In many religious traditions and twelve step programs, people are admonished to forgive those who have hurt them. I want to offer something for consideration from my lived experience.
I grew up in households with five different step-fathers and numerous of my mother’s boyfriends who were all physically and/or sexually abusive. This left me with a few resentments to be sure.
When I got sober, my first and second sponsors told me that forgiveness was not necessary for me to find freedom from the resentments that stemmed from the complex trauma of my youth. However, to remain sober and to have a happy life, I would need to find freedom from being consumed by those resentments and to let go of any thoughts of retaliation.
For me that process was many years in the making but consisted of a few action steps. First I had to understand how my experiences had impacted me. I talked with a therapist who helped me understand how my emotional reactions and coping mechanisms stemmed largely from my childhood experiences. For example, I had learned to try to appease my abusers and continued to try to use that strategy as an adult. I had learned to dissociate so I wouldn’t have to bear the full emotional brunt of the experiences. I had continued that as an adult through the use of psychological mechanisms as well as drugs and alcohol.
Then with my therapist and my recovery sponsor, I looked carefully at how those experiences were influencing my behaviors in the present. I started to learn other ways of coping. For example, I learned some self-soothing behaviors and grounding techniques to help me walk through times when I was experiencing great emotional distress. I learned to call another person in recovery or go to a recovery meeting or hike with a friend instead of turning to a drink or drug to sooth myself.
And slowly, I worked through the anger and grief from having my childhood stolen from me. I drew a lot of angry pictures, listened to a lot of angry music, and then added more hopeful and resilient music.
At no point did I feel the need to forgive the people who harmed me nor to try to seek out any relationship with them. Today, I am free. I am able to live happy, joyous and free for the most part. Life on life’s terms happens. But I am no longer a prisoner of my past. And that freedom, for me, was not contingent upon forgiveness.
I share this for people who experienced unforgivable trauma and for those who work with or advise people who experienced such trauma. Find freedom from your past and if forgiveness is your path, great. However, it is possible to have freedom without forgiveness of the one(s) who harmed you.
