Do we have to forgive?

[Ferzak]

I love this thread!!!
I too get so angry with all the "positive" platitudes, forced joy, and forced forgiveness that is rampant in our social media and in the society in general.  It feels so disregarding and it does not allow a person's process.  Forgiveness might come but if it is true forgiveness, it comes in it's own time, at the end of a process, and not because someone has forced or shamed you into forgiving.  Forced/faked forgiveness goes underground and becomes convoluted usually turning into something more insidious like passive-aggressiveness.  And there are times when forgiveness is just not possible, especially when the abuse is so heinous.

There is a big difference between a chronic help-rejecting-complainer and someone who is telling their story and/or venting as part of their healing process.  It seems that many people throw you into the help-rejecting-complainer category with any of what they term "negative" and run for fear of being contaminated.

[spryte]

Ferzak, thanks so much for contributing, I love your post so much!

You're absolutely right on two points that I never thought about...the way that forced forgiveness can become passive-aggressiveness! And the tendency for people to put us in the help-rejecting-complainer category. That makes me wonder if that's what my brother/father have been doing all these years. Even though they've been trying to be supportive, there's always this layer of forced positivity with them that I haven't known how to deal with. I feel like I've heard the term help-rejecting complainer before. Is that a theory from somewhere that I could read more about?

[Ferzak]

Spryte and all,

yes-the term "help rejecting complainer" is used by the counseling community, and now in general,  to explain people who present terrible situations and then have a "yes, but" for any solution you offer.  True help rejecting people don't really want a solution and when they complain, it is not true venting because they never let go, it is bottomless negativity. They are more or less out to prove to you, and anyone who will listen, that their situation is worse than anyone else's, that it is someone's fault, and that you should simply feel sorry for them. For those of us with CPTSD who are on the path to healing, venting and grieving are important parts of the process and ARE NOT the same as when a help rejecting complainer complains!
I think we all know a help rejecting complainer. My next door neighbor is one and what Peter Walker calls a "narcissist in co-dependent clothing"...(or is it the other way around?!). She gets in by asking you how you are and then launches on a monologue that goes on for up to a half hour at a time, that details all the bad things in her life, where there is even a pause where you can make an excuse to get away!!
anyway
I didn't mean to go off on that tangent!

Do you think that with your brother and father that they put the forced positive layer on top because they can't handle their own powerlessness regarding your history? They may also feel they need to fix your situation, make you feel better, etc.  There may be guilt too on their part over what happened to you?
Many people in my life have tried to re-frame my past in a more positive light because they either don't want to deal with it or want me to be OK.  It always makes it worse .....  It makes me feel invalidated and that my feelings are frivolous, overly dramatic, etc.  I am now with a therapist who is validating my experience-that my childhood was absolutely awful, and it actually helps me let it go.  We all need to be heard and seen and we all want to be loved for who we really are...not some image we portray.    To tell the truth about our experience when it wasn't good is not complaining, it is freeing.  And we can be totally OK while acknowledging what happened to us.

[spryte]

Thanks for the definition. I've had a lot of people like that in my life. My last ex was so completely a help-rejecter complainer. It was exhausting. He was such an energetic vampire. I would get physically sick from conversations from him that just went in never ending circles of negativity and him rejecting everything I said, or "I don't understand" ing me. I had to work hard to disentangle myself from  that, even after we broke up.

My father and my brother...yes, absolutely. It's their issue, and I've just kind of had to accept it although with my dad, I'm ramping up to start making more..."I know you're trying to be supportive and helpful, but here's how you can be MORE supportive and helpful." My dad carries a lot of guilt, I think, for leaving me and my brother with my crazy BPD mother. My brother...well, he's got his own scars from my BPD mother but it gets complex because he was the baby and the golden child. Didn't mean he came out unscathed though. For a long time, when I first started my recovery, he didn't want to hear anything about it. Then, she and he started really having issues, and he ended up coming back to me and apologizing for not understanding why I went NC with her. He still doesn't want to talk about it much though and I think he uses positivity to cover a lot of stuff up.

[PaintedBlack]

For anyone struggling with this question from the religious standpoint (I know many are not, but some probably are), I sought truth about this for a long time so I will share.

Jesus' forgiveness is the model Christianity gives. Even God cannot forgive us unless we 1. Repent, 2. Publicly display our repentance (baptism) and 3. Accept the forgiveness offered.

How many of us would love genuine repentance, public apology from our abusers, and be able to partially genuinely forgive in those circumstances? I would.

Well if God won't do it without genuine change and repentance, how could He expect me, a mere mortal to? Ridiculous.

These forgive and forget kum-ba-ya Christians need to read their bibles and use the logic that God gave them. And they make God look so unreasonable when they add ideas that were never in the Bible in the first place.

I no longer struggle that I should forgive. At times I have compassion for my abusers, but that is my own heartful gift to give (mercy) if and when I am feeling it."

[Kizzie]

I no longer struggle that I should forgive. At times I have compassion for my abusers, but that is my own heartful gift to give (mercy) if and when I am feeling it.

Well said PaintedBlack, I feel the same way. I haven't forgiven my PD parents and I am comfortable with that, I don't feel the guilt I used to. I used to though and a lot of that had to do with people telling me I should just let it go, get over it. I remember a T asking me if I could understand they were ill. What I heard I heard "You must forgive them if you want to get well" and all I could think was "How can I possibly forgive the unforgivable?"I was not ready for that.  I was incredibly angry, furious actually  and never went back. 

I didn't realize then what she was trying to get at because I hadn't had the opportunity for validation of my trauma, of getting all that anger rise to the surface finally and acknowledging that it was completely justifiable. I hope that as T's learn more about CPTSD they will understand how invalidating any talk of forgiveness, compassion, understanding feels after a lifetime of being silenced, gaslighted, invalidated? 

So compassion for my PD FOO didn't come easily or quickly and frankly it wasn't something I thought possible, it just started to happen as I became more compassionate with myself. And that only started after a long, intense period of being angry - the type of "angering" Pete Walker talks that he believes is necessary for recovery (and I agree).  Most times when anyone said anything about forgiveness, compassion, just let it go, anything like that I would go into an EF and turn the shame and guilt on myself.  "I am being shoved back into this dark place again and I deserve it, I am a terrible person!"

Compassion looks like this at this stage in recovery.  I am NC with everyone but my NPDM because I don't want the constant triggering in my life and to sink into the anger and depression of having to deal with them daily.  That's self-compassion.  Compassion for my PD parents (my F is dead), has come about through an understanding that while it (their behaviour) happened to me, it was never really about me.  It was about about their brokeness, their disconnect from what makes us human and able to have healthy relationships, it was about having a personality disorder and not about me being bad, worthless, defective, too sensitive, not sensitive enough, stupid, ..... fill in the blank. From what I know of my FOO, PDs were a gift from their parents and who knows how far it stretches back.

I feel compassion for the fact that they they developed a disorder because of what they endured (although I still need to be LC), and I feel compassion for myself for having had to endure that legacy.  Forgiveness though?  No, that would feel like turning my back on myself.

   

[Kizzie]

Hi Southland - I am so sorry you had to find out about your father's death online, that should not happen to anyone.  It's not much but  and although we are a cyber community I hope you will feel a little less alone by being here. 

I let my NPDM get away with everything too because the few times I tried to tell anyone I was slapped down and shamed.  It's a very lonely feeling. It took a long time to move on, but I had to and I don't miss my FOO anymore.  Contact with any of them causes me so much pain and I'm done with that. 

I hope the loneliness subsides a little each day Southland 

[Gabrielle4500]

Hello!

I also wish to say 'thank you' to Spryte for the clear explanation of the many myths on forgiveness. These myths, like 'having to forgive for us, not for them', are clearly re-victimizations for us, who have had to suffer the original trauma.

And as far as I am concerned, I don't even understand what they mean with it. I feel anger at my abusers, but I am more and more at peace with myself when I put the responsibility for the abuse on them, not me. And I used to feel guilty for 'not being able to forgive' in the past.

I still feel sorry for my abusers occasionally. I tell myself that maybe they 'didn't know how to do it better'... but then I tell myself that I have enough with dealing with the consequences of the abuse every day of my life.

Just my little contribution to this tread.

[Gabrielle4500]

[I literally can't bear it. I'm now on a disability pension (for mental health issues) and I worry constantly about money, do things like groping around in the dark to save on power and often feel distressed in the night
My parents were calling me insane from adolescence onwards and I believed them, even though I did well academically and was popular with teachers and other pupils.

Dear Southbound,
I am so sorry you're feeling so low. My parents used to say very similar things to me and I too believed them. I have suffered crippling anxiety and sometimes depression too, and unfortunately these emotional states contributed to create my fibromyalgia and very early arthritis that have been very hard to bear in the last 20 years.

I have had many problems with work as the result of all this.

Only now I have come to understand that my parents made me the scapegoat of the family, and that they were WRONG. I wish very sincerely that you come to see your abusers as wrong too.

I hope that being here will make you feel more cared for and respected, despite this being an online group only.

[Salsera]

Hi Southbound! You are an awesome writer and I hope that you will share your writing with all in this forum. I, too, am sorry you heard about your father's passing like you did. And, I understand how you simply went to bed.

About the forgiveness issue - why? Why would I forgive my abusers? How would that benefit me?

Now, finally, I'm putting myself first, and I don't care one bit about NM or FOO. Not what they say about me, what is going on in their lives, nothing. THAT, I believe, is forgiveness. Forgiving myself for accepting the abuse for most of my life. And allowing myself to recover.

[Trees]

Dear Southbound and Gabrielle, same for me....I am officially mentally disabled and I am extremely alone in life.  I do so identify with the stories you two tell.

You folks are courageous, you are articulate, and I am so grateful to you both for your honesty.  It makes me feel less alone, it lifts my heart.

Big hugs           

[Dutch Uncle]

Today I found this YouTubester who made some impressive and very personal posts about her experiences with a Narcissistic mother, and the ensuing (dysfunctional) family dynamic.

She made a quite nice video on forgiveness. It's more of a mind-flow than anything specifically profound she set out to tell*, but well worth a watch I think.
*) obviously I haven't got a clue on what she possibly set out to tell.

I do identify with a lot she says.
Forgiveness is such a tricky subject. Hard to pin down.
But she surely has hit the nail on the head a few times here:

Title: Narcissism: Why Forgiveness Is Irrelevant to Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hqn7o3tRhA8

[SadieMist]

A few thoughts re forgiveness:
--(Ditto that) forgiveness does NOT equal reconciliation. 
--Forgiveness does not mean that you are "okay with what happened" (I'm sure not okay with what happened to me) or that you shouldn't be angry.  Angry and "mad as *" are probably appropriate emotional responses. 
--Forgiveness IS relinquishing the desire/ right to collect upon a debt that someone owes you, which is impossible to collect anyway when the debt is emotional.  By relinquishing that debt, you are then able to focus on you and your healing, instead of on how much you would like to hurt the other person. For those of us who choose to follow Christ, we give that debt to Christ to collect. For those that believe in karma, karma collects the debt. 

As far as the whole "honor your mother and father" thing...Christ said "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." Matthew 12: 48-50.  Also, for many of us here, the most honoring thing that we can do for our biological parents is to draw boundaries not put up with their evil crap.

[Dutch Uncle]

Forgiveness IS relinquishing the desire/ right to collect upon a debt that someone owes you

For me 'debt' is not an issue here.

I'm dealing with theft.
It's not that 'they' borrowed something and refuse to give/bring it back.
I was simply robbed.

[Annegirl]

Yes I also believe that forgiveness does not mean that you are ok with all that happened.
I personally have always tried to forgive for my own peace of mind. The years i was not forgiving were the most difficult for me. I became very bitter and even though it was the last thing i wanted my children suffered from it. If I am angry even if its not at them, i am not nice to be around. They learned a lot of swearing in those years and they were only 1-6 years old. The worst i did one day when i was ruminating and angry at all that had happened to me was lash out and hit 2 of my children.
I then got so angry at my mother and blamed her for even making me and my children suffer though we weren't seeing her anymore. I still blame her for this sometimes, but for me forgiveness is letting go and allowing myself to be who i am without them in the picture anymore. Also allowing me to sit with the pain and seeing where it comes from allows for creativity and pain comes out in art forms. Everyone will have different ways they can embrace the pain and learn from it instead of allowing it to eat us up from the inside. When we fight the pain and try to get rid of it it eats us up, when we accept that we have pain and sit with it, we start to know what to do with it.