Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Pamela's avatar

'How can we accept and forgive what we did when what we did was so unacceptable and unforgivable?'

Ohh how I've struggled with coming to terms with my past. Complicated by being the family scapegoat, whose message has always been "your mistakes define you, AND are proof what we think about you is correct-that you really are worthless and deserve rejecting."

This set me up for rejecting those parts of my history where I perceived to have hurt others, and actually did cause others pain.

Funny thing is, as your powerful writing here elucidates this profoundly, the being disconnected from myself in the resistance to accepting the pain that I had experienced, just perpetuated it, and fed into the harm I then caused. In my case, because I believed my family's narrative about me.

So you're writing today has helped to solidify what I have been slowly coming to realize: that the trauma that was perpetrated upon me, and the resultant resisting of accepting my pain, and the subsequent pain I caused others, was a set up from the get-go.

And no, this isn't excusing the pain that I caused. It's just understanding the why of how it happened.

Which helps, I suppose that one day my goal is to forgive myself without the need or compulsion to understand all of it first.

Thank you for publishing this.

Expand full comment
Mandolin Brown's avatar

This has been my journey. Understanding myself, accepting, forgiving and ultimately learning to love all parts of myself. How freeing.

Expand full comment
8 more comments...

No posts