Poll Have You Forgiven The People Who Hurt You

[Britt.f7]

Movin on, I usually get one nurse who is a total jerk anytime I am hospitalized. I am always nice and respectful to the nursing staff because I grew up with nurses(mom was one). Always amazed at the ones who chose that field and really shouldn't be there because they lack the compassion.

I'm sorry you had to go through that. Being a kid in a hospital is scary enough without the staff being abusive.

 

[JustBe]

I think I might have survived without PTSD if someone had believed me and taken my side or at least been with me to advocate for me so I didn't feel so lost and alone and in pain and terrified. I wished for death every time I had to go.

 

[blackemerald1]

Forgiveness I think is a powerful concept. I voted for wanting to forgive. But I know I cannot and never will. As Sea commented it just lets them off the hook. My hatred is so profound I have not even found the bottom of it. It is so deep it is black and there are so many 'players' in my life I could spend the rest of my life getting around to the people who have wronged me.

I feel numb with the idea of forgiving. I guess I want to forgive them in my own head so I can move on, but I just cannot do it. If I could forgive it would be for my own welfare.

In any case, the perpetrators feel and act as if I have wronged them but they cannot give me the facts about what I did. Others are angry with me because I had the audacity to walk out of their lives and never come back. No one is knocking at my door to ask for forgiveness which then, really leaves the way open for true forgiveness.

 

[Britt.f7]

I think I might have survived without PTSD if someone had believed me and taken my side or at least been with me to advocate for me so I didn't feel so lost and alone and in pain and terrified. I wished for death every time I had to go.

When I was two, I had heart surgery. After that, for many years, every time I saw someone in a white coat I either screamed or was petrified. If they brought in a needle it even added more stress. I remember like it was yesterday. My bp still goes up a little when I see my doctors, especially if I have to wait a long time. Have to say though, I am much better about both.

Less then a month after my son was born, he began wheezing and was having difficulty breathing. We had to rush him to the local Children's hospital. They put tubes up through his nose and put in a catheter. I held his hand and stroked his head. When they put in the catheter, I put my face close to his and held his little arms. After they were finished with this, they dimmed the lights and closed the door. My son wasn't crying anymore at this point. All through this I kept telling myself to remain calm because he would feel my anxiety. However, when I was holding him close after everything was done, he let out this primal cry like I've never heard. Tears streamed down my face. I will never forget it. The first three years of his life were filled with doctors visits. My pediatrician thought she would go deaf. Every time she came in, he screamed and cried. As a parent, I did my best to calm him. It wasn't easy, but he finally grew out of it. He is much better now, but still hates needles.

A parent's job is to comfort their child and be their advocate, even with hospital staff. It definitely wasn't easy to watch my son go through this terror, but it was my job to make sure that it wasn't more terrifying. Even at the cost of denying myself my own personal feelings. His came first. You were owed this, and I am very sorry that the adults in your life did not see that.

 

[JustBe]

Thank You. My eldest was in hospital as a baby as well and I never left his side day or night. He has no memories or trauma associated with this or the years of Doctors visits and physical therapy we went to.

 

[SweetPeaandSunBird]

I think the term "forgiveness" is too tinged with religion for me to use it as such, so I opt for another term, "understanding." This might just be an issue of semantics -- I don't know.

I have forgiven my parents. They did the best they could with what they knew. It was the 70's. I do, however, hold them accountable. I refuse to paint a rosy picture or act like everything was hunky dory. But I am no longer angry with them.

I like Britt's use of the phrase "hold them accountable" in regards to my own parents.

I try to see my parents as the children they were. Unlike me, they didn't have any one (adults) step in as positive, nurturing alternatives from which to pattern their own behaviors. I had so many teachers and other adults in my life that allowed me to see other options. My parents, my father especially, came from such a sad and brutal upbringing. I don't think he authentically knows who he is -- he's kind of "identity-less." (If that makes sense.) My mom, too, but when she taps into something creative, I get a glimpse of a tiny part of her that wasn't damaged. Their own development as children -- especially in the case of my father -- was very impaired. When I consider them as those children, I feel maternal towards them. I start to understand how their origins and lack of resources for repair at an early age weren't there. Yet, they did in some ways improve the way the parented beyond the way their own parents parented them.

I understand their ways and I hold them accountable. It is a very fragile thing.

As for the molesters, I wouldn't know where to begin.

I don't forgive society, though, because it does not seem to realize that an individual's well-being is not the whole issue, but rather that society as a whole is not analyzing itself, processing cultural behaviors, etc. that allows for the generation and regeneration of such unhealthy ways.

 

[aka]

Yes and no is my answer. I have forgiven my parents who blindly trusted people from the church to watch and educate me. Forgiving those people who turned a blind eye and or facilitated the abuse I suffered....not so much. Considering these people never acknowledge and or wouldn't believed that it occurred in the first place, its really not hard to have anything but angry and resentment for them. Anyway that my two cents

 

[LC23]

I have sort of forgiven the people who hurt me, but not entirely. I can see them as being the broken and mangled individuals that they are, the sad conditions that led them to hurting me and others. I can empathize with them even to some extent. But I can't help but feel that forgiveness is like signing off on what they did, like, eh, no harm no foul. I will never trust those people again and I hope that they don't go on to hurt others. Doesn't feel like I've entirely forgiven. I'm still figuring out that whole concept of forgiveness.

 

[aka]

LC23... yeah same here I can understand their situation and why they did what they did. But, that is not an excuse for causing pain to someone else hence why I am hung up.To me to forgive them is to lose the sense that what they did was wrong.

 

[Britt.f7]

Forgiveness can be freeing. It isn't condoning what they did. I don't believe in the whole forgiving is forgetting. I think it hurts us more then them that we don't forgive. I guess it is the whole part of letting it go and not taking up so much of your life.

Previously, I stated that I forgave my parents. What I do now is make sure they can't continue to do that to me, and I make sure they do not do any of that to my children. It makes me proud, when I leave my sister's house and she has done something to her children or her pets, that my children will bring it up and recognize it as harmful behavior. I hope they carry that into raising their children.

Not everyone can forgive and I wouldn't blame that for that. I just know, for me, it gave the abusers more power over me then I cared for them to have.

 

[Sues]

I picked 'other' because I've always had a problem with the term forgive. In my mind it has always meant that you forgive someone for what they did and now everything's ok between you and them. I've seen forgiveness as a way of putting it behind you and letting the other person off the hook for what they did.

But.... everyone keeps telling me that is not what forgiveness really is. Really? That just seems fake to me. Just because something bad happened and everyone else wants me to forgive him, doesn't make it alright for them to change the meaning of the word.

I understand I need to move on, and I need to put it behind me, and I need to find a way to live without it 'bothering' me. But to me, that is not forgiveness. I do not want to label it as forgiveness because in my mind it would mean saying what he did was not wrong.

Am I nuts, or what? Is this thinking way off? I don't know anymore.

 

[Britt.f7]

Sues, you are not nuts for thinking this way. Many people feel the same way. I surely don't think it is bad if someone does not forgive. You have to do whats right for you. With so many things out of our control, the ability to forgive shouldn't be one of them.