When I have an occasional up day and can manage to call a friend, they figure I'm cured and I'm ready to be normal now.
My husband initially thought that my depression was something that would just resolve with taking pills for three weeks and talking to a therapist once or twice...
Losing yourself during healing, yeah, one of my fears, too. I write stories and novels, all with dark and twisted characters and I was scared out of my wits for a while that I'd lose my connection to them by getting healthier.
I get the feeling people just assume you can forgive the perpetrator(s) or talk about the traumatic material for a while and then you'll be fine and move on with your life.
Omg, don't get me started. Everybody I talk to who isn't a sufferer themselfs tells me that I should 'work towards forgiveness'. I actually had a talk about this with my husband just yesterday.
I used a DBT worksheet about 'Saying No' to work through the issues of f*mily gatherings and the cutting off of my precursory types (<- friend 'invented' this synonym for 'p*rents' and I like it:D). Husband had to help me because I wasn't sure about some aspects. Somehow we ended up talking about forgiveness again. This is how I ended the topic:
You know how many disabilities I have on the emotional level and concerning relationships; my p*rents caused these disabilities with their behaviour towards me. It's like they amputated my legs below the knee. There are prostheses I can learn to walk in, but seriously, would anybody expect me to forgive them for that? Should I just say: 'Oh well, it's just feet and you're sorry, so... come on, let's hug!' He got it, I think.
Seriously, I feel so
harassed by my grand-p*rents who insist to invite husband+me to f*mily gatheringsad the nerve to argue that I should come even though I don't want to see my p*rents - "Your uncles, aunts and cousins will be there, too, not only your p*rents!" - maternal and paternal side, both. And the paternal side sent me a birthday card containing the barely veiled wish that I'll 'be able to' reconnect with the p*rents. - Yeah. Cause it's totally me, and only me, who has to do something about this mess. - They manage to bring it up in every. single. phone conversation, and I have decided that I won't give in to that anymore. I don't want to talk about my precursors and I don't have any obligation whatsoever to bear the pain of explaining myself over and over again. I tried, they didn't get it, I have to accept that,
as do they.
/rant
EDIT: I told husband that, should it so happen during my recovery that the anger towards my precursors goes away and that I forgive them, then I will accept that. But I will not work on dissolving the anger I feel, because it's a healthy anger, not a pathological one. There are sufferers out there who have to work to
feel this kind of anger for their abusers. I am lucky that I can access this emotion so easily, that I can accept it, contain it, express it and think about it.
