Rethinking Forgiveness
One of the hardest things about forgiveness for me is knowing whether I’ve truly forgiven someone, particularly when it comes to my family.
It’s a lot more difficult to push things under the rug or shake water under the bridge when the resulting pain that I’ve experienced has come from my own family. There’s a lot to forgive. There’s a lot to accept. There’s a lot to change, but there’s a lot that will never change.
I rethink forgiveness a lot when it comes to my family. Some days I believe I’ve forgiven, but then other days I think I’m fooling myself. After all, I am pretty much no-contact with most of my family. I don’t talk to them, and if I talk to anyone, it is usually my dad.
I’m not always so sure why I give my dad access to me. It’s really difficult to explain. Sometimes I believe it’s because he’s been the most willing to change and make amends. Unlike my mother, my dad has kept an interest in me and has gone extra miles in trying to understand me.
I believe that both my parents have accepted what they consider my quirkiness when it comes to my autistic and selective mute ways, but they’ve caused me a lot of intentional and unintentional pain and trauma throughout my life. I’d like to say that I’ve forgiven them. However, when a memory from the past pops up within my mind, my emotions are often a determining factor on whether my forgiveness of them is flimsy at best.
I don’t know. It’s often tough to say. Sometimes I will go long bouts without even speaking to my dad because if he seemingly regresses back to a state that is a reminder of his mistreatment against me, I distance myself. I go silent. I don’t go silent to give him the silent treatment. I go silent to protect myself … to rethink and regroup. I really don’t want any negativity.
It is much harder to do this with my mother since she doesn’t respect my boundaries at all. I can’t just have casual conversations with her at will or at random. She is a very strategic and manipulative person even when she seems docile and harmless. I know her well. She is never off her game. So, I continue to protect my sanity and my peace by keeping no-contact with her.
Yet, I still wonder sometimes if I am walking in a measure of unforgiveness. I just don’t have what might appear as the normal relationship with my parents. I don’t consider that I have a relationship with either of them at all. It’s like we are merely acquaintances, and I just happen to be their daughter. They don’t know the “me” that I am today. They haven’t known me for a long time. Even when I was a child, I never felt like they “knew” me.
The fact that I live such a separate life which they are not a part of has often made me wonder if I am bitter. In my world apart from them, they simply don’t exist. There is never a reason to even mention them in my everyday conversations. I don’t have to see them. If they died, I’ve often been ashamed to consider that I might not even miss them. Is that unforgiveness? I don’t wish them dead. I don’t wish them ill-will or any harm either.
In fact, I love my parents very much, but the reality is, they have toxic traits that keep me at a distance. Yes … I know. I have toxic traits too, but I’m working on me all the time, and I’m working to change to be a better me. That has to say something. Whereas, my parents are still stuck in a timeframe that they often don’t see the need to leave. In many aspects, they still treat me like a child even though I’m an adult. That type of behavior, alone, keeps me at a distance.
Some circumstances are not so much a matter of forgiveness for me but more about being toxic free. So, sometimes I feel that when I don’t communicate with my family that I must not have forgiven them. That’s when I make the conscious effort to remember that I’m living to protect my peace … protect myself. It’s all been a process, and I live it continually. I rethink forgiveness everyday.
My Voice Unchained 