Forgiveness - a practical exercise

[DarkLight]

One thing I’m trying to work on with my family is separating past experiences that may still feel hurtful or damaging to me, with present problems that need to be worked on. This is mostly for my own sanity, but also in part for them. My parents have been dealing with increasing health problems of late and I’d like to be able to move forward with the relationship without keeping on dealing with the past - no matter what I do or don’t get from my family in the way of apologies or even understanding.

So here’s the situation I wanted to work on right now. At some point during college I decided to leave the church I grew up in. I did end up being an atheist for a few years but that came out later, and I actually decided I wanted nothing to do with that particular church well before then. My reasons were a combination of bullying, flat-out misogyny, and attitudes that were very harsh on anyone dealing with mental illness.

I was at home that summer and my mother made my life miserable over this. Asking for explanations CONSTANTLY (I mean 2-3 times a day) even when they had been given. Telling me if I loved my family I would be willing to go to church with them. Pulling out all the stops and not really giving me any space or even acknowledgement that I might have had a point.

3 years later, my mother calls me and announces that she’s left the church and gives all the same reasons I did. When I (gently) mentioned that I’d said that she just said “well we didn’t know that at the time” and kept going.

The whole mess has left me very angry and resentful. I truly am glad they’re out of that place, but I desperately wish that my mother would make some apology for how she treated me. She basically made my last 2 summers as an undergrad miserable over the issue and then when she got hurt turned around and wanted me to listen to everything. But she doesn’t seem to want to see that.

How do I get past this?

 

[Xantippe]

One thing I’m trying to work on with my family is separating past experiences that may still feel hurtful or damaging to me, with present problems that need to be worked on.

That’s very good.

I was at home that summer and my mother made my life miserable over this. Asking for explanations CONSTANTLY (I mean 2-3 times a day) even when they had been given.

**Does your mom have a mental illness or some sort of neurological quirk? Because that’s unusual behavior.

Here’s some advice for how to deal with children who verbally perseverate.

autismclassroomnews.com/2013/10/truing-to-pull-out-of-perseveration.html**

The strategies would have to be adapted to deal with a parent, but I hope you see some ideas.

The whole mess has left me very angry and resentful. I truly am glad they’re out of that place, but I desperately wish that my mother would make some apology for how she treated me. She basically made my last 2 summers as an undergrad miserable over the issue and then when she got hurt turned around and wanted me to listen to everything. But she doesn’t seem to want to see that.

How do I get past this?

I don’t know.

I suspect you aren’t the only person in your family with mental illness.

Best wishes!

 

[hydin]

slightly confused… in a July post you mention taking Communion and in this post you seem to have left the church…

In any case, forgiveness has nothing to do with the other person or what they do or say. We forgive. They don’t have to earn forgiveness.

That being said in reference to your story above if you are now Catholic you know we should celebrate anyone finding our Lord. If they find him later or after criticizing our journey, if we hold that against them it is just like the prodigal son story…

Expect no apology from them. At the time they did what they thought was correct for your Salvation. As a Catholic you know they were correct in their fears, even if they attended a church with only part of the deposit of faith… they were still correct. Care about their Salvation and invite them to church with you. Let the Holy Spirit work… just let Him use you.

Remember… “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…”

 

[pensmama87]

I think it’s very hard for anyone to admit that they were wrong.

Based on what you’ve written about your mother before, I highly doubt that she’s likely to live up to any expectation you have of her regarding admitting that you were right about anything that she disagreed with. I think the most you are likely to get is what’s happening here - things change, but of course it had nothing to do with what you said.

I understand wanting an apology, but hanging around waiting for it is only going to hurt you. I have had my own issues with my parents, and I found it much easier to forgive them when I realized that they just aren’t capable of being the parents I wished they were - they are who they are, and by wishing they were different, I was only prolonging my own pain. I also maintain a pretty big distance with them - I don’t call super often, and only see them once or twice a year. We also pretty much limit our conversation to practical matters and pleasantries. No deep stuff, and definitely no religion (or politics).

(Also, grieving is NOT the same thing as “not forgiving.” If you’re occasionally sad, that’s a different feeling than resentment that you choose to build up and indulge in.)

 

[DarkLight]

slightly confused… in a July post you mention taking Communion and in this post you seem to have left the church…

In any case, forgiveness has nothing to do with the other person or what they do or say. We forgive. They don’t have to earn forgiveness.

That being said in reference to your story above if you are now Catholic you know we should celebrate anyone finding our Lord. If they find him later or after criticizing our journey, if we hold that against them it is just like the prodigal son story…

Expect no apology from them. At the time they did what they thought was correct for your Salvation. As a Catholic you know they were correct in their fears, even if they attended a church with only part of the deposit of faith… they were still correct. Care about their Salvation and invite them to church with you. Let the Holy Spirit work… just let Him use you.

Remember… “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…”

If this was at all helpful why on EARTH would I be posting here asking how to forgive them? All that repeating that verse at people does is heap guilt upon guilt uselessly.

And that church - I would never have been raped if they hadn’t dragged me to that church that basically groomed me for abuse. I would have a far easier time as a Christinan now if I hadn’t been brought up worshiping their spiteful excuse for a “god” that prevented me from actually being able to grow in faith and virtue because half of them were forbidden. I can say truly that I was far, far closer to God as an atheist than I ever had been in that church. Some churches drag people away from God as much as they preach his name. This was one of them.

 

[PseuTonym]

One thing I’m trying to work on with my family is separating past experiences that may still feel hurtful or damaging to me, with present problems that need to be worked on.

Most of what you described are past experiences. The part that is present experience consists of your continuing thoughts and feelings about those past experiences.

How do I get past this?

Select somebody who doesn’t talk with your mother, and who is willing to listen to you, and let you talk about it. You might need to spend a lot of time talking about it. Talk it through either until it is resolved, or until you find it too boring to continue.

I desperately wish that my mother would make some apology for how she treated me.

You could tell her that, perhaps by means of a very short letter or inscription on a greeting card to her. The key here is making sure that you do that one little thing and then leave it in her hands. Until she apologizes, she would probably be insulted by an attempt to forgive her. If her story is that she did nothing wrong, then you have to imagine that she did nothing wrong. When you communicate with her, your words go into her mind, and she has dominion over her mind.

Psychological problems are usually very difficult for me to analyze, but this one seemed easy.

 

[Xantippe]

Based on what you’ve written about your mother before, I highly doubt that she’s likely to live up to any expectation you have of her regarding admitting that you were right about anything that she disagreed with. I think the most you are likely to get is what’s happening here - things change, but of course it had nothing to do with what you said.

**That particular feature (being totally unable to hear an adult child, no matter how useful the adult child’s information is) is not uncommon between parents and adult children. I expect all of us have encountered it at one time or another, but DL’s mom is something special.

Dave Ramsey talks about “powdered butt syndrome.” What he means by that is that when somebody has powdered your bottom in infancy, they don’t want to hear your opinion on money or sex. And it sounds like we should add, “on religion.”
**

I understand wanting an apology, but hanging around waiting for it is only going to hurt you. I have had my own issues with my parents, and I found it much easier to forgive them when I realized that they just aren’t capable of being the parents I wished they were - they are who they are, and by wishing they were different, I was only prolonging my own pain. I also maintain a pretty big distance with them - I don’t call super often, and only see them once or twice a year. We also pretty much limit our conversation to practical matters and pleasantries. No deep stuff, and definitely no religion (or politics).

Yeah–so much easier to forgive when the object of forgiveness isn’t constantly supplying new stuff to forgive.

(Also, grieving is NOT the same thing as “not forgiving.” If you’re occasionally sad, that’s a different feeling than resentment that you choose to build up and indulge in.)

Yeah.

 

[PseuTonym]

I don’t know.

Is that newsworthy? Do you almost always know, and did you contribute to this thread to inform everybody about this rare exceptional situation? Or is this some kind of Socratic thing where other people think that they know, but you know that you don’t know?

I suspect you aren’t the only person in your family with mental illness.

Are you talking specifically about a mother who wears army boots kind of mental illness, or just a general “poopy head” kind of mental illness that affects everybody in the family via guilty-by-association?

I know that I am responding to messages that weren’t directed to me, but I am curious about whether or not there is a sincerity meter available that could be used to test the final words…

Best wishes!

 

[DarkLight]

Xanitppe’s been around a few threads in the ongoing saga here, so there’s a few things that have been popping up that I didn’t mention that seem to be informing her comments.

That particular feature (being totally unable to hear an adult child, no matter how useful the adult child’s information is) is not uncommon between parents and adult children. I expect all of us have encountered it at one time or another, but DL’s mom is something special.

Dave Ramsey talks about “powdered butt syndrome.” What he means by that is that when somebody has powdered your bottom in infancy, they don’t want to hear your opinion on money or sex. And it sounds like we should add, “on religion.”

That’s probably true. The issue here is of course that her behavior made it a nightmare for me - not just the disagreement but continually refusing to drop it. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if there was some mental illness, but it’s probably worth keeping in mind that a lot of this behavior is pretty much how the church worked. I wasn’t kidding in what I said about it. It tended to conflate leaving that specific church with leaving God (something I admittedly fell for at first) and generally act like anyone who didn’t meet their narrow definition of Christian was either stupid or evil. A lot of the evangelism techniques they pushed seemed to be more aimed at getting someone to agree out of annoyance than producing genuine faith.

 

[Xantippe]

Are you talking specifically about a mother who wears army boots kind of mental illness, or just a general “poopy head” kind of mental illness that affects everybody in the family via guilty-by-association?

The OP has a mental illness of some kind and if you look at past postings, you’ll see that her mom has used the OP’s mental illness to treat her badly for many years.

I’m hoping that it isn’t offensive and that it might even be helpful to point out to the OP that her mom’s behavior is not what one would normally associate with rock solid neurotypical mental functioning. (The repeating of the same request for explanation over and over again especially jumped out at me.) It might help the OP to forgive her mom (even if there’s no apology forthcoming) if she could tell herself, “Mom’s nuts” or “Mom’s a little different.”

It can take quite a lot of years of adulthood to figure out in exactly what ways the people who raised us are a little off. The problem is that one’s parents are one’s yardstick for normality until one has had a number of years of independence and experience of other adults.

As to knowing how to forgive, on reflection, I may or may not have something more helpful to offer now. Several years ago, I had a sort of spiraling health crisis that started with a miscarriage (baby dead at 13 weeks, found out at 14, induction at the hospital at what would have been 15 weeks) and a couple months later proceeded to me having a bout with anemia that left me literally green at the worst of it and even when I was getting better, five minutes of walking or standing up would leave me short of breath. As it happened, I was supposed to take my 9-year-old to see my family for Thanksgiving a week after the day of greenness, but I was concerned that in my weakened state, I wouldn’t be able to follow the original plan, which was for me to hang out at the airport for an extra four hours waiting for a relative who was flying in later that evening. I didn’t see myself being able to manage my mildly autistic 9-year-old and all of our luggage by myself four that extra four hours, especially since we would then be driving several more hours, late, late into the night (with a two hour time difference as icing on the cake). I explained my health condition to my dad (my anemia and my weakness) and asked him to drive and pick us up, which had been the original plan. It would be an 8-hour round trip drive for him (which was a lot to ask), but I was not in good shape. He flat refused and did not have any alternate suggestions. I said I didn’t think I would be able to manage being at the airport by myself, so we wound up not going for Thanksgiving, and we wound up losing the flight credit ($800 worth), as due to one thing and another (mainly my next pregnancy), I didn’t fly for nearly the next two years. Some time after that botched Thanksgiving, my dad said he hadn’t realized that I had been so ill. As you’ll recall, I had told him that I had been literally green with blood loss. But somehow, it didn’t get through to him at the time. He just couldn’t understand what I was saying.

Up until then, I’d always been such a daddy’s girl, but I found myself revising my ideas about our relationship (which is a pretty weird thing to have to do at 36+). For at least a year (until my next baby was safely born and I was recovered), I held that episode against him and was pretty obsessive about it, as well as the lack of support from my family after my miscarriage. But at this point, it’s nearly 3 years on, and I think I have forgiven him and the rest of my family. I have forgiven my dad, but I don’t look at him the same way that I did before. I don’t hero-worship him like I used to, I see his problems with empathy, and I’ve reevaluated my previous ideas about the relationship between myself and my family. I’ve also put some more thought into how our family’s autism spectrum issues can contribute to issues with empathy.

So, the tldr on that novel is: I’d recommend taking advantage of time and distance.

Was that more helpful, PseuTonym?

 

[thankulord]

It’s more than difficult to forgive your mother. Pray for this grace. “Lord, help me forgive my mother’s extremely hurtful way. I want her to apologize, but she didn’t . Help! Please help me forgive her! Help! I feel hatred ( or your feeling) and hurt. Please take this hurt away. Help! Help me forgive!” Pray like this but your own style. Continue throughout the day whenever you remember this hurt, as you start to think of it, change the thinking into repeated simple prayer. Little by little, you will be able to start to forgive and after time to your surprise you will find that you have forgiven.

Don’t worry that you can’t forgive her instantly. God knows your hurt. And He is pleased that you desire to forgive although it hasn’t happened yet. Let Him help you.

I wish I had done this when I was hurt by my parents instead of just hurting and dwelling on it. I know it is hard, when you findly have forgiven and then you turn around and have been hurt again. Just never give up and start again to pray. I’m not sure of your present religion now. If you are Catholic you can also ask a priests advice inside the confessional or outside too. God knows your hurt and is there with you. He will send graces that you ask Him for.

 

[PseuTonym]

Was that more helpful, PseuTonym?

I’m not sure how to answer that question, because the first thing that comes to mind is that this thread was created so that DarkLight could get some helpful suggestions. So, if you want an answer, then I should begin by asking DarkLight, perhaps via private message. When I get a reply, I can relay the answer back to you.

It seems that I rushed in where angels fear to tread. Next time a message vicariously offends me, I hope that I will remember to describe what I am reading between the lines, and to ask whether or not it was the intended message.

But somehow, it didn’t get through to him at the time. He just couldn’t understand what I was saying.

I see his problems with empathy, and I’ve reevaluated my previous ideas about the relationship between myself and my family. I’ve also put some more thought into how our family’s autism spectrum issues can contribute to issues with empathy.

With experience, we see that effective communication is more demanding on all participants than it initially appears to be. That seems to apply to my communication with you, and also to your communication with DarkLight.

And now we arrive at the moment of truth.
(Actually these are trivial details and errors. However, detecting falsehood and error seems to be the first step if one wishes to prevent or correct them and thus get closer to truth and perfection.)

I wrote:

Are you talking specifically about a mother who wears army boots kind of mental illness, or just a general “poopy head” kind of mental illness that affects everybody in the family via guilty-by-association?

That was supposed to say “guilt-by-association”! But the twenty-minute window for editing expired long ago.

Your typo is more interesting:

I didn’t see myself being able to manage my mildly autistic 9-year-old and all of our luggage by myself four that extra four hours

That reminds me of reading about the review of an academic paper (on the topic of apes or other primates). The author of the paper had written that some behavior was like a kind of guerrilla warfare, but had used the words “gorilla warfare.” A reviewer asked whether or not such humor was appropriate in a peer-reviewed academic paper, but the author was surprised to see the error, and had not intended to be funny.

 

[Xantippe]

To continue my thought, social skills, listening skills, and empathy are not equally distributed among the population, so the perpetrator of seemingly unforgivable faux pas may have a major deficit of social skills, listening skills and empathy.

One of the things that helped me with thinking about my dad was realizing that he has never been good at taking care of other people (my mom has always managed that side of things), so that it was probably not reasonable to expect that he would suddenly be able to start doing so, just because I needed him to.

He also has a bit of a one track mind (which I also put down to the wide autistic streak in our family) and hence, when he gets an idea in his head (for instance that my auntie would bring me from the airport, not him), he finds it very difficult to switch gears from his idee fixe. (Similarly, if he’s just read a book he finds interesting, nothing will stop him from summarizing the book at length to his listener, even if the listener is the person who gave him the book. I’ve had that happen to me on a number of occasions.)

Thinking about issues with parents in terms of what I now know about autism spectrum issues has been very helpful to me in learning to be more empathetic toward them.

Lots and lots of psychological idiosyncrasies have a genetic component and we’re pretty much all dealing with a variety of psychological limitations.

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

I’m hoping that it isn’t offensive and that it might even be helpful to point out to the OP that her mom’s behavior is not what one would normally associate with rock solid neurotypical mental functioning. (The repeating of the same request for explanation over and over again especially jumped out at me.)

I apologise for derailing the OP’s question here, but is the above something that points to autism? Repeating the same request for explanation over and over again is something that I grew up with (my father did it), and it almost cost me my sanity. it never crossed my mind that this is a sign of a psychological problem.

 

[Xantippe]

I apologise for derailing the OP’s question here, but is the above something that points to autism? Repeating the same request for explanation over and over again is something that I grew up with (my father did it), and it almost cost me my sanity. it never crossed my mind that this is a sign of a psychological problem.

It is typical of the autism spectrum (see my link earlier about perseveration), but I expect it does pop up in other conditions as well.

 

[DarkLight]

Unfortunately this sort of behavior is actually quite typical of fundamentalists. I’m not the only one leaving that sort of church who’s experienced that sort of behavior from those still in it. In this case I’d suspect it comes less from any mental health problem and more from 15 years of dealing with people who think pestering people with the Bible is a good evangelization tool. I’d probably have done the same for many years - the way it was supposed to work was that if you yelled enough Bible at someone they’d get the Holy Spirit, essentially.

 

[Xantippe]

Unfortunately this sort of behavior is actually quite typical of fundamentalists. I’m not the only one leaving that sort of church who’s experienced that sort of behavior from those still in it. In this case I’d suspect it comes less from any mental health problem and more from 15 years of dealing with people who think pestering people with the Bible is a good evangelization tool. I’d probably have done the same for many years - the way it was supposed to work was that if you yelled enough Bible at someone they’d get the Holy Spirit, essentially.

It doesn’t have to be either/or–it could be both/and.

That sort of church is going to be most attractive to people with a certain kind of personality and psychological profile. I doubt that your mom is a shy retiring wallflower who just happened to wind up in that pushy, confrontational, abusive church.

(Less problematically, in Catholic churches, one bumps into a lot of retiring, standoffish people. One has to ask oneself, is this person against holding hands during the Our Father more out of high-minded theological reasons or because they don’t want to hold hands with strangers? Certain theological views correlate closely with personality and psychological types.)

 

[DarkLight]

I doubt that your mom is a shy retiring wallflower

My mother is a woman who has her opinions and isn’t afraid to let everyone know about them. I’ve got a bit of that trait too, to be honest.