Forgive*

Forgiving myself for real mistakes I’ve made is insanely hard. When I forgive someone else for something they’ve done to me or others, I have (in the past) believed I completely forgive them. If I’m honest about it, I usually add an asterisk. Adding an asterisk to my self-forgiveness seems to be an exceptionally capable vehicle for shame. I question whether forgiveness with an asterisk is forgiveness at all.

Hard turn… I’ll be back on this subject.

If I’m the victim of trauma—either caused by others or caused by circumstance—my relationship with the nature of that trauma shapes my view of reality. 

For example, my life has been littered with medical trauma—more specifically being witness to medical emergencies of others I love or depend on without the tools to help. I’ve seen people I love unconscious with lots of blood all over the floor from a head injury, unconscious without a heartbeat from a heart attack, and in hospital beds for days or weeks on end—some eventually recovering and some dying of a disease with no course of action other than acceptance of their death. 

When non-life-threatening injuries or illnesses happen around me, I’m more activated and more alert than I maybe “should” be. Others without my past experiences are likely to discount the situation more quickly than I do.

Dealing with kids who have a bloody finger, broken limbs, or sicknesses that others might quickly pass off as being normal is difficult for me to process. It’s my past trauma that feeds the seeming world-ending anxiety I experience while another person is experiencing their medical trauma.

Others close to me have experienced sexual trauma. To the best current access of my young memory, this has not been part of my reality, and I’m beyond thankful for that.

Other than being spanked as a young child, I didn’t experience physical abuse. When I was around seven years old, my grandfather-in-law tried to beat me, and I stood up to him: awkwardly diffusing his old-school physical abuse attempts. I had neglect trauma, but this, to be fair, is in light of my parents not understanding my autism (and probably theirs…supposing a bit here). Being part of the christian church likely caused youthful trauma that carried into later life. But, my religious trauma isn’t to the degree experienced by my dad or others close to me. I was in a frightening car accident when I was nine years old; we fell 200 feet—rolling 6 1/2 times after falling fifty feet from the first cliff. Everyone lived, but the slow-motion car wreck didn’t give too much confidence this would be the outcome. And, I never experienced domestic abuse in my house: ever. 

***back to the point…

My view of others’ abilities is created from my past reality of how humans might act. If someone lied to me, I forgive them.* If someone hit me, I forgive them.* If someone took advantage of me trusting them, I forgive them.* If someone says something bad about me behind my back, I forgive them.*

*knowing a person is capable of doing this again

I hate forgiveness-asterisks and want to forgive people completely; I want to be forgiven completely. We’re all children—no matter our age. 

We were all raised with different circumstances and tools; even with the same parents, we were given different tools for coping and understanding based on when we were born and how our parents adapted to understanding what parenting even meant.

When I look at others who have done something “terrible,” it’s easier for me to extract myself from the moral complexity when their acts have no tie to my own trauma. They have done something wrong, and I’m quick to forgive them.

When others do something terrible that’s connected to my own trauma, it’s harder (if not impossible feeling) for me. Even if I’ve done something similar to someone else in the past, I have a harder time forgiving (without an asterisk). 

In reality, I have a hard time fully forgiving. 

Even though I realize it’s a survival mechanism (in a futile attempt to prevent further pain for myself), I don’t want to have a hard time forgiving.

I have a hard time forgiving people who have done something terrible that is similar to something that has affected me negatively in the past.

Wrongs are wrongs, and it’s hard to fully right most of them. If I’m the victim, the perpetrator, or a witness, I hope the opportunity of eventual and much-due forgiveness is an ever-accessible opportunity. I want the world to have, and I want for me to have, access to a future of hope. 

Forgiveness to ourselves and others seems like the only available vector—without a damned *.