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no religious debates, please. for my strictly personal context, forgiveness is about letting go of the bitterness.
the recent bout of psychic flu i've been working through seems to have found its clarity. seems. again, i wash another wish for scientifically verified clarity. is there a blood test to let me know when ^it^ is over? just wishing. . .
suicide and death wishes were casual small talk in the kiddie whorehouses. by the time i ran away to the inner-city throwaway kid camps, i was downright brutal when the subject came up. i was quick to hand people razor blades with the command to spare me the drivel. do it or lose it. of course i carried a rip roaring case of suicidal ideation into the throwaway kid camps. it was a nearly successful suicide attempt which ushered me into my first official psychotherapy session at age 17 in may, 1972. 51 years later, i still suffer bouts of suicidal ideation and take them one day at a time. will today be the day? do it or lose it. just for today. i bet you've already guessed that, so far, today has not been the day. so far. i'll worry about tomorrow when it gets here.
the flashbacks in this round of psychic flu have been to my 4 elder siblings. 2 have completed their suicide missions. one lives a half-life at a safe social distance of 900 or so miles. the fourth is my hero. i'll wash another wish that my hearing problems allowed me the luxury of phone conversations across the 1800 miles between us. i love her blunt, folksy humility in navigating life's messy byways.
i ran away to the throwaway kid camps around the time my 6 younger siblings started their own suicide dramas. enter the survivor's guilt. i was the nearest to a mother those children had and i abandoned them. they think i abandoned them without a backward glance. i'll wash another wish that that were true. is it even possible? the intensity of my flashbacks offer evidence that, no, it is not possible to truly forget.
i do not know what or who needs forgiving here, but i do know that bitterness is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. i know i want to let go of the bitterness.
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Hey All...I hope that you have a lovely, peaceful beginning of your weekI have a bunch of chores that need doing but may put them off til tomorrow and just hang out with my landlord/roomie todayWhat about you?...Anything special going on?Have a great day and take good care of you!!..Xo
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Once again I've had a fever today. I'm not going to the hospital because that's a huge waste of time but I did schedule a dr appointment for Wednesday afternoon.
IMO? As someone whose family on one side trends to self-destruction and/or sociopathy? It wasn't yours to do, amiga. And you showed survival was possible. That matters more than people realize, speaking as one who saw that escape/survival was possible and got a whole lot less suicidal. At age 11. That's more than enough heroism. Speaking as me, at least.
And, with all kindness, suicide is a personal choice. People can't be stopped once they've decided. It's theirs, not yours, not mine. For whatever reason they have. So...
No idea what I'm even saying except...
Let yourself let the bitterness go. We just don't get to have that much superhero powers that we can fix the world or even forgive it. I'll never forgive some things, and I know I'm the one who pays, but.... There's some reallllllly huge stuff to try to forgive.
TLDR: It's okay to take forgiveness in tiny bits.
forgiving is HOW i let the bitterness go. i'm not appointing myself judge, jury or executioner by judging the act. simply fore-giving that ^it^ happened so that i don't find myself fermenting in flashback intensity bitterness and resentment every time i am reminded.
works in progress. . . again. . .
Do it, don't do it, but the thing is... not doing it gets to be a habit as much as anything else, for me.
just believing. . . proof irrelevant.
Right now, I know that if I forgive the person, that's not gonna heal my injuries. My scars won't vanish. My nightmares won't become all happiness and joy. (If only.) I still carry the pain even if I don't carry any grudge :-(
in my own strictly personal case, forgiveness does heal. yes, i do not forgive the person. i leave absolution to powers greater than myself. it is the acts i fore-give, one act at a time. the scars remain, but sometimes healing leaves scars. it is not the letting go of pain which hurts. it is the holding on which hurts.
but that is me and truth is a many faceted gem.
continued support while you interpret your own, strictly personal facets.
I have forgiven and then a little while later I feel pissed of off again... sigh... I think it can be an ongoing process for sure
However when I'm in the forgiveness mode the lock between us is no longer and I really appreciate that
Suicide is hard ... Two people that I have been really close to committed suicide ... One I was married to committed suicide and it can be overwhelming at times... The other I was engaged to when I was young.... The second hit me really hard and still does at times
I felt a lot of guilt in both cases ... I know it had nothing to do with me however I still struggled with it at times
It can be a tough pill to swallow.... I understand how tough.... Huge hug and a blessing sweetie... xo
Forgiving my mom was important, though. It required that I process mental health the same way physical health is routinely processed. That way I could understand that my mother's lifelong wish for me to commit suicide was likely a projection of her own pain from a trauma that must have happened to her in childhood, and that she never came to terms with it in her own life. In other words, that it was hard to be my mother's son, but it was even harder to be my mother .
i did not know the perps or even their country of origin in this crime and i most certainly didn't want to invite them to dinner, but getting myself out of that hotel room was easier after i forgave them for being unethical scum and helped me past the hypervigilant assumption that all peruvians were cut from the same bolt of cloth.
it's not my job to play judge and/or grant them absolution for their crimes. mine is only to let go of the bitterness. for having been a victim.