Forgiveness and the Art of Hatred - Page 3

The things I've done to recover and help others are all my own. I could just as easily have done something else and succeeded just as well had I not been abused. I am not successful because I was abused. I am successful because I would've been at anything anyway. I can't fathom why anyone would covertly suggest that the people who hurt me should get credit for anything. It's as if they're one sentence away from saying, "Good thing you were abused."

What makes this line of thinking even worse is that the same people who overtly credit the predator when a victim does well do not also hold the predator accountable when a victim doesn't do well. Hell, predators aren't even on the hook for the medical and mental healthcare needed by the people they hurt.

Instead, what we have is a socially-sanctioned program of "forgiveness." It's great for those who haven't been hurt because it doesn't cost them anything; it makes them feel like they've done something of value when they say "forgive" ; and it can be reapplied as predators reoffend as they are wont to do.

People who know what happened to me want me to forgive the predator because it would put more distance between what happened to me and their preferred reality, where crimes against children don't happen. The predators want me to forgive them because it would put more distance between their crime and themselves. To hell with what they want.

It doesn't matter whether a person is a predator or is someone who is willing to go to bat for a predator; they're all insisting that what they want is more important than what I need - and this is completely wrong. My needs will always be more important than what they want. I have no obligation or responsibility to forgive anyone; and neither does any other survivor of abuse - not to your family, friends, co-workers, the people you see on Sunday, and damn sure not the person who hurt you.

The decision to forgive someone who hurt you is yours alone, but do so with all the information:

Other's desire for you to forgive is born out of their discomfort - which is their responsibility, not yours. If you forgive a predator, especially when the predator is a relative or family friend, there's no guarantee it will help anything or anyone. Other people know what happened to you and they know who did it. They can't un-know such a thing whether you forgive someone else or not. So any comfort they might derive from your act of forgiveness will be short lived. This is why, even after forgiving someone, if you suggest to person X that they keep their child away from person Y, you'll often hear things like, "Let it go already!" and/or "That was a long time ago." You see, then, forgiveness is not enough. They want you to forget - and they want to call it "forgiveness." The work of making themselves feel better about the whole thing is on them; it always was and it always will be. You can't fix them and even if you could, doing so would cost you your own recovery.

Article Author: Diana Hartman

Diana Hartman is a (ret.) USMC spouse, mother of three in college and a Wichita, Kansas native. She is a contributing writer to Holiday Writes and can be found on Twitter.

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