This is a subject that turned into a major discussion with my therapist as well as those close to me. The way that I understood the idea of forgiveness, until this point, was to release the negative feelings and then be able to feel love towards the person and honestly wish them well. I’ve always had a personal problem with that concept. Then you complicate it with “Forgive but don’t forget”, which is easy to say, but how can one talk about expressing unconditional love to our transgressors and at the same time not forget? If we express unconditional love to those that have abused us, is that even healthy? Should there exceptions to forgiveness?
When I would ask these questions, I would often get answers that circled around how forgiveness is about being the bigger person. This, to me, always seemed a way to be passively prideful and arrogant about one’s ability to be above others who “are so lowly they allow themselves to be angry”. In short, a way of victim blaming those who are angry about abuses they’ve suffered. Or how it’s about healing the self, which, if taken in my previously understood context…I didn’t understand how forgiving others had anything to do with healing myself. It always sounded like moral high ground nonsense to me. A continued way to lord over people how enlightened you are more than anything dealing with truly healing.
This concept of forgiveness, always felt dangerous to me. Like letting a wound close on the surface while ignoring what is festering beneath it. Or trying to accept that deep cuts are just something that should be as serious as a papercut. Gently wash and let it close. It’ll all be fiiiiiiiiine. Even the very concept talking to an abuse victim about forgiveness felt blasphemous.
I have suffered a very deep betrayal recently, that I don’t feel a need to discuss in detail, simply to illustrate why this topic has come up in depth recently. And someone I care for, had suggested that I work on the forgiveness of this person, to be able to honestly wish the best for them. And I struggled very much with this. Because I can’t. Nor do I want to. I have no desire to wish them well or happiness or anything of the like. Was I a bad person? Was this something I needed to work on?
It was this specific that I brought to my therapist, that I went back to seeing because of this particular trauma. While I had my own strongly held beliefs on it (which I will go into), I was going to her to help heal myself. If I brought this to her, and she could explain this to me in a way I could maybe finally understand, I was absolutely willing to put the work into changing my world view.
To start, she told me a story about a woman who’s son was shot and killed by another teenager. The woman, visited this boy in prison, chose to buy him things he needed, and care for him. Even invited him to live with her when his time was up. He asked her why she did these things, for the guy that took her son from her. Her response was about enough hate and pain being in the world, she wanted to bring healing to someone that actually needed it.
As I sat there listening, I was torn between two feelings. One, was that the ability for someone to make a change from a grave mistake and to be seen as a person was a beautiful gift. The other, was this kind of thing was exactly the kind of thing I had a problem with, expecting other victims to do this kind of thing. In the spirit of being honest in therapy, I expressed this, and I was shocked to hear that it was for that exact reason is why she shared that story. Even more so to hear that my therapist, the one I expected to explain why this sacrificial idea of forgiveness was something worth striving for…said there’s no way she could do such a thing.
The rest of the discussion, we went into different types of forgiveness. How she saw my personal approach to a lot of my trauma as reflecting of forgiveness where I had never seen it. Her experiences with forgiveness. How forgiveness is just a word that means nothing on its own. What it means to heal one’s self after trauma. The validity of emotions. It was a really fantastic experience that I found myself feeling a sense of great relief after. It’s what brings me to why I’m writing this.
So often, we’ve been hurt. Family members, doctors, lovers, bosses, strangers, partners, law enforcement…… And we’ve been hurt in so many ways. Lies, manipulations, sexual assault, gaslighting, physical abuse, murder, racism…. And then we’re told by society that we should be the bigger person and show love in spite of all of these grave offenses.
I don’t prescribe to that. For me, forgiveness was reserved for innocent mistakes that were so minor and/or understandable that they could be ignored in the future of one’s relationship. You forgot to pick up bandages on your way here like I asked, and I really needed them. Okay, not the end of the world, totally forgivable. Mistakes happen. Cause me trauma? Whether intentionally or because they’ve got their own trauma they’ve never taken care of? I’ve never felt a need to extend that kindness. I still don’t. I don’t have any inner need to wish them any kind of joy or happiness. I don’t care. They fall in a “might as well be dead” category. Not because I’m spiteful and full of rage, but because I honestly don’t care about their existence anymore. I grieve the loss of a family member, or friend, or whatever the relationship was to me, and then “snip snip” they’re let go and carry as much emotion as any stranger I’d see in passing. I have two people that were born into the same family, that will never be a sister to me anymore. They’re strangers. And I mean that with all the seriousness I possess. They could tell me that they’ve gone to therapy and have a happy relationship and turned their life around, and while I won’t celebrate the change, I’m not going to be bitter they’ve decided to be a better person. I just care as much as if some stranger in the grocery store told me the same. Uh huh…cool…good for you I guess? Go have your happy life, just do it away from me. We will never have a relationship, even if they take care of their own shit. That fact is absolutely okay with me. My grieving was done years ago.
The other half of this process, was to understand that they are still a person. They are a product of their growing up, their genes, their actions, and the consequences of those actions, and experiences out of their control. This is no way is an approval or an acceptance for what they’ve done. It is merely a logical acceptance of humans are terrible animals with the potential to cause terrible pain and horror for a variety of reasons that brought them to that point. It doesn’t cause an empathizing with them. Rather, it allows me to no longer agonize over the “Why did they do this?” question. Because if I can acknowledge that the reason someone I thought was a friend was just in reality, a toxic person that made poor life choices because they’re simply broken and currently incapable of being otherwise…the details no longer matter to me. It also makes it an easier thing to release them from my life. They’re just a broken person, but they’re not my responsibility. If I hold myself responsible for my own actions, I can refuse others access to my life if they refuse to do so. So when my recent trauma happened, and the person first insisted on talking to me to “work things out”, I was already at the point of detachment. Nothing they could say would make it okay, or change the trauma. They did an unforgivable thing in my eyes, so, there’s no reason to give them the courtesy of my time and energy anymore. They were just a broken person, that made bad choices, made excuses for their bad choices, and I excused myself from being any further part of that. Especially when I had spent so much time on therapy on moving past it…on me and removing the control that trauma had on my state of being.
To me, this act was also something I didn’t think of as forgiveness. This was self preservation. While I’m sure many will disagree, it was explained that my way of approaching things was actually a type of forgiveness. Yes, what I reserved for minor transgressions was a form of forgiveness. But healing to the point where the emotions of the trauma can be released so they’re no longer causing you suffering? That’s the same spirit of forgiveness, even though it doesn’t have many characteristics of the other. If the emotions are no longer hurting, and you’re able to heal….then why try to expose yourself to further trauma for the sake of some imagined moral high ground? What can be gained from that? Isn’t it important enough that the cycle of trauma is broken? It’s a forgiveness of the circumstance rather than the individual.
When we spoke about it in that context, a part of me celebrated that I was being told that it’s not the mark of a terrible person to refuse to offer forgiveness to another. Whether they ask for it or not. Whether they make an effort for change or not. It’s okay to have your own limits as to what you can handle for yourself. It’s okay for someone to be able to go to the killer of their son and offer them forgiveness, but it’s just as okay for another mother to never hold forgiveness for the same kind of person. Neither one is better, as long as whatever they do allows them to heal for themselves.
If going to your abuser and offering them love and kindness they probably need to heal helps you release your own pain and suffering, that is an extraordinary gift and go for it. If you choose to cut off your abuser, mourn the loss of who they are to you, and learn to move forward and find new joys? That is an extraordinary gift that you’re giving to yourself. One is not better or bigger than the other. And if that’s hard to digest…what has more meaning? A crude handmade gift because the person has very limited finances or the gift that was bought with love and consideration? Or maybe, just maybe, they’re both equal of meaning because each is doing what they can with what they have.
In our lives, we have and will continue to have so many experiences in which we will be hurt or will hurt others. Some of them, we will be able to apologize and/or forgive. Some of them, we won’t be given the opportunity no matter how desperately we wish for it. Some of them, we will be unable to out of conscious choice. The important thing, as far as I’m concerned, is that we move forward with awareness and compassion. Whether this compassion needs to be directed to only the victim or the aggressor, or to be shared with both…I’m not about to tell anyone what they need to do or feel. Life is too complex for the answer to be simple as our society would have us believe.
I do believe that it has enriched my life to be able to see those that have visited trauma upon me, as people. Not as people doing their best, or victims of circumstance, or as monster…simply as people. I am comfortable in the fact that is where my compassion for those people ends. I’m also okay with the fact that some see my take on things as encouraging negativity or some such thing. That’s their cross to bare, not mine. I’m content to focus my energy on healing my own trauma so it releases any emotions that aren’t my responsibility to carry. I’m good with sometimes the challenges I face in my life don’t leave me with enough energy to spend on caring for others that have proven to not have my best interests at heart.
If all of that wasn’t enough? Being angry on a constant basis is exhausting. To be angry over what some broken person did all the time? I don’t know about any of you…I don’t have time for that. I have my health to worry about, walks to take, wildlife to meet, and plenty of art to make. I have friends, blood family, and chosen family that deserve much more of my time and attention. More importantly? I deserve that positive interaction.
So whether you call all of that forgiveness, or you have a different vocabulary for it, I hope how you move forward only goes to bring you profound peace for you, and you first and foremost. And in case you need to hear it…You’re allowed to cut off those that have hurt you no matter how they’ve changed or how many times they apologize. Even if you’re married, or they’re your parents, or they’re your best friend. You’re allowed to not feel love for them anymore, just as others are allowed to forgive completely. It’s okay if others haven’t forgiven you, they aren’t required to, so do the important work that it will take to forgive yourself. Do what you can to be the best version of yourself, and screw the idea that your version of forgiveness has to look the same to everyone else to be valid.
