What is one mistake your parents made that you struggle to forgive?

@dlowan,

Quote:

"The collective" has decreed forgiveness in your world, eh?

A little ironic, no?

Nobody demands forgiveness be given, however one has not finished healing if they have not made it to forgiveness. This point is debated, some think that because one can be fully functional and happy without forgiving that it should not be considered part of healing. I obviously am on the other side, saying that if the survivor does not love the person that the abuse made enough to be able to forgive the abuser then they are not done. Having suffered through the recovery of abuse, that is having been unwell for an extended period of time and knowing from experience the difficulty in becoming healthy again, the healed survivor should as a matter of course have compassion for the unwell abuser....that is the inclination to forgive.

The pro community does such a piss poor job of helping survivors that for them even getting to good functionality is considered a full victory. Taking recovery all the way to forgiveness is an unrealistic expectation from you people, so I can see why you would play it down. There are quite a few religous based healing sub communities which to aim to make it all the way, and from what I can tell they do a pretty good job, though I don't have first had experience with them.

1 Reply

@Eva,

Eva wrote:

It is difficult for me to believe that some of you honestly don't struggle to forgive your parents for anything. No matter how good parents are, they all make mistakes. And forgiveness is a very, very difficult thing at best. I wonder about people who say they have forgiven everyone. I tend to think they've just swept old issues under the rug. (Who knows, maybe that's where they belong.)

As for me, I'd name two things. One, my parents never told me they were proud of me. They may have been, in their own way, but they never said it. We talked about practically everything, even as adults. I made it through some truly awful, difficult things as a young adult and came out with my self-respect intact. I thought I deserved to hear an acknowledgment of that from them.

Two, my father's suicide. He was ill, and I'd be among the first to insist that we should all have the right to make that decision when our time comes. But he was also depressed and too prideful to admit it or deal with it. The end result was that he dumped a lot of his garbage on us to deal with. It took our family years to sort through the emotional and psychological mess he left behind. I'm not sure we'll ever recover from some of it.

I suddenly have a huge craving for some chocolate....

Forgive is kind of a funny word for it maybe.

I am probably more talking about understanding and recognizing that parenting is hard, and people do the best they know how.

Not holding onto stuff with anger and resentment.

My father and his family were great examples to me of the damage done to lives by holding onto and resenting.

It was like they all carried round bags of little balls of poison, which they loved nothing more than to take out and polish....it was awful to watch, and it kind of sucked the joy out of life.

I can remember that, as soon as it was hard to force me into the car any more, I stopped going on visits to his family!

His last utterance to me was about something he resented bitterly that I did when I was five!!! I struggle hard not to do that awful stuff...not always with success.

He died in 1992, and I have had recurring nightmares that he was still alive almost up until now. These seem to have gradually resolved a lot of the stuff, especially when they progressed to lucid dreaming.

But they were less about resenting or not forgiving him, and more about not having done enough for him, and treated him with enough compassion, because I found it so unbearable to be around him, even though I felt so sad for him.

You're a fifties kid, aren't you?

I think a lot of fifties parents didn't do much of saying nice things to kids....remember that was the era of rigidly scheduled feeds, not picking up crying babies, etc.?

But hell yes, you did deserve acknowledgement!

1 Reply

@chai2,

Quote:

I don't believe forgiveness is the ultimate goal (although, it is a fine thing, blah blah blah,), but the goal is moving on with your life and making it a satisfying one.

the goal is turn the abuse into a positive, through the recovery one gains insights into the human condition that very few have, and into ourselves that few have. The abuse thus becomes a gift.

You are talking about going part way and saying that is good enough. I am saying that taking full advantage of what life offers us should be the goal.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

Nobody demands forgiveness be given, however one has not finished healing if they have not made it to forgiveness.

Nonsense. That's like saying that your leg hasn't finished healing if you haven't forgiven the person who broke it. It's just a nice sentiment but is simply not true.

Healing ≠ forgiveness. It can be a part of it but healing and failing to "forgive" the abuser are simply not mutually exclusive. You can find your way to emotional health through forgiveness just as you can find it without forgiveness.

The notion that they haven't "finished healing" if they haven't forgiven the abuser is a dangerous one. Some people who are able to reach emotional closure but not forgive their abusers can be harmed by such notions that they should forgive them even though their abusers show no remorse or no pity.

In many cases I've seen they are better off knowing that they don't have to forgive their abusers. One girl I spoke to recently struggled precisely with this. She's moved past her abuse, but struggled to find a way to "forgive" her abusers. She became much happier when I told her that she is under no obligation whatsoever to forgive those monsters. It was something she couldn't bring herself to do, but felt like she "should" because of ideas like the one you are spreading.

In her case, her healing came when she stopped trying to forgive and settled on just forgetting.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

the goal is turn the abuse into a positive

Nonsense again. The goal is emotional health. They don't need to try to use your tortured logic to try to twist their abuse into "a positive". If they can do so that's fine for them, but it is hardly a prerequisite to emotional health and well being.

Not being further hindered by their abuse is positive enough, they don't need to try to have positive feelings about the abuse itself or the abuser. The notion that they aren't finished healing till they turn their abuse into "a positive" and "forgive" their abusers is just stupid re-victimization by touchy-feely idiots who don't know any better. It draws a lot more from religion than science.

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@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

JPB wrote:

He always told us that we drove him to drink.
What I came to accept is that, in his mind at least, we did.

Did u ever inquire of him as to what he 'd have preferred
that u do DIFFERENTLY, so as to preserve his abstinence from imbibing ?

No, I didn't need to ask. I knew the answer. He couldn't cope with the attentions that his mate (our mother) gave to his children. Bottom line, he was jealous of us. But there was more to it than that. He also couldn't cope with the hubbub of four children running around. He was an only child who lost his mother young and his dad as a teen. He'd been told that he could never father children because he'd had scarlet fever as a child so he never expected to be a parent (and didn't really want to be a parent). When he married my mother he thought he was marrying his companion for life. The one who would be there for him through thick and thin, in good times and bad, and all that stuff. She accepted that they would have a childless marriage. Imagine both of their surprises when she became pregnant within a few months of their marriage. The dr said it was a fluke. The difference between them is that with the birth of my oldest sister she became a mother and he became an alcoholic. There was probably some truth to the medical problems because, although there were four of us, we were all born four years apart.

OmSIgDAVID wrote:

Did u ask him whether he was abstinent until your birth ?

No, he wasn't abstinent. They were young.... they partied together. Then things changed when we were born. He didn't drink at home. He went out. The telling point was that, as the youngest, I was the last one to leave home. I didn't move far and was in close contact with my parents. He stopped drinking and stayed home with my mother. Then my brother divorced and moved back home. Out he went... Brother remarried and got an apartment... Dad's back home... Sister divorced and moved back home with her daughter.... Out he went... She moved back out and he began to stay home. It was then that I saw what affect we had on him --- just like he'd always told us.

There were many years that I resented him, his drinking, the poverty, etc., but, like dlowan, I came to realize that he simply didn't have the tools to be a parent. It was many years after he'd died that I took the time to try to understand the situation from his perspective. Prior to that I was simply resentful and angry.

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I have all kinds of resentments for what my parents did/did not do. Most revolve around their drinking and the effect it had on my brother and me. I have been angry at my father - even today - because I needed him during certain times of my life, but he had already smoked and drank himself to death.

My anger has been tempered because I found out how they both were raised. And how much they both suffered as children. It made sense of how limited they were as parents.

I found this just last month and it is on my frig;

"Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.'
__ Kahil Gibran.

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Always loved this poem. Smile

:

This Be The Verse

They **** you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

- Philip Larkin

~

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Very Nice!

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@Robert Gentel,

Robert, it is to your credit as a person
that u were able to rise above the shocking circumstances
of your early life. Congratulations upon your success.

David

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My parents did lots of unforgiveable things, especially my textbook violent drunk father, but the one thing that still annoys me that I don't ever expect to recover from is circumcision.

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@Eorl,

Eorl wrote:

My parents did lots of unforgiveable things,
especially my textbook violent drunk father,
but the one thing that still annoys me that
I don't ever expect to recover from is circumcision.

I was circumcised upon medical advice,
because of urinary infections, in the first few months of my life.
I am very, very glad that I had those infections, as I certainly woud not
and do not wish to have existed in an uncircumcised condition.

Those infections brought me that good luck (so to speak).

David

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@Eorl,

Quote:

My parents did lots of unforgiveable things, especially my textbook violent drunk father, but the one thing that still annoys me that I don't ever expect to recover from is circumcision.

1 Reply

@msolga,

Signature
"I never, ever met a racist who was nice." - Peter Cundall

"I never met a man I didn't like!" - Will Rogers

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

OK. But let's not create a diversion from the thread topic, David. It's been a really good thread so far & I'd like it to stay that way.

1 Reply

@msolga,

msolga wrote:

OK. But let's not create a diversion from the thread topic, David.
It's been a really good thread so far & I'd like it to stay that way.

OK, Olga -- just thought I 'd mention it.

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

You could start a discussion on the subject - on a new thread, if you like. Seriously.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

In many cases I've seen they are better off knowing that they don't have to forgive their abusers. One girl I spoke to recently struggled precisely with this. She's moved past her abuse, but struggled to find a way to "forgive" her abusers. She became much happier when I told her that she is under no obligation whatsoever to forgive those monsters. It was something she couldn't bring herself to do, but felt like she "should" because of ideas like the one you are spreading.

I have already said that people do not have to forgive, and that some people don't think that forgiveness should be considered part of healing. That is very fair and balanced, nobody is going to feel pressure. They will make up their own minds, and as they grow they very well may change their minds from thinking that me and those like me are all wet to agreeing with us.

You seem to think that self esteem will be endangered by folks like me pointing out that there are more steps beyond being functional and happy. You don't give people enough credit for their strength. Your over protectiveness is an insult.

Quote:

In her case, her healing came when she stopped trying to forgive and settled on just forgetting.

that is another way of saying that she settled on closing down a part of who she is. It is a pity, an opportunity lost.

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I don't know if istruggle to forgive them but i struggle to wonder why they had me at all. they didn't take care of me so WTF?

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@msolga,

msolga wrote:

You could start a discussion on the subject - on a new thread, if you like. Seriously.

At the moment, I can 't think of anything to add,
but thanx for the suggestion.

David

1 Reply

What is one mistake your parents made that you struggle to forgive?

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