325
Seeing It Go Blue (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 days ago by to c/tumblr@lemmy.world
64 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 2 points 1 day ago (4 children)

What the other user is saying is that you owe yourself forgiveness. Not for anyone else's benefit. Not for their benefit nor for the benefit of your past abusers. For your benefit.

Maybe someday you'll see through this cloud of pain and understand what that person is trying to tell you, instead of hearing echos of your wounds and seeing phantoms of the people who hurt you in the past.

I hope you see the sunshine again, and the open skies.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

    What benefit do you get from forgiving abuse? To forgive is to accept. You should not dwell on the past and hurt yourself unnecessarily, but you should not accept others hurting you either. You can (and should!) move past thinking about past harms, but that does not require forgiveness.

    (Related: This is why "getting over it" is not the same as forgiveness like Chunk suggests)

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    I think the key breakdown here is that we're disagreeing on the meaning of forgiveness.

    You say "To forgive is to accept." I disagree with that. You can forgive a wrong without accepting it. Because forgiveness isn't for the other person, it's for you. In other words, the benefit isn't for the forgiven, it's for the forgiver.

    You say "You should not dwell on the past" and "You should move past thinking about past harms, but that does not require forgiveness." I disagree. In my view, that's what forgiveness is, in a certain sense.

    You might be able to avoid thinking about the pain of the past, but unless you forgive, that pain is still buried deep somewhere inside you. You're just bottling up the emotions, and they find subconscious ways of seeping out into your moods, your perceptions, your behavior, your habits, and your interactions with others.

    Forgiveness is when you pull that pain out by the root. It's when you remove the pea from under the mattress instead of merely stacking more cushions on it. It's taking the pebble out of your shoe.

    "Getting over it" is a cope. It's what we tell ourselves when what we really mean is "don't think about it, pretend it's not there." Forgiveness isn't about merely coping, it's about healing.

    You can still hold people accountable. You can still feel righteous indignation towards wrongdoers. Just don't make your personal happiness contingent on retribution.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •