Childhood If your abusive parent was abused worse than they abused you

[Rose White]

Does that help you forgive them?

 

[Midnightmoon]

Humm, so I've got about 10 different parts with different opinions here...

I am pulled to say, there is no trauma top trumps here. That adults are not exempt from responsibility because of their own trauma, especially when children are concerned.

And then, I equally recognise that message within me all too well. Why can't I just be understanding/ compassionate/ accepting/ forgiving. Both of my birth parents had horrendous abuse histories that I was told about the from being very young. Conditioned maybe, by heck it worked, no one could ever have anything wrong, be ill, struggle etc because they had had it worse... The threshold for good parenting was as long as social services didn't take you away, you were a good parent. Therefore shut your mouth, don't talk to any of the 'nosey do gooders' and job done, you are an A* parent.

It messed me up for 30 years and it's still a message I struggle with loud and clear. So logically my brain doesn't believe it's ok, but emotional, yeah, I have a lifetime of believing that statement (which has just messed me up more...)

 

[Rose White]

That makes sense to me on a couple levels but I can’t put the words together right now.

 

[Movingforward10]

I wonder if the frame of narcissism helps here? A narcissist won’t allow someone else’s experience to trump theirs. So when you have a parent who was abused, and that parent is a narcissist or has those traits, there is no space for you, and no space for the abuse they do to you.

and everything that @Midnightmoon says.

also, is forgiveness needed? I don’t think forgiveness has entered my equations. But peace has. Acceptance.
you can se the links of abuse and inter generational abuse. But you can also see the opportunities for adults to change that, and when those opportunities haven’t been taken and the abuse continues.

 

[RainbowSearchParty]

I think that there is a difference between inviting compassion and forgivingness.

 

[Rose White]

Can you tell about that @RainbowSearchParty

 

[Sideways]

For me? He doesn’t get any kind of pass. If anything, the opposite. My dad? Knew better. He knew the life sentence he was handing me from what he was he doing. From first hand experience. He did it anyway.

I have compassion for what he went through. But that’s as far as it goes. It’s gives him a pass on being a lousy father and a depressed jerk. But the physical abuse, the sexual abuse - he knew what that would cost his child, and he did it anyway.

You keep your kids safe - you don’t beat the shit out of them, you don’t have sex with them. That’s not a high bar to be setting. A traumatic childhood puts a whole lot of stuff in context - but not that. Not ever.

 

[I am healed]

Ya it can help me forgive them. And moreover we can forgive them even if they didn’t have a horrible past than us. People always do their best at all times. This goes for our parents as well. Even though they might have traumatized us, they did it because they didn’t know any better. It’s their lack of self awareness. It can be hard to accept it, but it’s the truth. It’s not easy to forgive knowing how much we have suffered because of their immaturity and irresponsibility to heal themselves, but we can try. It’s a slow process but the sooner we start, the better for us. Holding on to all that past hurt against them, won’t let us heal in the first place.

 

[Movingforward10]

People always do their best at all times.

This isn't true.

 

[Charbella]

Forgive NO. Understand yes. It helps me see that their capacity to love correctly was majorly hindered. It shows me that they’d never understood a different way to be. It helps me to change my expectations of them in the now. I know what to avoid, unfortunately sometimes it’s a lot of work on my part, so I just avoid them.

BUT they haven’t asked for forgiveness so it won’t be granted.

I think what you’re going through is hoping forgiveness will solve a problem. Maybe look at the problem and see what options you have beyond forgive/don’t forgive because I don’t think that’s the issue. The issue is them in your space is a constant reminder and brings you so much anger, fear and anxiety. You think forgiving will get rid of it. Sit with it and let it speak and maybe you’ll come up with a solution you can live with.

 

[Rose White]

Appreciate you @Sideways and @Movingforward10 . Hard for me to interact with your words because idk resistance I guess.

Charbella idk how to sit but I will try. Am not panicking.

 

[RainbowSearchParty]

@Rose White For me, inviting compassion means that I accept the person for who they are and where they are right now. It means that I understand that the present moment is just that, now, not then. With my parents, this means that I acknowledge their own faults and acknowledge that it is just really hard to be them -- there is so much suffering and mental illness there.

Forgiveness on the other hand would be giving them a pass for what happened to me as a kid, and all the problems that keep happening now. They are not forgiven. The things that happened were so wrong and they were wrong, and I never have to be okay with that.

I guess, then, the difference is in my relationship to history. Inviting compassion in the present moment is a way to accept them as they are without being okay with what happened in the past. Forgiving them would mean that I was okay with history, which I am not, at all.