I’m coming to terms with some serious abuses I suffered in childhood. I am angry at the people who let me slip through the cracks. I don’t think I can forgive the people who put their hands on me in one way or another. I also don’t want to give them anymore power over me by getting stuck on the abuse.
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Oh I thought it was recent. It’s a lovely poem. I don’t think forgiveness is required for recovery.
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Forgiving doesn’t really have any benefit for the person who is abused except for some it can help put them at peace, if continued resentment is distressing.
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Maybe one day I will forgive. But for the foreseeable future I will be sad and angry about it.
Possibly accepting the past and accepting that some people in life are bad is better than forgiving. Forgiving is accepting a person’s plea for a pardon almost. Not necessary in my opinion.
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It’s okay to be sad and angry about it. You have a right to be. Hopefully at some point the angry emotions will lighten. But don’t feel strange that you still have those emotions. Everyone tells you to move on but you can only do that in your own time at your own pace!
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Thanks @sweetpotatopie, I really needed to hear that. Sometimes I feel crazy. I still can’t tell my family what happened or else it’d break the family up. I can’t show my anger towards my abuser or else I risk shaking the boat and being found out. I just want my abuser to know that I remember what he did to me.
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You don’t have to forgive abuse, but you don’t have to carry it everywhere with you. It’s okay to put it on a shelf and leave it there most of the time.
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Have you tried writing a letter expressing your anger and frustration? You wouldn’t give it to them but you could read it out loud to yourself and then burn it. Sometimes just expressing it through writing and verbalizing out loud like to a therapist helps release the anger and pain.
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It’s hard to put on the shelf when my brain keeps giving me flashbacks. I am hoping that through processing in therapy they happen less often and ill be able to shelf it more easily.
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Letters are a great idea. My therapist and I plan to burn some drawings and letters. Just have to get through the tough part of recounting everything first.
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Yes, thats the painful part. Surround yourself in a peaceful zone when you write and try to get through it but take frequent breaks. You don’t have to write it all at once.
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I tried conventional therapy for it and it helped some but not a lot. I did some EMDR and it was very helpful for the trauma. Surprisingly so.
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I made an appointment for EMDR and missed it. I haven’t called back yet. I’m afraid to try it. Maybe I will do some somatic experiencing therapy.
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I feel for you @bittercat . I sometimes struggle with some complex grief over my abusive stepfather who died some years back.
It’s like I grieve, but I have to do it silently because my memories of him are very different than the memories his immediate family and my siblings have of him.
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Don’t be, it’s not bad at all and it has a monster payoff.
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I can forgive my mother, but if I had been sexually abused, I probably couldn’t. My father was never abusive.
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