Healing From Trauma Did Not Mean Forgiving My Abuser
Photo by: Danielle Pinals
As a survivor of narcissistic abuse, it took me years to recognize that I was being abused. My abuser mistreated me and I forgave them for so many different reasons. I believed that they were still a good person, which meant I could bear the responsibility of holding space for their harmful behavior. I believed that allowing them to abuse me was okay because my family members allowed the abuse as well. I believed that keeping the peace was more important than addressing the issue.
After years of living this way, I had a moment of clarity. The peace was only being kept outside of me. I was keeping the peace for the abuser. But as a result of that, I was dead inside. I killed off any sense of who I was and what I wanted in order to protect my abuser’s peace.
And that is when I realized that I had to choose to care about me. I realized who I was and what I wanted did not include abuse. After that, I tried talking to my abuser about everything that happened. I tried opening up years of hurt feelings that had been swallowed and squashed. But, as with most narcissists, they were unable to recognize or hold themselves accountable for the pain they caused. So I had to make the very scary decision to cut off my abuser.
It has been 5 years of almost no contact.
And to be completely honest, I have been happier in the last five years than I ever was before. I became a therapist (my dream job), got married to an incredible man, and our world revolves around the cutest dog on the planet. By letting go of all the negative energy from my abuser, I was able to make space for the things I care about.
Funnily enough, many of my loved ones are not convinced that I am happier without my abuser in my life. They have made it known on several occasions that my estrangement from my abuser is, in fact, my problem. Not only is it my problem, but it’s also my responsibility to fix the problem, and most of my loved ones would prefer if that came in the form of forgiving my abuser.
Let me first address that this is an age-old gaslighting technique. Family and friends who are complicit in abuse will often ask, “why don’t you just forgive them?” because it is easier to assume I am still in emotional pain than to face their discomfort with my way of stopping the pain from being inflicted. Why is that?
Often it’s because I have become a mirror to the pain that the person is still feeling themselves. Everyone has experienced mistreatment, if not some type of trauma. Many people aren’t able to or don’t know they can cut off the abuse. When my loved ones saw me cut off an abuser and realized I did what they could not (or would not) do, it was easier to gaslight me about forgiveness than to heal themselves.
We also need to address what forgiveness is because everyone uses this word differently and it is extremely confusing. Here is a breakdown of what different people mean when they use this word.
In its simplest form, we all recognize forgiveness as something we give to those who have apologized to us. We choose to let go of their wrongs, accept their apology, and move forward with the relationship.
In a more complicated definition, people use forgiveness to explain letting go of the mistreatment from an abuser who has not apologized. Often this is described by forgivers with phrases like: “Forgiveness is not for the other person, it’s for me.” or “I am giving forth my pain.”
This translates to “I am accepting the abuser for who they are, letting go of control over it, and choosing to not allow their actions to affect me.”
I think a much better word for this is simply: acceptance. In fact, many therapists would argue it is radical acceptance.
Why does it matter if we call it forgiveness or acceptance? Because acceptance is so much less confusing.
A person can accept the abuse that happened and choose not to have contact with their abuser. A person can also accept the abuse that happened and choose to remain in contact at whatever capacity is most comfortable.
Read those same sentences with the word “forgive”.
A person can forgive the abuse that happened and choose not to have contact with their abuser. A person can also forgive the abuse that happened and choose to remain in contact in whatever capacity is most comfortable.
It’s not as clear, right? And that is because we widely consider acceptance as a solo effort in which a person looks inside to let go of something. The word “forgive” is completely loaded by the first definition in which both parties are able to continue a relationship after forgiveness.
Listen, don’t get me wrong. Forgiveness is really enticing. I did forgiveness for a very long time before I chose to cut off my abuser because I believed that it was the priority. Because protecting my abusers peace was more important than protecting my own. But being on the other side, having chosen myself for 5 years, I can say with utmost certainty, forgiving an abuser is not the key to healing trauma.
Healing trauma is about first recognizing and then accepting what happened to us. From that point, we get to decide what kind of life we want, who we want to include in that life, and how we choose to be treated.
What has been your experience with forgiveness versus acceptance? Let us know in the comments!
This has been your reflection on the energy of the week. I am a licensed psychotherapist who likes science and spirituality. Tune in next week for new insights!