Chances are that all of us have been hurt, betrayed, angered, upset – at some time, by someone. That’s life, it happens.
It’s often really hard to forgive someone who has wronged you. And that’s understandable. Often, they have just gotten on with what appears to be a pretty good life themselves, leaving you behind damaged and stewing. Stewing about being so hurt, and stewing about them just being able to move on, when you can’t. I hear it often when talking to others, I’ve even said it myself – “Why should I forgive them? They don’t deserve it!”
Yes, much of the time, they don’t deserve it. But YOU do. Often the person who hurt you has moved on, and they don’t even know or care if you have forgiven them or not.
Forgiveness isn’t for the person we are forgiving. It’s for ourselves.
When something happens to us that hurts us, part of healing and being able to get out lives back again is accepting that it happened, accepting that you are hurt, and accepting whatever damages have been done to you – this is now, your reality – you can’t change that, but you need to be able to accept it to start moving on yourself – rather than going over and over and over it. I think a huge key to acceptance can be forgiving.
I read Natascha Kampusch’s book, 3096 Days, in which the author writes about the eight years in captivity in the dungeon of the man who abducted and abused her. Reading what she went through, I cannot imagine living through that, I cannot imagine any human being coming out of that situation at all, and not being totally utterly broken. Yet she survived, and not only survived, but
she amazes me with her strength, her wisdom (so obvious in her writing) and her ability to accept what happened to her and try and move forward.
What surprised me most about Natascha is her forgiveness of her abductor Wolfgang Priklopil. Her empathy for him, obviously mentally ill to her. How could someone forgive a person who hurt them SO MUCH, so deeply – ruined their entire lives – mentally ill or not? And yet she did. As Natascha wrote, she realised that if she did not forgive him, it would destroy her. She wrote that the reason she survived what happened was that she DID forgive him – otherwise it would have eaten her away inside. (Image source.)
We can all learn a lot from Natascha Kampusch. I also totally recommend her book, although I warn that it’s extremely harrowing to read.
So, I have been aware of the benefits of forgiveness for myself, personally, for a while now. And yet, it’s not so easy at all. I struggle to forgive. My mother for her cruelty and neglect. My siblings for their abuse. The men who abused me once I left that home. The so-called friend who turned out to be a user and abuser herself.
I even get mad at life, for throwing me such a difficult time of it. At society, for turning a blind eye… and it’s hard to forgive, especially when I am still fighting to reclaim any sort of life and the world around me just goes on. Especially when there are some people who don’t even have a clue what it’s like to struggle in any way, who treat you as if you are personally a failure for not getting up and on with it, because things should be so easy. After all, it was for them.
Most of all, I find it hard to forgive myself. For allowing myself to be used and abused over and over. For being weak. For being sick. For not just getting on with life. For everything. For just being ME!
It’s really easy to go through my entire life angry at the world, angry at everyone who hurt me in any way, angry at those who didn’t help me, angry at myself, angry at LIFE. And becoming more and more bitter and filled with hatred and vileness by the day. This is the mindset that kills us, inside.
I think forgiveness comes more easily with compassion and empathy. Personally, I find it hard to forgive someone when all you can see is this horrid mean person who did this and got away with it. But when I look behind that, try and understand them a bit better, I find a human being. Who usually is hurt and damaged in their own way. I start to understand how their own brokenness might have contributed to what they did to me. And I can find at least a bit of compassion for what they must have been through – enough to soften my heart towards them. Have I forgiven? I don’t know. I still hang on to a lot of negative feelings of anger, sadness, “WHY”, but I think I’m slowly coming to a place where I will one day be able to let them go, knowing that they no longer still have any hold over me because I’m not storing anything about them in my heart and mind any more.
Compassion also is important towards ourselves, in order to start to forgive ourselves. I find it SO hard to have compassion for myself. My inner dialogue has for as long as I can remember, been harsh, full of anger and derision. I hold myself accountable in a way I’d never do to another, not even my own abusers – and interestingly enough, I have become my own abuser.
While my inner dialogue is full of ”should” and “shouldn’t”, I can’t win. I always am not good enough, I always could have done better. I’m not trying, I’m a failure, it’s all my fault. Everyone else can just do what they need to do to get better. Why am I this way? How could I have been such a stupid loser to get so stuck in an eating disorder in the first place? Look at my friends who have recovered – what’s stopping me? Most of them have been through their own hells – and yet they are picking themselves up and getting on with life. Why can’t I just get off my butt, stop feeling sorry for myself and ‘get with the program’?
Talking to myself this way, I set myself up to fail. My self hatred grows worse, and I struggle to look after myself physically and mentally when I hate myself.
I’ve been doing my best to be gentle with myself. “You are trying the best you can with what you have. Everyone’s situation is different – this is your life, and you are trying, that’s what matters. It wasn’t your fault for any of the abuse that happened – you were just a kid/a vulnerable young woman/in an impossible situation. You couldn’t have made it not happen at the time – even if you see options you could have taken to help yourself now – they were not there for you back then. And what was done to you – isn’t your shame to carry round. It’s theirs. Be proud that you have made it this far – you are still here. Don’t lose sight of how far you have come. And it’s time to give to yourself the care you would give to any child or vulnerable young woman you knew was going through what you did – right now.”
I could go on – but you get the picture. Whatever you would say or feel towards someone totally NOT yourself in the same situation is often the thing to say and feel towards yourself – you wouldn’t blame a kid for being abused. Why blame yourself for abuse when you were a child? You wouldn’t blame another person for being ill, again, why blame yourself?
Letting go of the anger, the shame, the self-recrimination allows us to become more forgiving of ourselves – which in turn helps us move towards acceptance and hopefully a better chance of healing.
Do you struggle to forgive, whether it’s someone else or yourself?
Has forgiveness or lack of it affected your life and health?
I struggle with forgiveness, and people never change either. So I find it hard to forgive someone who is still blatantly carrying on being horrid.
I.e my mother, who, destroyed me as a person as a child, and continues to cause destruction in my life, and who seems to want me to fail at recovery. “haven’t you gained enough weight? I think you have” “you are looking chunkier these days” “why are you still eating SO MUCH food? I could never eat that, that’s ACK” “You shouldn’t be eating that, you should be eating this” “your kid is crying, if you were a good mum, she wouldn’t cry”.
Well, most of these things are dumb. I’m doing exactly what my dietitian says to do, she didn’t go to university, she doesn’t know anything about biology, or recovery, she didn’t do a postgrad in dietetics, so who the hell is she to tell me I’m wrong? etc.
I know now, I have done well, very well, and I still look for her approval, however much I know I’m not going to get it, and I still hate her for doing things to me. I don’t think I can forgive her, while she’s still in my life, and still being mean. It’s triggering. Her giving me mental torment triggers childhood memories of even worse mental and physical torment, so how can you forgive that? Same as I can’t walk past or look at raw meat, because it gives me flashbacks. That sort of triggering.
I can’t forgive my sexual abusers either, just cant. I don’t know how.
I blame myself mostly because I still feel like I didn’t do enough to stop it, even though I was very young.
I guess I struggle with the whole forgiveness thing. Lol.
I’ll have to take a look at that book, and being nice to yourself does help even though it’s difficult to begin with. I’m more gentle with myself now, and reward myself. I like getting rewards. I guess i need to learn how to fall in love with self. I still hate myself to a certain extent. Hugs lovely, as always brilliant post. And love to you xx
Hi Roxy, I’m still so proud of you for your huge steps forward yesterday, I’ve seen you have a post about a let down out, but nothing negates what you have achieved – remember that.
I totally agree with how hard it is to forgive someone who has not only hurt you but keeps on hurting you and/or others – that’s hard for me too. With the people I am trying to forgive, I reach a state of ‘almost okay’ and then they do something to shatter it. But mostly, forgiving something like abuse just feels so wrong because they more than just hurt you, they devastated you – it will never be undone. And forgiving feels like saying ‘it was okay’ and it will never be okay.
I guess we have to learn that forgiving doesn’t have to mean it was okay. Not at all. And that it’s not for them. It’s for us.
Your mum is still very abusive to you emotionally and I’ve actually cried reading some of what you have described. The things she says to you are awful and she can’t not know how much she’s damaging you and the power of what she says to you with your eating disorder. She’s cruel.
I admire you and am so happy to see that you are breaking this cycle. As a mother yourself, you are learning from your own mum’s mistakes, rather than continuing the legacy of abuse.
And as for forgiving, that would be near impossible I imagine. Do you ever see yourself being able to separate yourself from your mum physically? Move away or something? (When you are more well that is). Do you think that when you are in therapy, you might be able to convince your mum to come along to a session if your therapist is able to work with you both?
For me, because there is no way I can condone any of the things done to me and find it awful that they still go on doing what they have done – I find that the need to not let them have power over me any more helps. I got angry at the fact that while I’m still hurting, while I’m still angry at them, while I’m still haunted by their actions – they have power over me. They still are hurting me. And that goes for my ED too – as long as I’m sick, they are winning. I can’t let them win. I think I have already given you the daughters of narcissist site link. Because your mum sounds like a malignant narcissist thru and thru. And her words to you, the way she uses food and weight and stuff like that as a weapon against you – makes me think that if you succumb to your ED, your mother will win over you, like my abusers over me. We can’t let them win. The way to prevent this happening is to not only get well in body but to get well in mind – and that means we need to let go of them so they don’t have power over us any more. And letting go means accepting and forgiving what’s been done – it allows us to move on instead of carrying the hurt. Maybe instead of calling it forgiving – call it accepting. “S/He hurt me terribly and totally broke my trust. It’s been done, and now I’m going forward with my life.” Don’t give your mum the power to hurt you even when she’s not actually doing it herself, hon.
*hugs* hope any of that makes sense… love Fiona xx
I am so happy you are working on forgiving yourself and going easy with yourself. Forgiveness is a powerful tool. You are right, it is an amazing gift to be able to (a) go through a hurt; (b) express the hurt; and (c) forgive the hurt(er). I have a comment about NARCISSISTS however. They will never stop harming or hurting: As you know from your mom, and your sociopath sister — and i know from my mom (who i have forgiven 100%, partly because i don’t hear her criticisms anymore because she died 3 months ago, and partly because she was so unaware of her bad behavior it was hard to be upset with her for too long: it was her FIBER her CORE) that you need to be mindful of VIGILANT forgiveness. If you have decided to accept and have a relationship with someone who has hurt you because you believe they possess good qualities and will make a good friend, remember you can be stepping into a minefield and you will have to HOLD STRONG VIGILANT forgiveness at all times. That being said, forgiveness and LETTING GO is a beautiful thing. My question is, What if your tormenter will not leave you alone? Do you love yourself enough to do what you can to be treated rightly? What would you do?
I love you to pieces my little sis, and i don’t mean to be harsh or judgmental about ANYTHING you do: You are in charge of your life. Soon you will have an amazing life beyond your wildest dreams. Forgiveness is big … self love and self respect requires empathy and compassion and YOU deserve that more than any person who has wronged you. Peace and love, lil sis, melis
Dear Melis, this comment shows just how wise you are, just how much insight you have! And you raised an important point that I think Roxy will be interested in too – “Do you love yourself enough to do what you can to be treated rightly?”
Good question. In the past, I fought the man who took me off the street and raped me, almost nightly after that, for almost two years. But after the first night, I succumbed to letting him in wherever I was staying. I felt powerless not to open the door because he was that big and strong – I felt he would find his way in anyway. Or get me off the street again. When I physically fought what he was doing to me, he hurt me more. So I felt that the best way to keep myself safe was to give in. I never thought about going to the police, or anything like that. I didn’t feel WORTHY of it. So you are right – it takes loving yourself to do what it takes to make yourself safe. And he stalked me for more than ten years from place to place. He even moved to places near where I was staying at the time and in his words ‘kept tabs on me’ which meant following me around from home to volunteer job to hospital to appointment etc. No matter how hard I tried to not have him find my next place when I moved, he always did.
But after that ten years, he finally started knocking on my door again. And this time I did not let him in. It was the first night in the last place I lived at before this one now – and I’d just gotten home from hospital. There were no curtains up yet and my furniture was still flat packed. So he could see in. See me just sitting there on the floor terrified but NOT LETTING HIM IN. And after about 3/4 hour he left and didn’t come and knock again. He still stalked for a while, but I think that was a turning point – he realised I had finally gotten enough self respect to stand up to him.
Sorry for the tangent, sis… I’m learning. I thought that I couldn’t possibly learn much more from things so far in the past and yet I am. All the time.
Now it’s time for me to learn this ‘Vigilant Forgiveness’. It’s a term I’ve never heard before – thank you for introducing it to me. Love you, precious sis xxx
I want to read that book! Sounds very interesting, but i know it’ll be a difficult read.
Aww Fiona, i can fully relate. You have come so far and trying to forgive someone who abused you … well i can’t imagine even trying to do that. And yet you ARE trying. It’s not going to happen overnight, but i imagine it’s something to explore with your therapist. When i think of forgiveness i thinking ‘kiss and make up’ but reading this i think there are different kinds of forgiveness, where you make peace with someone rather than letting them back into your lives, or allowing them to hurt you from afar.
I also understand that forgiving yourself must be such a hurdle, because i can’t forgive myself either, for things that have happened that weren’t my fault. It’s odd, isn’t it, that we’d be so shocked at someone blaming themselves … and yet we blame ourselves. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.
As for your friends recovering, that’s fantastic for them, but you have to focus on yourself. What works for them won’t necessarily work for you. I have complete faith you’ll get there, you just have to keep on keeping on
xx
It is hard to forgive abusers, a few years ago I couldn’t imagine doing it either. Not properly. Because I think sometimes we do in the wrong way. I think sometimes I let them get away with hurting them because in the same was as we are so horrible to ourselves but not to others – we sometimes ‘forgive’ an abuser because we feel we ‘deserved’ it or we weren’t worthy of any better, does that ring true for you at all?
xx
So it’s a different kind of forgiveness. One that requires looking after ourselves..I would love it if Melis was to write a post about ‘vigilant forgiveness’, because I’ve never heard of that before and it sounds like it would benefit a lot of us.
I guess the blaming ourselves where we wouldn’t dream of blaming others – that’s where self love comes in – because we have that respect for others that we don’t have for ourselves – it’s pretty harsh to always be beating ourselves up for stuff that isn’t even our fault.
You are right about focussing on ourselves – we are all so different. I have so much faith in you, too, you have been making amazing discoveries lately – and they really do count for a lot
[...] just read a great post and had to share. From FaithandMeow. Chances are that all of us have been hurt, betrayed, angered, upset – at some time, by someone. [...]
You are able to see and understand about being kind and forgiving first and foremost to yourself. Yes forgiving others when able to do so is definitely freeing yourself also…You will likely never forget…The times I felt most betrayed are still in my memory but they don’t have a hold of me any longer. I am free from the bitterness etc. that goes with unforgiveness. It did take more than one conscious thought of “I am going to forgive” …it took a few times of saying it. Maybe once should have been enough but for me it took a few times…Diane
I understand what you mean, Diane, and I’m so glad for you that you have been able to let go. It takes a lot to forgive when you have been badly hurt.
xx
My case manager teaches me acceptance, by having me repeat again and again that I accept that I feel horrible, or accept that this has happened, etc. It sounds like the same sort of thing as you saying you forgive them a few times.
Thank you for your insight
forgiveness is such a powerful thing, and so simple, yet so complicated and difficult. sometimes it almost feels good to stay angry, but the reality is, it is destroying us and taking up precious energy we don’t have. i’m not at a place of forgiveness in some area’s i haven’t blogged about yet…and every time it think i have forgiven i realize bitterness and anger emerge again…but it is hard to figure out if we are just in pain, or if we are unforgiving…
Yes, so complicated and difficult. The mind can be such a difficult thing – and combined with the emotions, I think the result can be almost like gunpowder – potent and liable to explode. That’s the way I feel sometimes when my emotions are too much – like it’s literally a bomb waiting to go off. Or eating me away like acid.
And then, even the thought of letting go of the anger can be hard, yes.. because it feels like giving in to them. But it’s not. It’s actually not letting them have power over you any more. It’s telling them ‘get out of my head, get out of my heart. You have already hurt my body and my life, I’m not letting you hurt me any longer’.
Like you I struggle too with thinking I’ve forgiven someone/thing and then having a new wave of bitterness/anger/sheer devastated hurt wash over me again. I guess it’s a long process. *hugs* hope you are going okay xxx
my computer is acting funky…i had to sign in to leave a message…don’t know what that’s about??
so i buckwheatsrisk.wordpress.com am Zoe the in the above comment…weird…
Yes, I don’t know. I toggled with the settings last night to allow first time posters to post unmoderated – so everyone can comment, at the same time as I sent a certain person’s comments to spam-hell forever (thank you to a beautiful girl who knows who she is for showing me how
) I think that must force people to log in, then. I’ll have another look tonight. I’m sorry you had to use your name, I’m aware that there are people who would rather stay anonymous and I would like them to have that option xx
Not to show off but I’m the most forgiving person on the planet. I just hate those bitterly feelings so I forgive, let go, forget and move on. It irritates people sometimes – how can I, it’s not fair, but I don’t care. NONETHELESS while being so forgiving to others I CAN’T forgive myself. “Most of all, I find it hard to forgive myself. For allowing myself to be used and abused over and over. For being weak. For being sick. For not just getting on with life. For everything. For just being ME!” This is me too. I blame myself for having the ED, for wasting so much time and effort to thing that is killing me, for ruing my health, for hurting so many people because of it. I beg their forgiveness while nagging myself from inside out for my life.
I’m hopeful for you: one step at a time sweetie.
You are such a kind hearted person, Greta, so I’m not surprised. I’m sad that you are so harsh to yourself. Do you feel when you forgive others, a sense of having let go of wrong doings and a feeling of peace?
What do you think it will take to help you love yourself enough to forgive yourself?
Lots of love xx
You know, Fiona, I’ve always lived a pretty happy life outside while dying from bulimia inside. I’ve never been truly hurt by anyone, therefore my answer to your question would be different, if I were you or anyone who’d been truly harmed or even tortured by others. Forgiving is correctly a freeing thing. I even present people I forgive with some silly gifts or flowers. That way I make peace with them, but most importantly with myself.
As for me… I wish I could forgive and love myself one day… just as I love life by itself and be in peace with the world. I’m clueless how it’s done, but hopeful that it can be achieved.
For me it is the lack or loss of trust that affects my forgiving another person. I do not trust easily and have to know you have my back and not going to stab it and stomp my heart later on. Great Post – thanks for sharing! Have a Great Day:)
Trust is so important – I agree. I don’t at all think that forgiveness means trusting again – no way. In fact if someone has hurt me, and I manage to forgive them, I’m pretty sure I’ll never, ever trust them again. Trust is earnt, as it should be. It sounds like you have been badly hurt, and I’m sorry. *hugs*
I’ve tried three times to write a comment and canceled them all because it was too personal to feel safe putting out on a blog. (nothing personal towards you, Fiona).
I will try to generalize. I have found that the hardest thing in forgiving others for wrongs they have done to me is that I thought it meant I had to let the abuse happen again or that I was condoning the abuse or that I was discounting the abuse. Now I know that isn’t true. Hating someone or walling someone out as a response to abuse is a first line of defense and if that is all I can do then I respect that. But long term healing seems to require something different. Developing some skills of detachment with out shutting someone out or hating them is desireable…trying to work on that now.
The biggest thing that allows me to forgive is when I make sure that I will protect myself from future abuse. Plus I try to remind my self that people are flawed or even sick and sometimes this comes out and hurts others. People who were severely hurt by others often pass that forward by mistreating someone else. In having this understanding I begin to feel compassion. That might be the beginning of forgiveness.
Forgiving is not something I can directly make happen. I have to do a lot of inner work. Then sometimes forgiveness comes too. But it isn’t something I control.
I totally understand, Gel, it’s quite risky to put much out there in the public space – especially if someone who has hurt you might be able to come across it. But thank you so much for your comment. It means a lot to me that you went to that effort.
I agree that forgiving can’t be letting the abuse happen again and again. It can’t be saying it’s alright because it’s not. Melis brought up “Vigilant Forgiveness” which I haven’t heard before tonight so I’ll be peppering her with questions about it.
Like you I find that thinking about the PERSON behind the actions kind of helps with forgiveness – seeing the humanity. Although sometimes it’s hard to see that. I cannot see a human being in my older sister most of the time, I see a snake, a demon in human shell… only a few times have I seen a vulnerable human being there and that’s been in my imagination (trying to understand what might have happened to her to make her that way). And I agree that it’s often a cycle – abusers were abused, and now they pass it on. It’s up to us to not keep that cycle going. That’s something I’ve said to myself a lot over the years “It stops with me – because I’m going to have the guts to acknowledge it and do something about it rather than live in denial and pretend nothing has happened like the rest of you”.
Detachment.. I’m learning about dissociation, depersonalisation and de-realisation because I’ve done some form of them pretty much since as early as I remember (pre 4 years old). It’s been my way to get out of my body and cope with the uncopeable, but I never knew what I was doing wasn’t right, it was just the way I was. Now I’m discovering that it’s not at all right and I want to live in the real world and be there rather than always be off with the fairies. I think forgiving without detachment.. is that, do you think, the same thing as Melis means by vigilant forgiving? Lots of love xx
Hi Fiona, I definitely don’t mean ‘disassociation’ like going into a fantasy realm. The way I use detachment here is very much about staying present in my self while getting out of the line of fire from someone elses behavior that may be damaging to me. At the same time not getting hooked into revenge, or victim mode. So in this case I mean to detach or to distinguish who I am from the other person’s junk. I’m really not sure if this is the same thing as what Malis is referring to with vigilant forgiving. I think the ‘feel’ of it is similar.
Hi Fiona
I really love this post. I’ve found that I’ve been more able to forgive some people than others – for example, I forgive my family for treating me badly when I was ill as a teenager, because they were just scared and lacking the information/support to cope with a mentally ill child. I forgive the kids who bullied me at school because they were just kids. I find it harder to forgive those who SHOULD have had the awareness and training to do something to help me: the teachers at school, my GP etc. My feelings about the people who raped me are a bit confused too. I don’t know if forgiveness is really the right word when I think about the man – I don’t see him as human, because he’s one of those people who just seem to be missing something in their brain, you know? A born psychopath with no empathy. I don’t think he knew he’d committed a crime, I think he’s too fucked up for that. I don’t know if I forgive him because I don’t know if I feel angry towards him in the first place. I find it harder to forgive those who should have never let him out of prison (for stabbing someone) before he ever got to me. The woman who raped me had been a survivor of abuse herself, which really messed with my head, because I didn’t understand how she could do that to someone else when she knew how it felt. I don’t forgive her; she was supposed to be my friend.
So I work from a forgiveness hierarchy, apparently. I’ve reached the point where I can forgive people I felt incredible anger and sadness towards years ago, but I’m not quite there yet with others. It’s a useful thing to think about though, so thank you for bringing it up on your blog.
I’m sorry that apparently I missed your comment, I hope you didn’t think I was ignoring you. I’m really sorry that you have been hurt by so many and so badly. You have such a good heart to be able to have such compassion towards many who have hurt you despite it. It does help us to grow older and wiser and realise that so much hurt done to us DOES come from the fact that the person is hurting themselves – not that it excuses what they did at all. Also I think it’s easier to forgive someone in whom we recognise something – empathy – because we have empathy, we can understand how they might be feeling themselves often – whereas in a psychopath or someone else with NO empathy, they are cold, heartless, feel nothing, no remorse – we can’t fathom that. Many of those people have been hurt too, but they blatantly have no care for any other living being and seem to enjoy the pain they spread. Who can forgive that sort of person? What is there to forgive? In my mind, they are hardly even human – because I think empathy is a big part of the humanity in us. I really do understand how you can find yourself confused, too, there are so many conflicting emotions to be worked through.
Thank you so much for your comment, I’m sorry I didn’t answer much sooner! xx
Wonderful piece and the comments and exchanges are so enriching. I take away two lessons – forgive others; and forgive yourself
Thank you so much, and welcome
I find these words by John Lennon very apt – on the question of forgiveness of self! You must love yourself before you can step out to love others and expect them to love you!
“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we
are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we
open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement,
and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in
all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love
ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others
or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a
better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision
of people who embrace life.”
– John Lennon
Thank you, Noel – John Lennon was a wise man indeed – and I love this passage. I will go and find more that he has written! Thank you so much for sharing – it’s so true.