Forgiveness and Parents

[texannurse]

Good morning! I have a question about forgiveness. My therapist keeps trying to get me to understand my parents' backgrounds so I can understand why they did what they did to myself and my siblings. I don't want to do that. I don't care about their past. I don't want to feel sympathy for them. Is that totally selfish?
I'm really struggling with forgiveness - any help would be greatly appreciated.
Texannurse

[Elphanigh]

Texasnurse, forgiveness is so hard. What helps me is remembering the forgiveness is for us not for them. It is to help bring us peace. It doesn't mean that you don't recognize what they did wrong, but that you are no longer tied to the anger. It is not to make them feel better, but to help us feel better. Forgiveness is too create peace for us, to help us not be tied to the past as much.

That helps me, because I realize I am not negating the fact they acted poorly. Instead, I am choosing to no longer be tied down by the anger so I can move on with my life.

I really hope that helps. Know that it can be a long process and you will get there in time. I am certain 

[asyouwish]

Hey texasnurse,

I don't know if this will help, but it really helped me.

You don't need to forgive them.

I've had several conversations about this with my therapist, and she says unless forgiveness is important to you on a religious or spiritual level, it's unimportant. I spent a lot of time fretting about forgiving my family. I don't want to! They did terrible things! It felt like something I HAD to do, like it was a requirement for healing. It's not. You never have to forgive them for what they did.

You DO have to not let it have a hold on you, though. For some people, that's through forgiveness. But, like Elphanigh said, in that case, the forgiveness is for YOU. It's to help you move on and grow without them.

However, for me, forgiveness was too much of a stumbling block, a bridge too far. I just couldn't. I can't. But now I understand that I don't need it to move on and be healthy. I don't think I'll ever forgive them. (And, I'm with you. Who cares why they did it? If they went through the same stuff, they should've known better, no? Screw their excuses.)

I hope that helps a little, letting yourself off the hook. It really helped me.

[Blueberry]

If it is self-ish, then only in a positive way, different from the normal meaning. I see it this way: it's high time I paid attention to myself, my needs, my goals, my feelings, my thoughts, my wishes.... Not to FOO's.

I question a therapist who tries to force somebody with CPTSD to forgive. I used to think I'd forgiven from the point of view of my adult persona though I knew the inner children hadn't. Now it's clear that I am one person and I have not forgiven. I do have about 15 inner children/teenagers but I still am one person. Till all of me can forgive, I won't have forgiven. Forgiving FOO is no longer a goal. If it happens along the way, great. If it doesn't, well whatever.

Years ago when I was in church-funded counselling (it was non-denominational, non-religious-based, but still...) I admitted to the counsellor that I felt guilty in general about not forgiving and doubly so because of the counselling being funded by the Church. She said there was no need for that guilt. She said you cannot force forgiveness, sometime when you're ready, it will be there. I was so surprised! 

Forgiving yourself can be very important though, like for having been a victim or for harming yourself or others,  (like siblings or friends or pets....) even inadvertently. That's not what your T means though.

I did have a therapist who promoted her own agenda in therapy, including her own belief system and the need to forgive, not to mention belief in reincarnation (which terrified me at the time because it seemed I wouldn't be able to get away from FOO even in death, stuck with them for eternity). She can believe in forgiving and reincarnation and all the rest of it, but that's not what I was in therapy for and it's not what the medical insurance was paying for either. But I didn't know that then. Anyway that's why my alarm bells ring when I hear about a therapist trying to force their world views onto clients.

There have been one or two threads on here before about forgiveness which you might like to read as well.

[texannurse]

I truly appreciate the replies. I want to forgive - for religious reasons - but don't get how forgiving them helps me. I just see it as letting them off the hook. My T said it will happen in time, but I don't do well with things I don't understand and I do NOT understand how forgiveness makes me feel better - it seems to make me weaker. I know I'm not seeing this clearly....that's why I need help.

[Three Roses]

Sometimes looking at what something is not helps you see more clearly what it is.

Forgiveness is not saying or thinking that you excuse what was done to you. It is not forgetting what was done. It is not continuing in a relationship with someone who has become toxic to you.

Forgiveness to me is the release of the right to demand punishment. It means to release your abuser to God, or the universe, or the consequences of his or her own actions. One way to say it, for me, is "forgiveness from a distance".

I hope this helps you form your own definition of what forgiveness means to you, one that is manageable for you.

[Blueberry]

I want to forgive - for religious reasons - but don't get how forgiving them helps me.

Thanks for clarifying. I would say that forgiving others relinquishes their emotional hold over me. If as 3Roses mentions, you feel a right to demand punishment, then in your thoughts and feelings you're still revolving around your abuser(s). I'm still there too BTW, but getting less.

[sanmagic7]

hey,

i used to struggle terribly with this forgiveness thing, especially when i was very involved in 12-step programs.  the ones i went to were very big on forgiveness.  i never got to that point. 

as i've learned more, realized more, and understand more, i can accept what my parents did knowing they didn't know different.  my ex and his lewd thoughts about our daughters, besides the way he treated me, i don't accept, and have very different feelings toward him.  i've hated him actually, altho that has quieted down a bit with time.  not much, tho.  and i don't care.

when it comes to forgiving him, i refuse.  what i've done instead is handed that part over to a spiritual part that i've embraced, and basically said that if he is to be forgiven, let the powers that be do it.  it's beyond me.  if forgiveness is important on any level, it will be taken care of.  meanwhile, i've simply removed myself from the picture.  it doesn't matter to me if he is or isn't.  in this way, forgiveness has become a non-issue for me.

i had a conversation about this with a pastor's wife.  i remembered, from the bible, that while jesus was on the cross, he said 'father, forgive them for they know not what they do.'   jesus handed over the forgiving part to someone else - he didn't do the forgiving himself.  that always stuck in my mind, and is what gave me the idea to hand it over.

i think forgiveness is a very personal and individual thing.  i don't think it's necessary for recovery or to move on.  other people do.  i do believe that it's what fits for you that's important.  it's your recovery, after all.  you can do it your way, whatever form that takes.  just my thoughts and opinions.  best to you with this.

[clarity]

Forgiveness is such a ridiculous word.  The name itself tells us we are supposed to be 'giving something' -  it is ludicrous.  As someone once said to me ... we cannot give anything, if our glass is half empty, without suffering again ourselves.  And how can we heal if we try to give, when we are still trying to be replenished. 

What are we supposed to give the perpetrators.... absolution? A clear conscience?   Our love when they have already thrown it back in our faces like mud pies?

Forgiveness as a word, should be struck from the dictionary for ever and ever, amen.

Forgiveness as a concept is so ludicrous that we have even attached a disclaimer to it .. ''but I won't forget!' 
So we duly repeat our forgiving mantra, giving our false absolution, and then taking it back with a flourish at the end.
And hurrah for that ... we know instinctively that to forget would be foolish.  To forget would mean leaving ourselves open to more from those who will not, cannot change.

Forgiveness is a socially acceptable benevolently smiling face, beneath which lies our true emotion.  Emotion that the world has not wanted to witness, to listen to, to accept.  So, I'm sorry, forgiveness is a man- made sham of a thing...

What does make sense to me, is that we concentrate on healing our hearts, so that one day we might notice that as a side-effect of that healing, that what they did, now has far less or no more power to cause us pain anymore.   For me, that is mother nature's version of forgiveness - something authentic, that will happen naturally... I have experienced this a little already.  To think of them and notice a spike of emotion that is only a 3 where it used to be a 10+ .... so I am moving closer to a time when my natural healed real self can think of them without the alarm bells, with neutrality, and maybe, as my parents ... deep down in there also there is love in some way... just because at the deepest level we are all connected and loving human beings.

So much toxic pressure and guilt arises from the pressure to forgive, long long before we are ready... and we may never be.

And that is absolutely ok.

[woodsgnome]

There's loads of unnecessary pressure to conform to the idea of forgiveness as a necessary component on the road to feeling human. I once heard an 'expert' berating someone on a call-in radio show for not trying to forgive; one could tell the professional was only reciting lines from his lofty perch, while the tearful caller was responding from a deep well of emotional wounding, trying desperately to point out he was in no position to forgive, that it only made him feel worse. He was begging for understanding which the 'expert' couldn't deign to give.

Forgiveness is probably, as has already been pointed out in this thread, more of an inside job and it seems it's more about being kind to one's inner self than some necessarily grand outward expression. We're the ones hoping for even a hint of well-being about any of this. It starts within and it's where we need to function in order to get up out of the muck. Forgiving the muckers means nothing until and unless the hurt ones feel they can or even want to do that.

Forgiveness has become one of those words flung about like that old standard line  of "just get over it." Well, maybe so, but that's leaping over lots of steps, starting with realizing one's own human dignity. And flat-out forgiving as a precondition of healing--yeah, I tried desperately to believe that too, and couldn't get there. That's not a failure, it just reflected my inner being at the time. I'm  still in that state of mind, and I'm not feeling guilty about it anymore either.

Fortunately I have a T who accepts where I'm at with this. No fake top-down pronouncements of what I should/shouldn't do. It's enough to find the strength to regain life-enhancing ways to be ourselves, without the pressure to conform to some 'norm' called forgiveness. If it turns towards that, our hearts will determine what it is and how we can best use it in our psyche's toolkit.

[clarity]

Just wanted to apologise for my rant on forgiveness!!  Was in some fight EF for sure there.... on reflection I see that its a sore spot of mine due to the daily pressure of having to forgive my parents..that battle growing up and the self hatred it created as I assumed I was bad for feeling such anger towards them. 


Had some big EF's past 2 days but PW book has made such a difference already. Bless that man!!!

Maybe forgiveness is about 'disengaging' ourselves from our internal involvement with the perpetrators.... I also LOVE the idea of handing it over to God/Life and need to remember that.  Wonderful and brings genuine somatic relief for me.

As we disengage we have so much more energy freed up for ourselves. It is so exhausting to keep engaged in the narrative of the abuse.  So this is the benefit for ourselves.... more juice for our own tank.... for the journey we are on.....   

[sanmagic7]

clarity, i'm just glad you had a place to get it out.  no need to apologize - you did nothing wrong.  that's what we're here for - to live and learn.  happy that you're getting so much good from pw's book, too.  yay, you.  big hug.