Editor’s note: The following article refers to spiritual concepts. Please read Lovefraud’s statement on Spiritual Recovery.
If someone is continuously harming you, and refuses to stop, should they be forgiven? This is a question that I hope you will try answer at the end of this post.
My dad is a convicted serial killer. He killed 4 people and told me about the crimes with great pride. He used me, his favorite son, to help him destroy evidence when he felt that I might be a risk. He made me a part of this so that I would not go to police. He abused my mom, and brothers and sisters.
This is not the place to try to make one experience with a sociopath out to be any worse than another, they all bring about the same feelings of shame, guilt and often times depression. The question really is”¦”what do we do with these experiences?”
As far as I can tell, based on my own experience, is that we have only two choices. We can let go through forgiveness and find freedom that we never imagined possible turning this nightmare into a net gain that becomes a gift, or we can resist the lesson and continue to punish ourselves for the rest of our lives.
This is The Choice.
How does it make you feel when you think of the pain that was caused by your experience with a sociopath? Take a few minutes to look within yourself and be honest about how it makes you feel to think about the events that happened to you as a result of your encounter with a sociopath.
If you feel sick, sad, guilty, or regret the past, ask yourself who is harming you with these thoughts and feelings right now. If the sociopath is not in your life at this time and you are still feeling this pain, where is it coming from and why is it still there? Finally, if you still feel this way, are you not continuing to give the sociopath the power to control your life and poison existing relationships?
These are tough questions and the answers did not come easy for me. As long as I was not willing to let go of the past, I continued to suffer. As a result, I had paralyzing migraine headaches, chronic back pain, nightmares, irritable bowel syndrome and other illnesses that plagued me as a young adult long after my father went to prison.
I “thought” he didn’t deserve forgiveness. In fact, I was sure of it. That is because I did not know what forgiveness is. What I did not realize was that it was not him that I was hurting, but me.
Once again, forgiveness really has very little to do with the other person. It does not condone the behavior, release them from their responsibilities or say It’s OK to harm people. What forgiveness really does is release us from an emotional prison that we have created for ourselves. We hold the key and don’t even know it; because “we think” forgiveness tells the perpetrator that what they did is OK. Forgiveness is only accepting what already is and what cannot be changed.
There is A Miracle that awaits us when we do this and it changes everything. Our perspective changes, our outlook upon life improves, and happiness is restored.
Why are so many of us so unwilling to let go of the past? I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know this, a simple willingness is all that’s needed to make The Miracle possible. God will show you the way if you ask for His help with a sincere willingness to be free of the past.
Part of the Miracle is that when we let go of the past, we stop repeating it. Freedom has all kinds of rewards and the end result is gratitude for the experience because of what it really offered. Listen to those that have found their freedom from forgiving others (and themselves) and you will see this Truth.
Today, The Miracle for me is that I have learned The Truth about suffering. The only thing that has the power to harm me now is my thoughts. This is where all suffering comes from. Freedom from this comes from letting go of the past.
I have none of those physical and emotional illnesses today. The one thing that changed everything for me was a decision to learn about and pursue forgiveness. I first had to accept that I knew nothing about what forgiveness really meant.
This helped me to learn a little bit about exactly who was hurting me and why. If I cannot forgive him for hurting me, then how can I forgive myself for continuing to hurt myself with the experience long after it happened? I have forgiven myself, but I needed to see the benefits first, trust the process, and forgive my father to be able to do it.
My dad is still on death row and is no threat to me or my family. He cannot harm me anymore. When I forgave my father, all I really said was “you can’t hurt me anymore.”
As for me? I still have do work daily to keep from hurting myself with negative thoughts, but at least I am aware of who is really doing the hurting now and know what to do about it. Awareness is a great spiritual gift. I have found much of heaven and am grateful.
I will continue to write weekly here, but for those that are interested and willing to go more deeply into the process of letting go, please join A Course In Forgiving (begins January 19, 2012). I did not come here to promote The Course, but to offer it to those that feel moved to do something more about the pain in their lives.
There is no fee of (optional donation of up to $25.00) for the six week online course. This Course is designed to guide participants through the Step by Step Spiritual Process of Letting Go with weekly lessons, readings and exercises that are intended to open the pathway to healing and Peace.
If interested, please visit www.victorythroughpeace.com and click the link in the left hand column titled “Six Week Course Online”. For those that participate, I will be available by phone and email to share experience in addition to this weekly blog on Lovefraud.
Peace.
Hosanna, and Travis….the minister that I spoke about who “devalued” me, refused to believe me, etc. turned out himself to be a pedophile….arrested in July this past year! The thing, like Hosanna said, was that the church members and leaders wanted to “hush it up”—remind you of the Catholic church, and the Penn State Sports department etc.?????
I went to Dickie Chance’s court hearing, and in my opinion there should have been EVERY MEMBER of the church there, to witness that they did not want anything to do with such a pervert….instead, all I heard was how he had sent letters of apology to all the churches where he had preached….so they had to “forgive” him….forgive as in TRUST him AGAIN!@....... Excuse me while I PUKE!!!!! Pretend it never happened.
Well, you know after Saul/Paul quit stoning Christians and became not only a Christian but an Apostle, many of the early church did not Trust him….after all he had been a party to the stoning of Stephen, so it took TIME and SEEING how Paul behaved before the Christians started to trust him….to SEE that he COULD be trusted and was not a “spy” to find them so they too could be stoned.
People DO on OCCASION change their ways, but as Paul said, he never violated his conscience. When he was stoning Christians he thought he was doing right, but when he was SHOWN and convinced he was wrong, he repented and CHANGED his ways…..CONSCIENCE….that was the key. He had a conscience. He had a sense of right and wrong.
The psychopaths, the wolves in sheep’s clothing, don’t have a conscience, no sense of doing right or wrong, but are willing to do whatever it takes to fulfill their own evil desires for power, control, money, sex, or whatever rings their chimes.
The CHANGING of behavior on a CONSISTENT basis is what ultimately tells the tale of someone who has truly repented.
No Hosanna, I don’t expect a church or any other group of people to be perfect either, but I DO expect them to have a conscience both individually and as a group and to adhere to a moral compass pointed toward truth and JUSTICE. The “dogma” of having to “forgive” (meaning instantly trust) anyone who says “sorry” is not something I think is backed up by either good sense or scripture.
My ex is a pedophile, I think they seek out churches to establish trust. My ex is 54 years old and every church he goes to he weasels his way into working with the “young people”. He is doing it right now at a different church. One of the ladies at the courthouse that was familiar with my struggles with him told me it is only a matter of time before his next victim will come looking for me and all the stuff I told church leadership that was ignored so they can use it as evidence against him. But here’s the thing, there was already a long trail of evidence that should have kept him out of church leadership…they ignored it. Because he appeals to idols of their hearts, he love bombs the ministry or church giving them the credit for loving and accepting him like no other “so called christians” had done before. And we Christians are all over a good testimony- a changed life…We Love to see people come to life in Christ! Yep, we do! And that is a good thing! But here is the thing, sometimes in our emotional response to a good testimony we and/or a changed life we are being duped, being conned! Sometimes it is someone looking for a position of trust to perpetrate the unthinkable. Sometimes it is a sociopath actively love bombing the church. What will it take? The issue of pedophiles in the church is so emotionally charged that a few church’s leadership tries to act like it isn’t happening no matter what. For heaven’s sake there is something between hiding it and forming a lynch mob!! Either extreme is wrong! And in the meantime they keep on using and abusing more victims! Get real people, yes it is a very difficult issue, it’s our job to deal with it with accountability, truth, love, mercy and grace. I’m preaching to myself… It isn’t loving to not protect potential victims from abuse. Ramp-up church! We have to protect our children! Sorry I’m venting! ; )
@Oxy
“I DO expect them to have a conscience both individually and as a group and to adhere to a moral compass pointed toward truth and JUSTICE. The ‘dogma’ of having to ‘forgive’ (meaning instantly trust) anyone who says ‘sorry’ is not something I think is backed up by either good sense or scripture.” AMEN that sista!! AMEN that! My ex says “I’m sorry” all the time, IT DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING!
Hosanna,
That “cover it up” mentality and that “forgiveness means pretend it didn’t happen” all conspire to work together to allow the pedophiles and the hypocrites to work together to fool the “sheeple” the ones who are so easily led that they would follow one of these creeps over a cliff into the sea. It also makes me quite angry, Hosanna!
Like Aussie girl, ErinBrock, and others, I’m standing up and speaking out! Let the “embarrassed ones who want to keep their mouths shut pretend it didn’t happen, cover it up….but I will not be a party to that any more! I’m done.
Jesus stood up and CONFRONTED the hypocrites and I think that is what He wants us to do as well…He said that he who does not sow, scatters, and you are for Him or against him, but if you are lukewarm (neither hot nor cold) He will spew you out of His mouth! We must take a stand, if we sit on the fence, ride the rail, we are partakers in the evil that others do.
I think the story of the “Good Samaritan” is a good example of what many people do, and that is the “good and the holy” simply walk by the injured man. They didn’t kick him, just IGNORED HIM. Or the “rich man” who had the beggar outside his door, and when they both died, the rich man went to hell and the beggar went to Abraham’s bossom and the rich man hadn’t hurt the beggar, he hadn’t kicked him, just ignored his want, his hunger, his needs. If we ignore, or fail to help others, or fail to do what we know is right, then we are also guilty.
I can’t take in every homeless child in the world, I can’t feed every hungry person, I can however, do what I can do….and I can CARE! That is one of the reasons I get so VERY angry at people like the Penn State folks who KNEW AND DID NOTHING. The wife of Coach Fine, who KNEW and did nothing. The members of the little country church where this creep preached, all the while being a pedophile, and then when they found out, they wanted to “hush it up” instead of standing up and DENOUNCING him….hush it up, SHHHHHHHH, don’t talk about it, let’s pretend it never happened. I’m venting too! LOL
Happy New Year everyone! just went I was settling down, moving on… it has been almost 4 months of NC and he has a 3 year restraining order yey!. Today as I was getting ready to apply for a new job, I googled my name and was shocked to see what came up… My ex has posted nude pictures of me… for the whole world to see, I am beyond myself, I cannot believe he has done this. What now? I plan to goito the PD tomorrow morning to speak to the detective that helped me in the past. The pictures were posted on Dec 8th.
Dear Alina,
Well, sugar you can put it down to “that’s what they do!” And so I guess going to the cops is the best thing…were they posted before or after the restraining order went up? Maybe he can go to jail for it. We can hope can’t we!
I’m sorry that you had this happen to you, and I’m glad that you have been NC for 4 months…actually the nude pictures prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is a Psychopath in my book! (head shaking here) I really am sorry this happened, but is par for the course, SOP, standard operating procedure for the Ps. (((hugs)))
Yes, pictures were posted after the order went. I will find out what can be done. Once I notify the police, I will contact google to see if they can remove the pictures.
Alina,
I’m so sorry that happened. Thank you for posting though. This might very well be a red flag. When someone wants pictures of you in the nude, you might be dealing with a spath. They like using anything they can to compromise our reputations.
Just when I think I am doing so well with forgiving him (for my own healing) he does something else… what a sick SOB…
@alina
So sorry that is happening to you! My ex spath has posted many lies about me on his Twitter account and his blog and he posted a nonsexual video of me on youtube and Vimeo. I have a three year restraining order against him and when I called the sheriff they said there is nothing specifically on the restraining order that addresses video and if I wanted to pursue it I would need to petition the court to change the restraining order and I might get it. At the end of the day I decided that (in my case) it wasn’t worth having to go to court again and see ex spath again in court. He enjoys provoking responses in people, it will never end if I don’t ignore him. I think you might get lucky if you can find a police officer that takes abuse seriously. I hope you do. Again so sorry this has happened to you!
For the record my spath ex was often pressing me to give him nude pictures. I refused because I didn’t trust him with keeping them private. “Why do you need photos when I’m right here?” So it’s interesting that there does seem to be a pattern, another thing to watch out for. They are collecting stuff that they can use to hurt you later on!
Hosanna- As Oxy said, if you can find a few friends or other like minded people to worship in your own home or theirs, you can still nurture your relationship with God and the church. Even if youchoose to ‘go it alone’ for a while, there is peace to be found in your heart as you continue on your spiritual journey.
While my spath is not any type of clergy leader, he has expressed a keen interest in joining a church. He seeks ‘the sense of community’ a church and their congregation offers. We have been to and thru several in the past 3 years so far.
One was a small church which lost their building and merged with another. The one leader was changing things up and always after the money. The leader we followed to it, switched to another church and denomination altogether in his quest for money and his lust for the power of leadership. We went to another denomination with one of the mebers we met from the very first group. We have found a great group of people and a lovely service to attend, but still the spath wants ‘more’ from it. He doesn’t understand, you get out of it, what you put INTO it.
The whole time, I have been strong in my own faith and spirituality. Often taking time out of the day, no matter when, where or whatever- to talk to God on my own terms about my own things. Why not go strait to the source, right? My own road to forgiveness of him has been challenging to say the least.
For a while, I just couldn’t do it. So instead, I prayed FOR him as if he had an illness- which the spaths sort of do. They are sick minded individuals with no remorse for the things they do. Once I turned it over to God and said, “Here ya go babe! He’s all yours. I don’t know why I thought I could change him? You created him- so who better to fix him? If you want this marriage to work, you had better do something about it! And who better for the job?”
I started to feel a strange sense of release as I let it all go. I am not the one to be judged for his actions when that day comes. I am not the one responsible for his behavior. I will be judged for my own actions and that is something I can deal with. I can fix the mess I have created, change the things I have done or make ammends for them- but why should I be the one to go behind him and clean up his messes? Until he has to clean up the mess, his mess, he will not stop making them.
Hugs & Blessings to you and I will keep you in my prayers.