Just finished Flight by Sherman Alexie and once again that feeling of jealousy has crept up, the same as did when I finished reading Call Me Tuesday by Leigh Byrne. Feeling this same thing for a second time brought me to the revelation of why adults who were abused as children don’t want sympathy from others. We’ve spent most of our lives feeling sorry for ourselves.
We’re sorry for being abused; we’re sorry for the anger; we’re sorry we were (and sometimes still are) unable to fight for ourselves; we’re sorry for hating our abusers; we’re sorry for loving our abusers; we’re sorry for wanting our abusers to love us. We’re just sorry about it all. That’s not the kind of sorry that’s easily overcome. There are so many mixed feelings and the self-hatred associated with it goes directly against our desire to survive. It’s a life of great paradoxes and for most of us, if we’re even able to articulate, it makes no sense. Do we love them or hate them? Yes. Do we love ourselves or hate ourselves? Yes. I have found no satisfactory explanation for this. What I have found is that part of what keeps us going lies somewhere between the paradoxes. It’s a place of survival. It’s called secret. We survive on secrecy because the paradox is too great to explain. As long as we live with the secret, nobody can see the great confusion and diagnose us with bipolar disorder or manic depression or paranoid schizophrenia or whatever other mental disorder they can come up with. But once the secret is revealed, we have no place hide. That’s when sympathy begins pouring in. We understand it, but want to be as far away from it as possible. When knowing eyes look at us, we feel ugly and full of shame. Then there’s the accusing eyes—why do you love them so much when they hurt you so much? What’s wrong with you? Childhood abuse hasn’t made us crazy. We’re not case studies. We’re just people who survived. People who want to be loved and respected like everyone else. The paradox of the abused child is mostly misunderstood by social workers, sociologists and psychologist who assume that living with that kind of paradox is wrong and/or something that needs to be fixed. They seem to be missing the fact that it’s our spirit that’s broken, not our minds. But science cannot fix the spirit. Only God can. Our minds have protected us and will continue to do so as we grow and learn. And as God works on fixing our spirits, our thoughts and thought processes will change, not because they’re broken or wrong, but because we’re learning. Then came Peter to Him and said, Lord how oft shall my brother
sin against me, and I forgive him? Til seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, until seven times: but, until seventy times seven. Matthew 18:21-22 So my brother (or neighbor, or friend, father, mother, anybody) can sin against me 490 times before I can stop forgiving? How do I keep a record of this? It would be difficult and time consuming to keep a database of all the wrongs that people have done to me and even if I started now, today, that list would grow to the point of unmanageability. Who has time for that? So what did Jesus mean here? We know that forgiveness is a process. You must acknowledge a wrong, confront the pain, understand yourself and the wrongdoer and the role each play and choose, deliberately so, not to be bitter, not to expect, nor demand, any restitution from the wrongdoer and ultimately change your mind in a way that is contrary to your basic instinct to exact some revenge. So you go through this process and it’s over. You’re free in your forgiveness. Free not to be bitter. Free to no longer be hurt. Free to leave the past in the past. Right? How do you forget, though? You’re human. We don’t oft forget a wrong, even after we’ve processed it and forgiven the wrongdoer. Too often, the memory resurfaces like a submarine crashing through the ocean’s surface in an emergency. It’s there. Big as life, putting on a show like Shamu at Sea World. The memories want your attention, they want to be seen and acknowledged. They will not be suppressed. What is wrong with me? You ask yourself. Why can’t I just get over it and move on like everybody else? Maybe I need to see a therapist, talk it out some more, cause these memories won’t go away and remembering hurts. I’ve forgiven them!!! I’m supposed to be free!!! WTF “Until seventy times seven,” Jesus said. Forgiveness isn’t a single event, it’s ongoing. Jesus knows we are only human and He knows we won’t forget. Seventy times seven isn’t a mathematical equation; it’s a way of life. Jesus didn’t mean for us to keep a record. He said He wouldn’t do that to us. He told us that He would save us and wipe our slate clean. He said we are forgiven of our sins—past, present and future—we are forgiven. Jesus knows each of us intimately enough that He can count the hairs on our head (Matthew 10:30). He knows about our closets. He can unlock them and call our skeletons out by name. He knows our sin, but never once does He say “Remember when you….?”He did say, however, before trying to remove the speck from your brother’s eye, first remove the beam from your own eye (Matthew 7:3-5), so that you might see clearly enough and not poke out your brother’s eye. We all see things with our own eyes, from our own perspective. We see things through our own pain. The pain clouds our sight and reduces our vision so that a given situation has gray areas where we are unsure. We’re unsure of ourselves and because of a lack of confidence we allow ourselves to act on what we know—pain. The memories stay with us. The pain seems to never end. How can we trust anyone—ever? How can we trust ourselves? “Until seventy times seven!” Forgiveness. Over and over and over and over and over and over. Forgiveness. Memories that hurt-forgive the wrongdoer. Forgive yourself. Every day, all day. Forgiveness is not a one-time event for a single wrong. Forgiveness is a way of life. Just ask Jesus! Coworker: You know how your mom always said “eat all your vegetables’?
Me: No, can’t say that I do. Coworker: Come on, your mom had some saying you remember! Me: No. No she didn’t Coworker: She didn’t say ‘don’t talk with your mouth full’ or….? Me: My mom left when I was 5. She didn’t say anything Coworker: Oh. End of conversation and awkward silence. This is just an example of how we really don’t know how to handle these memories. All I did was make my coworker uncomfortable. My coworker sensed my anger. Why am I angry? For having to reveal my childhood pain. Her comments made me feel different, like somehow there was something wrong with me because my mother didn’t give me any of those sayings. Was it my coworker’s fault that I felt this way? Of course not. We had been having a pleasant conversation up to that point. So how do you handle these kinds of situations? I’m not sure, but I intend to find out. And so we begin. Stay tuned for updates as I learn about how to disclose (or not disclose) past hurts without making the situation uncomfortable for others. I’m sure, that like a mental disorder, childhood pains are something we need to be aware of. We need to be aware that while we are living in the present, the memories don’t go away and when someone unintentionally brings those memories to mind it’s not their fault that we must deal with them again. The trick is to deal with them in a way that is healing to us and not offensive to others. |
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