It is not unusual for a victim of sexual assault to feel some degree of anger, to feel rage...even hatred toward their attacker. I have often posted on this very blog about having those kind of feelings for the 3 men who perpetuated their rapist urges on an innocent 12 year old boy...that just happened to be ME.
It took took many years, much fear and many tears...but I eventually got to a place where I finally forgave them for what they did to me. It was a huge moment of growth for me and a turning point in my journey of recovery and life time Spiritual Quest.
But all that being said...there are still moments where I suddenly feel a great deal of anger...even rage and hatred for those bastards. And unlike like most of my moods...I NEVER feel or sense these coming on...I first notice them as they overwhelm me...catching me completely by surprise.
Now that really bothers me of course...that I can still revert to the "old way" of feeling but especially in such a sudden, unexpected manner. But it is involuntary, as far as I can tell and I often am able to resist the urge toward anger...but I often find that fighting the emotion will only make it worse. I am better off just letting myself feel what I feel and accept it for what it is. The fact is that I was permanently injured emotionally, physically, psychologically and spiritually by what those men did to me....So it is only logical that I have angry feelings toward them and what they did to me. And yes....even after nearly 40 years.
The trick, I know now...is not letting the anger, rage or feelings of hatred OWN me and direct how I live my life. My spiritual life today...my very belief in GOD has turned out to be my best defense against those feelings ever being able to OWN me and control my life again.
It can be a delicate dance between just feeling what you feel and allowing those emotions to completely take over and dictate my behavior...often for a prolonged period of time. Learning appropriate ways to deal with my emotions was most certainly a priority for me. I have far less emotional issues today then I have had in the PAST and I attribute that to a healthy understanding of my feelings and how to manage them in a positive manner.
In closing, it must be understood that one never graduates from the school of life...until they die, we assume. The key to having a healthy emotional life is understanding that it is about continually improving...you never will do it perfectly...just give it your honest, best effort.
Paintings: Edgar Degas
I have been thinking about forgiveness a lot lately. Why we are capable of it when we are, and why not when we are not. To whom can we forgive, and to whom not, and what makes it so. Does time help, and is forgiveness total and absolute, or is it just that humble personal triumph when the event/person in question might cause pain but no longer has any bearing on your life. Or both. Forgiveness of crimes, of silly daily trespasses like not saying 'hello,' forgiveness to lovers and family, and the biggest bad wolf of them all - forgiveness to oneself. I feel like there are parts of me that I will never be able to forgive myself for, and that makes me think that I might never be able to forgive anyone else fully and completely either, or perhaps never have?
ReplyDeleteAs always, thank you for these thoughts. Wishing you peace and a great day.
Forgiveness is a strange business...It can be hard to qualify exactly how and why it is so critical at times because it often is such a painful and humiliating process to go back and deal with the people and events that need to be forgiven in the first place. For over 30 years I chose to avoid it all together.
DeleteBut I have to admit that with forgiveness came a sense of peace and strangely a sense of empowerment. I mistakenly thought for years that by forgiving those men...I was letting them win..letting them BEAT ME again. On the contrary I feel as if I OWN THEM now. It gave me a strange sens of power and strength to continue to persevere
I think it is quite natural for us humans to find it hard to forgive ourselves. We always are more willing to accept fault in others then ourselves. That is without a doubt true in my case.
I often think in some of these matters...the non-life threatening ones I call them...we often forgive ourselves without even realizing it. I believe that for THINKERS such as ourselves, the self-examiners, the self-critical types we have a much harder time with forgiveness because we think we should be better then that. We should naturally RISE ABOVE that fray yet we cannot...and we fall HARDER in our own eyes because of it.
What I finally learned for myself was that is I truly want to forgive...another or MYSELF...I can, no problem. The only thing stopping me....is ME.