Forgiveness

[Jennjenn]

I've been in therapy for a long time.

I come from a red society where food, electricity and many other things were lacking.

My childhood was hard. I was sexually assaulted many times by two different people. One of them my cousin and the other one a criminal that trespassed my house. After all that happened, my clueless family never knew how to help me, even though my mother tried, my father left her because she let me sleep in her room after the home invasion, they fought a lot because of that, and he left.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There is a lot more. But the issue I have is that is sooo hard for me to forgive. Sometimes I find myself angry and upset for no reason. I've talked about this with my therapist and she says I have complex ptsd.

I have so much anger inside of me. I'm a very loving and relative successful person now here in the US (I moved on my own at 18), but it is so hard for me to let go.

I've pray, meditate, gone to therapy, narrowed my circle only to relative healthy people, but I still get triggered by neighbors and random people, and I feel so much rage inside of me an just a thirst for revenge.

I'm desperate to let go but my mind thinks otherwise, I know it is trying to protect me. I have talked to it, i have told my mind that everything is ok now, that we are good, that all this rage is only making myself sick. But it just wants revenge.

How do I let go?

[Ananta]

@Jennjenn

Short of doing some kick boxing to release this pent-up anger energy and talk therapy which you are already doing, then you get to a point where you stop thinking about it. That means you allow your mind to forget.

Remember, you don't forgive for the other person necessarily. You do it for you. So, you won't be tortured by it any longer. You let it go and it takes ppl usually a long time to get there after a serious trauma, but the sooner the better.

On a side note,  I had some trauma as a child. I've let it go. I rarely tell any of the stories anymore and usually only to help someone else, but I actually think of it as buried in the past now. It feels better then clinging on to the anger. 

[Farnaby]

@Jennjenn Hey there! Really sorry that happened to you. 

I think most people, if not everyone, in your situation would have felt the same (fear, anger, wanting revenge, and so on). 

It's true that forgiveness is something most spiritual practices encourage and in a sense it's completely true that holding on to the anger is interfering with your well being. 

However, be mindful of not falling into the trap of guilting yourself because you feel like you can't forgive at this point of your life. You can't force yourself to forgive. And that's perfectly normal and OK. So, whenever you notice that you are feeling that you can't forgive, try to accept that, instead of judging yourself for it. Try to bring your attention back to the awareness in which all that anger, resentment, hurt, and so on appears. 

If you feel comfortable and safe with your therapist, I encourage you to keep processing all this together with her, because co-regulation plays a huge role in making your nervous system be able to relax again. You can try some somatic experiencing and/or EMDR too. 

Healing from complex trauma usually takes time and you will probably get triggered now and then (we all do and people who suffered such awful events as you did even more). Use some grounding techniques, preferably together with your therapist, to return your attention to feelings of safety and try to not force anything: 

- if you can't forgive, don't resist that

- if you are judging yourself for not being able to forgive, try to take a step back and bring your attention to the awareness of this experience

- if you can't stop judging yourself, don't force it and try to accept that

The idea behind this is that any kind of resistance to what is happening right now, creates more tension instead of releasing you from it. 

As an important side note, sometimes this kind of mindfulness can be overwhelming in early stages of trauma recovery. That's why I encourage you to first work on learning how to ground yourself together with your therapist. 

I hope this helps!

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

Great replies and advice from @Ananta and@Farnaby . What they said rang true with me when I read this thread just now.  

As someone who couldn't let go of an unrelenting hatred toward a couple of people years ago, after 6 or 7 years I finally recognized how poisonous hatred was in relation to my inner life. it was this recognition that @Ananta mentioned that helped me over a hurdle in this process. A process where I forgave but then the hatred and unforgiveness returned many many times before it began to stick.

Thought I would pass on this practice. This first one I just found and is very brief and to the point. The second video is the one I usually pass on for anyone wanting to learn this practice.

A Course In Miracles helped me with practicing forgiveness as well. Forgiveness or overlooking others transgressions could almost be said to be the primary theme in this Course/book. 

Good luck,,,

 

[Ananta]

@Zigzag Idiot ❤

[Martin123]

Hi @Jennjenn !

First of all I am very sorry about the serious traumatic abusive and damaging experiences of your childhood.

Forgiveness for many people is an aspiration, and yet it is the journey we take to get there that allows us to forgive with ease, only under the circumstances that we allow ourselves not to forgive at all.
There is a lot of rage you carry, and it has a rightful place to exist within you. Please give it room in your consciousness. Please allow it to be expressed, and please give yourself the permission to feel it.

CPTSD is a result of a great number of traumatic events during an individual's childhood, and something I am intimately familiar with. The most generous and loving thing you can do for yourself is to take the pressure off. As a survivor, you are likely carrying patterns of subconscious guilt and self-blame, where the mechanism that copes with the pain blames yourself as if it must have somehow been your fault, rather than seeing that the circumstances were completely unjust, insane and unconscionable. 
There is no need to minimize the pain, there is only an opportunity to give it more room to be felt, respected, expressed and healed. And it is healed through your permission to hurt as much as you need to hurt, because in every moment of hurting, the victim within you is being liberated, and in every moment where you are feeling through the pain, forgiveness is being offered to your perpetrators.

Perhaps the greatest essence of forgiveness is our willingness to feel through whatever has happened to us, instead of shutting down as a result of the trauma. And so if you struggle with forgiveness, just feel, and the more deeply you will feel your pain, the deeper your forgiveness will be anchored in your being, and the more whole, complete and liberated you will be.

All the best and good luck with your healing!.