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

@OmSigDAVID,

OK.

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@Bi-Polar Bear,

Bi-Polar Bear wrote:

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?

Maybe an accident ?

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@msolga,

Phillip Larkin was a piece of work

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Gee, compared to most of these stories I grew up in a paradise worthy of a 1950's family TV program.

I think I've already forgiven my father, but as a child he was away working so much that I have few memories of him. He was like a visitor in our house. He was gone when I got up in the morning and often not home when I went to bed. He traveled or worked weekends frequently. I even called him by his first name for most of my life because it's how my mother addressed him. She would refer to him as "your father" when speaking to my brothers and I, but we mostly heard her call him "Jack", and I assumed that was what I should call him. I would ask her: "Is Jack going to be at my birthday party when I turn 6" and she would reply "I think your father has to work". I would then say "Jack works a lot" and my mother would say "Yes, your father works very hard". I don't remember her (or anyone) ever saying you should call him "dad" or "daddy". He always answered when I called him by his first name and other people seemed to find it cute. I referred to him as my father (never "dad" or "daddy") if I was speaking in general to someone, but mostly I thought of him (and still do) by his first name. I gave up years ago trying to get into the habit of calling him "dad" - it just feels wrong. He's "Jack". I made a conscious effort as an adult not to date men like him (ie: workaholics, corporate types), not because he was a bad person, but just because I associate his "type" with a sort of emotional void or abandonment. They are just not men you can expect to be around when you need them.

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@Bi-Polar Bear,

Quote:

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?

Maybe, Bear, they were simply poorly equipped for parenting? For any number of reasons, which could include any or none of the following : being too young to rear children at the time, they experienced poor parenting themselves, poverty, lack of education, ignorance, coping with difficult life circumstances, selfishness ..... the list could go on & on. Some parents simply haven't a clue what they're in, for before they have children & find themselves way out of their depth ....

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@dlowan,

Thank you, Deb.

Yes, you understand.

And I get that about mitigating the pain by understanding that most parents do the best they can. I strongly believe that, not just about parenting but life in general. I don't think it was the '50s as much as the fact that they perceived me as a strong, independent young adult (which I was) who didn't require their approval anymore (but would have deeply appreciated it). Like many oldest children, I always wanted my parents to think highly of me.

You're right, "forgive" is a funny word. I understand where my parents were coming from, even when I strongly disagreed with their actions. And I always loved them, even when they were unlovable. So, I suppose many would say I have already forgiven them. But the pain is not entirely gone...nor, I imagine, will it ever be, since both parents have died and there will be no more chances for them to explain. It feels wrong to me to say I've "forgiven" someone when the pain is still there. "Forgive" implies that you've gotten over something, but there are many things that happen to us in our lives that we will never completely be able to get past. The wounds may heal, but the scars remain.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

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.

I'm not just talking about you, you are just some guy on a message board who likes to portray himself as some enlightened and more advanced being. It's laughable and I am not at all worried about your effect on abused people I know. However, this was a fad among therapists, as dlowan has already noted, and as a line of thinking on the front lines, so to speak, of abuse cases.

As such it was often re-victimization, it's a stupid and baseless thing to equate healing with forgiveness, and to those who could not forgive it was impeding the healing for their therapists to portray it as an inherent part of their own closure no matter what the case may be.

Quote:

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.

I don't really worry about folk like you much, you are mainly talking to yourself here which might explain why you go to great lengths to get a rise out of those around you.

That it was a line of thinking held by many therapists is what I most object to, it's junk psychology that I care about, not hawkeye's ramblings.

Quote:

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.

This is ridiculous when you realize that the "opportunity" you speak of is to see the abuse as a positive thing. That just isn't a positive thing for everyone. Some people find that is a good way to cope, and for those people seeing the abuse as positive is positive. Some will never want or be able to see their abuse positively and attempting to do so is a negative thing for them. Thankfully, not everyone is cut from the same cloth, what is opportunity for you may not be opportunity for others.

You portraying it as a higher, more enlightened step in the process is delusional. It may be a higher step in your process, and even many others, but that just doesn't mean it's a lost opportunity for everyone or something to be pitied.

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@Green Witch,

An aside -- I've always been kind of smug about how different my husband and my father are. Didn't fall into that trap, yay. Then at some point I was thinking of a family that I used to spend a lot of time with -- like, practically lived at their house from ~ five to ~16 -- and realized with a start that E.G. is VERY similar to that father. Not sure what, if anything, that means.

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@Eva,

Quote:

Forgive" implies that you've gotten over something, but there are many things that happen to us in our lives that we will never completely be able to get past. The wounds may heal, but the scars remain

No, what happened will always be a part of you, forgiveness is not saying that all traces are gone, all is back to normal. Forgiveness is releasing another from liability from harming you, you no longer wish to pursue your claim against them. This happens after you realize that the harm changed you, and that the you that you changed into is terrific. You would have never become the terrific you had it not been for how you were harmed (actually, the recovery process from the harm), so their is no hard feelings. Once you love yourself for who are are now there is no pinning after what you might have been had your life been different.

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@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

That it was a line of thinking held by many therapists is what I most object to

Halle-*******-luljah.

I couldn't BELIEVE it when I first ran across it.....and I have worked with numbers of people whom it damaged and re-traumatised. It went with a whole lot of other utter bullshit, too.

These things make me ashamed of my profession, and I worry like hell about doing the same to people, because of unexamined and stupid beliefs I hold.

Such lack of respect for how people really feel about their experiences has a similar dynamic to the original abuse, I believe......and it is a well known danger that systems that are there to deal with abuse will develop the same dynamics as what they are trying to help with.

re the religious aspects.....I have also worked with kids whose parents were firmly attached to churches, where the pastor insisted that the abuser continue to attend the same church, because the mother and children had to practise "christian forgiveness." Some of these pastors tried to insist the mothers allow the perpetrator back into the home, since it was sinful not to forgive, and the marriage vow was more important than anything else.

But I DO worry re hawkeye, because he seems to infer he has some sort of "survivor community" he has some influence in

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@sozobe,

sozobe wrote:

An aside -- I've always been kind of smug about how different my husband and my father are. Didn't fall into that trap, yay. Then at some point I was thinking of a family that I used to spend a lot of time with -- like, practically lived at their house from ~ five to ~16 -- and realized with a start that E.G. is VERY similar to that father. Not sure what, if anything, that means.

Heh heh heh.......

Wink

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@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

I'm not just talking about you, you are just some guy on a message board who likes to portray himself as some enlightened and more advanced being. It's laughable and I am not at all worried about your effect on abused people I know. However, this was a fad among therapists, as dlowan has already noted, and as a line of thinking on the front lines, so to speak, of abuse cases

now that you have admitted that it is a debatable subject, and that what I say is one side of the debate (which is what I have said), perhaps you could be a big enough person to leave your personal attacks against me at the doorstep. They are not appropriate, nor do the further the debate.

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Yikes! I get some of what Hawkeye is saying . There is some healing power in forgiveness. Do you need to forgive in order to move past your hurt? I think some people do. Others, no. Not at all. For the ones that need that forgiveness, it's merely one more tool in order for them to move past their anger so they can let go and rebuild. For some people, it seems the only way they can. However, is it really possible to TRULY forgive someone that hurt you badly? I know that forgiveness doesn't mean you forget. Dunno. Maybe what we call forgivenss isn't really forgiveness most of the time. Maybe it's just YOU letting go and finding your own worth again.

Anywho......carry on! 2 Cents

Is off to shower and bed.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

Quote:
I cant go with you there.....in the survivor community we talk about
forgiveness being the final breaking of the control that an abuser has over us.

Getting to this point is a huge struggle for many, and some never make it.
Sincerely, Hawkeye, I am at a loss to discern the Big Deal about it,
tho I DO understand that some folks choose to carry a grudge and to curse,
maybe hoping for an opportunity for vengeance, if the perpetrator is still around.
Thay reason that the offense was so unconscionably, flagrantly egregious
that forgiveness is not merited. I understand that and accept it; no objection.
Not everyone sees it that way.

Insofar as granting forgiveness is concerned,
to MY mind, its ez: IF u decide to forgive,
then u simply decide that u r not going to
hold it against him any more
in your heart or in your mind. I 've done it.
I decided that if the opportunity to avenge myself upon him presents itself:
I will allow the scales of justice to remain out-of-balance
and NOT avail myself of that opportunity to vindicate myself.

Quote:
More interesting to me is that many people do not believe in forgiveness,
think either that to forgive is to be weak, or that it does not matter. This is mind boggling to me.

David, I think that you are speaking as one who has no conception
of what emotional trauma is, thus you can't empathize with those who suffer from it.
I have never been a victim of much abuse.
I concede that point.

David

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

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.

yes, I learned this later in life than I would have cared to, but it's all very true.

At one point, I was in therapy for about a year, and eventually got sent to a phychiatrist for medication.
Visisted her maybe 5 or 6 times to see how the meds were working.

At one visit she asked me if anything new was going on, and I told her my cat died, causing me to tear up, cried a little, relating how much I'd loved her etc.

At the next visit we were talking about something totally unrelated, it was near the end of the visit and suddenly I remembered something "Oh! I almost forgot to tell you, my mother died!" I laughed saying "that's so strange, I didn't even think to tell you."

She asked what I felt when both of my parents died and I told her I felt a lot of relief that I wasn't being forced to make them even a small part of my life, if only by being alive.

Then I told her I didn't go to my mothers funeral, but when I went to my fathers I spent the entire time just wishing it was over so I could get back home. I remember saying "I felt really strange, because I wasn't sad or anything. I mean people always say they feel sad when someone dies"

Her response just changed so much in a second. She said "Well yes, people always do 'say' they feel sad, don't they?"

People say a lot of things, like forgiveness is necessary, you can't put it to rest until then, etc.

I think what they are really saying is they are afraid to admit they might be just fine without all that, but that would look bad to others.

Not saying you don't grieve, but sometimes, you just don't. That could look bad, and we can't have that, can we?

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

now that you have admitted that it is a debatable subject, and that what I say is one side of the debate (which is what I have said)

Now you are moving the goal posts. You portrayed it as something that not all people were as enlightened to realize and gave "pity" to those who lost the "opportunity" to see it like you. The point isn't that it's a "debatable subject", anything is a debatable subject.

The point is that there are different strokes for different folks. This is not your initial position, you claimed that this was an inherent part of healing and that abuse victims who disagree are to be "pitied" for wasting the "opportunity" to see their abuse positively.

While that is certainly something that can be debated (you can obviously find an idiot to take on any side of any debate) it is not true for many people and was a harmful bit of psychology.

Quote:

perhaps you could be a big enough person to leave your personal attacks against me at the doorstep. They are not appropriate, nor do the further the debate.

Personal attacks? Saying that you like to portray yourself as having an enlightened position that one day humanity might achieve is no more an attack than what you are doing when you pull that emperor's new clothes stunt. When you do that you are saying they are wrong and I'm saying the same about you.

I'm also calling out a bad way to argue that you are fond of, where you just insinuate that it's an enlightened position though unpopular and perhaps not ready for its day. It's really daft here because this is an old fad that's been around the block.

And if you want to talk about getting personal why not own up to the trolling you do? Your whole gig here is about trying to get under people's skin and basking in the attention it gives you. For recent examples how about going on threads about race and making generalized slurs against the black caucus? Or calling a eoe a "chump" that is to be "avoided"? Why the sudden concern about personal attacks when I say that you portray yourself as enlightened? That doesn't even compare with what you are willing to dish out.

You are deliberately trying to annoy people here and get under their skin, make it personal and bask in the attention. When asked in debate to bring facts and substantiation you run away. The bottom line is that this voice crying in the wilderness act is your stock and store. It is your argument. And calling it out isn't a personal attack that fails to address your arguments, this is pretty much all you've got going insofar as arguments are concerned. When you pull that pseudo-enlightenment schtick as the backup to your argument, addressing it is to address your argument.

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@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

Thay reason that the offense was so unconscionably, flagrantly egregious
that forgiveness is not merited. I understand that and accept it; no objection.
Not everyone sees it that way.

My take is that forgiveness is not about the person being forgiven, it is about the person who is forgiving. You forgive because you refuse to carry the offense around with you anymore. Being angry and/or blaming others degrades quality of life, and me having the best quality of life is far more important to me than whether those who transgressed against me deserved to be forgiven.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

MY first post in this thread said

Quote:

I cant go with you there.....in the survivor community we talk about forgiveness being the final breaking of the control that an abuser has over us. Getting to this point is a huge struggle for many, and some never make it.

More interesting to me is that many people do not believe in forgiveness, think either that to forgive is to be weak, or that it does not matter. This is mind boggling to me.

I point out that there is a debate on the subject, that my view is not the conventional wisdom.

Quote:

Your whole gig here is about trying to get under people's skin and basking in the attention it gives you. For recent examples how about going on threads about race and making generalized slurs against the black caucus? Or calling a eoe a "chump" that is to be "avoided"?

You think very highly of yourself, that I would pattern my posts around getting a particular response. I am interested in debate and exploring ideas, I am not even close to the definition of a troll. I come from an unusual background, I am a self described radical, and was in the past a revolutionary...I am just being me here at a2k. Obviously you don't like that, but I don't really care. If I did care I would have never become a radical,revolutionary and so on. I am devoted to the collective, but I do not seek the comfort of conforming to the collective.

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@JustBrooke,

JustBrooke wrote:

Yikes! I get some of what Hawkeye is saying . There is some healing power in forgiveness. Do you need to forgive in order to move past your hurt? I think some people do. Others, no. Not at all.

Except that is not what he was saying, he was saying that though not all should be pushed to forgive those that fail to do so have missed an opportunity to complete their healing.

That ignores that for many people it just isn't a path to their healing at all, and is a roadblock to it. But yes, for some it can be very helpful, especially when it's a parent or loved one that they otherwise can't bring themselves to stop loving either.

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@JustBrooke,

Quote:

Maybe what we call forgivenss isn't really forgiveness most of the time. Maybe it's just YOU letting go and finding your own worth again.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

This is one of those threads in which I would like to participate but don't feel comfortable with giving details because family members are also A2K members and I don't wish to revisit any of it.

I'll just say that for me, it isn't really "forgiveness" but more a final recognition of things for what they were, looking at them, and then giving myself permission to let go of the pain and no longer allow it to harm me or allow me to harm me by continuing to hold on to it. It has nothing at all to do with anyone else.

Is that what forgiveness is? Being an ex-Catholic girl, the word has too much religious connotation that I strongly resist. It isn't me forgiving anyone else, it is me forgiving me for allowing it to have that much power to affect and effect my life. If I am successful, that is where the freedom is.

1 Reply

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

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