Do you hold long-standing grudges? Or forgive and forget?

To forgive, or to let it go, does not always work. In dealing with most persons, that is a viable option. Exceptional cases call for individual conclusions. This is where Person A might not react the same ways as Person B. Shewolf endured an entirely different abuse from mine and we each must act accordingly, determined by circumstances and by one's character and will. I would no more prescribe her thoughts and actions than she would mine. In my case, the sob used his size and authority to crush my person out of existence. By the time he was through, I was like a twenty volt system, with the wires shorting, perpetually. To expect any action from me was to make the wires touch. Ask a direct question and the short would totally blank the mind.

By the time I began grade school, I was unable to hold the simplest conversation. By the second grade, I freaked out my teacher by putting three consecutive words to use. All through high school, I was the lone, silent figure. Nobody spoke to me and I had nothing to say anyway. The bullying continued, from about age four, until after my fourteenth birthday. Even when I went over age fifty, I had to force myself to speak to non family members. The body language made them mostly frown. I am okay, these days, except, at times, the trauma resurrects itself.

In the presence of an authority figure, or a figure that triggers in some way memories of my step father, I become dysfunctional, once again, even in this late stage of life. The new help at my job has me blithering like an idiot, because she is knowledgeable, confident, competent, making my 19 years on the job no match for her one week. We will get past this and be a good team. Then there will be some future event and it will happen again.

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I had intended to find him and give him a good explanation for the butte kicking that was to follow, but he had a stroke first. I find a stream of urine to be relatively innocuous, but it will make me able to at least consider letting it go. But I can't promise a thing.

Edgar, I love your gift for putting things into everyday language that every person can identify with, with their own circumstances.

For anyone to say that forgiving, closure etc. is necessary to live a good life is looking at their particular philosophy and what works for them (or maybe doesn't work for them, but they hope someday it will) and tries to convince others it is right for them also.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger wrote a book called "Bad Childhood, Good Life" It's a quick read, at least for me it was. Probably fast reading because what she says in it is how I had eventually come to view my childhood vs. my adulthood. It's all pretty common sense.

Forgiving isn't all that it's cracked up to be, the important thing is to move forward NOT being the person from your past, or present that you don't wish to forgive.

Saying here one hasn't forgiven someone means they are talking about it here, not that it's how their life is every moment. It's just want we are talking about right now.

Re urinating on the grave.

2 years ago I was visiting someone in the state where I grew up. I had a free day and was driving around, looking a things from my childhood. I found the cemetary where both my parents where buried.
I thought for sure I would just drive right up to the location of the gravesite, as my grandparents were buried, my brother and my parents.

I'd gone there dozens of times during childhood to visit my grandfathers grave (I'd never even met him), later visiting after my grandmother died, when my brother died, and finally my father.
I resented so much having to go to my fathers funeral and burying, and when my mother died, and took a stand and did not attend.
I decided to go look at her grave, not out of respect, sorrow or anything like that. I really don't know why. Maybe to urinate on it, and his. Maybe I would have, who knows.

What I do know is I couldn't find the gravesites of all those people. I swear I walked around for more than 2 hours. I even thought at one point "Do I even have the right cemetary?" But I knew it was the right place.

Anyway, I left there not feeling anything negative. I had fun (as much fun as one can have in a cemetary I suppose) looking at monuments, names, dates of birth and deaths of so many people.
I didn't go there looking for closure, to grant forgiveness, or even to be bitter and unforgiving. I'm sure, if I'd found it, my reaction would have been "huh, there it is"

So no grudge isn't the right word. But once someone does me wrong, I want to make sure they, or someone else doesn't do that again.

I am going to take your post Phoenix and use it for an example to explain my thought process so please do not read my answer as a direct statment TO you or a challenge to you.... your words just gave me a great example of what I am trying to explain

And I hear you, and I agree to a certain extent... but.. i will draw a better outline to my thought process below..



I would whole-heartedly agree with this...up to a point. And the point is that I do not see experiencing the roller coaster of emotion that follows after something like that as being a way for him to keep damaging me. I find that bottling up, being taught to ignore, or otherwise shuffle out natural reactions like anger in a different way than just experiencing the raw emotion to be more of a long term issue.
I really do not think that feeling anger is a bad thing. I also do not see being angry because of something that has happened to you as a way for someone to have a hold on you. Anger is a natural reaction, it triggers the basic need to survive, it heightens your awareness of your surroundings and can trigger the fight or flight reaction that we as an animal have survived on for thousands of years. Granted, we dont have to live in such a primal state anymore, but anger is a great tool and just because we feel it does not mean we have no self control. That is like the dieter who says " I feel hungry" and takes that as a sign of failure. Our bodies always experience hunger...nothing you can do about that, its how we are made.
Anger is a natural, normal and very healthy response to someone who really hurt you....even if it is 30 years after the fact.

BUT... I agree with you in that for some people they never can let go of something or choose not to. Like Edgar said, his abuser destroyed his very ability to function as a human. He will never let go of that anger because every time he turns around something else has to be repaired because of what that man did to him. He is living in constant reflection of someone he should have never come in contact with. His anger isnt damaging ....his anger is a fuel that is pushing him forward to over come and relearn things even later on in his life. Because of the extreme issues he has endured..he can not let go. In any way. Its not possible. He has to relearn too much to ever fully let go, and the person who did that should , by all means.. have a terrible, horrible punishment on them. But..thats not possible either. He was able to die before hand. For him to feel anger about that is more than normal, and would be expected for the rest of his life. If he were to say he DIDNT feel angry anymore, I would question him and wonder why he felt so ashamed of anger..

But there are people who live in so much of it, they dont let go almost by choice. And in that sense, I agree with that statement completely. Alcoholisim, abuse...etc.. they resort to creating MORE anger by subconsciously damaging their own life over and over so that they can sustain that fresh hurt and anger forever. Is that conscious? Nope. But that behavior is the type of damage we hope we are deflecting someone from when we try to enforce the ' just let go' idea. And the people who keep recreating and living in the bottom barrel of their lives like that DO SO because they were denied the ability to fully process and work through something..are burdened with shame and guilt and lack the tools to restructure their lives.






precisely. But in all honesty...what he did to me, compared to other things that have happened ....it was a piece of cake. I dont know that people will really understand that statement. But lets just say that there are things that have been done to me at the hands of others for reasons of hate, race, and just being a woman that inhibit my ability to walk sometimes and will for the rest of my life. Letting go of things for me has been a bit of a lesson, and the flow of emotions have been the healthiest thing I have ever done.



I am past it. I dont hold on to a thing about it. i dont see how I would have given off the idea otherwise.



I dont hold on, but if and when I ever feel anger, i dont deny it. Denying a natural reaction like anger enforces the image of lack of control and is a way of submersing your self in shame. Shame that you have no control over your emotions because " anger is a bad thing for you" ... shame that you still FEEL angry at something so terrible when others think you should just drop it, shame that you are losing your self power, self worth and self value because you feel a natural emotion.

If i were to drink, shoot up, or beat an animal every time I had an emotional reaction to memories then I would have something to feel real shame over. I would be doing something that was NOT natural, NOT sensible and not productive. But I do none of that. I allow myself to feel angry if I need to and move on. Im doing nothing to create the anger, nothing to propel it and nothing to keep it in my life. But to say that I should be done with emotions because something happened a long time ago isnt quite healthy either. I refuse to deny myself my reactions and my emotions as a way to blanket my past and make my past ok to bystanders because that is how I see it. People are uncomfortable with MY emotions..there for I shouldnt have them. yet having an emotion, if you really think about it, does not harm anyone. Not even the person who is feeling it. How we choose to REACT during that time is another piece of the pie all together..

does that make sense...?

My grandfather and I held grudges against each other. When he was 97 and in a nursing home, I visited him. On the second day, he came to know I was one of his grandsons, but still could not distinguish between me and the others. I let him do most of the talking - He appreciated that. When I decided to leave, he let me hug him. At that moment, all the bitterness vanished. So, it is possible for me to forgive and forget, just not for a certain person.

add on....

getting over something doesn't mean you never think about it.

That would be impossible. When recalling past events of your life, i.e. you're telling someone about the school you went to when you were 7, or 17 or the job you had when you were 27, what occured then is part of your life. Mentioning it does not mean you haven't "gotten over it", it means you're including it as part of your past.

I don't feel it's necessary to give the caveat to someone that you're talking about it, but that whatever it is you're over it.
The other person needn't assume that because you mention something means your still wrapped up in it.

Getting past something, getting over it, doesn't necessarily involve forgiveness.

There's nothing wrong with remembering or saying "well, That was a pretty shitty time in my life."

In someways I think you are right, that maybe some people "fear" the reaction or action of anger and so try to tell people to forgive and yes, then there is religion although I don't follow that.

The mere words you typed made me angry, that such a person exists on this earth, to destroy a young girls life..Then I read your words more and I can see strength.

Where some people crawl into a box never to exit, others are so strong, determined I admire those people.

It fails though in my opinion, if anger is allowed to consume your life, manifest, create havoc throughout your life, then it's not in the past, it's very much in the present and future.

Forgiving may not be the right word? Closure I still believe in, sorry but to find a logical side even if it is "I choose for you not to effect me anymore", allows a person in my opinion to move forward.

A situation, statement, event can always bring up the past, if we hold onto anger over it, it starts all over again, creating havoc...

I'm sorry for what you went through, there is so much abuse out there in this World, to me that is the worse one.

Well of course it fails if anger is allowed to do all that.

I don't think you'll find anyone who won't agree with that.

Most people aren't consumed by it. If they are, I think it's usually their choice, although they may say otherwise.

In the words of Guru B.K.S. Lyengar...

The result of change is disappointment, if the change is not sustained.
Sustaining change leads to enlightenment.
Enlightenment is maintained through practice.

Forgivness is not a static thing either you know.
Just because one forgives today, does not mean that it will be sustained tomorrow.

Thank you for sharing that.

It makes me think when reading that, our coping mechanism is to change our thought pattern on a situation, and that leads to a form of relief, a good change, and that needs to be maintained through remembering why we changed that thought pattern but, we need to believe in that reasoning as well as practice....

I agree with this statement, but for another reason all together.

I believe and pull my thought from the simple fact that ONCE the action against you stops, their ability to hurt you has stopped. It is not going on anymore -at this very moment- so you are no longer a victim. So long as they can not physically , or emotionally DO something to you -RIGHT NOW-, you are not their victim. How we process the things that happen AFTER they happen does not make us a victim either. The process is part of grieving.. that process is necessary, and in that necessity is the entire rainbow of human emotion which is not a reflection of victimization but a symptom of processing trauma.

"Once the action against you stops, their ability to hurt you stops".

Yes, but only if you can let go of what has happened. If one does not forgive, she is still haunted by the memories of the hurt, therefore the aggressor is still hurting the victim.

There is no doubt that none of us are so strong, that we can completely let go of a major hurt. It will pop up, from time to time. My point is that one needs to make a concerted attempt to get past the hurt.

Yes, they do. I cannot seem to get past the humiliation of discovering that my ex had had 13 affairs during the course of our marriage. Neither can I forgive the Catholic Church for crushing my childhood into a mold I never could fit in.
Neither of those things is present in my life today. But I can neither forgive nor forget.
By the way, Edgar, I read several things on your blog, and was particularly taken with The Gimp and the Joker. Does it exist as a novel?

Not to get off subject, but you learn the most amazing things about people here.
13 affairs?

jeez, I'm sorry you had to go through that. It makes me feel like I know more about where you're coming from on various matters mags.

Nonsense. It is not only possible, it is reasonable to "get past" what someone has done without forgiving them.

i'm never the person who holds the grudge or forgives (hasn't come up in my life really, slightly with my father, not sure in the end i had to forgive him, i just understood his life)

i have however given a fair share of folks reason to hold grudges against me, don't know if they did, but they'd have been perfectly in the right to do so

i'm guessing most of them just forgot about me (if they had any sense)

Yes, you do learn amazing things about people here. Yep, 13 affairs over the course of the marriage. I felt so many emotions when I discovered it....pain, humiliation, betrayal, embarassment. I felt foolish for being unaware, for trusting him. I would be happy if he spontaneously combusted.

I mentioned this here once before.

My first husband moved us yet again, this time from Wisconsin to Oregon. We were traveling in separate vehicles.

I was following him on an empty highway, running straight through Idaho. I could see for miles and miles. I'd never been anywhere so devoid of people, or anything else for that matter.
He was playing games to amuse himself, driving fast and suddenly swerving to avoid a tumbleweed, when just moving a bit to one side was all that was needed.

I remember thinking how great it would be if he rolled his vehicle off the road and burst into flames. I thought "then I'd be free."

It would have been perfect.

I didn't know you ever lived in Oregon..

Setanta and JTT don't even need to apologize to me, they simply need to concede that they don't know every f*cking thing under the sun.

Rockhead and izzy? They have to apologize.

The Gimp and the Joker is a short story. It is probably only three or four pages longer than what you have read, the difference being an expanded ending.

what in dog's name would I have to apologize to you for?

thinking you're a twit?

OK, in the spirit of the thread, I"m sorry I think you're a twit...

happy now?