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Forgiving others vs forgiving yourself
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<blockquote data-quote="Star*" data-source="post: 409932" data-attributes="member: 4964"><p>hi! </p><p> </p><p>I think - there is a lot of what my Grandma would call 'rocking chair' thinking in your thoughts. Lots of movement, but not going anywhere. Steely - why do you think it's so hard to forgive yourself? We've all done things in our past we regret. Most of those things you are talking about? I believe were decisions or choices you made because you felt they were the right thing to do, or you didn't know any better. If you are sitting there at 43 thinking back 20 years ago and thinking "I <em>should</em> have done this or I <em>should</em> have done that, and things for Matt would have turned out better or like this." There isn't any way for you to know that. Anymore than there was for you to know at the time that the decisions you were making would turn out like they did - OTHERWISE you never would have made them. Think about that. Had you known at the time you were making those decisions - had you known they were bad choices - WOULD YOU HAVE MADE THEM? Of course not. So why 20 years later are you beating yourself up for decisions and choices that you had NO idea of the outcome? Should is a word that needs to be eliminated out of any forward thinking persons vocabulary. Really - you did what you did at that time because you felt it was the BEST choice, not the worst choice. Had you known any better? You would have made a different choice. End of conversation. </p><p> </p><p>The people to be angry with in those situations are the people that abused your child and took advantage of you. The time to be angry with them? Was when it happened. Not now, not ninteen years later, not the rest of your life, not the rest of Matts life so he can pity himself and constantly claim to be a victim and use that as an excuse not to move forward in his life. The time to forgive the abuser? Well if you were able to do it? After it happened, but most of us, either hang on to anger or don't know how to forgive because we're not taught how or the anger feels better, or it makes us feel safer because the hurt that happened as a result of the abuse is SO scary - anger makes us think we're protected from it happening again. Doesn't really, just makes us think that. Once we start piling on layers of anger? It's hard to chip it away - it becomes like a security blanket that we really don't want to let go of, because most of us haven't learned how to have anything else to hold on to. We have no one - we've shut everyone else out, we don't know how to be happy - that doesn't come easy for us - because we're used to being sad and angry - it's more familiar, and it's just usually us - alone...it's not that we like it, we just get used to it. Kinda like a dog on a chain in the back yard. That's what I felt like anyway. I had no room for forgiveness - I just did the best I could to surive the day and get through it - alone, trying to be a Mom to Dude, without getting killed by my x. I wasn't living - I was surviving. Basically trapped, and when I got out? I wasn't really sure how to live - I mean I knew how to live - but I had an enormous emount of guilt. So much I needed help, like you I felt like part of me just would die if I didn't get it out of my system. So no matter what? I stuck with the therapist - no excuses-I wanted to be guilt free, happy and a good example for Dude and have a life. </p><p> </p><p>Forgiveness did not come easy, it did not come cheap, it didn't come quick. It didn't come like I thought it would. To tell you HOW to get it? Sheesh - that would take me 15 years and therapy out the wazoo. I don't know that it is something you can put into words on paper or explain by devine intervention or read this book or try this yoga exercise. Most of me 15 years ago would tell you that forgiveness would only come if all parties that wronged me were dead, but I was too scared to even utter the words. I'm the woman who would literally pee on herself if a car turned around in my driveway thinking we'd been found. Five years later? I was angry at him, them, everyone. THEY had done this. THEY should pay. Oh I was livid. Two years after that? I was angry at myself. Furious. For wasting MY life, and putting my son through this, and for everything lost. It was like a grieving process that went on for years. Then about ten years into therapy I wasn't really angry at anyone, just numb. Nothing. Not in the mood to forgive anyone - but in deep thought. Twelve years into it? Maybe I forgave myself, and that's an ongoing process - but it took and is still taking time and probably gets a little easier with any sign of maturity that I see in Dude, and takes a small dip with every backslide he has. Detachment helps that a lot. Then about fourteen a;most fifteen years into it - my therapist and I were sitting there talking about I can't remember what - just things and he slipped into the conversation something about my x showing up in my drive - what would I do? And I calmly answered without hesitation - just call the police. Not hide in the closet and pee my pants, Not grab a gun, Not walk out in the drive all bravado and claw his skin off with my bare hands, not any of the things that over the years I had gone through the stages of - just calmly and casually "Oh what? yeah - call the police ." and at that point..at the end of the therapy my time was up...and so were my sessions. See I had come full circle - because part of our conversation that day was forgiving myself and that I had in my own way forgiven him - not so much for him, but for myself. Maybe it's hard to understand - but when you forgive others you really forgive yourself for the feelings you had against them. Weird huh? That release is so freeing - you can't imagine. See? I can't ever change my x - I can't go back and fix anything he did to anyone - but the grudge I carried? He has NO idea how huge that is, or how heavy it is - and he never will. He doesn't care or can't - because if it bothered him to be that wicked in the first place? He never would have done those things OR he would have apologized. Neither have ever happend. The closest I have ever gotten to any sort of an apology? -----Seven years ago - he left a message on MY phone and said for me to stop acting like an immature so and so - that everything that had happened to me was water under the bridge and I should really be the bigger person here and pick up the phone.</p><p>To this day I maintain - The man doesn't deserve to even hear me breath after choking the life out of me and leaving me for dead. </p><p> </p><p>My point is - YOU are the only person in your life that can make changes in your life. YOU are the only person in your life that can stop treating things in your life like a catastrophe, and move on. YOU are the only person in your life that can wake up every morning and look around you and realize - this bad thing happened, but it doesn't define me, it doesn't own me, it doesn't make me - I am in control of me. I choose - and fill in the blank of that new day. You are the only person in your life that too - can look at your child and say to yourself - yes, you were hurt, yes you were damaged, yes you have problems - BUT - this doesn't define you, this doesn't make you who you are - and there are children FAR worse off than you that get up every morning with diseases, and disabilities that would LOVE to have the problems you have - and call them problems. WHAT can you show the world you've overcome? </p><p> </p><p>You don't have to forgive yourself - You don't have to move on with your life - You don't have to forgive anyone else. But even a tree experiences four seasons and stands in the same place every year, year after year and grows taller and larger. What are you doing with every year of your life? </p><p> </p><p>Hugs and love </p><p>Star</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Star*, post: 409932, member: 4964"] hi! I think - there is a lot of what my Grandma would call 'rocking chair' thinking in your thoughts. Lots of movement, but not going anywhere. Steely - why do you think it's so hard to forgive yourself? We've all done things in our past we regret. Most of those things you are talking about? I believe were decisions or choices you made because you felt they were the right thing to do, or you didn't know any better. If you are sitting there at 43 thinking back 20 years ago and thinking "I [I]should[/I] have done this or I [I]should[/I] have done that, and things for Matt would have turned out better or like this." There isn't any way for you to know that. Anymore than there was for you to know at the time that the decisions you were making would turn out like they did - OTHERWISE you never would have made them. Think about that. Had you known at the time you were making those decisions - had you known they were bad choices - WOULD YOU HAVE MADE THEM? Of course not. So why 20 years later are you beating yourself up for decisions and choices that you had NO idea of the outcome? Should is a word that needs to be eliminated out of any forward thinking persons vocabulary. Really - you did what you did at that time because you felt it was the BEST choice, not the worst choice. Had you known any better? You would have made a different choice. End of conversation. The people to be angry with in those situations are the people that abused your child and took advantage of you. The time to be angry with them? Was when it happened. Not now, not ninteen years later, not the rest of your life, not the rest of Matts life so he can pity himself and constantly claim to be a victim and use that as an excuse not to move forward in his life. The time to forgive the abuser? Well if you were able to do it? After it happened, but most of us, either hang on to anger or don't know how to forgive because we're not taught how or the anger feels better, or it makes us feel safer because the hurt that happened as a result of the abuse is SO scary - anger makes us think we're protected from it happening again. Doesn't really, just makes us think that. Once we start piling on layers of anger? It's hard to chip it away - it becomes like a security blanket that we really don't want to let go of, because most of us haven't learned how to have anything else to hold on to. We have no one - we've shut everyone else out, we don't know how to be happy - that doesn't come easy for us - because we're used to being sad and angry - it's more familiar, and it's just usually us - alone...it's not that we like it, we just get used to it. Kinda like a dog on a chain in the back yard. That's what I felt like anyway. I had no room for forgiveness - I just did the best I could to surive the day and get through it - alone, trying to be a Mom to Dude, without getting killed by my x. I wasn't living - I was surviving. Basically trapped, and when I got out? I wasn't really sure how to live - I mean I knew how to live - but I had an enormous emount of guilt. So much I needed help, like you I felt like part of me just would die if I didn't get it out of my system. So no matter what? I stuck with the therapist - no excuses-I wanted to be guilt free, happy and a good example for Dude and have a life. Forgiveness did not come easy, it did not come cheap, it didn't come quick. It didn't come like I thought it would. To tell you HOW to get it? Sheesh - that would take me 15 years and therapy out the wazoo. I don't know that it is something you can put into words on paper or explain by devine intervention or read this book or try this yoga exercise. Most of me 15 years ago would tell you that forgiveness would only come if all parties that wronged me were dead, but I was too scared to even utter the words. I'm the woman who would literally pee on herself if a car turned around in my driveway thinking we'd been found. Five years later? I was angry at him, them, everyone. THEY had done this. THEY should pay. Oh I was livid. Two years after that? I was angry at myself. Furious. For wasting MY life, and putting my son through this, and for everything lost. It was like a grieving process that went on for years. Then about ten years into therapy I wasn't really angry at anyone, just numb. Nothing. Not in the mood to forgive anyone - but in deep thought. Twelve years into it? Maybe I forgave myself, and that's an ongoing process - but it took and is still taking time and probably gets a little easier with any sign of maturity that I see in Dude, and takes a small dip with every backslide he has. Detachment helps that a lot. Then about fourteen a;most fifteen years into it - my therapist and I were sitting there talking about I can't remember what - just things and he slipped into the conversation something about my x showing up in my drive - what would I do? And I calmly answered without hesitation - just call the police. Not hide in the closet and pee my pants, Not grab a gun, Not walk out in the drive all bravado and claw his skin off with my bare hands, not any of the things that over the years I had gone through the stages of - just calmly and casually "Oh what? yeah - call the police ." and at that point..at the end of the therapy my time was up...and so were my sessions. See I had come full circle - because part of our conversation that day was forgiving myself and that I had in my own way forgiven him - not so much for him, but for myself. Maybe it's hard to understand - but when you forgive others you really forgive yourself for the feelings you had against them. Weird huh? That release is so freeing - you can't imagine. See? I can't ever change my x - I can't go back and fix anything he did to anyone - but the grudge I carried? He has NO idea how huge that is, or how heavy it is - and he never will. He doesn't care or can't - because if it bothered him to be that wicked in the first place? He never would have done those things OR he would have apologized. Neither have ever happend. The closest I have ever gotten to any sort of an apology? -----Seven years ago - he left a message on MY phone and said for me to stop acting like an immature so and so - that everything that had happened to me was water under the bridge and I should really be the bigger person here and pick up the phone. To this day I maintain - The man doesn't deserve to even hear me breath after choking the life out of me and leaving me for dead. My point is - YOU are the only person in your life that can make changes in your life. YOU are the only person in your life that can stop treating things in your life like a catastrophe, and move on. YOU are the only person in your life that can wake up every morning and look around you and realize - this bad thing happened, but it doesn't define me, it doesn't own me, it doesn't make me - I am in control of me. I choose - and fill in the blank of that new day. You are the only person in your life that too - can look at your child and say to yourself - yes, you were hurt, yes you were damaged, yes you have problems - BUT - this doesn't define you, this doesn't make you who you are - and there are children FAR worse off than you that get up every morning with diseases, and disabilities that would LOVE to have the problems you have - and call them problems. WHAT can you show the world you've overcome? You don't have to forgive yourself - You don't have to move on with your life - You don't have to forgive anyone else. But even a tree experiences four seasons and stands in the same place every year, year after year and grows taller and larger. What are you doing with every year of your life? Hugs and love Star [/QUOTE]
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