Tag: abuse survivor

The Challenge of Forgiving your Abuser

Could you ever forgive your abuser? Or maybe you already have? 

If you are a survivor of any kind of abuse, you may find it hard to forgive the person or the people who have done this to you.  And you might think, why forgive them at all??! They have done horrible things! Yes, they did do those things and to question the ‘why’ when it comes to forgiveness is fair.

It took me a veeery long time to understand a popular and valid take on forgiveness: you are not doing it for them and you are not giving them an absolution. You do this for yourself to be able to let go of the attachment to the abuser, the situation and eventually the pain it has caused you, to be in a position to move on.  And yes, I learned the hard way that ‘holding a grudge’ is not helpful, when you try to get some kind of inner peace.

But I also found myself investigating, why it is actually so hard to forgive people that have abused you in some shape or form. Some people might argue that it depends on the severity of the abuse. For example, some people seem to think that being neglected emotionally by your parents as child is ‘not as bad’ as if they had physically abused you. While I do not necessarily agree with this point of view, I can acknowledge, how the severity snd continuation of the abuse may affect this – but then again, the level of what we can possibly endure is different for everyone.  

Other than on this platform, I rarely open up about the details of my abuse.  However, when I do, I am often being told to just forgive my abusers already and it leaves me feeling defensive, but not really knowing hoot respond. 

Mostly, to be honest, I think how lucky they are to be in a position where you wouldn’t know, how it feels when unspeakable things have happened to you and you’re not faced with this forgiveness- challenge. But they are not wrong about this one aspect: it would make my life-experience a lot lighter to be able to fully forgive.

So, the abuse itself and the horrors that came with it, can make the forgive-y approach tough at times. But I was wondering about another aspect of is….

A personality (or character) disorder is not the same as a mental illness. Because, unlike a mentally challenged person, who might indeed not be aware of what they are doing,. Our abusers did know, what thy were doing! 

And proof for this is to me: the behind closed doors – approach, their persistent grooming and gaslighting to make their victims and others think that nothing bad ever happened and their,  often so well woven, net of lies. They clearly and very deliberately try to hide their actions.

If you feel like, you need to hide and deny your actions – you clearly understand that what you are doing is not socially accepted and that there might even be repercussions, like imprisonment, if things came to light. 

So, this is not a behaviour driven by insanity, they are making a deliberate choice and that choice is to hurt others. Of course, I’m not really telling you anything new – all abuse survivors have to come to grips with this harsh truth many times along their healing journey. I just feel, that it might be something to keep in mind when it comes to the topic of forgiveness. Especially in those moments when others are blaming us for not being able to say in good conscience:”I forgave them.”

This doesn’t mean that it is not possible to forgive, but it means that we have to be gentle to ourselves, when we feel that we are unable to meet those outside demands for being the bigger person –

We are the bigger person, because we survived what was done to us. 

It means to acknowledge that they had a reason to make that choice – no matter if we can understand it or not – but, this reason had in fact nothing to do with us and had to do everything with them. 

Hopefully, this can enable us to let it go, not by forgetting or condoning their actions, but  by taking excellent care of ourselves and move on with our lives and live out maybe long-lost dreams, we had before the abuse.

Never forget that you are a true champion for surviving whatever kind of abuse you had to go trough and that you’re not alone in this. There is no shame in not being able to forgive them so quickly, or even fully. Like everything else along  this healing journey, it is a gradual and slow process. 

You can do it , if you want to. And if you do, it won’t be for them, but for yourself.

Do it Your Way – Individualism is a Good Thing

“Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other peoples’ thinking. Don’t let the noise of others opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know, what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Steve Jobs – Stanford Commencement Address

I always felt like an outsider, I never really felt like I belong.  Mostly because, I figured out quickly that my opinions, my personal take on life, my very own hopes and dreams did not match the ones of the people surrounding me.  What was so  strange to me though, was that being different in many ways made me a target.  All my life, people have been telling me what I can and cannot do, how I am supposed to see things and even what I’m supposed to think and feel to a certain degree. 

We live in times where anything seems possible and opportunities are boundless. We can choose whatever, we want to be. So many choices, so many career paths, so many places to live, do you want to get married – do you not want to get married?  Do you feel like stying in the town/ place, you were raised or do you want to move away?  Do you want to be employed  – do you want to go into business for yourself? Do you want to rent or buy a house?  Often, when we are little, we are being told that we can be whatever we want.

However, this paradigm seems to change quickly, once you’ve grown up. On the outside, it may look like we are enjoying more freedom than ever before in the history of mankind. At least that’s what I thought it would be like, when I grew up. In everyday life, however,  it doesn’t always seem that way.  

There is an awful amount of dogma, an almost sinister force of so called traditions and narrow mindedness at play.  It starts with a believe that the place that you were born in determines who you are, that the colour of your skin determines who you are, that your personal goals and dreams deem you a fool, a whole lot of ageism and maybe worst of all a determination that those who not follow a life path which is similar to our peers and maybe dare to have a go at our dreams are not to be trusted and sometimes ostracised.

This dynamic really plays into the hands of abusive people.  Because it pretty much ensures that their victims stay exactly where they are, more often than not in a submissive position. It is also easy for them to induce fear, when the abused get any ideas to change that, like making a change in their own life that might give them just a little bit more freedom, they would tell you things like ‘Are you sure you wanna do this? ‘, ‘I just wouldn’t want you to embarrass yourself!’, ‘Don’t you think you’re too old for that?’ or ‘Everyone thinks this is a bad idea!’….

Dogma is created under the assumption that everybody wants the same things – not true at all. And it has the unfortunate power to put people who have been abused into a deeper depression.

I was pretty horrified, when I started to notice recently that there are even many inspirational speakers out there who seem not all that free-spirited, as they claim to be and seem to try to put some kind of restriction on people. 

But I also noticed the dogmatic comments from people who surround me in my every day life.  Their overall conclusion seems to be, that everyone’s life should look similar. You should make similar choices in more or less the same timing. If not you’ll risk being snuffed at, ridiculed or even become an outsider. 

This dynamic enables abusers, puts people who didn’t dare to follow their dreams in depression and to a certain degree makes society plunge into addictive behaviours (sugar, alcohol, work, sex…) when people feel like they can’t keep up. The constant comparison is toxic and the illusion is fed by those who profit, like abusive individuals, the pharma, food and other industries and of course the kind of people, who try to make themselves feel better by judging others. 

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.”

Henry David Thoreau

Maybe the number of choices can be intimidating but that doesn’t necessarily mean that there is anything wrong with choosing. As long as you don’t hurt anyone else, why shouldn’t you be you and live your own life? Individualism doesn’t have to equal egoism. Going your own way might be challenging sometimes, but man it is going to be worth it!

You have to have the freedom to let your heart guide you  You also have the right to make mistakes along the way – you are human.  But do not just let these social dogmas define you. Once you’ve stepped away from it – you might discover a whole new world.