From what I saw on your profile, you were a child when this took place. There is no way you should be blaming yourself for any of it. It was someone elses job to look out for and protect you, then. I'm so sorry this happened to you. Good luck.

you have every right to forgive yourself. i used to ask myself "why" i did not do this or say that but i finially realized how manipulative my abuser was and he was taking advantage of a child and groomed me not to say anything. The blame rests soley on the shoulders of the perps. now you or i or any of the people in this community.

Wtf? Your therapist asked you if you could forgive yourself for "allowing the abuse to continue without telling"?? Huh, I'm thinking I'd punch the therapist, fire them, walk out, and find a new one. That's b.s. There's nothing to forgive. You were a victim...real simple.....victim.

It's not your fault. You were just a child. I used to feel the same way. I hated myself for allowing it to happen. I had realized one thing that hey I was only a child. And that an adult, brother were stronger than me. It took time for me to forgive myself. It will happen for you too one day. Good Luck.

Uh, that's not what I think of when thinking of forgiving myself.

I think of forgiving myself for the shame and guilt that this has had on me for all these years. That I was a child...Innocent...I was not at fault for the abuse...The ABUSER IS AT FAULT.

I can't tell you why I kept it a secret...I don't know...maybe b/c the person that did it to me was supposed to have been a person I trusted...and he betrayed me, my trust, my innocence.

YOU did NOT allow the abuse to happen and continue...you were a child...who didn't know any better.

It's the ABUSER that allowed the abuse to happen and contine. And, I cannot forgive my abuser at this stage in my healing either.

But, forgiving yourself is important...and freeing yourself to dispel the truth to all who know the evil abuser is sweet revenge to me...The Truth Shall Be Told.

Jeez! Forgive yourself? This made me feel physically sick to read. You don't need to hear any suggestion of guilt on your part, especially not from your therapist. I really hope she just explained what she meant really badly becasue to introduce guilt on your side is ridiculous!!!
Be angry, be sad, but NEVER think you have anything to forgive yourself for.
As for forgiving your abuser, well that's a whole other discussion.....

i don't remember enough.

what i do have trouble forgiving myself for is feeling upset by it. letting it hurt me for so long,....
i need to think about that for a while

i know some people say you can't measure these things, but i know that i wasn't victimised for a very long period of time...and i feel that it couldn't of been very much.

what sort of bloody question is that? its not like you asked to abused,i find that really insulting its as though the're saying you gave permission,i see nothing to forgive myself for,i did not give the bastard to go ahead to abuse me,i didnt go seeking it either,thats really made me angry,im sorry.

Madammum, it's funny you should say "you didn't go seeking it." My therapist seems to feel that I may have sought out the sexual abuse, since I was physically abused at home and had no one to turn to for "love" and "emotional connection." I disagree and have told him as much ... but I don't know if he hears me. I hated being molested. I didn't want to be touched in that way. I was scared of my abuser and I, now as an adult, am mad at myself for going along with it. But, at the time, I felt there was no one to tell. I was so alone then ... and now.

Anyway, my therapist keeps calling me a victim. I told him that I don't like that label but he said he's going to keep using it to get me used to it. I think he thinks I'm in denial (he hasn't said that) but I'm not. I know it happened, I'm not denying that. I just don't want to continue to be a victim in my adult life. I guess I can "forgive" myself for not speaking up as a child... but ugh... I'm just confused about everything.

Everything said, I do think I'm making progress. I'm not as angry and feel like I'm progressing towards a happier adult life. Maybe he knows what he's doing?

Ugh... I'm babbling. Sorry.

Why should you forgive yourself?? You were a child for goodness sake. Remember that when we think back to the time of the abuse we are looking back from an adults perspective.
When I was a child I did try to tell someone but they wouldn't believe me.

I think this is one of the most confusing questions that we all must sort out. I don't think your theripst was suggesting you did anything wrong and therefore you needed to forgive yourself. I think your theripst was relating to the fact the most victems do feel quilty, do feel they did something wrong, feel as though we could have done something about it. I think the question was a probing question so your therapist could understand where you were at.

I don't think forgiving ourselves has anything to do with something we did wrong. I think it is giving ourselves permission to say this is how our abusers made me feel adn I believed it for a long time. So it was my fault so to speak. Forgiving yourself is a little bit of a misnouma. It is really saying this is not my fault and i don't have feel as if it was.

Forgiveness for a victem is letting yourself know that you don't have to feel the way you have it was not my fault and allows you to say, " hey wait a minute this was not my fault and therefore I am letting this millstone of guilt around my neck go".

I know it is a very confusing question but asked in the right context, i think is apropriate.

I had to forgive myself for the little boy inside of me.

I agree with just....my counselor asked me the same but I think it was in the general sense that, quite often, abuse victims do feel guilty. I know that I always have felt my rape was my fault for wanting to smoke a bloody joint and getting in the damn car. To this day I still feel that way, and I know it's wrong but it's hard to change over thirty years of feeling this way. Hopefully when I finally start really indepth counselling I will be able to let that one go.

I'll beg to differ one more time (cuz I have a big mouth) then I'll move on. While some of us adults may get the point the therapist MAY have been trying to make, that there are SOME victims that may feel guilt, not ALL do. So to suggest that the victim should feel ANY amount of guilt in ANY form could open a whole shitbag of feelings not even thought about. It's ooooohh great...now I gotta deal with THAT....wonderful!!! You see what I mean? So Daddy's telling me it WAS my fault, that somehow I seduced HIM and now my therapist is telling me that perhaps I should consider forgiving myself for allowing the abuse to go on for all those years. And maybe my brain is not quite at that point where I can grasp what it is the therapist is trying to convey and say this therapist doesn't pick up on that and I don't see him for another three weeks so in the meantime I'm proper f**ked for that period of time. Make sense? That's all I'm saying.....it's all about the timing and the level of comprehension and sometimes things that are said can cause much more damage than do good.

I also don't like the word "victim", to use as a label on myself. It solves nothing but to make oneself feel helpless.
It's society that has the hang ups with these issues. They, for the most part, seem reluctant to deal with such issues and wish to sweep them under the rug.
That's what gives the abuser such power. The abuser knows for the most part nothing will be said and even worse, most don't want to hear about it or believe it.
So I would say forgiving yourself for what an adult (a supposed trusting authority figure) did is by no means something you should put on yourself.

I am a survivor of multiple offender child sexual abuse. I get sad over what happened but I don't blame myself one bit so I have nothing to forgive myself for. It was too much to handle so I just went into my own world. I don't like the forgiveness question, not for them and not for me. I wish you well.