102 -Special Edition 5 - PTSD Awareness month (3) - PTSD 7- Forgiveness

*trigger warnings : abuse, domestic violence, cult* 

I want to discuss the notion of forgiveness and how it relates to trauma, especially in my case.

I’ve heard and read many people talking about the need to forgive in life. Religions and spiritual leaders, as well as lay people, all talk about forgiving one another. Now, I think that if someone finds inner peace in forgiving someone’s hurting them in words or actions, this is positive.

I don’t agree with religious doctrines of forgiving just about anything, or turning the other cheek and that sort of principles. One shouldn’t have to forgive a person who has truly traumatized them and hindered their growth and life.

One shouldn’t assume that any action is equally forgivable. You don’t forgive accidental and evil pain given the same way, and nor ‘’must you’’ in order to heal.

If someone said or did something which accidently hurt you and asked for forgiveness and truly meant it, you can forgive and pursue your relationship with that person. You’ll know their honesty when they stop hurting you.

But, if someone hurts you – once or many times – in a terrible way and were just plain mean and you don’t want to forgive them, then don’t. It’s your right! And it is mine, too.

One shouldn’t just assume that the phrase ‘’I forgive you’’ is enough!  It’s not enough for the person to start healing if they say it, and it’s not what can help the person who hurt them to evolve, either.

There are some people, who are truly evil, and I don’t speak in a religious sense – if you read me thus far, you’ll know how I feel about religions and doctrines.

You may be able to explain why the person and his or her baggage led to hurt you, but nothing in the world should force you to forgive – there are some actions that are just unforgivable. 

I haven’t and don’t plan to ever forgive my father, who was my tormentor for 15 long years. During that lapse of time, he depersonalized me, abused me physically and mentally, hurt my feelings and stunted my emotional growth, and the multiple traumas he inflicted on me were continuous and I am now an adult with many scars.

I found that I made some positive from these difficult life experiences with him, but it’s not thanks to him, but to my own self, and my inner strength. And also to some important people that came in my life.

The only time of my life that I actually dared to tell my father that he had hurt me was about a decade ago – many years after I’d left him and his ridiculous religious cult. When I did so, he didn’t own to his faults. He didn’t ask for forgiveness, oh no! He tried to deflect the guilt to someone else!!!

In his craziness, he thought that he fulfilled his duties as a father.

Really? 

Drugging your son and abusing him for 15 years is duty?! And god is your witness, and your excuse?! No mister, absolutely NOT.

I can tell you, my readers, that if he came groveling on the floor and asked my forgiveness, I wouldn’t grant it. He had far too many opportunities - during the 15 years of abuse and subsequent 12, till I cut all ties - and he NEVER even asked. 

For someone whose intellectual prowess hasn’t helped to realize the harm he was doing, no matter how damaged he may have been himself, and all the harm and havoc he caused to far too many people has set him in that bad zone of evil people that I cannot forgive.

What I find IS important to forgive is oneself, for any guilt and feelings that ‘’I caused this to happen to me’’ – both in my case, or yours.

Many victims try to find inner peace in their healing process and struggle with those feelings of having caused their attacker, their abuser, to hurt them.

You may have been drunk (or sober) and said something that upset them. 
You may have been dressed scantily, or were naked. 
You may have slapped them. It doesn’t matter: you didn’t cause someone to become so enraged that they had to hurt you in a horrible way, once or multiple times, in a totally over-reaction to whatever you may have said or done.

The fault is on them: someone must have self-restraint and know what to say or do – especially to back-off when they see that they are going to get angry, mad or violent.

In my opinion, thinking ‘’ maybe, just maybe I can forgive that person, so they’ll stop hurting me’’ is erroneous. The goal of forgiving isn’t in pacifying them, but to show your own compassion. But, that is your choice to grant, not the person asking for it, and certainly not the church, the temple or any other house of religion or spiritual retreat. They weren’t hurt by the words and acts of YOUR attacker, or YOUR abuser. No one else but you can decide.

To go back to the case of guilt: for a while, I had those feelings, too. I thought that my step-mother was right: that I was stupid, and had caused tensions in their couple. Hell, I can admit that my presence there had caused her some ill-feelings. She didn't want me there. BUT, I can tell you that it isn’t me who caused her to be my other abuser during those year : both she and my father had choices in front of them : to make due with a situation, and they both chose badly.

They are the ones who did the abuse, the humiliation, and put me to servitude.

I’ll say clearly here, though: she NEVER hit me. She wasn’t affectionate toward me, and often quite mean. She participated to give me unrealistic tasks on a young age, and I was thus like Cinderella (except that I didn’t have a charming prince/ss, nor shiny shoes etc etc, I had the chores).

 My father was the one who hurt me the most.

I choose to partially forgive my step-mother, because she was thrust into an abusive relationship with my father. She made some choices and remained with him – but I know how hard it was for her on many levels.

I choose not to forgive my father. It’s my right, and I’m exerting it to the fullest.

He hurt me, more than once. He never even asked for forgiveness. The sole time I told him he had hurt me; he tried to put ALL the blame on my step-mother, other people, and the entire world.

He said he did his fatherly duty, and used his position as the messiah to justify himself for being totally white and unblemished.

That is what I call absolute evil. He didn’t harm me the same way as some people hurt one another, in worse acts of violence and depravity. But, this life, these traumas he inflicted, never were contests of evilness.

There are degrees of evil acts, and he’s somewhere in there.

If you chose not to forgive your attacker, and want to heal, you can. Don’t listen to someone who says ‘’you must – XYZ said so in the holy books, or in the law’’.

Be the judge of your own decision, after pondering in your mind, and feeling it with your heart, and chose whichever is best for you.

And this is where I join the article by a therapist who also talks about the topic of forgiveness, and how she deals with this issue in therapy. 

The bottom line is that I really hope that people understand that forgiving is a choice, and not mandatory for any reason. 

It's not necessarily strength to grant it, nor is it automatically weakness to be ''unable'' or unwilling to grant it - I think there are no real right or wrong in this topic, and it's always, ALWAYS a choice and subjective to the person.