Being ok with yourself (maybe is small trigger)

[ak]

I am thinking I am learning to be ok with myself. I try hard, to be a good person, a nice person. I try to be someone that I think God would be proud of. So I try to live like that, because it is how I best live with myself also. (Not so sure that make sense).

Anyway, one of my abusers, the main one who 'loan' me out to the others and also abuse me himself, I had told him earlier this year that I can forgive him what he done to me. I do not know it change anything to him, but to me, it make me feel more peaceful of some things, mostly with myself.

He had done something to me, physical harm, before I get away of him and the abuse. It is something that cause damage that maybe will be for long time, I do not know forever, but it is more then three years later, and still, I have problems of it. It is something that to fix total, will probably need surgery, and that is not something I can do right now.

There is been lot of pain of it, last two months, but very much last few weeks, and it have made me very much hurting and upset. And there is been times in last two weeks, I have thought it, I hate him. I never feel that of him before, and never say that at all, until just recent. It upset me very much when I heard myself say that, out loud, to a friend. Because I do not want to be that kind of person, a hating kind of person, that just is not who I am meant to be I think.

But I am trying to think it, it is ok. I can feel that, I can think it or say it or feel it, and it do not make ME bad. I think it is something importent to me, to learn that. Maybe I have tried to keep my feelings less because I fear that my feelings, they will change me. But they will not. I will not be changed of who I am from all this. I know that is silly, yes, past events, they have already changed us. But I do not know that they can change us from being regularly good people to bad people, or forgiving people to hating people. I can feel what I feel and it is not something about who I am; it is not weakness. It is not badness of me.

Every person, I think, they have similar things with healing, but also will have different things. Some people will forgive, some will want to, some will no want to. Never is any of that better than the other choice. It is all for us, and what is best to us. We must first be ok with ourself. That is most importent.

Andrei

 

[roadrunner]

Andrei,

You are so right about feelings. Our feelings alone cannot change us from good people to bad people. Often we have feelings that may alarm us; we wonder, "How can I feel like that? I am a good person and I know these feelings are not correct." But the point is that these feelings are OURS, whether positive or negative. It does us no good to pretend they are not there. We have to let them out and address them in order to solve the problem they are connected to.

Just recently I disclosed to my mother and father here in the USA, and prior to that one of my close friends here challenged me to think about whether I might be angry at them for not knowing what was happening to me when I was a boy. Wasn't I angry at them for "abandoning" me to abuse?

I thought about that, and he was right. I did feel angry with them in some ways. I of course had no real right to be angry with them: I was hurt in the early 1960s when hardly anyone thought much about the abuse of boys, and most parents, even very loving and caring ones like mine, never knew their sons were being abused. But that isn't the point. The point was that this was how I FELT. I had to let these feelings come out and think about them and talk about them. It didn't take a lot of effort to let go of this anger, but I did have to think about it. If I had just pretended there was no problem, then the anger would have remained with me and perhaps could have caused me unnecessary trouble later.

Much love,
Larry

 

[WalkingSouth]

Andrei,

Thank-you for sharing your thoughts on your hating and forgiving your perp. It helps. I just wanted you to know that.

John

 

[Mike Church]

Andrei as always you say the right thing at the right time. Anger and hate are basic emotions as love and happiness. The oposite of each. And because you hate someone it does not make you and less the wonderful person that you are. It shows that you can experience the full range of emotions and that is a good thing. I hate poverty, racism, intolerance, war etc etc. That does not make me a bad person. We should all be free to express our emotions both internally and with others.

 

[FLRich]

I can feel what I feel and it is not something about who I am; it is not weakness. It is not badness of me.

Androsh, you bad? Never! It is normal for you to feel hate towards this man, no matter how many times you forgive him. He hurt you! He abused you! He did terrible things to you! He didn't deserve your forgiveness. He does deserve your hate, though, and the fact that you did forgive him makes up for all the times you hate him. Forgiveness was a gift from you to him.

If the forgiveness makes you feel better about yourself, then it is worth it. Just don't allow yourself to think of yourself as bad if you hate him from time to time.

I personally hate the bastard for what he did to you and others, and I don't consider myself bad for it, either. I am glad that you realize this does not, in any way, make you a bad person. It makes you human, karova.

Ya teybya lyublyu, mvoi brat!

 

[dan_in_newengland]

your not bad never were never will be.

Dan