If the wounds are too fresh and the thought of forgiving the person who abused and upset you hurts too much, honor that. There is no shame in not being ready. It is normal and everyone’s timeline is different. Close the article for the time being or read it for nothing more than future reference, with no pressure or expectations. Allow yourself to feel all that you do, the pain included, with as much passion and purpose as possible. After a while, come back to it. Examine what you have gained, rather than concentrate on what you have lost, even if what you have lost is significant. The hope is that your personal growth is also significant and that the positive things you come to learn about yourself are far greater. Believe it or not, the day may come when you are not only able to forgive, but thank the person who brought you here, but that is all in time…
Forgiveness can be a tough subject to broach when the ones we are considering forgiving are the psychopaths who harmed us. Eventually, however, we should try to find a way to do it.
Why we should forgive
Resentment and anger eat away at us. Even though we may have been seriously wronged by the psychopaths who crossed our paths, holding on to those feelings hurts us, not them. Nelson Mandela once said, “Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping it will kill your enemies.” While it seems like an easy enough concept to grasp, putting it into practice may prove more challenging. While in the midst of the anger, confusion, and disbelief that almost always accompanies our brushes with psychopathy, it’s tough to imagine forgiving the person who tried to hurt us. But forgiveness is a funny thing. The reason it must occur has less to do with our wrong-doers, and more to do with us. Forgiving helps us heal.
What does the process look like?
This will not come easy or fast. In fact, it would be wrong to rush it. We must honor each of the stages of the grief process in order to fully heal. But eventually, we have to let go of any remaining ill feelings so that we can grow and move forward. The psychopaths’ acts may have been truly horrible, so we need not excuse them, but we can learn not to allow them to damage us further. As long as we are caught in negative feelings, our offenders are still winning. Hopefully, we can come to the place where we re-empower ourselves and re-gain control of our lives.
Forgiveness does not need to mean forgetting. We should not forget what happened to us or behave as if it never occurred. Rather, we should remember what we went through so that we don’t allow the evil back in or repeat our pasts with others in the future. Further, we need not expect anything from those who did us harm. In cases such as ours, they either enjoyed what they did or to us or were merely using us for their own “advancement.” There are no sincere apologies coming from them….ever, so do not look for one. This is about us and our peace and we can do this without seeing them or exchanging any words. For once, it is actually all about us.
What we come to feel
Recently, someone new to the struggle asked me how I feel about what happened to me and how I feel about the person in my situation. I had to think for a moment, but finally decided that I feel “nothingness.” Where I was once consumed with emotion, I now see this person as a void. It is almost like a chapter of my life that did not exist, in spite of the fact that it was extremely significant.
I know that the situation was real and awful. I care about and acknowledge what occurred, as the storm I weathered hit with a tsunami-like force. However, I lived, learned, and somehow, grew. I think I became a better person along the way, as a result. Without the experience, I don’t think I would have realized that I was only living half alive, realizing only a portion of my potential. I would not have known the strength I was capable of, without this test.
I believe that when we no longer allow them control over us, we come to feel “even” again. At that point, what once existed as love, hate, anger, and sadness disappears, becoming “nothingness.” We come to see our perpetrators as insignificant, even if their acts were not. It is then that we can forgive because what was, no longer matters.
We can move toward the future for ourselves and those we care about. For the first time, probably in a long time, the psychopath takes a permanent back seat, regardless of any residual antics. It takes time and the road is long, but eventually, we can release the demons and thrive. The rewards will come. They may not be concrete or quantifiable, but we will begin to recognize them when we feel them.
OxDrover
I kind of flinched when I read your post about the “shining star”. X spath told me he was the “black sheep” growing up. He got kicked out of the house for all the delinquency and lying in his mid teens. Now he gloats because he thinks his family considers him the “shining star” because he is the only one to get a college degree. It’s creepy how the same phrases have come up many times in reference to spaths. Lots of different phrases. They are definitely cut from the same cloth. I’ve never met any of his family. I can only imagine the dysfunction since his father was/is married 6 times and fathered many kids. The spath I was with has 2 kids. I met them briefly once. I’m pretty sure the daughter is disordered. She was 11 at the time and we only had maybe a 10 minute conversation but, I walked away thinking, “I’m glad I’m not the main one in his life”. I wouldn’t have wanted to deal with her. I think they should all be neutered. LOL
Kmillercats, thank you. He was a really neat boy and very handsome and he’s okay in Kitty Heaven, I know this.
This is, in my mind, the “curse” of having and loving pets. They provide what I can only aspire to: unconditional love. They are here in my life for a reason. They comfort, love, and actually “care” without placing any requirements for that comfort, love, and care. And, we typically outlive our pets. So, it’s a lesson in accepting something priceless and intangible and learning how to pay it forward, I suppose.
Thanks, again, and brightest blessings
Kmiller, I had great hopes for my son. He was as a young child very well liked by his teachers and by his peers and was/is extremely bright and intellectually gifted. For 7th grade science project he built a working lie detector. He was an “easy to raise” kid and was a “shining star” withhout a great deal of effort on my part.
My other biological son was very ADHD but also very bright, but took a LOT of effort to educate and raise. I home schooled him back when that was actually ILLEGAL, until I found a private school that would work with me on him. He wasn’t a “bad” kid at all, and not like a lot of ADHD kids that are rebellious or unruly, but he did require most of my time and effort, whereas Patrick SKATED through school.
If anything, I spent most of my time working with the older ADHD one as I felt that Patrick was doing well without a lot of oversite. We did a lot of things together as a family though, just the three of us, we spent two entire summers camping the entire summers in the national and state parks…so I don’t think either of my kids were neglected for the other, just that Patrick was doing so well without me having to spend a lot of time with his school work….up until he hit puberty and then I spent ALL my time trying to work with him. Trying to keep him from becoming a thug and a thief.
Raising kids is a JOB that when you give birth you have to commit to…and sometimes one kid requires all your attention because they are sick and have problems, and at another time it is the other kid that requires all your time and sometimes there are times when BOTH (or all) of your kids EACH need ALL your attention and you have to divide yourself as best you can to meet the needs of the most needy one. It “ain’t easy” that’s for sure. My outcome didn’t turn out very well, but it sure as heck wasn’t because I didn’t give it everything I had.
DNA plays a part and so does environment and so does parenting, but ultimately, we all have choices that we make so we influence our own environments as well. While I wish my kids had turned out differently I have to accept that they are who and what they are.
OxD, that “high hopes” resonates with me on a very primal level. I believe that all conscientious parents have hopes for their offspring and do the best that they know how with the tools that are available.
“…I have to accept that they are who and what they are.” These simple words are the hardest to say with sincere depth of meaning. Acceptance is the key. We don’t have to “like” what the truth is or the facts reflect, but “acceptance” doesn’t obligate us to “like” anything. Acceptance simply “IS” without any emotional attachment. I save the emotion for good ‘ole meltdowns.
Brightest blessings
Truthy, I know that you, having a P son yourself, can understand how difficult it is to give up those “high hopes” for your child and to accept the reality of what and who they are. Patrick is SO bright that he could have done or been anything in the world he wanted to do or be…and it broke my heart to see him choose to be a thug and a low life, and then a murderer.
I had a “vision” of my family when my sons were grown, married and had kids of their own….and what a great grandparent I would be and how much fun it would be to spend time with my grandkids. LOL and a lot of my pain came from giving up my VISION, my fantasy. LOL
Son C married a woman looking for a meal ticket with two disordered kids of her own and she was definitely a P herself, and Patrick was in prison. Life was actually fairly happy and “normal” even with Patrick in prison though I had not given up on him reforming…then when my daddy and my husband died, things “went to hell in a hand basket” as we say around here, and especially when the Trojan horse showed up.
It isn’t easy to give up your own fantasy and make real life and what IS conform to reality. I’m learning to live in life as it IS not as I want it to be. It is a continual process on a day to day basis, but I am working at it and won’t give up.
OxD, you are one of the only people that I have met that clearly understands the “death” of a beloved child in the form of sociopathy. I most certainly hated the truth – I didn’t want to have to choose whether or not to believe my son was a sociopath – I didn’t. I swear to GAWD that I didn’t want to have to acknowledge that fact.
But, what you taught me was that the fact was indisputable. Yeah, I could have continued believing that fantasy that he wasn’t “really sociopathic,” but all of the evidence screamed that he is. It was a difficult matter of accepting the truths, as they were. And, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t grieve, nor that I have stopped grieving about this, either. I STILL grieve that the fantasy evaporated, but I “accept” the facts as they are.
Doing the daily work is all that we can do, Oxy-dear. And, I sincerely appreciate your guidance.
Brightest blessings
Truthy
People think I’m crazy for spending the money on my cat (just 3 weeks ago) to get his broken femur fixed. You’re right…they give unconditionally and I feel like I owe it to them to take care of them when something happens. They are part of the family and they are not disposable.
Oxy
I cannot imagine or put myself in peoples shoes who have a disordered child who dashes the dreams of the parent in that way. Funny how life doesn’t turn out like expected. I don’t have kids so it’s hard for me to relate. My sympathies to all of you parents.
Kmiller,
THE PAIN of a Loss of someone we love, child, parent, sib, lover, friend, isn’t something that is “worse” for one than the other. I’ve lost parents and a child and also a lover….and they were all painful and pain isn’t either “big” or “small” it is TOTAL. It fills us totally.
If you smash your thumb with a hammer the pain is TOTAL, or if you break one leg it is TOTAL or if you break two legs, it is still TOTAL. It fills us completely.
That’s the thing I learned from Dr. Viktor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning” when he lost EVERY thing in the Nazi prison camp. HOW WE RESPOND is up to us. We can let it ruin our lives or we can recover and heal. Sure, we will be DIFFERENT after such an event, but we can still be OKAY.
Tea Light said in her post that she’d heard that psychopaths love cities.That would explain why my husband who was born in the city,grew up there and found alot of excitement on it’s streets,wanted so many times to return there.