The Forgiveness Fantasy

Forgiving our abusers is not necessary.

‘Forgive my clumsiness. I did not mean to step on your toes. Are you okay?’

In this kind request for forgiveness the receiver might answer:

‘No worries. I am fine.’

Forgiveness is a dialogue, with two people taking part — asking, giving and receiving.

‘I am sorry I raped you repeatedly during your whole childhood. I did not mean to. I loved you the best I could.’

Or:

‘I am sorry I could not love you, and that I did not protect and care for you, though I knew you were repeatedly raped by the man you though were your father. I am sorry I instead prioritized my own needs, wants and desires, and well, other things.’

‘I forgive you’ is the response to a heartfelt apology and request for forgiveness. If the apology is never made, the process of forgiveness cannot take place.

These requests for forgiveness have never been uttered by my stepfather or by my mother, of course. Neither did I hear a request for forgiveness from my real father, something like “I am sorry I did not care for your existence, though I knew about it, my happiness and sense of security were more important to me than yours”.

Why would I forgive them? What would forgiving them give me? Even as a child, any of them asking for forgiveness, while continuing to hurt me, would not have meant anything. It is not forgiveness we need when people hurt us, it is changed behaviors. And assuming responsibility for their actions (or lack of actions).

Judith Lewis Herman and Sheri Heller have both written about the forgiveness fantasy.

“Anecdotal forgiveness seems to be the standard advice handed out to survivors of abuse. Survivors are advised to offer absolution to the abusive parent irrespective of whether the abuser has attempted any sort of restitution. Ostensibly this will set the abuse survivor free and concomitantly confer them the designation of good daughter/son. With religious zeal this is considered a crowning achievement. Along with this prescription, the legitimacy of the survivor’s self-protective distance and detachment informed by an instinctual attunement to danger is deemed punitive and cruel.

Recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Reward from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, Dr. Judith Herman, refers to the aforementioned construct as the forgiveness fantasy. Dr. Herman states: “Forgiveness is a relational process.” ‘I forgive you’ is the response to a heartfelt apology and request for forgiveness. If the apology is never made, the process of forgiveness cannot take place. And “genuine contrition in a perpetrator is a rare miracle.”

—Sheri Heller, 2017, A Clinician’s Journey from Complex Trauma to Thriving: Reflections on Abuse, C-PTSD and Reclamation

I have written on the topic several times before too. I find it insulting each and every time I am suggested I NEED to forgive to fully heal. I am okay with that others might need to forgive to heal. I do not. And I resent the idea that anyone else would know better what I need to heal, than I do.

How I am set free — I decide

And it does not include forgiveness. At times I hear it is not about forgiving your abusers, but yourself. But that does not ring true to me either. Why do I have to forgive myself for having been abused? I did not do anything wrong.

I believe in acceptance. And choice. Having a purpose. And being me.

There are so many ideas about what and how a “survivor” should act, say and be. I don’t even like the word “survivor”. Yes — I did survive. But I am doing more. I am a carrier, a navigator and a “lifer” — doing life. My way.

What is important to me, is to remember who the pepople were that was hurting and betraying me. As when I do not remember this, I tend to project that hurt and betrayal out into the world, onto people, that might, with no intent to hurt, hurt me (we all at times hurt each other, that is part of being a human), and I fall back into feeling like I did as a child, and I see hostility, and abusers where there are none (I project my childhood hurt onto people and into situations in the here and now — when I “forget” where my original hurt comes from. It is not the same to remember, as holding onto — but that is another topic to write a text on another day).

So — forgiving my childhood abusers, does not serve me the slightest. It will not “set me free”. It will just contribute to me staying stuck in my past. I need my anger towards my childhood abusers. That anger heals me, and does not destroy me (as was suggested to me in my twenties). That anger is holy (if anything is) to me. It helps me to live a happy life. And make good choices for me.

“genuine contrition in a perpetrator is a rare miracle.”

There is a difference between being hurt and being abused

Forgiving someone for having hurt you, unintentionally, not pre-mediated, accidentally, by not thinking things through, from being stressed and preoccupied with other things, etc. is one thing — forgiving someone for years and years of severe abuse and neglect — is something else. And I frankly do not see the point.

At times I have been met with the argument that everyone, all parents e.g. do their best, with what they have. And I do not believe that either. If that was true (it is of course sometimes, but not always), children would not get raped. There is no way anyone could persuade me to accept that the crazy escalating demand for young children to rape and sexually exploit, is only coming from the pressure of people doing their best with that they have.

To me — raping a child is always a decision — the only exception would be if you as the rapist do not have the mental and cognitive capacity to understand what you do, like another young child raping a young child, e.g.

My perpetrators when growing up did not do their best with what they had. None of them. Except the ones forced to abuse me (like other children). But these people, mostly adults, certainly did not do their best to not hurt me. The hurt was intentional, deliberate, pre-mediated and planned. It was sought, cheered on, recorded to keep, it was shared by others and repeated regularly.

Dr. Herman states: “Forgiveness is a relational process.”

I think the problem is that most people refuse to believe these atrocities take place. Though there are plenty of evidence of them. And by that refusal, and by asking me and others who have been victims of such abuse, to forgive our abusers, you are siding with them. Because — how can the unspeakable — be forgivable?

I know many find it offensive that I write about these things

I don’t care anymore. It is not for the ones getting offended I write. I write for those how want to understand the protective psychological mechanisms needed to survive such abuse, and how it is possible to heal from it. An for those who work with children, meet victims of sexual abuse and exploitation, wherever you work. And of course — for you — who survived it — and wants to know that it is possible to heal from it (whether you choose to forgive or not), that it is possible to live a happy and fulfilling life.

So I will keep on writing. And sharing.