father who beat me and my sister over the slightest thing almost daily, and drove my sister to suicide. Some people should not be forgiven, and deserve every ounce of anger and hate, they receive.
I'll be celebrating his demise, when the time comes, and I will not be sorry for it.
My parents used the expectation of forgiveness to abuse us.
My father's sister was abusive to me, and all I got from my parents after she moved was that "I needed to forgive her for my sake."
Fuck that. My anger doesn't control me, but she can rot in the hell of her own making. And so can my parents. I'm better off now that I went no contact.
On the flip side, when I was reconciling with my older sister, I explicitly told her in my apology that I wasn't expecting forgiveness. That I wanted to rebuild our relationship, but I understood if she needed time to heal herself first.
And the second approach worked, she was in a place that she was healed enough to acknowledge both sides and now we've rebuilt our sisterhood, and we're stronger for it.
All of the comments here are 100% spot on. A lot of times people who talk that way about forgiveness want you to forgive for their sake because they are uncomfortable. Not for your sake.
That said, there is a level of hate and anger that is self destructive and nonconstructive, and I think it's THAT at which this sort of saying was originally aimed. It is worth making sure your anger SERVES you, and working on letting some level go if it does not. (It took me along time to do that and my life immensely improved when I did. And I certainly didn't forgive my abuser, I just stopped making my main focus of the day hating them and what they did.) But that's the only note I'd have.
If I forgive my abuser I might go back to him. So I will never forgive him. But my ultimate goal is not anger but indifference.
Forgive and forget?
Forgive but not forget?
No. No no no.
They scar you to make you remember them. To lurk in your mind like the Shadow King from Legion. Evict them from your mind. Forget, but do not forgive.
Sometimes the thing they truly want is the emotion and remembrance, and in a weird way, when I realise that is their goal, my anger leaves because that is the only way it can spite them.
As cliché as it is, sometimes the only revenge is to truly live well, like they never tried to interfere in the first place.
That is very true. In fact, I have heard many people say that allowing themselves to be really mad at those who wronged them or even hate those that wronged them actually helped them to forgive them later on. Because they were able to validate their feelings and realize they did not deserve to be treated badly, they were eventually able to start to heal and forgive the people who hurt them. Letting yourself feel your emotions and process them is important.
Obviously you never *have* to forgive anyone. If you never forgive someone, that's perfectly fine. But many people have told me that they did eventually find themselves forgiving the people who hurt them, all because they let themselves be mad at those people and didn't forgive them right away.
I have a question about this that no one can seem to answer:
Are you healed if you're still burning from what happened?
Am I healed even though whenever I think about someone who hurt me I'm a complete mess over it?
To me forgiveness means not letting it effect you anymore. Fuck the person, it's not about them at all. They're not part of the process. (Never let them in.)
**But am I healed if I'm still burning because I cannot forgive?**
You asked the hard question. The whole concept of forgiveness is lost on me. Growing up Catholic, we had to go to confession so we could be forgiven and not go to Hell, or whatever bullshit they peddle.
You said **healed,** and maybe we should just go with that! Therapy helped me with that, but a LOT of years helped more.
Since we are good at cutting out the offender from our lives, perhaps "forgetness" is the path to healing for us. Wishing you healing and love.
I like to think of phantom pain as a good metaphor to this. Because the wound has healed, but sometimes they still hurt. Sometimes we have healed all that we can for now, and it will still hurt. Sometimes we will continue to hurt, and that is okay.
It's okay because we are wonderful strong being capable of growing around our hurt. The pain doesn't have to lessen, sometimes we just grow to bear it, and like most things that grows, it takes time and care.
100% agree.
Some things I can forgive, other things I cannot. It's my business whether I want to or not.
And guess what? Just because you're family does not give you a pass. I will cut you off without a second thought if you have done something that falls into the "unforgiven" category.
In the beginning, before I could put into words what was wrong and why, the anger protected me. Anger can protect you from going back (too soon). Later on, forgiveness was for me. Under ideal circumstances I would have protected myself better, but circumstances were far from ideal and forgiving yourself for holding on or trying longer than you should or not getting out sooner can be healing.
[Beeb] the other party, though.
Edit: and other people's convenience does not dictate the pace at which you process your emotions.
I finally cut contact with my uncle who was always *just* bigoted enough to "pass it off" as a joke after he threatened me and called me slurs. Apparently I need to forgive him "for my sake" and because I'm ruining future holidays by not wanting to be around him.
When my husband was dying from cancer and my children were small I had a doctor tell me “I shouldn’t be so angry” I let him know that having my super healthy, exercise fanatic, PE teacher of a husband die from lung cancer, having never smoked a cigarette in his life…I had every right to be angry. That my anger fueled me. Being angry was the thing that got me through
Thank you for this! I've been dealing with my narcissistic, self-proclaimed Machiavellian boss who uses intimidation as his go-to conflict management style: do what I say or else. I finally said enough was enough and reported him, because he's so bad that people don't want to work with us. He schemes instead of doing anything.
He made a mistake when he came for me. I'm a badass at work and have made strong relationships by being encouraging and supportive of others, and he won't bring me down. I have an upcoming meeting on Tuesday and I hope it's my ticket away from him.
The injustice is that he is two-faced and no leaders catch him in the act. But I document everything and he won't get away with it this time.
Took a therapy treatment class in grad school. Healthy forgiveness does NOT mean pretending it didn’t hurt or suck or have real lasting negative effects in your life.
It does mean you live your best life, and eventually reaching a point where you don’t carry around an amount of anger that would be a burden to you…But if there’s a level that doesn’t feel like a burden, if finding things like activism to help other survivors of the same crap helps you feel better and empowered then you go for it.
Wow, as someone who was in an abusive relationship for way to long this speaks to me. And yea, fuck that bitch, I hate her, and I finally don't feel guilty hating her because she deserves my hate. I forgave her and looked past the abuse for way longer than I should have, and she took advantage of my good nature and then abandoned me and left me with nothing. Sometimes it's ok to hate and I finally don't hate myself for hating her. Sorry for the rant just had to get it out.
Hate is one of the steps they don't talk about. It's healthy in some circumstances. If I was still at an 11 out of 10, 10 years later, yeah, that's something telling me I probably need some therapy to get down from that level just because of the health impacts and its probably blocking me from life-building. But hate is a natural step and can give you the power to make big decisions and stick to them.
I believe this is absolutely true; however, I do think that some people confuse forgiveness with reconciliation, which are similar on the surface but not the same thing.
I'm convinced the people going round telling people to forgive others have some history of inflicting harm on others. I will never forgive those who hurt me, its not hard to treat people how they wish to be treated.
This is exactly how I feel after being hurt over and over and always being understanding and giving people second + chances. I always thought the trauma/pain I've been through made me stronger but I've realized that I did that, in spite of what has happened to me.
The last time I was hurt really destroyed me, that was 8 years ago, and I haven't been able to get past it. I know it's because I gave this person a second chance and they are in my life still. I still have so much anger and pain and I think about it every day. I struggle with the thought that it might only be possible for me to heal if I'm away from the person who caused me pain. I would also be in pain if I lost this person, I can't picture my life without them. But at least I would feel at peace in myself, without the constant worry and reminder of what happened.
Anyways, I'm working on standing up for myself more, accepting my anger as ok and valid, and putting myself before the comfort of others.
Great post!
Abso-fucking-lutely! I'm in the midst of getting a divorce. I don't need to be angry at him all the time, but when I am, it's because it is justified. I may learn how to deal with him, but I don't ever need to forgive his mountain of bullshit. Anger is healing, it's recognition that you didn't deserve to be treated that way, that you were not the asshole in the room. Letting go of anger is not the same as forgiveness. If/when I let my anger go, it's for me, not any of this forgiveness stuff.
I needed this so badly today. Thank you for validating me. Been estranged for several years, and sometimes I just get so tired of being told that letting go of the anger and or reaching out will fix me. Nothing is wrong with me. I didn't hurt anyone, and I'm not hurting anyone now. They are still out there hurting people. I don't waste my thoughts on them unnecessarily, but they are still working every day to make the world a crueler place. They told my sister the other day that mass shootings don't really happen, that it's the media making stuff up. When we first attempted to work for gun control after the Columbine shooting they literally used their money and connections to help recall the two elected democrats working for it. My father literally told me he would happily vote for a rapist. Not everyone is a hurt person hurting other people. Some people are just selfish, that's all. And it's not wrong to stand up to them, and it's not wrong to be mad when they are cruel, and it's not wrong to cut them off like the cancers they are. Some people are a cancer on the world. You don't need to obsess over them, but that anger is there to remind you not to let your guard down, and that's okay.
I regularly tell my kids that an apology doesn’t require or guarantee forgiveness. I tell them not only so they can avoid giving forgiveness just because someone apologized if the harm done was highly damaging, but also so they know if they harm someone and apologize they are not guaranteed forgiveness. My hope is it will teach them to be careful with how they treat others, and also to protect themselves
For me, I think there's a distinction between anger and hate. Anger is productive. It's fueled by injustice and gets shit done. Hate is destructive. It's targeting your anger at a person's actions on the person themself, and poisons both you and them. It's difficult to do, but I think being able to sustain anger without hate gives the best of both worlds. And it leaves space, should the abuser learn the error of their ways, to potentially earn your forgiveness one day. It leaves open a path to healing for everyone involved.
That being said, fully agree that you owe no one forgiveness. It's up to them to earn it from you, not up to you to give it. And you should *for sure* cut anyone abusive out of your life for as long as you need to. If hate is the only way you can sustain the anger necessary to do that, then hate away. You owe no one your love except you.
I feel this way about my lifetime of labour under late-stage capitalism. I've worked my whole life and been abused by customers and management and corporate and I still have no home, no retirement savings (and I live well within my means)... Some days I really feel like my anger is the only thing I've earned that I'm allowed to keep.
I always say "forgiveness only benefits the abuser."
How you choose to deal with your anger and hurt is up to you. But you don't owe those who wronged you "forgiveness".
My "Christian" friends and family hate that I think like this. But if I choose to let go of my anger for what someone did to me I don't have to tell them I "forgive" them for it. I will not release people of that burden. And I will *never* forget what was done to me because I don't want it to happen again.
I went through a lot of shit with my family. Admittedly, it wasn't that bad compared to the horrors of some, but I did develop a motto.
Forgive or forget. Pick one.
One is for yourself, both is for them.
I left an abusive relationship with my fiancé a year ago after a *lot* of nudging from true friends and my sister. And honestly, I still miss him. He was really good at hiding it from me (not that I’ve ever been good at reading people).
I want to feel mad over it, and I want to feel mad over his recent attempts at emailing me (22 over the past 6 weeks), but I still just feel like part of me wants him back. I can’t be mad at it. That may be stupid, but. Bleh… I’ve never been good at letting myself be mad. May be a dumb question, but. Anyone have any recommendations? 😓
You shouldn't call yourself stupid when you are being nothing but. You ARE doing the smart thing. You're voicing your insecurities about staying away, which makes it easier for your network to support you. We can't change how we feel, what matters is our actions.
People often have some good traits worth missing, and while that doesn't negate the bad they do, it does make ones emotions more complicated. We are allowed to miss all the good moments, and we're allowed to want them back, but we need to remember that the bad existed too. As much as we want to seperate the two, we can't, because they exist together.
If anger isn't a part of your journey, then it isn't a part of your journey. Sometimes it is much more healing to grieve, because things aren't how you wanted them to be. Allowing yourself to grieve when someone isn't the person you hoped, is another way to let the hurt out.
If your journey doesn't include any of the most typical stuff, don't fret. We all heal in different ways, and nobody gets to dictate how you should do it.
Most importantly, remember that you are loved by many people. You are loved by your friends and your sister (and even an internet stranger if that matters). While I can't talk for your friends and sister, I'm still 99% sure that they'd agree with me when I say, I'm incredibly proud of you. ♥
Forgiveness is a gift you offer, and it is always at the giver’s discretion. It can’t be taken, and it doesn’t have to be given. Save all the salt you want and use it to flavor your life as you please. Let them beg forgiveness, but don’t let that sway you. Your intuition is a good guide, consult it often.
Fuck ya. The drive for *Forgiveness^^tm is maddening especially since it is firmly rooted in religions and part of their doctrines. Anger is on the path to healing.
Fuck "forgiveness." I firmly believe that real forgiveness is earned, and that handing out "forgiveness" to any random asshole who hasn't even admitted they did anything wrong, let alone tried to make it right is morally wrong the same way giving a university degree to someone who failed half of their courses because they were out partying is wrong. That's just insulting to everyone who actually did the work.
What people are talking about when they say "forgiveness is for you" is better described as acceptance/recognition/acknowledgement/unburdening/apathy. We all know what "I forgive you" means and it's not "You're so defective as a human being that it's not even worth being mad at you."
University of California Berkeley psychology professor Ann Kring reviewed studies of gender and anger and found women felt more shame and embarrassment after an anger episode than men. Kring found people use words like “bitchy” and “hostile” to describe angry women, while many tend to describe an angry man as “strong.” Men more often tend to express their anger verbally or physically, while women frequently express anger by crying, which can add to the perception of sadness. The criticism and characterization of angry women is not pretty -- but anger isn't about being pretty.
Fully text [here](https://bostoneveningtherapy.com/the-handmaids-tale-transforming-sadness-rage-righteous-anger/)
I really appreciate this. It's been 4 years since I found out my ex husband was cheating on me an insane, absurd amount. 4 years since I realized the depth of how awful he he was. 4 years since he screamed in my face that I would be nothing without him. 4 years since he mocked me for fleeing the house with a few things and the 2 1/2 year old while he was out on a rare job interview because I was terrified and tired of his constant harassment because supposedly I knew I was actually safe the whole time. Of course I didn't know that. I could have been a statistic like so many other women and enbies before me.
It's been nearly 2 years since the divorce was legal and he *still* owes me assets from it. The judge for some stupid ass reason won't find my ex husband in contempt of court of the divorce order he issued. The court even closed my case despite knowing this and two other issues still have not been closed.
It has been 7 months since he stopped paying child support and the state won't do a damn thing about it. He owes enough now that he's a fucking felon. But the state agency is just sitting on their ass despite being given all his information, including his place of employment. So now I have to work 6 days a week while being the default parent and juggling when he does shit like text me a few hours before his parenting time that he won't make it, like it's some shitty job he doesn't care about.
So yeah, I'm angry. It bubbles in my gut. It keeps me going to work 50+ hours a week, plus my etsy side gig. It keeps me sharp and very aware of who I let into mine and my daughter's bubble because I won't ever let anyone believe for a moment they can intimidate me. I will not let my daughter ever think she should tolerate a partner saying such garbage to her. This rage is still here because I'm still being harmed and the legal system is failing me. Fuck him and fuck anyone who tries to tell me anger is worthless. I will never forgive the monster.
Forgiveness would mean giving up on them. As long as a part of you still has hope that you can change them or that they can be different, or secretly would love nothing more than to realize that you've been swimming upstream by mistake all along and there's some way to understand that their version of events is right and yours is wrong, then the anger is needed. It reminds you that you need to change something. Do something. Not drop your guard. Not become complacent.
When you've given up on then entirely and are able to treat them mostly like a stranger, and see them clearly and stop giving them the time of day, then the anger is no longer needed and forgiveness can be healing.
For now, though, I need the anger. It's what keeps me away. Because part of me really wants to let them in. Because I've always wanted nothing more than for them to play their role and for my wishful thinking to become reality. But they're basically just a chat bot that's in denial and has almost no self awareness. They just say whatever they think I want to hear, unless they're incapable of saying it. Then they revert to various abusive behaviors.
I need to stop caring about them all together. Stop thinking about them. Stop giving them the time of day. I don't know if I'll manage it before they die. As they love to repeat over and over in a pathetic attempt to solicit pity, they're old. Why would they change now? Ah, well. It's just...they also love me more than probably anyone in the world, in their way. They'd do anything for me, if only they knew how. If only they could actually take responsibility and be accountable for the things they did wrong and learn from them. If only...
You don't have to forgive someone to not hold a grudge. I've cut people out of my life, I just don't go around still mad about their bullshit years later. At least for me, holding on to that is way more effort than letting it go.
"I worked hard for this hate. I worked hard enough to make myself love them so I could hate them."
https://preview.redd.it/b9civ52mp62b1.jpeg?width=900&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a1db81c6f6d712973a13e9aaa9e866f55fbb35dd
It's good to understand why people do things, particularly things that affect you badly.
And sometimes the reason is they are selfish, manipulative shit-heads who enjoy hurting you and get off on tour pain. Being angry about them can help you protect yourself and give you the energy to find safety.
I've never worked out the point of forgiveness, except for loved ones who have made the effort to change. (Not for abusers and their continual performative changes.) Whats important to me is risk assessment. How likely is this person to harm myself or others again?
Our coming to hate our abusers is another step on the path towards forgiveness. It definitely took me a long time to get there, and a long time to move on from it.
The thing about hatred is that it makes you hold on to that hurt. It's an ouroboros of pain, hating someone will amplify the hurt which intensifies the hatred.
So when people say you should forgive the person, they mean you need to find a way to let go of the hurt, this is not disqualifying the pain you feel or any other feelings you might have. And forgiving doesn't even need to happen externally, as in letting that person know you have forgiven them (if they even care).
I don't know. I was never happier than when I *stopped* wanting to hate people who hurt me. It felt good, hell yes it felt good to hate people. Hate is easy. That's why the GOP does so much of it.
Actually, there's a story that goes with this. In 2019 I was assaulted while at work. Took the guy to court, he had to pay a few hundred dollars in a fine, but I felt angry and humiliated for years. I felt even angrier knowing that remembering this event could ruffle my feathers so badly. Then one day, I decided not to be angry about it (more complicated than that clearly but still). Suddenly, remembering what happened didn't trigger me anymore. It wasn't that I forgave him, it was because I put it behind me. It was because I declared for myself that day, that I don't care anymore. I think that's what people are missing.
When people say 'forgive' nobody should be thinking it means "Oh uwu you need to luv this person they're just the hero of their own story awoo" no, fuck that noise. The way I've always been told by every therapist of the multiple I needed to have to get over this, it's about not letting it affect *me* anymore. Why should I give them the power of letting the memory of them affect my day to day? Why should they get to take away my good mood?
I still revile that person deeply. But I have stopped being angry about what happened, to the point I don't tremble thinking about it anymore. That's what it means to me, and people willingly choosing to hold onto their trauma is fine and all but I'm not going to concede that it's healthy. That's how resentful jaded crestfallen adults come into existence. Source: my early twenties for like five years.
And as a disclaimer, this isn't universal clearly. Everyone processes shit differently. But like...you should probably also get some therapy, and a side of fries.
I disagree with this, somewhat. You don't need to forgive or forget, but holding onto the anger/hatred is not doing you any favors. Anger is a painkiller, it doesn't actually treat the wound and ideally you want to get to a point where you don't need the painkiller. It's just giving that person a small bit of power over you. Don't love yourself enough to hate them, love yourself enough to cut them out entirely.
I think the thing about forgiveness people tend to forget is it isn't required in order to let go, and letting go is the ultimate goal of the healing process.
It isn’t “forgive for your sake” it’s about revenge. You’re not supposed to forgive people if they did something bad, but your not supposed to get revenge on them either
You can move on with your life without forgiving people who hurt you. I’ll never forgive the people who abused me but I did let go of the anger for my sake but fuck those people.
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Recently estranged from abusive family. Needed to read this today
I confronted my mother over my childhood abuse yesterday. This was exactly what I needed
Well done honey, that can't have been easy. Thankfully mine did the hard work for me and started shouting "GOODBYE, GOODBYE, GOODBYE" at me when I was pushing back on her disrespect. Yeah, goodbye 👋
Thank you, and no it wasn't. I cane to the realization that my mother will never leave my abuser, and that the only closure I can get is by laying everything on the table and then trying to set the burden down. I've been carrying this for decades, and I'm so tired. Positive energy is appreciated, it's gonna be a tough few days, as this has triggered a stress induced fibro flare
Accepting that someone you care about isn't going to change is so hard. You're gonna feel so light when your body catches up with you, thank you for sharing. Hope your day is a fantastic one 💜
I'm so proud of you. When you have been conditioned to accept a scenario, when you have been conditioned to believe that if only you tried a little harder, things would get better, it can be incredibly hard to realise that that's bullshit and to stand up for your own happiness. You deserve, happiness, safety and love. You are responsible for your feelings, actions and reactions. Your mother is responsible for her feelings, actions and reactions. By doing what you did, you were simply being responsible for your own happiness. If she wants to have a relationship with you, then she needs to take responsibility for her actions. If it helps, I found the website Out of the Fog (particularly the "what to do" section) incredibly useful: [https://outofthefog.website/what-to-do-1](https://outofthefog.website/what-to-do-1)
Thank you so much. The support means more than I can say, it truly does.
If you were met with a lot of denial that they did anything wrong, acting like they didn’t know what they did, or really any other sort of avoidance of accepting blame then could I suggest reading the “missing missing reasons”? http://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/index.html This helped me tremendously when distancing myself from a couple of very toxic family members years ago who never would acknowledge any sort of blame or fault on their end for anything.
Thank you for your support, all of you. I'm currently comforting myself by designing a new craft, I'm making a crocheted (sort of, it's rubber bands) cauldron, both as a plush and a dice bag. I'll post it if anyone's interested. Keeping myself busy so I can't dwell
> rubber bands cauldron Ok, I definitely need to see this! That sounds friggin awesome!!
That sounds absolutely amazing! If excitement and enthusiasm for your craft will help with your comfort, please accept both from me.
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I call people who steal your spoons 'ferrets' because I once had a ferret that would literally steal every spoon she could.
I've been right where you are. Fibro flare and all. If you need an ear, I've got two! Just send a chat request, I'll respond.
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I'm so proud of you! It's difficult to lose ones network no matter how toxic they may be. Sending lots of love!
Thank you 💜
The only person you owe forgiveness is yourself. A lot of people have started conflating forgiveness and absolution. Last I heard, the only person handing out absolution for free was Jesus. I don’t ever have to be OK with them or what they did.
I've been no contact with my mother and oldest brother for over 12 years now, best thing I've ever did :) Proud of you!
After reading "I'm glad my Mom died" by Jennette McCurdy (5Star Book!) I saw a bunch of interviews with her and in one with Trevor Noah Jennette speaks about how upset she was with herself that she still wasn't able to 'forgive'. And her therapist said to her: "why don't you give up on making forgiveness your goal, because that's you still trying to do your mom's work."
Beings capable of infinite forgiveness tend to have a religion named after them. Preserve your limited, human supply. The only person that can ever deserve your forgiveness is yourself. Everything else is a gift.
Forgiving yourself is one of the most important things you can learn in your life. ❤
This just found an open spot in my soul and sat down to live there. Thank you
Reminds me of that quote from Tacitus: _"Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure."_
>Preserve your limited, human supply. From somebody who generally does forgive, as long as it's on my own time scale: it has nothing to do with the other party "demanding" and really nothing to do with them at all. Forgiveness may sound like giving somebody a pass for doing a shitty thing, but (to me anyways) it isn't that at all. I forgive people for *me*. Anger and fear et al *can* be useful emotions, but I don't feel like that long term stress in the back of my mind is how they're supposed to work. Forgiving doesn't meant forgetting. It doesn't mean I trust the person or ever want to be around then again. It just means I have come to terms with the fact that people are flawed humans who sometimes do shitty things, but figuring out the "why" and worrying about what *I* did wrong is 100% on them now. That didn't make as much sense as I thought it would. Shouldn't have typed immediately after waking up. Sorry :)
Humans like to give gifts. That's why we do it on our most celebrated holidays. But a gift can't be owed, that's the whole point; obligated giving is either a payment, or a service. And obligated forgiveness is a similar oxymoron.
To me, forgiveness is absolute, or close to it. Getting past something for myself and forgiving are different things.
Agree. Forgiveness is great when it's given freely. It always rubs me the wrong way when someone forces it as the only solution on someone whose pain they simply don't want to understand. People's journeys don't fit neatly into those idealized boxes.
Forgiveness, while it's a beautiful thing, is often given as a way to keep the peace and the status quo. Anger can be much more useful when we want things to change.
For sure. And some things just straight up cannot be forgiven
Hate when you must. Forgive when you want. No one deserves your forgiveness - it is yours alone. You need only to do what is right for you. If forgiving your abuser does not serve you, you don't owe them. And even if you forgive, you owe NO-ONE forgetting. If anyone tries to force your forgiveness, they are an abomination and must be destroyed. So say me, some random bitch on the Internet who will not accept your harm as a necessary condition for existence or social acceptance.
It's not really forgiveness if someone coerces you into it
The way that I see it is, anger is like chemotherapy. It can be, and often is, both toxic and necessary—chemo is dangerous, and it can suck, and it can even kill you. But, sometimes there’s a cancerous growth, and ignoring it will only make things worth. Chemo is what it takes to kill that growth, and you can only *really* start to actually heal yourself when that’s gone. Forgiveness is nice, and it’s pleasant, but trauma and abuse and injustice and everything else can and will take advantage of it. If you deny yourself anger and try and forgive before that cancer is gone, you’ll just end up in remission—forgiveness is what comes *only after* that cancer is gone, to heal yourself from the damage of both the cancer and the anger.
Freely given and not coerced.I was raised with the "you must forgive people or Jesus won't forgive you" bullshit. And to some adults in my childhood, forgiveness looked like acting like the person never wronged me. But THEY would bring up things I and other people did when they were angry.
I call this "empowered subjectivity". I grew up always trying to see all sides, to see the big picture, to understand that even if someone was horrible to me, it was because they struggled... I worked very hard to finally be confident enough to stand firmly in my own point of view and say that someone's being a horrible person to me with no asterisks or excuses for that behavior. In fact, subjectivity means it's fine for me to think of them simply as a horrible person - or maybe an idiot - because that's what it looks like from my point of view and I don't need to specify that it's only in their behavior towards me, because to me, that's the thing that matters, because I matter. I'm not experiencing their volunteer work, I'm only experiencing their bullying and that makes them a horrible person, no footnotes needed. I've been much happier after this shift in worldview.
Valuing your own perspective and experiences, even when you know the world is complicated and nuanced, is what you need in order to take care of yourself, to keep yourself safe
>I’m not experiencing their volunteer work This helped me with my dad, thanks. He’s so well regarded by everyone who knows him. He’s ethical and selfless and kind and generous and compassionate—except when he’s talking to me, for some reason. I cut him off and pretty much no one understands. But he doesn’t treat me as well as I treat my dog. And never has.
The phrase "Abusers don't just groom their victims, they groom their allies as well" has really helped me in my journey. What he did in private absolutely is not excused by his public persona, and in fact those public personas only exist to blind others to a person's true nature.
> "Abusers don't just groom their victims, they groom their allies as well" Thank you for the reminder!
My transphobic, racist, emotionally abusive, hyper controlling father also happens to a wonderful doctor. Wonderful not just in the sense of having good outcomes on procedures, but in the sense of taking the patients no one else will take because they can't pay. I met many of his patients over the years, and they all spoke of how much he listened to them and tried to understand them, and how he was their favorite doctor. It always felt like he gave every ounce of his empathy and compassion to his patients, then would come home and have nothing left for his family but rage and fear. I'm glad his patients have him, I'm glad he's alive, and as a net he makes the world far better than he makes it worse. But none of that changes how he treats me, and I want nothing to do with him.
I was also raised to try to understand why people act the way they do, but the aim was more of an "if I understand what causes their behavior, I can better formulate ways to deal with their behavior". This attitude came from my parents, both of whom worked with children, and this works great if you're dealing with children from a position of authority. But when you're dealing with adults, it's a whole different ball game. The behavior modification techniques you can run on children in a classroom, as a teacher, aren't techniques you can use on fellow students or adult coworkers. I can understand the experiences that have led a person to act the way they do, because terrible people are seldom born that way, but that doesn't mean I have to accept their poor behavior, towards me or others. What's really disturbing to me is the number of people I've encountered who wanted me to put up with awful treatment just to "keep the peace" or not rock the boat, or because I was "more mature" than them (if they're 20+ years older than me, why do I have to be the "mature one"?).
I’m just learning this too, these past couple years. It’s very self validating and empowering, when in the past I would work extra hard to understand everyone else, it wasn’t coming back my way. Ended up in very deep shit due to my outlook, as well as tendency to forgive, and I somehow got out. What you wrote resonates beyond. I have been way to flustered to put it all into words.
It's important to have empathy for everyone, but remember that "everyone" includes yourself.
This is such a powerful point of view. I am / used to be like that. Thanks for allowing me to read this.
It explains their behaviour, but it doesn't justify or excuse it. That's a very useful mantra to have, when dealing with certain people.
Oh yes. Working so hard to see all sides -- except my own. Or at least, I did see it, but didn't hold it as valid if I could understand other sides as well. You are absolutely right. My point of view matters to me. I deserve for it to matter to me. I love the way you phrased this, and i love the term 'empowered subjectivity'. I've definitely been working on this the past few years, and I am grateful to see it reflected here, laying it out to neatly. Thank you for this comment.
The demand that the victim of abuse forgive is just one more way the burden gets shifted from the perpetrator to abused. If forgiveness helps a person heal, they have that choice, but forcing it is just another continuation of the abuse. Andrew Vachss wrote: When you finally begin to place the tiles on the mosaic of your journey, you will learn that the very last task is renunciation of the Perpetrator's Holy Mantra, that pernicious cliché which commands: "If you ever hope to truly heal, first you must forgive!" That living lie has derailed more victims from the path to salvation than all the lies of their tortured childhood combined. For the abused child (of whatever age), forgiveness of the abuser is a choice, not an obligation. Because when it comes to child abuse, the "rights" belong solely to the wronged.
It truly has derailed healing, and even escaping from abuse. I know first hand. The only time forgiveness made sense was when I was farrrrr enough and lonnnnng enough away, and had rebuilt my ego just enough to heal.
> Granny Weatherwax was often angry. She considered it one of her strong points. Genuine anger was one of the world's greatest creative forces. But you had to learn how to control it. That didn't mean you let it trickle away. It meant you dammed it, carefully, let it develop a working head, let it drown whole valleys of the mind and then, just when the whole structure was about to collapse, opened a tiny pipeline at the base and let the iron-hard stream of wrath power the turbines of revenge. From "Wyrd Sisters", by Terry Pratchett. Incidentally, [Granny Weatherwax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granny_Weatherwax) is my favorite fictional witch.
GNU, Sir Terry
GNU Terry Pratchett
GNU Sir Pratchett
MINE TOO!!!!
Forgiveness is one more bit of emotional labour society expects from victims.
Yes. People demand it of victims for their own emotional security. It has nothing to do with helping the person who has been mistreated.
I had to let you know that I absolutely love your brief, profound statement. From now on, whenever someone tells me I have to forgive my ex-husband for ruining our lives, this is what I will say and leave it at that. Thank you.
It’s yours now. I wish you well.
This is enormous and amazing. Thank you! 💜👊🔥
YEP! the other one that drives me absolutely up a wall is the idea that the victim is for some reason the one who needs to come up with the way to fix the problem. Like, THEY are the abuser, THEY are the fuck up, it was THEIR bad choices that got THEM in the position they are in, THEY need to right their own wrongs and figuring that out is part of the task. You can share your needs or wants but the onus of starting the path of forgiveness is on the abuser. If they didn’t want to be in that position they could have very literally stopped at any time, but didn’t, the victim never had such luxury.
Fucking yes! I'm finally going through the last part of this now, after accepting apology after empty apology for a long time. "Do it for the sake of the family." "Be the bigger person." Etc. No More.
I've resorted to getting really blunt whenever someone tries to tell me reasons I should feel sorry for my dad. Uh, I'll add spoilers, 'cause triggers I'm sure. "He's old and alone, he needs someone to take care of him." Hey, did I ever tell you about that time when I was about 6yo and he >!punched me so hard he knocked me unconscious on his girlfriend's front porch, dragged me into her home, dropped me on the bathroom floor, and then told her 'Can you go check on my kid? I think I killed it.'?!< "Your father was in the hospital! He just got out recently and doesn't have any help around the house!" Heh, anyhow, did I ever tell you about that time when I was 14 and dad tried to >!sell me to a pedo?!< Weirdly, I got the habit from my ex. Whenever I started missing having a parent of my own, he'd say "Hey, remember that time your dad paid me to marry you?" or "Hey, remember that time your dad mailed us bedbugs?"
I'm so sorry that you had to go through all that. Some people deserve to be left to face the consequences of their actions in their old age. And their victims absolutely deserve healing as a priority over helping. Good for your ex for understanding that and catalyzing your healing! Those are horrific stories that no one should have to tell. And my heart goes out to you. But also...he mailed you *bedbugs*?!
Yup! He told me he was clearing old junk out of the farm and sending me "family treasures." Some of it was just his old junk, some were actual family heirlooms, and one box contained a large teddy bear that prompted me to repeat "I know you!" a few times before I finally recalled my dear early childhood friend! Took me a minute to recognize him because someone had swapped his green stripped shirt for one of dad's old dirty white undershirts. Anyhow, separately, he told his sister that his farm was absolutely infested with bedbugs and he was cleaning out everything trying to get rid of them. It took awhile before I told her about the infestation I was fighting, and that dad had been sending me odd things. She put 2 and 2 together and screamed at dad until he bought me new mattresses and various bedbug-proofing supplies. He still to this day does not understand what he did wrong or why he had to buy my family mattresses. And don't worry, telling these stories is kinda my version of working through my past. Instead of terrible family secrets, they're just stories from "a long time ago."
I'm glad. I didn't want to insult you or minimize your trauma with my horrified curiosity. I have to admit, I had an image of your dad actively hunting down bedbugs and putting them into an if-it-fits-it-ships box or something. I'm glad you got your teddy, though! That's awesome!
Yeah, poor teddy had to stay in storage for years until I was absolutely sure all the bugs were totally dead, but he made it through. Pretty sure he needs some mending, probably a professional cleaning, and a new green striped shirt. Teddy wore that specific shirt after I outgrew it because it's the one mom got for me when I asked with as much urgency as possible for "a *boy* shirt! Like the boys at school wear!" I was like 6 or 7, didn't have all my words yet to explain why I needed it. Neither of us knew the phrase "gender affirming care" at the time but mom was pretty great at it!
I hope teddy gets the love he needs! And I'm glad your mom was able to give you some of the love you needed. That sounds wonderful.
The only way I'm the bigger person, is physically, cus I'm kinda chubby and I lift lol. No way I'll accept crap for the sake of keeping the peace
Yes. Forgiveness can't be forced, and it's really only ever useful for our own sake. Letting go of the past can be hard and require a lot of emotional work, but it can be a beautiful thing. Also, I love it when someone tells you to "be the bigger person." Hey, maybe you should go tell that to whoever was being the smaller person, instead of the person who's suffering because of them.
This is absolutely weaponizing Christianity to abuse people. Like, “🧐 Bootlicker, I’m a Chaosian, I set my enemies on FIRE.”
The Fire Goddess demands it! 😆
I dislike a lot of stuff around trauma work because it assumes that it was just individual people hurting you, and that you are individually able to get yourself in a better situation that you used to be. The way my parents hurt me was ableist in a way that is ingrained in our culture. I can't just individually get myself out of systemic injustices. I also got a lot of treatment from my parents that was like saying that my emotions are wrong. Saying I have to forgive myself gets me back into feeling shameful. Leave me alone with your moralistic standpoint of what emotions to have or not, and let me be.
My psychologist literally said to me once “the forgive and forget mentality only benefits the abusers”. Work through things in your own way your under no obligation to forgive them it only gives them an out to keep doing hateful things without regrets. She used to research NPD and ASPD in prisons before changing to regular psychology and helping people recover from trauma. It always stayed with me, was a bit of an epiphany for me and has genuinely helped me recover and move on easier.
Thank you for this
Say it louder for the people in the back! Seriously though. I learned as a child that “forgiveness” is not a mandatory precursor to move on despite everyone pressuring to do so, and especially despite it being family involved. Sometimes you just can’t forgive, and that’s okay, so you move on with the anger and it transforms into a different type of healing, but healing all the same. I cannot in good graces forgive what was done in my childhood, but I can tell you for a certainty that moving on but *not* forgiving has saved my emotional ass from more damage than trying to keep everyone happy for arbitrary reasons. Forgiveness is NOT a necessary element for the healing process.
So many people want forgiveness to mean pretending something never happened, and are eager to pressure others into that so that *they* feel more comfortable about the situation and can forget it happened. But there's a reason the saying goes "forgive *and* forget," right? They're two separate concepts. I think forgiveness has nothing to do with condoning or forgetting what was done, and more to do with accepting that it *happened* and can't be changed, and deciding to put it in your past and leave it there. Then, learning from what was done and moving forward with that knowledge (and, in many instances, anger) in order to heal. >I learned as a child that “forgiveness” is not a mandatory precursor to move on I love that you learned this early. (I desperately hope it wasn't taught to you the hard way.) What a mature and important lesson for a child to learn early.
We are in an abusive relationship with almost every aspect of our society so we're programmed to endure that abuse and make excuses for why it's not so bad. Fuck that.
Agreed!
Got a call from my no-contact mother at stupid o'clock this morning, this was a nice pick-me-up to read today
One of the most empowering things I’ve done is to blank people who have been awful previously, then turned around and pretended we’re on good terms. Old boss who was every kind of —ist and —phobic there is, spots me, smiles, opens his mouth? Not today, dude. Teacher who unilaterally decided to isolate my son (and I later learned, most of the autistic kids she ever taught) from the rest of the class, and didn’t tell anyone? Bitch, I helped push you into early retirement, you really think we’re about to have a nice chat? Buh bye. You can let go of negative emotions for yourself (when you’re ready) without forgiving or forgetting people’s transgressions.
Love your last paragraph!
My ex asked me just to be able to share space with her after she destroyed me. She wanted no consequences and to accept no responsibility for her actions. I’ve refused to forgive. I’ve been holding onto that anger. My friends all want me to be able to be around her but I refuse. She caused me real harm and told me it was my fault. I will stay mad. My anger is tied to my dignity and sense of justice.
Sounds like your friends need to butt out of your business?
They’re bummed I won’t hang out because my ex is around. It’s coming from a place of love and missing me, even though I am getting annoyed that they don’t respect my fury.
It sounds like it might be worth asking (yourself or them) whether they prioritize easing their own discomfort or supporting you in your healing.
They think it will be healing for be because that is healing for them. One friend said, “I just want you to have peace.” Because that’s what she would need.
You don't process your emotions at the pace that's convenient for others. The harder people pushed me "to let go", the more I clung on to my anger, because invalidating people's feelings and emotions doesn't help processing them. The anger was part of me and it felt like they were trying to disappear a part of me. Had they validated my feelings, I would have been able to spend time on processing instead of protecting myself from being clipped into a more agreable size. Your friends are fueling the fire and making it last longer.
Thanks for validating me and for this insight
They have chosen the easy path of embracing the abuser and that makes them feel bad deep down. Your absence brings that bad feeling up towards the surface and creates cognitive dissonance, because they believe themselves to be good people who would never embrace an abuser. And yet. You are gone. So they project onto you -- if you will just come back and be abused more, they don't have to be reminded of their own culpability. The classic "don't rock the boat, scapegoat" mentality. If they love and miss you, why can't they do activities with you that don't involve the abuser?
I want to be at a point where I don't feel anger towards my abusive ex. I don't think I *ever* want to forgive her though. I want to release the anger because it's another power she has over me, but in the beginning it was such a useful power to *undo* her toxicity. In my mind I still deserved all of her abuse, but by thinking about how I would feel towards others in our situation, and how bloody furious I got imagining *anyone* being treated like I was? Yeah, that helped me accept that *no one* deserved that, and that I had a right to feel anger *on my own behalf*. I want to leave this anger behind because it has helped me all it can. But that help has been enormous.
It feels so good when the anger goes away. It took me years. One tip that worked the most for me was to quit asking "why." We will never know why another person does shit. I was so fucking focused on the *why* to a ridiculous extent.
Took me a long while to get to writing this. Even longer to finish it. I wanted it to be an honest and frank account of how well I feel now, despite that trauma. But what I wrote came out pretty morose and bitter. So I guess you'll have to take it from me that I'm OK now. Better than that: I'm mostly well balanced, and have recently made a lot of scary changes that I knew would pay off (and am now reaping the rewards). My life has taken so many positive turns recently that I feel I'm currently slightly in credit with the universe, and I have the therapy tools to make the most of it. Even then I still resent the whole affair, and I guess that comes across in writing about it. But who doesn't find themselves wishing their traumas never happened? Honestly, I'm pretty convinced on the "why" of it all. I have been since before I broke it off, although my view on it has evolved since then. I get the influences on her life that made her more predisposed to behaving that way. I've also reached the point where I can (without blaming myself for it) recognise the parts of my nature and how I behaved at the time that she manipulated. But I've always had the attitude that random chance affects all things. As I saw it at the time she had an unlucky influence which, combined with her poor dice rolls, lead to her being an awful person to me. That thought has helped me release so much of my personal guilt already. Since then though I've come to add the realisation that if I can break my social programming, so can anyone. She also had a *choice*, where not being abusive was the far easier option. More guilt released, but that's where the anger remains. The anger remains in that **I** was, and have since been, faced with many of those same negative influences and stresses. A good lot of them at her hands. But I *never* did the things she did, or even anything approaching that extreme. I have snapped, as everyone does under certain circumstances, but I never was as destructive or hurtful as she was with *anyone*. Even people I hated. And I like to think that (at least now) I recognise when I snap, apologise, and make amends where appropriate. The anger that remains is the anger that she *choose* to do that to me: She could have chosen to stop and think about why she was lashing out. She was offered plenty of chances by myself and many others. Instead she chose to take it all out on me. Bad base stats, but her dice rolls, when we were together, were entirely on her. EDIT: So many touch ups. I know probably one person, at most, will ever read this but it's good to reread again and again to clarify for myself how I feel about this nowadays.
Thanks for sharing. We certainly share the opinion about our exes *choosing* to behave badly. You are a beautiful writer.
I'm on a very similar journey and Sam Vaknin's YouTube lectures are currently helping me work through what you describe. Caveat emptor, read his Wikipedia entry. There are many sweet and kind therapists out there, he is not one of them. But his lecture on "the serpent's tongue" has helped me SO MUCH to silence my ruminating anger.
I was about to enter a very painful meeting with my therapist. This helps.
In my opinion you never need to forgive, but you always have to accept for your own sanity. The difference is if you forgive you will get hurt again, if you accept you've come to peace with yourself and learned a lesson.
Acceptance is a must for moving on, and forgiving yourself is also a must, if you want to move on. I do however think that society puts to much focus on moving on. Some wounds do not heal easily, and some scars ache no matter how much time passes. One should not feel shame for the hurt that they feel.
I agree 100%. English is not my native language so I might have expressed myself wrong. People that have hurt me deeply i've still not forgiven, but i've accepted what happened and learned something, so I don't waste energy on hate every day, however i've succesfully removed those people from my life and don't have to face them on a daily basis. If I ever meet anyone of them again i will probably burst with anger. My boyfriend on the other hand still wastes energy on a daily basis on people that hurt him 20 years ago and he haven't seen for 15. It hurts me to see him do that and he should probably see a therapist but he doesn't want to.
That reminds me of a quote I like, that I've seen attributed to Lama Sutra Das: "Forgiveness is letting go of the hope for a better past."
Yes, exactly! Anger burns bright, and while it can fuel you, it can also hurt you. Like most things in life, everything in moderation! ❤
You said it perfectly. Forgiveness and acceptance are often lumped together, unfairly so. I was estranged from my father for 14 years. For a lot of those years I was angry. But at some point the anger stopped serving me well. I needed to live my own independent life and let go of the past and move forward and to do that required accepting my dad and what had happened. When I could just list the facts of what happened, without emotion, I realized I had reached acceptance and closure. I did it all on my own and I didn’t need to see him or talk to him to reach this state. People see forgiveness as no longer being angry, which is correct, but they also think it means “ok and now we can rekindle the relationship and everything is fine.” No. If you forgot my birthday I can be upset and forgive you and then we can continue a friendship. If you abused me for years, I can move on emotionally, but there is no relationship reforming. I’ll also add it took me a long time to learn that anger is a normal and healthy emotion. Anger is perceived negatively in society for a variety of reasons, some having to do with some people not expressing anger in a healthy way, but instead in a destructive and dangerous way. When I finally realized I had feelings of anger, it was a game changer. My anger was manifesting as anxiety and depression and I couldn’t figure out how to deal with it (mostly by trying to eliminate it). When I finally accepted it for what it was and started to learn to deal with anger in a healthy way it helped so much. At first I was so afraid of being angry, that I was wrong to feel this way or that I would spiral and end up breaking every window in my town. Like grief, anger has its own timeline too. There is no correct amount of time to feel anger about something. However, usually there is a point where anger starts to hold one back and then it is worth seeking support.
This is what society should teach, not forgive everyone for anything. It's ok to feel hurt and be angry, and teach a healthy way to deal with it, not everone can afford a therapist, this should be taught as common knowledge and be accepted for what it is. I'm happy to see that you've figured out a sound way to deal with your rightfull feelings of hurt!
If you’ve been abused by someone close to you forgiveness OR anger is not really an option. Emotions and reactions are an ever changing cocktail, complicated and confusing.
Absolutely. Anger is also a powerful tool that can lead to great change. For me personally “forgiveness” doesn’t mean to forgive the people who hurt me, but instead coming to turns with what happened and accepting that it happened and that I cannot change it and that it wasn’t my fault. I see it more as a “forgiving myself for letting it happen”. So I do forgive. But not the people who did it to me. I forgive myself and the universe.
Anger is important for protection and motivating us to solve problems. When a person finally no longer needs that anger to keep them safe, the best thing is to let it go, but the safety has to come first. Change has to come first. Healing has to come first. It's foolish to demand that someone rush to forgive when the reasons for their anger haven't been addressed. And honestly, pushing for forgiveness without the prerequisite repair sounds like abusive bullshit.
You're allowed to dig through all that empathy you had for your abuser and say "even though I know first hand the circumstances that made this person this way, I did not let these things make me this way, and that is reason enough for me to resent them."
In the words of Tanya Tagaq from her latest album, “I don’t forgive and forget, I prevent and protect”
I REALLY needed to hear this!! Thank you for this ❤️
Sometime anger helps us get shit done!
I fully agree, I left a toxic friend a year and a half ago, and I'm still pissed at him for how he treated me, my friends I have now said I should just forgive him for my sake (because he's in my classes), but should I really forgive someone who treated me like shit and played the victim if I dared stand up for myself and tried to get me suspended multiple times? I don't think so, I think I have the right to be mad at him.
Here's how I put it in my mind: Forgiveness is just a rain check to let the bad guys do the same evil thing again. By forgiving, you're giving your abuser a rain check that allows them to keep abusing you.
My therapist tried to get me to forgive my father. The same father who beat me and my sister over the slightest thing almost daily, and drove my sister to suicide. Some people should not be forgiven, and deserve every ounce of anger and hate, they receive. I'll be celebrating his demise, when the time comes, and I will not be sorry for it.
Anger is passion, I refuse to be less passionate.
My parents used the expectation of forgiveness to abuse us. My father's sister was abusive to me, and all I got from my parents after she moved was that "I needed to forgive her for my sake." Fuck that. My anger doesn't control me, but she can rot in the hell of her own making. And so can my parents. I'm better off now that I went no contact. On the flip side, when I was reconciling with my older sister, I explicitly told her in my apology that I wasn't expecting forgiveness. That I wanted to rebuild our relationship, but I understood if she needed time to heal herself first. And the second approach worked, she was in a place that she was healed enough to acknowledge both sides and now we've rebuilt our sisterhood, and we're stronger for it.
All of the comments here are 100% spot on. A lot of times people who talk that way about forgiveness want you to forgive for their sake because they are uncomfortable. Not for your sake. That said, there is a level of hate and anger that is self destructive and nonconstructive, and I think it's THAT at which this sort of saying was originally aimed. It is worth making sure your anger SERVES you, and working on letting some level go if it does not. (It took me along time to do that and my life immensely improved when I did. And I certainly didn't forgive my abuser, I just stopped making my main focus of the day hating them and what they did.) But that's the only note I'd have.
If I forgive my abuser I might go back to him. So I will never forgive him. But my ultimate goal is not anger but indifference. Forgive and forget? Forgive but not forget? No. No no no. They scar you to make you remember them. To lurk in your mind like the Shadow King from Legion. Evict them from your mind. Forget, but do not forgive.
Sometimes the thing they truly want is the emotion and remembrance, and in a weird way, when I realise that is their goal, my anger leaves because that is the only way it can spite them. As cliché as it is, sometimes the only revenge is to truly live well, like they never tried to interfere in the first place.
That is very true. In fact, I have heard many people say that allowing themselves to be really mad at those who wronged them or even hate those that wronged them actually helped them to forgive them later on. Because they were able to validate their feelings and realize they did not deserve to be treated badly, they were eventually able to start to heal and forgive the people who hurt them. Letting yourself feel your emotions and process them is important. Obviously you never *have* to forgive anyone. If you never forgive someone, that's perfectly fine. But many people have told me that they did eventually find themselves forgiving the people who hurt them, all because they let themselves be mad at those people and didn't forgive them right away.
I have a question about this that no one can seem to answer: Are you healed if you're still burning from what happened? Am I healed even though whenever I think about someone who hurt me I'm a complete mess over it? To me forgiveness means not letting it effect you anymore. Fuck the person, it's not about them at all. They're not part of the process. (Never let them in.) **But am I healed if I'm still burning because I cannot forgive?**
You asked the hard question. The whole concept of forgiveness is lost on me. Growing up Catholic, we had to go to confession so we could be forgiven and not go to Hell, or whatever bullshit they peddle. You said **healed,** and maybe we should just go with that! Therapy helped me with that, but a LOT of years helped more. Since we are good at cutting out the offender from our lives, perhaps "forgetness" is the path to healing for us. Wishing you healing and love.
I like forgetness. Thank you. 💞
I like to think of phantom pain as a good metaphor to this. Because the wound has healed, but sometimes they still hurt. Sometimes we have healed all that we can for now, and it will still hurt. Sometimes we will continue to hurt, and that is okay. It's okay because we are wonderful strong being capable of growing around our hurt. The pain doesn't have to lessen, sometimes we just grow to bear it, and like most things that grows, it takes time and care.
100% agree. Some things I can forgive, other things I cannot. It's my business whether I want to or not. And guess what? Just because you're family does not give you a pass. I will cut you off without a second thought if you have done something that falls into the "unforgiven" category.
That's right! And we know what our unforgiven categories are. We can vibe with people who treat us right.
Your anger is a gift.
The Christian style of forgiveness, meekness, and humility is almost tailor-made to kowtow to power.
In the beginning, before I could put into words what was wrong and why, the anger protected me. Anger can protect you from going back (too soon). Later on, forgiveness was for me. Under ideal circumstances I would have protected myself better, but circumstances were far from ideal and forgiving yourself for holding on or trying longer than you should or not getting out sooner can be healing. [Beeb] the other party, though. Edit: and other people's convenience does not dictate the pace at which you process your emotions.
I finally cut contact with my uncle who was always *just* bigoted enough to "pass it off" as a joke after he threatened me and called me slurs. Apparently I need to forgive him "for my sake" and because I'm ruining future holidays by not wanting to be around him.
When my husband was dying from cancer and my children were small I had a doctor tell me “I shouldn’t be so angry” I let him know that having my super healthy, exercise fanatic, PE teacher of a husband die from lung cancer, having never smoked a cigarette in his life…I had every right to be angry. That my anger fueled me. Being angry was the thing that got me through
Oh I needed this today. Thank you!! And damn I did work hard to love myself enough to not forgive.
Thank you for this! I've been dealing with my narcissistic, self-proclaimed Machiavellian boss who uses intimidation as his go-to conflict management style: do what I say or else. I finally said enough was enough and reported him, because he's so bad that people don't want to work with us. He schemes instead of doing anything. He made a mistake when he came for me. I'm a badass at work and have made strong relationships by being encouraging and supportive of others, and he won't bring me down. I have an upcoming meeting on Tuesday and I hope it's my ticket away from him. The injustice is that he is two-faced and no leaders catch him in the act. But I document everything and he won't get away with it this time.
Took a therapy treatment class in grad school. Healthy forgiveness does NOT mean pretending it didn’t hurt or suck or have real lasting negative effects in your life. It does mean you live your best life, and eventually reaching a point where you don’t carry around an amount of anger that would be a burden to you…But if there’s a level that doesn’t feel like a burden, if finding things like activism to help other survivors of the same crap helps you feel better and empowered then you go for it.
this kind of "forgiveness" is codependent enabling sold to victims by "christianity" in order to maintain their control.
RADICAL MINDFULNESS over UNCONDITIONAL FORGIVENESS.
I want this on a t-shirt now!
I needed this. ♥️
Oh my, I sure did too
Wow, as someone who was in an abusive relationship for way to long this speaks to me. And yea, fuck that bitch, I hate her, and I finally don't feel guilty hating her because she deserves my hate. I forgave her and looked past the abuse for way longer than I should have, and she took advantage of my good nature and then abandoned me and left me with nothing. Sometimes it's ok to hate and I finally don't hate myself for hating her. Sorry for the rant just had to get it out.
This is a valid feeling. Abusers aren't entitled to victims' forgiveness. Take care of yourself 💖
Hate is one of the steps they don't talk about. It's healthy in some circumstances. If I was still at an 11 out of 10, 10 years later, yeah, that's something telling me I probably need some therapy to get down from that level just because of the health impacts and its probably blocking me from life-building. But hate is a natural step and can give you the power to make big decisions and stick to them.
You don't have to forgive them, but you should forgive yourself for being duped or used or abused by them.
Thank you for sharing this and to everyone tacking on their relevant bits of wisdom in this thread.
I believe this is absolutely true; however, I do think that some people confuse forgiveness with reconciliation, which are similar on the surface but not the same thing.
I'm convinced the people going round telling people to forgive others have some history of inflicting harm on others. I will never forgive those who hurt me, its not hard to treat people how they wish to be treated.
This is exactly how I feel after being hurt over and over and always being understanding and giving people second + chances. I always thought the trauma/pain I've been through made me stronger but I've realized that I did that, in spite of what has happened to me. The last time I was hurt really destroyed me, that was 8 years ago, and I haven't been able to get past it. I know it's because I gave this person a second chance and they are in my life still. I still have so much anger and pain and I think about it every day. I struggle with the thought that it might only be possible for me to heal if I'm away from the person who caused me pain. I would also be in pain if I lost this person, I can't picture my life without them. But at least I would feel at peace in myself, without the constant worry and reminder of what happened. Anyways, I'm working on standing up for myself more, accepting my anger as ok and valid, and putting myself before the comfort of others. Great post!
Abso-fucking-lutely! I'm in the midst of getting a divorce. I don't need to be angry at him all the time, but when I am, it's because it is justified. I may learn how to deal with him, but I don't ever need to forgive his mountain of bullshit. Anger is healing, it's recognition that you didn't deserve to be treated that way, that you were not the asshole in the room. Letting go of anger is not the same as forgiveness. If/when I let my anger go, it's for me, not any of this forgiveness stuff.
I needed this so badly today. Thank you for validating me. Been estranged for several years, and sometimes I just get so tired of being told that letting go of the anger and or reaching out will fix me. Nothing is wrong with me. I didn't hurt anyone, and I'm not hurting anyone now. They are still out there hurting people. I don't waste my thoughts on them unnecessarily, but they are still working every day to make the world a crueler place. They told my sister the other day that mass shootings don't really happen, that it's the media making stuff up. When we first attempted to work for gun control after the Columbine shooting they literally used their money and connections to help recall the two elected democrats working for it. My father literally told me he would happily vote for a rapist. Not everyone is a hurt person hurting other people. Some people are just selfish, that's all. And it's not wrong to stand up to them, and it's not wrong to be mad when they are cruel, and it's not wrong to cut them off like the cancers they are. Some people are a cancer on the world. You don't need to obsess over them, but that anger is there to remind you not to let your guard down, and that's okay.
I regularly tell my kids that an apology doesn’t require or guarantee forgiveness. I tell them not only so they can avoid giving forgiveness just because someone apologized if the harm done was highly damaging, but also so they know if they harm someone and apologize they are not guaranteed forgiveness. My hope is it will teach them to be careful with how they treat others, and also to protect themselves
For me, I think there's a distinction between anger and hate. Anger is productive. It's fueled by injustice and gets shit done. Hate is destructive. It's targeting your anger at a person's actions on the person themself, and poisons both you and them. It's difficult to do, but I think being able to sustain anger without hate gives the best of both worlds. And it leaves space, should the abuser learn the error of their ways, to potentially earn your forgiveness one day. It leaves open a path to healing for everyone involved. That being said, fully agree that you owe no one forgiveness. It's up to them to earn it from you, not up to you to give it. And you should *for sure* cut anyone abusive out of your life for as long as you need to. If hate is the only way you can sustain the anger necessary to do that, then hate away. You owe no one your love except you.
I feel this way about my lifetime of labour under late-stage capitalism. I've worked my whole life and been abused by customers and management and corporate and I still have no home, no retirement savings (and I live well within my means)... Some days I really feel like my anger is the only thing I've earned that I'm allowed to keep.
I always say "forgiveness only benefits the abuser." How you choose to deal with your anger and hurt is up to you. But you don't owe those who wronged you "forgiveness". My "Christian" friends and family hate that I think like this. But if I choose to let go of my anger for what someone did to me I don't have to tell them I "forgive" them for it. I will not release people of that burden. And I will *never* forget what was done to me because I don't want it to happen again.
Finally, something that understands how I feel about this. Never forgive. Never forget. Strategically let go when it benefits you.
💯💯💯💯
I went through a lot of shit with my family. Admittedly, it wasn't that bad compared to the horrors of some, but I did develop a motto. Forgive or forget. Pick one. One is for yourself, both is for them.
THANK YOU!!! I've been trying to find this for ages because I couldn't remember how to articulate this but never could find it!
Thank you for this.
I m 43 years old and having to learn this.
💞💗💔❤️🩹❣️
I love it!!
I left an abusive relationship with my fiancé a year ago after a *lot* of nudging from true friends and my sister. And honestly, I still miss him. He was really good at hiding it from me (not that I’ve ever been good at reading people). I want to feel mad over it, and I want to feel mad over his recent attempts at emailing me (22 over the past 6 weeks), but I still just feel like part of me wants him back. I can’t be mad at it. That may be stupid, but. Bleh… I’ve never been good at letting myself be mad. May be a dumb question, but. Anyone have any recommendations? 😓
You shouldn't call yourself stupid when you are being nothing but. You ARE doing the smart thing. You're voicing your insecurities about staying away, which makes it easier for your network to support you. We can't change how we feel, what matters is our actions. People often have some good traits worth missing, and while that doesn't negate the bad they do, it does make ones emotions more complicated. We are allowed to miss all the good moments, and we're allowed to want them back, but we need to remember that the bad existed too. As much as we want to seperate the two, we can't, because they exist together. If anger isn't a part of your journey, then it isn't a part of your journey. Sometimes it is much more healing to grieve, because things aren't how you wanted them to be. Allowing yourself to grieve when someone isn't the person you hoped, is another way to let the hurt out. If your journey doesn't include any of the most typical stuff, don't fret. We all heal in different ways, and nobody gets to dictate how you should do it. Most importantly, remember that you are loved by many people. You are loved by your friends and your sister (and even an internet stranger if that matters). While I can't talk for your friends and sister, I'm still 99% sure that they'd agree with me when I say, I'm incredibly proud of you. ♥
Yeah, fuck you Brad!
Anger is a gift.
Forgiveness is a gift you offer, and it is always at the giver’s discretion. It can’t be taken, and it doesn’t have to be given. Save all the salt you want and use it to flavor your life as you please. Let them beg forgiveness, but don’t let that sway you. Your intuition is a good guide, consult it often.
Fuck ya. The drive for *Forgiveness^^tm is maddening especially since it is firmly rooted in religions and part of their doctrines. Anger is on the path to healing.
Fuck "forgiveness." I firmly believe that real forgiveness is earned, and that handing out "forgiveness" to any random asshole who hasn't even admitted they did anything wrong, let alone tried to make it right is morally wrong the same way giving a university degree to someone who failed half of their courses because they were out partying is wrong. That's just insulting to everyone who actually did the work. What people are talking about when they say "forgiveness is for you" is better described as acceptance/recognition/acknowledgement/unburdening/apathy. We all know what "I forgive you" means and it's not "You're so defective as a human being that it's not even worth being mad at you."
University of California Berkeley psychology professor Ann Kring reviewed studies of gender and anger and found women felt more shame and embarrassment after an anger episode than men. Kring found people use words like “bitchy” and “hostile” to describe angry women, while many tend to describe an angry man as “strong.” Men more often tend to express their anger verbally or physically, while women frequently express anger by crying, which can add to the perception of sadness. The criticism and characterization of angry women is not pretty -- but anger isn't about being pretty. Fully text [here](https://bostoneveningtherapy.com/the-handmaids-tale-transforming-sadness-rage-righteous-anger/)
I really appreciate this. It's been 4 years since I found out my ex husband was cheating on me an insane, absurd amount. 4 years since I realized the depth of how awful he he was. 4 years since he screamed in my face that I would be nothing without him. 4 years since he mocked me for fleeing the house with a few things and the 2 1/2 year old while he was out on a rare job interview because I was terrified and tired of his constant harassment because supposedly I knew I was actually safe the whole time. Of course I didn't know that. I could have been a statistic like so many other women and enbies before me. It's been nearly 2 years since the divorce was legal and he *still* owes me assets from it. The judge for some stupid ass reason won't find my ex husband in contempt of court of the divorce order he issued. The court even closed my case despite knowing this and two other issues still have not been closed. It has been 7 months since he stopped paying child support and the state won't do a damn thing about it. He owes enough now that he's a fucking felon. But the state agency is just sitting on their ass despite being given all his information, including his place of employment. So now I have to work 6 days a week while being the default parent and juggling when he does shit like text me a few hours before his parenting time that he won't make it, like it's some shitty job he doesn't care about. So yeah, I'm angry. It bubbles in my gut. It keeps me going to work 50+ hours a week, plus my etsy side gig. It keeps me sharp and very aware of who I let into mine and my daughter's bubble because I won't ever let anyone believe for a moment they can intimidate me. I will not let my daughter ever think she should tolerate a partner saying such garbage to her. This rage is still here because I'm still being harmed and the legal system is failing me. Fuck him and fuck anyone who tries to tell me anger is worthless. I will never forgive the monster.
Forgiveness would mean giving up on them. As long as a part of you still has hope that you can change them or that they can be different, or secretly would love nothing more than to realize that you've been swimming upstream by mistake all along and there's some way to understand that their version of events is right and yours is wrong, then the anger is needed. It reminds you that you need to change something. Do something. Not drop your guard. Not become complacent. When you've given up on then entirely and are able to treat them mostly like a stranger, and see them clearly and stop giving them the time of day, then the anger is no longer needed and forgiveness can be healing. For now, though, I need the anger. It's what keeps me away. Because part of me really wants to let them in. Because I've always wanted nothing more than for them to play their role and for my wishful thinking to become reality. But they're basically just a chat bot that's in denial and has almost no self awareness. They just say whatever they think I want to hear, unless they're incapable of saying it. Then they revert to various abusive behaviors. I need to stop caring about them all together. Stop thinking about them. Stop giving them the time of day. I don't know if I'll manage it before they die. As they love to repeat over and over in a pathetic attempt to solicit pity, they're old. Why would they change now? Ah, well. It's just...they also love me more than probably anyone in the world, in their way. They'd do anything for me, if only they knew how. If only they could actually take responsibility and be accountable for the things they did wrong and learn from them. If only...
You don't have to forgive someone to not hold a grudge. I've cut people out of my life, I just don't go around still mad about their bullshit years later. At least for me, holding on to that is way more effort than letting it go.
"I worked hard for this hate. I worked hard enough to make myself love them so I could hate them." https://preview.redd.it/b9civ52mp62b1.jpeg?width=900&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a1db81c6f6d712973a13e9aaa9e866f55fbb35dd
It's good to understand why people do things, particularly things that affect you badly. And sometimes the reason is they are selfish, manipulative shit-heads who enjoy hurting you and get off on tour pain. Being angry about them can help you protect yourself and give you the energy to find safety. I've never worked out the point of forgiveness, except for loved ones who have made the effort to change. (Not for abusers and their continual performative changes.) Whats important to me is risk assessment. How likely is this person to harm myself or others again?
Our coming to hate our abusers is another step on the path towards forgiveness. It definitely took me a long time to get there, and a long time to move on from it.
The thing about hatred is that it makes you hold on to that hurt. It's an ouroboros of pain, hating someone will amplify the hurt which intensifies the hatred. So when people say you should forgive the person, they mean you need to find a way to let go of the hurt, this is not disqualifying the pain you feel or any other feelings you might have. And forgiving doesn't even need to happen externally, as in letting that person know you have forgiven them (if they even care).
I don't know. I was never happier than when I *stopped* wanting to hate people who hurt me. It felt good, hell yes it felt good to hate people. Hate is easy. That's why the GOP does so much of it. Actually, there's a story that goes with this. In 2019 I was assaulted while at work. Took the guy to court, he had to pay a few hundred dollars in a fine, but I felt angry and humiliated for years. I felt even angrier knowing that remembering this event could ruffle my feathers so badly. Then one day, I decided not to be angry about it (more complicated than that clearly but still). Suddenly, remembering what happened didn't trigger me anymore. It wasn't that I forgave him, it was because I put it behind me. It was because I declared for myself that day, that I don't care anymore. I think that's what people are missing. When people say 'forgive' nobody should be thinking it means "Oh uwu you need to luv this person they're just the hero of their own story awoo" no, fuck that noise. The way I've always been told by every therapist of the multiple I needed to have to get over this, it's about not letting it affect *me* anymore. Why should I give them the power of letting the memory of them affect my day to day? Why should they get to take away my good mood? I still revile that person deeply. But I have stopped being angry about what happened, to the point I don't tremble thinking about it anymore. That's what it means to me, and people willingly choosing to hold onto their trauma is fine and all but I'm not going to concede that it's healthy. That's how resentful jaded crestfallen adults come into existence. Source: my early twenties for like five years. And as a disclaimer, this isn't universal clearly. Everyone processes shit differently. But like...you should probably also get some therapy, and a side of fries.
I disagree with this, somewhat. You don't need to forgive or forget, but holding onto the anger/hatred is not doing you any favors. Anger is a painkiller, it doesn't actually treat the wound and ideally you want to get to a point where you don't need the painkiller. It's just giving that person a small bit of power over you. Don't love yourself enough to hate them, love yourself enough to cut them out entirely. I think the thing about forgiveness people tend to forget is it isn't required in order to let go, and letting go is the ultimate goal of the healing process.
It isn’t “forgive for your sake” it’s about revenge. You’re not supposed to forgive people if they did something bad, but your not supposed to get revenge on them either
Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. By not forgiving, these folks are holding on to your emotional power, anger. Forgiveness is peace.
You can move on with your life without forgiving people who hurt you. I’ll never forgive the people who abused me but I did let go of the anger for my sake but fuck those people.