Learning to hate your abuser
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It is difficult to hate someone who gave you good memories. Anger and hate will eat you up, so I am moving on from those thoughts.I cannot speak to your journey, but perhaps sharing my own thoughts might help. The mixed feelings I had for my abuser contributed in a big way to why it took me so long to recognize that what happened to me was abusive. It's called grooming - that subtle, gentle and engaging way that so many abusers use. By the time he consummated (precisely the word) the relationship with me that he had aimed for - worked so patiently on - I felt like I had really bought into it. So while I knew it was his fault, the fact that I responded to him, gave him the weakest of NO's that always resigned to OKAY's, and even learned that I could tease him at will (my power over the situation that kept him off others) - it was impossible to feel hate, which was the antithesis of the intense connectedness that was occurring.
The fact is that even though I thought I should hate him, I never did.. He was the "big brother" friend next door. My mentor, my idol. So how does that switch get flipped? Did I approve what he did? No. But disapproving is not the same as hating. I met him much later in our lives and we had some conversations. I still couldn't hate him. It took me a long time to realize that not hating him did not dilute the crime he committed against me one little bit. It did not diminish what he did, and my willingness to engage when I was barely pubescent did not either. Gently grooming a twelve year old boy to engage in sexual intercourse is called rape, no matter how otherwise wonderful that friendship may seem. It can take a lifetime to untie all the knots it leaves in your soul. I still haven't. But I learned that even if I loved him, he raped me. Those can coexist; one truth doesn't preclude the other.
A prerequisite for my journey of healing was not that I had to learn to hate him. If it was, I would not know where to start anyways. It is simply not a bar that you as a victim need to meet. You need not require of yourself that you find the hate - even if others say you are supposed to. All you need is to be brutally honest with your own feelings. Mark Twain put it best for me: Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. We were violets because that simply what we were - even if we wish we were dog sh*t on those heels instead.
Thanks F.A. That sounds like a positive move forwards.There will be a moment when you will either hate your abuser or you will just say it isn't worth it I need to work on more important stuff. I was not even thinking of hating my abuser till someone asked me what do you think happened to him and without thinking I said who the fuck cares what happened to him that doesn't give him the right to do what he did to me.
I have every right to feel that way but I try to be careful not to let it consume me. It is a constant bumpy road but I am getting through it.
Between here and seeing a T i am starting to het there
That really means a lot to me. I struggle in seeing it in me and its hard for me to be complimented. I am working on it. thank youHi smc
Since I have met you here at MS I can see a lot of improvement in you for the hard work you are doing there is a pay off. You seem to have your feet more firmly underneath you. Proud of you for the progress you are making.