Don't Forgive Yourself

In all the research I've done on forgiveness, I've noticed a recurring theme. I see it on blogs, on pithy Internet memes, in books, and in scholarly articles. It's the idea of forgiving oneself. Equally as important as forgiving the aggressor, they say, is forgiving yourself. For what you did or didn't do in the relationship. For what you said or failed to say. For the person you were. It doesn't matter anymore, they say. Forgive yourself.

When we're talking about abuse, though, forgiving ourselves isn't necessary. We didn't do anything wrong. 

I find it odd how frequently victim blaming gets pulled into conversations about sibling abuse. I was having a conversation with my cousin one day, and we were discussing my relationship with my abusive sibling. Or, rather, she was telling me how she saw our relationship. For your information, my cousin and I live approximately 350 miles apart. We see each other twice a year if we're lucky. We didn't grow up together, and our relationship is casual at best. We hardly know each other, and she certainly doesn't know anything about my family's intricate relationship dynamics. But during this conversation, as I'm explaining why I'm not attending my sibling's wedding, she says to me, "Well, she has things to apologize for, and you have things to apologize for."

Excuse me? How can this person--who hardly knows anything about my relationship--automatically assume we're both equally guilty? It is not a universal truth that "it takes two to tango." That applies to many relationship problems, but in cases with abuse, assuming equal blame is wrong and harmful. The victim is never to blame for someone else's abusive actions. 

I've come to realize the saying, "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" rings especially true for sibling abuse. If you do stand up for yourself, you'll fight with your sibling, and you'll hear the often-proclaimed-but-hardly-ever-questioned "it takes two to tango" line. If you don't stand up for yourself, you get walked on and everyone from therapists to estranged family members will tell you later in life that you were "playing the victim" all along, and had you defended yourself, or communicated your expectations (ya know, to your eight-year-old sibling), or yelled louder or acted tougher, all of this wouldn't have happened. 

When I was growing up and getting picked on, I didn't stand up for myself all that much. Part of it was fear, but another part was knowing in the back of my mind that my efforts would be futile. I knew I would just hear the "Now, now, Sybil. It takes two to make a fight," line, and the grown-ups would send me on my merry way. And then I would feel even worse, because I would be angry and helpless.  

But it turns out that even when you don't fight back, you still hear the "it takes two to tango" line. From people who can't bear the uncomfortable truth that maybe, just maybe, there is a guilty party who deserves accountability. 

There's a very simple reason why victims don't need to forgive themselves. What happened to them was not their fault. From all of my observations, I have noticed one thing: if the parents aren't on board, nothing the victim can say or do will do anything to stop the abuse. Children don't have control here. In the family unit, parents are the authority figures, the children are submissive to the parents, and the siblings relate to each other as peers. When sibling abuse is happening, the parents have the primary responsibility of stopping it. 

I believe strongly that if anything is going to stop sibling abuse, it is education. Parents need to be educated on recognizing harassment, and knowing what to do if it happens. When abuse is going on, it is often because the parents don't recognize it. It is not because the victim is weak. It is not because the victim needs to be assertive. It is because the victim got unlucky, and must live at the mercy of his or her parents' decisions.

So don't forgive yourself. There's nothing to forgive. The type of person you were never mattered. It wasn't your fault.         

Letting Go

I'm about to write a post I never would have even considered writing three years ago. But here goes.

One of the most painful, horrible, unbearable parts of dealing with the aftermath of sibling abuse is carrying around the all-consuming rage that burns in your soul and permeates through every aspect of your being. Where does this rage come from? The simple answer is that is stems from years of having been tortured and traumatized by siblings. But it's actually an agglomeration of things. My rage was a combination of the anger, resentment, frustration, helplessness, humiliation and indignation inflicted upon me after countless encounters of my siblings abusing me and my parents dismissing and neglecting me.

I could never give you a full picture of what I went through. All I can do is convey the following snapshot: I spent many, many nights in my room doing various activities to "work through" my anger, like screaming into pillows, biting things, punching things, clenching my teeth, tearing things into bits. Anything to release a valve on the pent-up energy constantly threatening to explode somewhere, anywhere. I cried many times, too. I felt helpless and alone and constantly found myself thinking that I desperately needed help. But help was nowhere to be found. Nearly every day, I would walk around in an angry cloud, appearing normal on the outside, but feeling the rage underneath the surface, threatening to boil over.

I'd heard about "forgiveness"--pardoning someone for what they've done wrong. But that idea never seemed right to me. How can I look at the evidence, the piles upon piles of mental testimony I've collected, and say that the aggressor is..."forgiven?" How is that a good thing? Isn't that just enabling?

Well, I haven't reached a final answer to that question. I don't know if I'll ever truly "forgive." But I have dealt more and more with something I'm calling "letting go."

Letting go means taking the anger stored inside you, and....letting go of it. It means telling yourself, "I have decided to release my anger. I am no longer going to carry it with me. It has burned a hole in my heart, and I no longer welcome it. It doesn't have a home inside me anymore."

But wait a minute! Isn't that repression?

Not quite. Repression is denying your feelings. Letting go is acknowledging your feelings, and then releasing them. It is, in a way, moving on. It is staying in the present and absorbing all the energy from the present moment, rather than letting past energy consume you.

And it deals with yourself, and yourself only. Not the other person who hurt you. They don't even have to know you've "moved on" or "let go." The sibling I'm thinking about--the one I cut out of my life--has no idea I'm writing this post, or that I'm in the process of letting go, or anything like that.

Letting go is a process I struggle with. Even just now, I had an anger episode when I started thinking about my family. But whenever I do manage to "let go," it is the best gift I can give myself. I feel so at peace that day, after I've let go of my anger. I feel in control, and not taken down by my resentment.

And one more thing. Letting go does not mean no longer fighting for justice. It is okay to do the things you feel you must do to hold the guilty party (or parties) accountable (i.e., the aforementioned sibling who is still cut out of my life). Letting go does not make you weak. It puts you at peace, grants you control over your life, and makes you emotionally and physically healthier.

So try to let go today.

Expecting to Be Teased

Something must have happened to my brain after my siblings used me as a receptacle for their own insecure feelings. All the teasing and torturing impacted my life in countless ways. One of the ways I have not yet

touched on is the expectation I held throughout most of my childhood and adolescence that teasing was inevitable. Wherever I went, whoever I was with, I simply expected to be teased. 

This is one of those things you don't notice until you reflect on it. Growing up, it never struck me as odd that I was the constant target of teasing. Heck, the teasing itself never seemed abnormal at all. It didn't feel good, but it felt...habitual. Like I deserved it. I grew up "laughing off" the snide comments that were constantly aimed at me, so in my relations with my peers I did the same. 

I remember one incident where one of my older sisters and her friend were making fun of me over something I wrote. It was a poem or a letter or something they thought was stupid, and they quoted the thing to me in annoying, mimicking voices. What did I do? Did I get defensive and tell them to shove it? Nope. I grinned sheepishly and laughed with them. In my head I thought that because they were older, they must be right. It had been a stupid thing to write. I deserved to be made fun of for writing something that stupid. 

As I got older, I had more encounters with insufferably disrespectful people. We all do, but the difference between me and most people I meet was that my reactions to these rude people were way different from most people's. Often, I had no idea that someone had treated me disrespectfully. 

In college, my friend Rachel and I once had to meet with someone to discuss housing options. The person we met with seemed nice enough, and we had a short, pleasant conversation with her about our housing plans for the next school year. Or so I thought. As soon as we got outside, Rachel muttered something about that "bitchy housing lady..." I didn't say anything out loud, but I remember thinking, "Oh, you thought THAT was bitchy?!" One comment she had made to us had seemed a little off, but it didn't strike me as being that big of a deal. 

I've had more experiences like this. One time I was at a bar with a group of friends, and our server comes over to get our drink orders. When it's my turn to request a drink, I quickly give my order and then sit there, waiting for him to move on to the next person. I had forgotten that (at least at my age) servers look at ID before serving alcoholic drinks. My server motions for me to take out my driver's license, and then shouts "Come on! Come on!" as he's waving his hand. When he leaves to go back into the kitchen, my friend turns to me and says, "Ugh, that guy was so rude to you." 

I hadn't even noticed. In fact, I was giggling as he was waving and shouting at me. His reaction, of course, was right. How could I have been so stupid as to have forgotten to take out my ID? As usual, I was denying any defensive messages inside of me, and agreeing with the message of the bully. The child inside of me who laughed off embarrassment and thought her powerful older siblings were always right had made an appearance. And she thought she deserved to be teased. 

I ask myself if there's anything someone can do that would make me think they deserve to be teased for it. I can't think of anything. I don't tease people. Ever. Knowing how painful it is to be on the receiving end has made me extra aware of others' feelings and of not hurting them. Even in cases where people have made a serious goof-up somewhere, I correct as gently as possible. I never make fun of them for it. 

There is one very special case where I think someone deserves to be teased. And that's right after they've teased someone else. My philosophy is The Golden Rule: Treat others the way you want to be treated. If someone disobeys this rule, if they think they can taunt others for the thrill it brings them, they deserve to be on the receiving end of the same treatment.

It's funny how sometimes the bullied are accused of being "too sensitive." In my experience, bullying made me DE-sensitized to things I shouldn't have been. I've come to realize that we're all sensitive, and we all don't like being teased. In all situations, (well....with a few exceptions, as mentioned above) we deserve to be treated respectfully. And in my own life, I know I need to work on replacing my teasing expectation with a different one: expecting to be treated with respect.