Childhood Confusing Feelings towards Trauma - Does anyone else feel sorry for those that hurt them?

[Teddie]

I recently bumped into a girl who bullied me quite badly in our teens. She served me at my local chippy - I’ve never seen her there before so she must be newly employed.

Neither of us said anything, but I was tempted to say something to just acknowledge her. I don’t know exactly what. I was thinking along the lines of “I hope you’re okay”. But I guess I didn’t because I know that my reaction is always: fawn fawn fawn. My default response to any sort of conflict is to befriend and submit to whoever I’m afraid of.

It was a really silly thought, because it’s not as if we were ever friends. This isn’t a girl who I fell out with or anything. She tormented me relentlessly for years wherever I went. She was constantly in my life throughout my adolescence, and she always stood out to me from other bullies growing up because she was so violent.

I’m not sure what she thought of the interaction. To me it seemed like she was trying to play it cool and show off a bit by acting suave about it. I could tell she was still looking down on me even though the irony is that she’s serving me food whilst I’m in business attire. I honestly mean that with no disrespect towards anyone who works in food service; it’s just a typical scenario people use to put down or rank others.

I’ve been thinking a lot about her the past few days and I’ve been confused about my feelings towards the interaction. I’m not sure how I feel. I feel confused. I feel sorry for her and I feel sorry for myself, too. I feel like I shouldn’t feel sorry for her, though, but I am. I just think she must have a lot of hatred inside of her even today.

Does anyone have any similar experiences or thoughts about what this feeling could be?

 

[Teddie]

Or maybe: does anyone else feel sorry for those who hurt them?

I wish I could have done something to help them so they wouldn’t be troubled enough to hurt someone else. I wish I could have been stronger in character so that they may have not hurt me.

 

[arfie]

funny how many different ways there are to react to pain. i tend to rage and bully. i never bully while i am happy and well balanced.

no, i don't feel sorry for those who have hurt me, just because i believe pity is humiliating. i do pray for them, though.

healing hopes for all. no exceptions.

 

[Dark.Green.Feathers]

I think especially in cases of childhood bullying and COCSA, I wish things were better for them so it all could be avoided. Typically kids don’t just turn out that way… something’s missing at home or wrong or something is being neglected/overlooked. Doesn’t make the bullying etc. any less bad for the victims of it, but they still should have had the opportunity to set their own path instead of having it effectively chosen for them by poor parenting, et cetera. When you’re an adult you’re accountable to yourself, but the younger you get the more the responsibility is down to the people you’re around.

For the kids that hurt me, yes. The adults? More difficult. It’s very hard for me to imagine change in-post, “I don’t want change, I want justice”… but if it could all be avoided, that would be pretty good.

 

[enough]

i might be as close to forgiving my parents as i get when i can truly say i feel sorry for them. We all suffered because they fell into a cult but mine was short, I only lost about 3 years before i was able to get away but they stayed in until they died. Their natural and normal love for their own kids was replaced by a willingness to cause pain and inflict abuses on in an attempt to serve the demands of their cult that they convert every person they ever knew. That deserves true sympathy, they were suckered into basically slavery to an empty promise and separation from their own family, what a loss.
they never saw their own children or grandchildren as anything other than potential members and ultimately as testaments to their failure to convert us to their beliefs. Their heads were permanently filled with shame at what they saw as their own horrible failure and grievous faults, they missed out on the realities of successful lives and strong resilience to the magical thinking that lead them to their lives of utter sadness. for that i feel true sympathy.
As always, if there is a hell it waits fir them, not us.

 

[PamelaS]

I recently bumped into a girl who bullied me quite badly in our teens. She served me at my local chippy - I’ve never seen her there before so she must be newly employed.

Neither of us said anything, but I was tempted to say something to just acknowledge her. I don’t know exactly what. I was thinking along the lines of “I hope you’re okay”. But I guess I didn’t because I know that my reaction is always: fawn fawn fawn. My default response to any sort of conflict is to befriend and submit to whoever I’m afraid of.

It was a really silly thought, because it’s not as if we were ever friends. This isn’t a girl who I fell out with or anything. She tormented me relentlessly for years wherever I went. She was constantly in my life throughout my adolescence, and she always stood out to me from other bullies growing up because she was so violent.

I’m not sure what she thought of the interaction. To me it seemed like she was trying to play it cool and show off a bit by acting suave about it. I could tell she was still looking down on me even though the irony is that she’s serving me food whilst I’m in business attire. I honestly mean that with no disrespect towards anyone who works in food service; it’s just a typical scenario people use to put down or rank others.

I’ve been thinking a lot about her the past few days and I’ve been confused about my feelings towards the interaction. I’m not sure how I feel. I feel confused. I feel sorry for her and I feel sorry for myself, too. I feel like I shouldn’t feel sorry for her, though, but I am. I just think she must have a lot of hatred inside of her even today.

Does anyone have any similar experiences or thoughts about what this feeling could be?

My husband is a retired police officer who has now admitted to 21 years of hateful treatment of me. I won’t give any more details. The past two years have been hell on earth. In my quest to move past the abuse and trauma that I have, I have invested in a lot of resources to learn more about trauma and what it does in our bodies and minds. From what I have learned, it seems to me that my husband has trauma. But he has used it to continue the trauma by bullying and abusing others. There are basically two directions to go when you are abused. You can either move in the direction of healing from it, or stay in it and remain poisoned by it and continue the pattern of abuse. I know exactly how you feel about the girl who unmercifully bullied you. But I will never allow what has happened in the past to happen again. I have learned how to keep myself physically safe. And I have learned to put boundaries in place in order to eventually achieve emotional safety. I highly recommend that you learn about and use boundaries if you decide to approach this person who bullied you. You could be an avenue of their healing, but they could also do the same thing to you all over again. You need to know whether you can stand up against that before you make a decision to connect with them, if that’s what you choose. There are many people here with a lot of wisdom and experience. I hope that you find what you need in order to make a wise and careful decision. Glad to have you here.

 

[Muttly]

I'm low on words, but wanted to pop in and add that I am a fawner. I get feeling sorry for people who caused me harm. I have learned though, to have healthy boundaries. It's not my job to rescue everyone or even to make people happy.

 

[Dave Ryan]

Yes and no. When I was a teenage boy, a gang of morons thought it would be funny to blackmail the chubby class nerd into wearing women's shapewear. As I was too ashamed to report them, I spend several miserable and humiliating years wearing a heavy-duty panty girdle under my school uniform.

Two of them I could just about forgive and, as you say, might even pity them - one of them at the time knew it was going too far and dropped out of the gang, and the other was too dumb to realise just what a torment he was inflicting on me and just treated it as a big joke. The other two I could see in hell, as they knew exactly what they were putting me through. (One of them eventually forced me to give him oral sex, though thankfully it was just the once. There is no forgiving that experience.)

 

[Rose White]

Or maybe: does anyone else feel sorry for those who hurt them?

Very much yes. I cried long and hard for my dad before I could ever cry for myself. And had a long-running fantasy that I could go back in time and save him. Just writing about it conjures up those innocent pictures of him as a small child and baby. It’s painful. I almost titled my diary about him.

I think it’s because of the ego enmeshment that happened. In a nutshell, it was safer for me to identify as him than as myself until my recovery helped me find and build my own sense of self.

 

[Lost in the Woods]

My chief abuser was my mother. She was really messed up mentally and during the 60s the docs just gave her happy pills until she was a total drug addict. Then they moved on to shock treatments. I can’t imagine how tortured her life was and she finally resorted to suicide. I feel sorry for her and her tragic life.

I am still the designated problem in my family. The only one I am still in contact with is my brother. Everyone else looks down on me. None of them graduated college and I have a graduate degree. Neither of my sisters did anything but marry well. I have been financially successful and had a life of adventure. But in their eyes I am less than. Always have been and always will be. Yes it hurts but I have long since given up on having any relationship with any of them except my brother. You mentioned meeting your abuser serving food to you while you were dressed in business clothes. I relate because no matter how much I achieved and how little they did, I am still looked down upon by them. I doubt they ever rationally thought about it. But who cares at this point, F them.

 

[deno]

I really relate to what you shared...especially the confusion about your feelings. I’ve experienced something similar, bumping into people from my past who hurt me deeply, and having this strange swirl of sadness, pity, and discomfort. It's hard to explain, but I think part of it is that once we've grown and healed, we start to see how broken someone had to be to treat others that way. That doesn’t excuse it—but it gives us a wider lens.

I’ve also realized that my tendency to feel sorry for people who hurt me came from the survival mode of my upbringing. If I could understand or feel for them, maybe I could stay safe. Maybe I could make sense of it. Maybe it gave me a sliver of control. What you said about fawning really resonated. I’ve done that for so long that sometimes even kindness feels like a risk mainly because I never know if it’s real or a reflex.

I think your compassion shows your strength, not your weakness. You don’t owe her anything. But it’s okay to feel what you feel. Sometimes sadness for someone who hurt us is part of letting go. And sometimes, it’s just being human.

 

[Rose White]

If I could understand or feel for them, maybe I could stay safe.

Very relatable. I think it drove my whole academic career. If I could get to the bottom of understanding behavior I would be safe. Didn’t know I created my own prison. Am remodeling my prison now into a sanctuary.