Most adult survivors of childhood abuse wrestle with issues surrounding forgiveness. The abuses suffered by many abuse survivors are unforgivable acts, and yet most religions strongly encourage people to forgive one another for their “trespasses.” How can an adult survivor of childhood abuse resolve her issues surrounding forgiveness? Must she choose between justice and her faith?
It has taken me years to come to terms with issues surrounding forgiveness. The abuses that I suffered as a child ran much deeper than a simple grudge over a property dispute. It has taken me years to overcome the severe damage that my abusers inflicted upon my body, soul, and spirit. I was unable to forgive them until I worked through many other issues, including honoring my emotions associated with all that I had endured.
I define forgiveness much differently than society does. Society uses pat sayings like “forgive and forget” that are simply not possible. How can I possibly “forget” being severely traumatized? The trauma happened, and it cannot be undone. Society also equates forgiveness with reconciliation, which takes away the abuse survivor’s power because she needs the abuser to take action toward reconciliation, and many abusers have no interest in doing so. I have found that reconciliation is not necessary in order to forgive because forgiveness is a gift that I give myself and has nothing to do with the other person.
Forgiveness is a choice rather than a moment. It is a series of choices to stop nursing your bitterness toward your abuser and, instead, use the freed up energy toward healing yourself. You need do nothing externally for this to happen, and you certainly do not have to have contact with your abuser to accomplish this.
Each time you focus on your bitterness toward your abuser, no matter how legitimate your grievance is, you are choosing to keep yourself “wed” to your abuser. You continue to think about him, and you feed the negativity inside of yourself. When you do this, you continue to give your abuser power over your life. You also choose to continue hurting yourself because it is you, rather than your abuser, who suffers from the bitterness you are nursing.
When you choose to stop nursing the bitterness, you stop putting energy into your “relationship” with your abuser. You stop thinking about your abuser, and you free up that energy toward healing yourself. In time, you will find yourself becoming indifferent toward your abuser.
While hatred and love are polar opposites, they both involve investing energy into another person. The true opposite of love is indifference because you stop thinking about the other person altogether.
I do not like to use the term “forgiveness” because of all of the associations that society places on this term. Instead, I like to call this process “letting go.” By letting go of the bitterness, I was able to heal myself. My abusers’ lives were not affected as I moved from hating them to letting go, but the healing I experienced in letting go of the bitterness was immense. Letting go was a gift that I gave to myself, and I needed nobody else to take action for me to make that choice.
I suffered enough as a child. Through letting go, I ended my suffering for good. I took back my power by choosing to let go of the past and focus on my present.
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
OH yes!
I have lost count of the number of times I have been told that I have to ‘forgive’ my abuser.
WHY?
I don’t need to forgive him – I have no desire or inclination to forgive him, and he certainly doesn’t deserve anyones forgiveness, let alone mine.
The person I need to forgive is me. I did nothing wrong, and have no reason to be blamed for anything that happened, yet I feel dirty, ashamed, guilty and a million and 1 other negative emotions. They are dissipating, slowly, and as I let go of each one, I come closer to the self forgivness and the peace that I so need.
Thank you
[…] my post, Forgiveness and Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse, a reader left the following comment: The person I need to forgive is me. I did nothing wrong, and […]
[…] my post, Forgiveness and Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse, I talked about how forgiveness is a process rather than a moment. I have also found that sometimes […]
What are the steps or rather the things you can do to stop thinking about what s happened to you, to stop nursing your hurt. You Im allowing time to help me with this as it does dissapate. However, the hurt will always remain. There will be times when it resurfaces. I know I do need to let go, but if I have a list in front of me if the things I can do, I can really visually, verbally, and kinesthetically do this..
I have written a “how to” blog entry on this topic. It will publish on Friday.
Take care,
– Faith
[…] abuse, forgiving abuser, healing from child abuse, how to forgive abuser On my blog entry Forgiveness and Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse, a reader posted the following comment: What are the steps or rather the things you can do to stop […]
How can I “let it go”, if I do not remember who my abuser(s) was? I know it happened to me, but i do not even know if it was a man or a woman, or both. I was a little child back then…
Hi, V.
My experience has been that I cannot “let go” until I process what happened. For me, once I invite the memory out, I am eventually able to recover enough details to heal. As an example, I don’t know the names and cannot recall the faces of some of my abusers (mostly with the ritual abuse), but I have been able to remember enough to heal. So, you do not necessarily need to remember “who” to heal, but you do need to remember enough to be able to process the trauma. A qualified, experienced therapist can help with this process.
~ Faith