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Originally Posted by wanchain
I don't know about forgiveness, because I did not focus too much on trying to forgive others, but only trying to make myself feel better. But I notice that forgiveness came as a byproduct of my healing.
When you forgive, it means the past has no more power over you.
I thought of my mother's death when you mentioned about relief. I also felt relieved when my mother died. I did not grieve at all. To this day, I have not grieved. I have wondered if there's something stuck in me.
I was relieved because I no longer had to put up with being anxious around her--but actually I suffered very intense anxiety up until end of 2015, although I had no awareness that I was suffering from that until 2012 when my first acupuncturist said, "You know, you have anxiety."
Both of my parents had very bad temper, but the feeling-tone is different. I felt very sick from my mother's anger and attack. It's like when you yell at a kitten, and kittens have very acute sense of hearing. I think I stomached a lot of that shock when I was a child.
Then after my mother died, my father became more involved in my life. His anger was more like a lion roaring in front of a kitten. A lot more masculine, forceful, violent, etc. When my relatives came to visit us in 2016, they said they could not stand my father after one week, yet, I have to tolerate him for decades. And to make it worse, my relatives advised me, "Just keep tolerating him."
What you cannot accept for a week, you tell someone else to accept for the rest of her life. That's was extreme inhumanity. That's the best my relatives could do, to tell me to continue to suffer, instead of helping me out of my misery.
I had resentment against them, not just because of this but because of many other things they did. But I have come to a somewhat neutral ground.
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Sorry to hear that, I'd resent that too, it's horrible. Making you think you have to accept that and not helping, that's sick. It's same wth me, all my life I've been alone in the lion's den and been made to think I have to stay there. I chose to be homeless rather than stay in that, but fortunately I haven't had to yet.
Getting in touch with feelings takes time I'm learning, because that's what trauma is all about, the emotions are buried. In therapy it starts to get unfrozen, and its like going over a hill, I have to keep going until I get to the top. If I stop, I just roll back down and have to do it over again. It's hell but it's satisfying at the same time to experience new things. I'm just fortunate I have powerful tools for affect regulation.
What was done to us was so wrong. It's devasting. I resent it because it's sick. That's a sign of progress because it means I'm making boundaries. I'm learning anger is a natural and healthy response that's about care and protection, and finding that is how we heal. I'm so thankful we have anger in the world.. imagine a world where there was no anger at child abuse.
It feels like the healing is coming from reclaiming myself. We have the right to not be ok with what's happened. It's my intuition that a person who's healthy is totally ok with their anger and has no problems resenting many different things, because the person has boundaries and is in touch with themselves, having confidence to feel and express their disgust. To me that's real enlightenment.
That's what I'm working towards. Feeling is not easy but it's happening slowly. The brain naturally hides these things so there's no shame in where we're at. Most people aren't in touch with themselves I think, but we're fortunate to realize it and are working towards progress.