Forgiveness

[Kizzie]

This about says it for me regarding forgiveness.  I have reached a place where I understand that my parents carried with them trauma from their pasts, and I can even find compassion for what they went through.  But forgive?  I just can't let the part of me down that needs to place the responsibility where it belongs.  At some point, on some level it is a choice to act on the trauma and so many of us here have made the choice to break the cycle.   

[CactusFlower]

That is an excellent way to put it. Thanks for posting that, Kizzie, I've saved a copy. I personally (even before starting this journey of healing) always felt like the emphasis on forgiveness was a kind of toxic positivity. For myself, I looked up the actual definition of forgiveness and related words.

Forgive: to grant pardon for or remission of (an offense, debt, etc.); absolve.
to give up all claim on account of; remit (a debt, obligation, etc.).
to grant pardon to (a person). to pardon an offense or an offender.

Absolve: to free from guilt or blame or their consequences:
to set free or release, as from some duty, obligation, or responsibility (usually followed by from)
to grant pardon for.

Pardon:  forgiveness of an offense or discourtesy or in tolerance of a distraction or inconvenience.  forgiveness of an offense or discourtesy or in tolerance of a distraction or inconvenience.

So, to me, all of those mean telling someone what what they did was wrong but they don't have to be responsible for it, that it's okay now. Hence why forgiving is not part of healing for me. What he did was wrong. It is his fault, he was responsible. He will always be responsible and it will never be okay that he did that. It happened and nothing can make it un-happen. He might have experienced trauma in his life, but nothing can excuse what he then did. So I choose to work on myself to try to get better, but I will never forgive.

[Blueberry]

Well-said, CactusFlower.

In the case of things like traffic accidents I have heard some people say "It's not mine to forgive. Only God can do that." I've noticed that this sentence can shut people up when they are trying to force their 'you must forgive' mantra on you, though I've never said it myself. When somebody's trying to convince me of the need to forgive, I end up spluttering with so much rage, I can hardly string two words together.

[woodsgnome]

I used to get pretty wound up about this. But now I concur with the overview presented here. No matter what scores of self-help gurus have proclaimed over the years, I just don't get the smug sense of  goodness that's supposed to flow from the action commonly called forgiveness.

I'm not a bad person for feeling this way; I just don't get the dire necessity of conforming to the socially accepted norm suggesting that magic words of any sort can undo the deep personal injuries that resulted from the behaviours of other people. The best I can muster is to deal with this from my heart and not my head.

What happened was tragic, but to me the ramifications can be worsened by going through the motions of forgiveness for the sake of some social advice givers who've built an industry on lots of hot air. Call me selfish for choosing not to fall in line with them, but I've come from not being able to feel much beyond being numb and afraid, to identifying what I can truly do to clear out the debris of what was imposed on me. If that's selfish, it pales by comparison with the actions of those who sought to grind me into sawdust and shame. Wasn't my call, yet I have suffered all the consequences.

Selfish? NOT forgiving helps me feel better, safer, and sane by choosing not to fall into the forgiveness trap, which does no one any good, except maybe the perpetrators. My road is clearer without them, minus the wizardry resulting from some social expectation.

   

[dollyvee]

I think I've been wrestling with this concept on some level lately, thinking about it from an anger standpoint. I'm wondering about "letting things go" and if we like to keep this "pain identity" (as the Rinpoche called it) because it gives us a place in the world. My anger protects me and keeps me safe from it happening again, but is it actually trapping me in some way to a view of the world that is still pain oriented? Is it a fantasy to want to move beyond that; am I basing my identity on pain? I'm not a Buddhist monk.

I definitely agree with the outlook that no one has the right to judge you for the decisions you make regarding how you approach your trauma, and I've found there is a lot judgement in the cult of forgiveness. There's a lot of judgement in general, even from "new age, peaceful hippies" I've known who couldn't understand why I would want to be in therapy. Sometimes I feel like it's difficult for people to hear the negative and sit with it (and you) because it makes them uncomfortable on some level (I've been there myself). So, maybe trying to push forgiveness on people is an easy way out for everyone and that way they don't have to sit with the things in the world that make them uncomfortable.

I think I've come to the place where forgiveness means, it's not ok what happened but I'm not going to hold onto it. For me, the people in my life that I'm supposed to be forgiving showed me time and time again that they didn't support my boundaries or listen to me as a person, and I don't think you can forgive someone like that while still respecting yourself. I also know that staying angry at those people for doing that didn't solve anything for me either. It did help me in the short term (a few years, maybe a decade) to begin to say that I wasn't going to allow this any more and to learn to take care of myself. The unknown footpath to inner peace, non-conformist edition.

[Kizzie]

I agree with not staying angry Dolly, it keeps you stuck.  I do think we need to use anger as a part of our recovery though, to (re)ignite that natural self-protection we all have, but which gets stifled in relational trauma survivors. 

What anger did help me to see is that abuse/neglect are a choice and if anything, those who make that choice are the ones who need to be asking for forgiveness. For many of us this will never happen sadly.  However, if forgiving abusers helps some of us to move on, then so be it, as long as it is not done because of pressure to be a 'good' or 'righteous' person that comes from people with certain religious or social beliefs. 

I guess what it should come down to is a healthy personal "I am choosing to forgive/not forgive because it is what is right for me. It does not matter what anyone else thinks."

I just had this funny thought about a response to those who pressure you to forgive:

"I forgive you for trying to pressure me into being forgiving."   

[Armee]

Haha I love it Kizzie, your response to people who pressure forgiveness.

I don't know...forgiveness, anger, etc. It all depends a little on the distance and damage.

I always forgave my mom because I always understood she acted out of a place of mental illness. I always tried to keep my anger in check. As a result, I stayed sick and she kept up her damaging behaviors. How did that help anyone? Now that she is gone and I don't need to make myself sick to forgive/not react then yes I can say I forgive her and am not too angry (a little still which is very helpful and protective to keep other people from taking advantage of me). But only because I am safe now and because her intent was not malice and she was not trying to harm me but protect herself in very sick ways.

Anger is good. I lacked anger toward all the people who hurt me. I saw the reasons for what they did and blamed myself instead because I understood why they had to act that way. The anger has to go somewhere. The more we are told to not be angry and to forgive, the more we will hurt ourselves, the victims. Ugh I am very angry now. That's a good thing.

One more thing...interestingly I was not angry at adult men who sexually assaulted me as a teenager. I was and am angry at the teacher who allowed it and encouraged it. I'm angry at adults who kept pushing me back to my mom instead of protecting me and taking me away from her. I'm angry at the presumably good people who failed to act. I'm not sure why that is where my anger goes because there are as many or more excuses for why they didn't do the right thing as excuses for why the bad people did the bad things.

[dollyvee]

I agree with not staying angry Dolly, it keeps you stuck.  I do think we need to use anger as a part of our recovery though, to (re)ignite that natural self-protection we all have, but which gets stifled in relational trauma survivors. 

I think anger was helpful for me too in the short term and now I'm beginning to have a different relationship with it. When someone crosses my boundaries, I can feel it makes me angry and motivates me to do something about it, or recognize that something is happening which makes me aware that something is going on which is not good for me. When we suppress that to "forgive," it's not healthy for anyone IMO.

For me personally, I'm also really conscious about that anger when it's happening and if it's bringing me back to a place of trauma. I recently felt anger at my gf who was criticizing my dad's family when he is being a hypocrite alcoholic with really no right to do that. I also know the me that would relive that anger internally in the past because I didn't say something to someone at the time who crossed my boundaries because I didn't know how/was brought up not to. I guess I'm at a place where I'm trying not to replay that internal monologue and be angry at them, but learn other ways to deal with it that I didn't know before, so I don't feel so powerless. Anger was my only source of power in the past, and I don't think that was good for me. It also brings up all the stuff around saying no for me too, that I'm somehow selfish or narcissistic like my m/family for doing so.

It's 100% right that they had the choice to change like we did and didn't do anything about it. It doesn't excuse any behaviour on their part what they went through. I also think it's a lot easier now that they're not around, asking for connection and I have to explain myself or feel guilty that I'm not doing something right, and only deal with limited family members who see things differently. It's an interesting discussion about an evolving relationship to healing.