Forgiveness - Where Do You Think It Belongs In The Recovery Process?

[dust]

Oh so complicated... forgiveness. I am not prepared to forgive yet, but I do not feel the repulsion I felt when I was traumatised. I don't know how to forgive someone who irrevocably changed my life/personality/being, that ended up with me living the twilight life of the disconnected. Those of us that have been through or are going through the reconnection, know what was taken from us; the ability to feel love, the ability to look in wonder at the world, the ability to trust, to be, to know oneself.

I didn't have children because I thought that all children went through what I did. I never got married because I thought that all marriages ended in fighting and bitterness. I never got a pension because I thought I had no future. I could not be socially engaged with the world because I was too busy surviving.

Perhaps I have a way to go in my recovery, and need more grieving time for a life lost before thinking about forgiveness.

dust

 

[TLight]

I can so relate to what you are saying dust...........the damage is tremendous.

 

[JohnnyM53]

Hi Manic

I hope this finds you well.

Good thread btw.

I agree with what has been said by the others. It's a tricky issue and depends on the circumstances.

But I do agree that forgiveness is something that probably should comes last or close to it, if it's possible.

It took me 38 years to forgive my dad, and I did so only because he was dead, and there was nothing he could do would have changed the past.

I just simply gave up being angry at him for my own healing.

In my case, I love the good that was in him, I feel sorry for him that he was sick, but he was an adult and made his choice to drink heavily and take out his problems on his poor wife and kids.

He acted tough but he was really a coward for picking on a defenseless woman "he" chose to marry and three defenseless children "he" chose to have.

As I stated in my thread about forgiving my dad, I forgave him but would hold him accountable for his actions if he was alive. All humans, except those with a bona fide medical condition that prevents them from realizing the consequences of their action, know the difference between right and wrong.

 

[onebravegirl]

Hi Manic
I think Forgiveness is important But too me an better word has been Acceptance. When people show you who they are believe them, I say.
I do not see the value in forgiving a person UNLESS they are repentant and sincere in wanting to make repairs. I think that people with Trauma have to be careful that they do not pressure themselves into forgiving horrible people who have done horrible things to them. This may make them feel that their right to be the victim is minimized and that should never be the case.To me forgiveness involves a bit of love, and I only want that to go to those who have earned it. Perpetrators like to throw the forgiveness word in victims faces as a way of relieving there own shame. If forgiveness means letting go of hate, I agree, it is helpful. I do not think it is helpful to stay hating a person. That would be like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
For those who "hurt" me, I have learned to Accept that they have a problem and I can choose not too by letting go of the pain and moving on.
If people are toxic and dangerous I walk away and keep them out of my life. I do not wish them to suffer, but I do not spend anytime thinking about them at all anymore. They are who they are and I love how Jimi Hendrix put it. He said "I'm the one who's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want too".
It is a complicated topic, and a long journey and I would just caution anyone who jumps into the "Obligated to forgive" thing.
O

 

[Lionheart]

In the case of severe long-term child abuse I am not sure that forgiveness of the perpetrators is desirable and I dang sure haven't found it to be necessary to my healing process.
However, I have found it necessary to forgive myself for the things I have done to myself while acting out. I don't think that forgiveness of others is something to attempt early on. At least not until a good deal of emotional work has been done, ( ie; pain and anger released etc.). To forgive or not to forgive is an individual decision and should be respected as such. That's my humble opinion anyway.

 

[anni]

This Feels The Same.

Hi,

"Currently, I'm kinda angry at forgiveness. At the moment, I think that forgiveness is sometimes BS and is a socially constructed tool for manipulating power in relationships... :mad: A part of my heart says that isn't true.something I don't know. Maybe it's just that forgiveness can so easily be conflated with surrender."

In this forum, I tend to come across concepts I've felt but never been able to verbalize. I totally agree with both concepts in this part of the paragraph, and thank you!

It has been almost 2 decades since my traumas. I'm sorry if sounds heartless to say that my perpetrator is 'mercifully deceased' but that's what he is and that's how it feels. In therapy I've been exposed to the idea of forgiveness, of course, and told how it is necessary for my healing. I haven't been ale to do it and don't feel I can. I don't think of him often now but when I do cannot imagine being able to say " I forgive you" on any level. I don't lay around burning with resentment and anger for him, I just view him as a thoroughly detestable and evil human being. " I forgive you" feels like " It's ok. What you did to me? That's all in the past and you're off the hook for it." I think forgiveness, to me ( everyone is different, I know) is 'conflated with surrender' and if I surrender I have no fight left. I'm not fighting him, but I am fighting the damage he did every single day. Sometimes I'm fighting that damage every single moment of every single day.

I'm angry at forgiveness, too. I'm glad to be in a place here in the forum where I'm 'allowed' to be.

Forgiveness gives me a headache, too so will end this post. I keep meaning to log-off for the day. Being on too long makes me anxious as heck. There have just been so many helpful and good threads and postings today, forgiveness being one of them, that I've been on for over an hour!

Thanks again for this good thread and all the really insightful, kind postings,

Take care,

Anni

 

[Salu]

Sounds like good stuff you are reading, especially the part about short cut. Thats just....so true.

Never thought about forgiving that way, forgiveness has been part of making peace with past. They were hurt, therefore I was hurt. A chain, every generation can make it a little bit stronger and better, with us being the second generation. Not sure. But I´m liking what you wrote, I really am liking it. Havent thought about these things a while, thank you.

 

[skyp56]

Forgive? Not yet for me! I'm sorry, but I am still so angry! I HATE my father for the beatings and humiliation! I still wish he had died a horrible death, not a peaceful heart failure in his sleep. I think he should have admitted what an ass he was to his children. He who was supposed to have protected us from the bad things in the world was actually the worst! So, no I have not forgiven my father. So, I have a ways to go yet in the healing process, I know.

I have, however, forgiven my mother for not stopping the beatings. She grew up a very timid & shy soul who was taught to obey her husband. She had really no "choice" to stand up to him and protect the children. It just "wasn't done" in those days.

Besides that; at that time any woman divorcing her husband got ex-communicated from her church as well, so there was shame and guilt heaped on her. According to the church we attended, my father had every right to beat his children. He WAS the absolute law.

So Forgive? No, no, no, no. Not now, maybe never

Good thread though! Thank you for it. This was a subject that came up in my T session today, so now I have a better idea of my own stand on the subject. I had been feeling shame for not being a forgiving Christian, but now I feel it's ok to feel what I feel. In fact, my T said I wasn't at the stage yet where I should even consider "forgiveness". He says I am ok to feel the anger and fear of abandonment that I still to this day feel.

Healing {{{{HUGS}}}}} to all.

 

[Nicky31]

Great thread Manic

For me I've never even thought about forgiveness. I've just had a drive to deal with the stuff and move on whilst trying to leave the bad stuff far behind.

Like Louisa expressed so clearly though, I am a true fighter when it comes to justice, and it's this that gives me greatest comfort/closure. This is not about sadistic revenge, but upholding moral and ethical codes, and ensuring that people that have behaved badly/wrongly are dealt with by the processes that sometimes exist or that I can at least accept by my own measure that what they have done is wrong and against my morals or ethics and leave them behind.

Nicky :thumbs-up

 

[midi]

My view of forgiveness fluctuates. Sometimes I think it's about the healing circle, where everybody gets together and heals and sometimes I think it's about not being judgmental and sometimes I just don't know.

I do know one thing - if the abuser sees what s/he's done as righteous, there is no point in confronting or trying get the perp to admit/apologize/etc.

There are many stages to forgiveness. It's a long road. At each step, it's about acceptance. We can't change them, we can't force them to see our perspective, we can't get justice (especially if the perps were family, cause we all know that domestic abuse is 'behind closed doors' unless there's a corpse involved), we can't get compensation... we can't.

Accepting this void, the fact that we've involuntarily gained experience with predators, that there is no going back... I think forgiveness means acceptance, that the perps are/were rattle snake humans and that their fangs haven't fallen out yet and that we can't control them.

The 2-way healing only works when the abuser feels remorse/regret/compassion for the victim and what has happened. We can't feel guilty if we don't invite the venomous snake to our healing circle because the abuser is self-righteously devoid of a conscience. We are not responsible for absolving the abuser of past crimes.

Why do we spend so much time feeling guilty because we do or don't forgive them when their healing isn't our problem? Accept them and their true nature, yes, but to welcome them again with open arms is to deny that abusers in denial don't have fangs. And when we think about them and feel upset, they're attacking us all over again.

 

[Jestadud]

"Forgive them because they know not what they do"
or
Forgive them when they realise what they have done.

Perhaps how we feel about this depends on how we have been raised.

Maybe it isn't important to forgive and we don't have to accept that they have any right on their side.
What about understanding, is it benificial to us if we can understand why they thought it alright to do what they have done.
Would understanding give the power to pity them. As in
You're Scum.
I understand what caused you to become the Scum that you are and I pity you for that.
But you're still Scum and only you can do anything about that.

 

[Manic11]

Why do we spend so much time feeling guilty because we do or don't forgive them when their healing isn't our problem? Accept them and their true nature, yes, but to welcome them again with open arms is to deny that abusers in denial don't have fangs. And when we think about them and feel upset, they're attacking us all over again.

I didn't think of it that way... That's a good point, Midi.

Manic