martin

Jun 9, 07 - 10:32 AM

forgiveness?

I am not religious in any shape or form, but I was watching Saw 3 last night. A very gruesome horror movie.

In it a guy has to make some choices with the ultimate aim to forgive his childs'killer (killed by dangerous driving). the point was that the father was racked with hatred and vengance, which effectively was ruining his life.

I reflected on this and thought about my own life, and how I feel the anger, it is the injustice and hipocracy which fuels this. Seeing my father with his new fancy woman, going on hols etc. However, this is only material. The guy has has worked in a factory all his life, and has never advanced spititually or emotionally. He hates his job btw, and used to take his frustrations out on us.

I look at my life. It has been hard living with the burden, however I reflect back on my ten years living in london. This decade has flown with breakneck speed. In that time I feel that a lot has been achieved. I will spare the site the boredom.

The point is I live with a reasonably clear heart and soul, my ex fathers' soul is dead, he committed the most attrocious crimes. He has to live with this. He will be sixty this year. Therefore do I need to harbour resentment? I live in a good country, and am fortunate in many ways. Even though I do carry the scars of abuse, they are healing.To date, he has never been brought to book, karma has a strange way of biting you back on the ass! It must be difficult living with the fact, knowing your son has disowned you, having to explain or lie about why. Then wondering, will there ever be a knock at the door.......by the long arm of the law?

DoubleNine

Jun 10th, 2007 - 9:50 PM

Re: forgiveness?

Good post. Glad you like London and still like it after 10 years (if I'm reading your post right!), I visit all over the UK when I can but come back here every time.

I watched the film, it was very gory and powerful and effective at making you question your own angle on revenge and forgiveness before getting right back on with the hack and slash. For the record both my schools were C of E and I was frogmarched to Church until 10 years old, went back to a different one between 15-18 (on my terms) and I had the bible drummed into me, not to mention the sparing of the rod.

In spite of his partial setting me up for the sexual abuse which followed (see "I'm new" thread in the forum) I can forgive my father because he is dead. It's that simple. I hated him for his lack of love and the times when his discipline spilled over into physical abuse. When I was ready for bereavement counselling 2 years later, it was when that therapy was being set up over the phone that I heard myself say I wanted to forgive him. My hate and shame started to fall away from that day. I had two father figures in adolescence who got me through the aftermath and showed me some degree of normality to a family's life.

However, back to you. I think you realise how much power you've got now, the tables do tend to turn when a survivor grows up and the abuser gets old and isn't dead before you start to heal. Yes you could turn him in. Now you are abroad, there's little else he can do to you, though it would depend on the laws of your home country as to whether anything would happen to him depending on time passed etc.

So...I've had the forgiveness lecture over and over growing up. I had to listen to friends who needed to tell me three times that I was hurting my own health by being so negative and hateful.

If you believe you no longer have to carry any hatred by turning him in then do it, it's your recovery and you know whether it would help you best - or discuss it some more with your counsellor before arriving at your own decision.

Dave

Jun 12th, 2007 - 3:17 AM

Re: forgiveness?

Hey, martin...

Good topic...tough topic, too.

Is not harbouring a resentment the same thing as forgiveness though? You think?

I don't know? Which is why it is such an excellent topic. Because while my father (perpetrator) is dead...I still have a relationship with him. I do think you are right though, forgiveness as a choice we make is about us...not about forgiving a perpetrator.

It seems less about absolution and more about delivering us from our grief.

Within a couple weeks of my disclosure to my mother she started talking about forgiveness. I should say about me forgiving my father. But I suspect that had more to do with her level of comfort with the whole thing than mine.

I am always cautious around anyone that suggests that I "need" to forgive. Or that forgiveness is even necessary.

Personally my mother went along happily suggesting she knew nothing about it for thirty-six years...then, after knowing for two weeks thought I was ready to embrace the concept of forgiveness. Hmmm? What do you think? Think she was thinking of me...or herself?

I think I have not even gotten close to the full measure of resentment/anger I feel toward my father. But that's me

Thanks for this topic, martin!!

Dave

DoubleNine

Jun 12th, 2007 - 11:52 AM

Re: forgiveness?

Dave,

What you're having at the moment is what I expect when the time comes to tell my Mum if I ever bother. It is your healing process. Not hers. You are grown up. **** what the neighbours think and if they are good neighbours they will be sympathetic. If you have to break off from her and you aren't dependent on her financially, then carry on working on yourself without her around.

It also reminded me of something else that hacked me off on the subject: The book Abused Boys by Mic Hunter, telling people they had to forgive and making a big point of saying that he always told his clients as much. If he'd told me that, that would be my last session with him. Victims No Longer wisely leaves it up to the survivor, in both the single-subject and clergy chapters. It's nothing but plain arrogance to tell people they have to forgive when they haven't a clue what you've been through.

Ken

Dave

Jun 12th, 2007 - 1:18 PM

Re: forgiveness?

Hey, DoubleNine...

Well now...you know,

I am glad someone finally said that about Hunter's book because I threw it in the trash after that.

As if...I need one more well meaning person to tell me what I "should" or "shouldn't" do...regardless of credentials. Because there are certainly enough well meaning people out here possibly with the best of intentions...more than willing to share their respective philosophies on how I ought to just let it go and get on with my life.

I've had therapists and facilitators tell me that if I do not beat on pillows or scream at empty chairs that I most certainly will offend...as if...please!!!

As if...trust wasn't already difficult enough...how do they imagine I might establish any kind of level of trust...and for me trust is a very fundemental issue in all of this. I'm the one with, "I do not need anybody" tattoed on my forehead. Which, translated, most certainly is, "Do not hurt me again!"

Which brings up another very interesting topic...the one of trust. The one where any therapist or facilitator suggests that trust is a prerequisite or absolutely essential in the process of therapy.

Do you know any stupid survivors? I sure don't. Not a one. Because it wasn't just sheer will that got em here from there. It took a lot of energy and a lot of determination to get this far.

I am "getting on with my life" and to a certain degree those well meaning people are right...I can not change the facts. I will always have these experiences. They will always be a part of who I am...but I can change my relationship to them. I will...I am. Because it is "MY" life...mine.

Nothing was mine. Nothing. Not my body, not my feelings...everything was conditional, a trade-off. Tell me what I "need" to do, Mic Hunter, tell me recovery is conditional...tell me the miracle will unfold, if only...sorry...I been there.

Forgiveness as a condition of "healing" or trust as a necessary element...is arrogant, ignorant.

The process...and it is a process, if allowed to unfold...will allow for forgiveness...allows trust to develop...and it will be in my time...not anyone else's.

I have felt the grief for my entire life...it is time to grieve. I would have argued with anyone that I do feel, I have argued with them. My father set me on fire just to watch me burn. I burned in silence and bled in isolation for a very long time...and I had no idea that feeling added so much depth and perpective...that what I did feel was such a very small part of what was actually there.

Watch me bleed...watch me burn...stay when no one else could or would. Hang on, don't let go...maybe someday I'll share the gift of trust with you...the gift of forgiveness.

Dave

Ken

Jun 13th, 2007 - 11:48 PM

Re: forgiveness?

When talking about the sexual abuse, my abuser was another kid. He abused me but he was 11, as far as I saw it that attack was collateral abuse by whichever adult attacked him - though in the early 80s, pre-Childline, there was next to no help anywhere for boys and girls alike really.

I never hated him, so whether I was supposed to forgive someone I never hated wasn't a question I would get the answer from in any book.

All ideas welcome on that...whereas my father, I had the "normal" reaction of hating him as much as I loved him and then the forgiveness path occuring after his death.

Dave

Jun 14th, 2007 - 3:00 AM

Re: forgiveness?

Hey, Ken,

Collateral abuse are curious words to use in the same sentence as a description describing the event as an attack.

If you care to say...care to offer if the nine year old thought of it as collateral abuse? You most certainly can decline on that.

I will understand. But as an adult I dismissed my experiences as my father's disease (manic depressive) and or his addiction (alcoholic) because my mother would suggest, "That's the way he is..." as a means to suggest that he was not responsible for his behavior because of his disease and or addiction.

Your description of the attack suggests that it was the power differential between the nine year old and the eleven year old that angered you. Is that right?

Please do not misunderstand...I do not want to sound or seem flippant at all...but I found out that my father was in fact abused as a kid by older children in his hometown. Does that qualify my experiences as collateral abuse?

Thanks

Dave

Ken

Jun 14th, 2007 - 7:24 AM

Re: forgiveness?

Interesting points Dave - if I'd said collateral damage perhaps it would have been clearer. I'd better make it crystal clear that I'm only assuming he'd been abused, judging by his knowledge of what to do to me. Maybe he just felt like it, I'll never know it just was a gut feeling, and a (maybe unhelpful) assumption.

As a nine year old I didn't think of it at all I blocked it out completely, that was the level of shock and confusion. There wasn't any room for anger towards this kid, it was all being spent much closer to home, on my father.

To answer your last question, much as I hate to use Americanisms, your father repeated the cycle of abuse by growing up and abusing you. In the same way, my father was routinely beaten by everyone and it came natural to him when it was time to discipline his kids and in the 1970s it wasn't uncommon.

It's a line former victims cross and a choice they make to abuse someone else and I'm not having kids until I know I'd never hit them. The kid who attacked me is still responsible then again it's grace of God territory once more.

I can't remember the name of the judge but I remember his summing up in an abuse case where the son in a family had gone on to abuse, the parents and the son were all jailed at the same time for abusing other kids, he said being abused "explained, but did not excuse" the abuse he carried on to perpetrate.

Wow Dave, you spotted something in that last post of yours. If I want to track him down there must be a degree of anger behind this that I wasn't aware of. Maybe having a 25 year gap between the attack and my dealing with it means that I know it has to be constructively brought out, and that's why I never thought I was as angry as I was. Others would disagree, they thought I was a snappy moody git.

I'd need to know whether he abused any other kids and I guess, whether he carried on targeting people younger than him. If the answer to both questions was no, there would be space for forgiveness.

Dave

Jun 14th, 2007 - 11:27 AM

Re: forgiveness?

Thank you, Ken,

I love this story because it is so "farm country." I grew up in the midwest in the states which is farm country.

A family gathering was planned on a Sunday afternoon after church. It was to be held for the first time at the great grandaughter's house. She was excited and anxious about the event. She wanted everything to be just right. Her mother and father, grandmother and grandfather and her great grandmother were all going to attend.

The week before the event she called her mother to get a recipe for a family favorite meal that had been handed down through the generations. It called for getting a specific cut of meat, cutting both ends off of it before cooking it. The great grandaughter thought that was very curious and wanted to know the significance of trimming the cut of meat down before cooking it. She asked her mother.

Her mother responded by saying, "I don't know? That was the way my mother always prepared it." She went on to ask her mother. Her mother responded similarly, "You know, dear, I do not know for sure. I'll ask your grandmother."

The grandmother of the great grandaughter then went on to ask her mother. When she did...the great grandmother laughed, saying very simply, "That was the size roasting pan I had."

I think one of the most harmful assumptions to make in this process is that any survivor will automatically go on to offend. I think it is one of many reasons why a lot of guys will not go on to seek out and find help. I think it is important to recognize that some victims do go on to offend but that there are also a very large percentage of survivors that do not. In fact...they become protectors of children. Advocates for children's rights because of their experiences.

But...back to forgiveness, Ken...and thank you for your candor. Because forgiveness is such a touchy topic for so many people.

If the boy who was eleven (now a man) had gone on to offend other people...then you would be less likely to forgive? Is the "damage" less "collateral" then?

Wasn't it our father's responsibility to question whether the discipline they received was appropriate...regardless of time frames or social acceptance?

If forgiveness is contingent on knowing why or how or what motivated them...and we know that we will never really know the answers to those questions...then what?

I guess what I am asking is...how do we honor the fear, the hurt and pain from the experience as this process unfolds...if we minimize the impact by suggesting we have an explanation for why or how it happened?

Thanks, Ken

Dave

Ken

Jun 14th, 2007 - 12:08 PM

Re: forgiveness?

I said there would be space to forgive, ie I'd consider it. I haven't had some religious lobotomy that means I walk around asking to get dumped on and then I say "that's all right" - like some of my family (another source of anger). That kid was my abuser but someone abused him and that's a question I might never find out the answer to. It doesn't stop me wondering about it nor am I minimizing what happened to me when I want to know who started that cycle.

"By crying a lot" is the answer to your last question. Yes my Dad could have acted differently but he didn't and he's dead so that's it.

In my 30s I'm the most chilled out I've ever been, my anger's under control or I try to channel it. I know I'd never abuse a child sexually in spite of society's assumptions that I might. Since the beatings went on for five years, my brother and I have more reason to check ourselves on the violence aspect, he married someone who'd also been beaten. They don't beat their kids, happy ending, great.

Now I've got my life to worry about and I don't plan to fill the rest of it with any more hate than I already had for this kid.

Ken

Jun 21st, 2007 - 11:24 AM

Re: forgiveness?

Dave, sorry if I came across as ranting in that last post, but actually your reply in the Father's Day thread about celebrating your Dad's death and not his life reasonated with me somewhat. I got to five years after the death and no longer had a reason to mark the day in any other form than taking time off because

Like I think I said before I think he felt bad and had regrets over the way he treated us, or Mum was trying to soften him up a bit but by our teens it was too late.

Dave

Jun 21st, 2007 - 12:18 PM

Re: forgiveness?

Hey, Ken...

You may rant anytime you feel the need. I did not interpret what you offered as ranting though.

I know how difficult it is. It is a struggle...but I do not hink it necessarily has to be good or bad. You know...it is much more likely that it is a combination of both. My dad did some things that were cool. But I spent a lot of time trying to balance one against the other for the sole purpose of minimizing the bad. That's me...my stuff.

If the focus is on the good to minimize the hurt and pain felt from the bad then...it complicates things for me. I do not get the full benefit from what I am trying to acomplish...which is to change my relationship with the abuse.

So...as I slowly but surely eliminate the things I do that minimize the impact or the way I feel about it...I find myself feeling it...and that, I think, is the ultimate goal. Feeling it seems to change it. You know? I do not want to hate. I don't want to be angry. Beyond the moral and ethical implications...being angry just is not who I am. I think the whole therapy process is about learning to love. That is who I think I am...

Dave

Author	Comment
martin Jun 9, 07 - 10:32 AM	forgiveness? I am not religious in any shape or form, but I was watching Saw 3 last night. A very gruesome horror movie. In it a guy has to make some choices with the ultimate aim to forgive his childs'killer (killed by dangerous driving). the point was that the father was racked with hatred and vengance, which effectively was ruining his life. I reflected on this and thought about my own life, and how I feel the anger, it is the injustice and hipocracy which fuels this. Seeing my father with his new fancy woman, going on hols etc. However, this is only material. The guy has has worked in a factory all his life, and has never advanced spititually or emotionally. He hates his job btw, and used to take his frustrations out on us. I look at my life. It has been hard living with the burden, however I reflect back on my ten years living in london. This decade has flown with breakneck speed. In that time I feel that a lot has been achieved. I will spare the site the boredom. The point is I live with a reasonably clear heart and soul, my ex fathers' soul is dead, he committed the most attrocious crimes. He has to live with this. He will be sixty this year. Therefore do I need to harbour resentment? I live in a good country, and am fortunate in many ways. Even though I do carry the scars of abuse, they are healing.To date, he has never been brought to book, karma has a strange way of biting you back on the ass! It must be difficult living with the fact, knowing your son has disowned you, having to explain or lie about why. Then wondering, will there ever be a knock at the door.......by the long arm of the law?
DoubleNine Jun 10th, 2007 - 9:50 PM	Re: forgiveness? Good post. Glad you like London and still like it after 10 years (if I'm reading your post right!), I visit all over the UK when I can but come back here every time. I watched the film, it was very gory and powerful and effective at making you question your own angle on revenge and forgiveness before getting right back on with the hack and slash. For the record both my schools were C of E and I was frogmarched to Church until 10 years old, went back to a different one between 15-18 (on my terms) and I had the bible drummed into me, not to mention the sparing of the rod. In spite of his partial setting me up for the sexual abuse which followed (see "I'm new" thread in the forum) I can forgive my father because he is dead. It's that simple. I hated him for his lack of love and the times when his discipline spilled over into physical abuse. When I was ready for bereavement counselling 2 years later, it was when that therapy was being set up over the phone that I heard myself say I wanted to forgive him. My hate and shame started to fall away from that day. I had two father figures in adolescence who got me through the aftermath and showed me some degree of normality to a family's life. However, back to you. I think you realise how much power you've got now, the tables do tend to turn when a survivor grows up and the abuser gets old and isn't dead before you start to heal. Yes you could turn him in. Now you are abroad, there's little else he can do to you, though it would depend on the laws of your home country as to whether anything would happen to him depending on time passed etc. So...I've had the forgiveness lecture over and over growing up. I had to listen to friends who needed to tell me three times that I was hurting my own health by being so negative and hateful. If you believe you no longer have to carry any hatred by turning him in then do it, it's your recovery and you know whether it would help you best - or discuss it some more with your counsellor before arriving at your own decision.
Dave Jun 12th, 2007 - 3:17 AM	Re: forgiveness? Hey, martin... Good topic...tough topic, too. Is not harbouring a resentment the same thing as forgiveness though? You think? I don't know? Which is why it is such an excellent topic. Because while my father (perpetrator) is dead...I still have a relationship with him. I do think you are right though, forgiveness as a choice we make is about us...not about forgiving a perpetrator. It seems less about absolution and more about delivering us from our grief. Within a couple weeks of my disclosure to my mother she started talking about forgiveness. I should say about me forgiving my father. But I suspect that had more to do with her level of comfort with the whole thing than mine. I am always cautious around anyone that suggests that I "need" to forgive. Or that forgiveness is even necessary. Personally my mother went along happily suggesting she knew nothing about it for thirty-six years...then, after knowing for two weeks thought I was ready to embrace the concept of forgiveness. Hmmm? What do you think? Think she was thinking of me...or herself? I think I have not even gotten close to the full measure of resentment/anger I feel toward my father. But that's me Thanks for this topic, martin!! Dave
DoubleNine Jun 12th, 2007 - 11:52 AM	Re: forgiveness? Dave, What you're having at the moment is what I expect when the time comes to tell my Mum if I ever bother. It is your healing process. Not hers. You are grown up. **** what the neighbours think and if they are good neighbours they will be sympathetic. If you have to break off from her and you aren't dependent on her financially, then carry on working on yourself without her around. It also reminded me of something else that hacked me off on the subject: The book Abused Boys by Mic Hunter, telling people they had to forgive and making a big point of saying that he always told his clients as much. If he'd told me that, that would be my last session with him. Victims No Longer wisely leaves it up to the survivor, in both the single-subject and clergy chapters. It's nothing but plain arrogance to tell people they have to forgive when they haven't a clue what you've been through. Ken
Dave Jun 12th, 2007 - 1:18 PM	Re: forgiveness? Hey, DoubleNine... Well now...you know, I am glad someone finally said that about Hunter's book because I threw it in the trash after that. As if...I need one more well meaning person to tell me what I "should" or "shouldn't" do...regardless of credentials. Because there are certainly enough well meaning people out here possibly with the best of intentions...more than willing to share their respective philosophies on how I ought to just let it go and get on with my life. I've had therapists and facilitators tell me that if I do not beat on pillows or scream at empty chairs that I most certainly will offend...as if...please!!! As if...trust wasn't already difficult enough...how do they imagine I might establish any kind of level of trust...and for me trust is a very fundemental issue in all of this. I'm the one with, "I do not need anybody" tattoed on my forehead. Which, translated, most certainly is, "Do not hurt me again!" Which brings up another very interesting topic...the one of trust. The one where any therapist or facilitator suggests that trust is a prerequisite or absolutely essential in the process of therapy. Do you know any stupid survivors? I sure don't. Not a one. Because it wasn't just sheer will that got em here from there. It took a lot of energy and a lot of determination to get this far. I am "getting on with my life" and to a certain degree those well meaning people are right...I can not change the facts. I will always have these experiences. They will always be a part of who I am...but I can change my relationship to them. I will...I am. Because it is "MY" life...mine. Nothing was mine. Nothing. Not my body, not my feelings...everything was conditional, a trade-off. Tell me what I "need" to do, Mic Hunter, tell me recovery is conditional...tell me the miracle will unfold, if only...sorry...I been there. Forgiveness as a condition of "healing" or trust as a necessary element...is arrogant, ignorant. The process...and it is a process, if allowed to unfold...will allow for forgiveness...allows trust to develop...and it will be in my time...not anyone else's. I have felt the grief for my entire life...it is time to grieve. I would have argued with anyone that I do feel, I have argued with them. My father set me on fire just to watch me burn. I burned in silence and bled in isolation for a very long time...and I had no idea that feeling added so much depth and perpective...that what I did feel was such a very small part of what was actually there. Watch me bleed...watch me burn...stay when no one else could or would. Hang on, don't let go...maybe someday I'll share the gift of trust with you...the gift of forgiveness. Dave
Ken Jun 13th, 2007 - 11:48 PM	Re: forgiveness? When talking about the sexual abuse, my abuser was another kid. He abused me but he was 11, as far as I saw it that attack was collateral abuse by whichever adult attacked him - though in the early 80s, pre-Childline, there was next to no help anywhere for boys and girls alike really. I never hated him, so whether I was supposed to forgive someone I never hated wasn't a question I would get the answer from in any book. All ideas welcome on that...whereas my father, I had the "normal" reaction of hating him as much as I loved him and then the forgiveness path occuring after his death.
Dave Jun 14th, 2007 - 3:00 AM	Re: forgiveness? Hey, Ken, Collateral abuse are curious words to use in the same sentence as a description describing the event as an attack. If you care to say...care to offer if the nine year old thought of it as collateral abuse? You most certainly can decline on that. I will understand. But as an adult I dismissed my experiences as my father's disease (manic depressive) and or his addiction (alcoholic) because my mother would suggest, "That's the way he is..." as a means to suggest that he was not responsible for his behavior because of his disease and or addiction. Your description of the attack suggests that it was the power differential between the nine year old and the eleven year old that angered you. Is that right? Please do not misunderstand...I do not want to sound or seem flippant at all...but I found out that my father was in fact abused as a kid by older children in his hometown. Does that qualify my experiences as collateral abuse? Thanks Dave
Ken Jun 14th, 2007 - 7:24 AM	Re: forgiveness? Interesting points Dave - if I'd said collateral damage perhaps it would have been clearer. I'd better make it crystal clear that I'm only assuming he'd been abused, judging by his knowledge of what to do to me. Maybe he just felt like it, I'll never know it just was a gut feeling, and a (maybe unhelpful) assumption. As a nine year old I didn't think of it at all I blocked it out completely, that was the level of shock and confusion. There wasn't any room for anger towards this kid, it was all being spent much closer to home, on my father. To answer your last question, much as I hate to use Americanisms, your father repeated the cycle of abuse by growing up and abusing you. In the same way, my father was routinely beaten by everyone and it came natural to him when it was time to discipline his kids and in the 1970s it wasn't uncommon. It's a line former victims cross and a choice they make to abuse someone else and I'm not having kids until I know I'd never hit them. The kid who attacked me is still responsible then again it's grace of God territory once more. I can't remember the name of the judge but I remember his summing up in an abuse case where the son in a family had gone on to abuse, the parents and the son were all jailed at the same time for abusing other kids, he said being abused "explained, but did not excuse" the abuse he carried on to perpetrate. Wow Dave, you spotted something in that last post of yours. If I want to track him down there must be a degree of anger behind this that I wasn't aware of. Maybe having a 25 year gap between the attack and my dealing with it means that I know it has to be constructively brought out, and that's why I never thought I was as angry as I was. Others would disagree, they thought I was a snappy moody git. I'd need to know whether he abused any other kids and I guess, whether he carried on targeting people younger than him. If the answer to both questions was no, there would be space for forgiveness.
Dave Jun 14th, 2007 - 11:27 AM	Re: forgiveness? Thank you, Ken, I love this story because it is so "farm country." I grew up in the midwest in the states which is farm country. A family gathering was planned on a Sunday afternoon after church. It was to be held for the first time at the great grandaughter's house. She was excited and anxious about the event. She wanted everything to be just right. Her mother and father, grandmother and grandfather and her great grandmother were all going to attend. The week before the event she called her mother to get a recipe for a family favorite meal that had been handed down through the generations. It called for getting a specific cut of meat, cutting both ends off of it before cooking it. The great grandaughter thought that was very curious and wanted to know the significance of trimming the cut of meat down before cooking it. She asked her mother. Her mother responded by saying, "I don't know? That was the way my mother always prepared it." She went on to ask her mother. Her mother responded similarly, "You know, dear, I do not know for sure. I'll ask your grandmother." The grandmother of the great grandaughter then went on to ask her mother. When she did...the great grandmother laughed, saying very simply, "That was the size roasting pan I had." I think one of the most harmful assumptions to make in this process is that any survivor will automatically go on to offend. I think it is one of many reasons why a lot of guys will not go on to seek out and find help. I think it is important to recognize that some victims do go on to offend but that there are also a very large percentage of survivors that do not. In fact...they become protectors of children. Advocates for children's rights because of their experiences. But...back to forgiveness, Ken...and thank you for your candor. Because forgiveness is such a touchy topic for so many people. If the boy who was eleven (now a man) had gone on to offend other people...then you would be less likely to forgive? Is the "damage" less "collateral" then? Wasn't it our father's responsibility to question whether the discipline they received was appropriate...regardless of time frames or social acceptance? If forgiveness is contingent on knowing why or how or what motivated them...and we know that we will never really know the answers to those questions...then what? I guess what I am asking is...how do we honor the fear, the hurt and pain from the experience as this process unfolds...if we minimize the impact by suggesting we have an explanation for why or how it happened? Thanks, Ken Dave
Ken Jun 14th, 2007 - 12:08 PM	Re: forgiveness? I said there would be space to forgive, ie I'd consider it. I haven't had some religious lobotomy that means I walk around asking to get dumped on and then I say "that's all right" - like some of my family (another source of anger). That kid was my abuser but someone abused him and that's a question I might never find out the answer to. It doesn't stop me wondering about it nor am I minimizing what happened to me when I want to know who started that cycle. "By crying a lot" is the answer to your last question. Yes my Dad could have acted differently but he didn't and he's dead so that's it. In my 30s I'm the most chilled out I've ever been, my anger's under control or I try to channel it. I know I'd never abuse a child sexually in spite of society's assumptions that I might. Since the beatings went on for five years, my brother and I have more reason to check ourselves on the violence aspect, he married someone who'd also been beaten. They don't beat their kids, happy ending, great. Now I've got my life to worry about and I don't plan to fill the rest of it with any more hate than I already had for this kid.
Ken Jun 21st, 2007 - 11:24 AM	Re: forgiveness? Dave, sorry if I came across as ranting in that last post, but actually your reply in the Father's Day thread about celebrating your Dad's death and not his life reasonated with me somewhat. I got to five years after the death and no longer had a reason to mark the day in any other form than taking time off because Like I think I said before I think he felt bad and had regrets over the way he treated us, or Mum was trying to soften him up a bit but by our teens it was too late.
Dave Jun 21st, 2007 - 12:18 PM	Re: forgiveness? Hey, Ken... You may rant anytime you feel the need. I did not interpret what you offered as ranting though. I know how difficult it is. It is a struggle...but I do not hink it necessarily has to be good or bad. You know...it is much more likely that it is a combination of both. My dad did some things that were cool. But I spent a lot of time trying to balance one against the other for the sole purpose of minimizing the bad. That's me...my stuff. If the focus is on the good to minimize the hurt and pain felt from the bad then...it complicates things for me. I do not get the full benefit from what I am trying to acomplish...which is to change my relationship with the abuse. So...as I slowly but surely eliminate the things I do that minimize the impact or the way I feel about it...I find myself feeling it...and that, I think, is the ultimate goal. Feeling it seems to change it. You know? I do not want to hate. I don't want to be angry. Beyond the moral and ethical implications...being angry just is not who I am. I think the whole therapy process is about learning to love. That is who I think I am... Dave