From: motto@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (mary.rita.otto)
Subject: Re: Loss and how to adjust
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 23:04:06 GMT

In article <1992Jul26.131747.3633@zip.eecs.umich.edu> fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields) writes:
>In article <1992Jul23.155618.8416@cbfsb.cb.att.com> motto@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (mary.rita.otto) writes:
>>...
>>.Now you need to forgive yourself so that you can move
>>on.              ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^
>
>Matt returns as a broken record.
>
>I liked all parts of this post except these two little words.  They suggested
>that Don was in fact guilty of something and needed forgiveness.
>
>It has been my experience that abusers use the phrase "forgive self" to
>get around the fact that they should really seek forgiveness from their
>victims, and that survivors/victims, when blameless, have no true guilt
>requiring forgiveness.  Furthermore,
>forgiveness can only be granted by another whom one has offended and to whom
>one applies for it.  I therefore suggest we let the phrase
>"forgive self" die a quiet death.  (In the case that one of several
>people in the same body offends another, I still wouldn't sit for this
>phrase).
Matthew -  You are not a broken record.  I love your insights. I agree with
your analysis that abusers use "forgive self" as a cop-out for obtaining
forgiveness for others.  Sadly, it gives self-acceptance a bad name.

What I am talking about it self-forgiveness for self-blame.  Sometimes,
when something happens that is beyond our control we blame ourselves for
it anyway.  We haunt ourselves with replays of the events.  We torture
ourselves with "if only ..." and "I should/shouldn't have ..." to the
point where we become our own prosecutor, judge, and executioner.
What we need to do is move beyond self-blame, through self-forgiveness
to self-acceptance.  It is strange -- being able to forgive is like
being able to understand, but there is an element of being let off
the hook that is there, too.  It is like after you have put yourself
on trial you have to find yourself not guilty.  Have you ever had
an argument with someone, and they wanted you to forgive them for
something that wasn't their fault?  It is the same thing, only
internal.  It is associative rather than direct guilt;  he was
the one who did it, even though it wasn't his fault.  We tend to be
our own worst critics on stuff like this;  we have to reconcile our
normal feelings of being in control of things with the far scarier
reality of being in a world largely beyond our control.  Part of the
process is looking for something that we did wrong so that the world
model can remain intact and safe rather than looking at the fact that
something this awful can happen at any time to any of us.  No, my safe,
secure model of the world can't be wrong -- the world isn't that
unpredictable and unsafe -- a good (insert Higher Power preference)
wouldn't let something like this happen to a good person so I must
be a bad person to 'deserve' this  --- and so on.
To get past this associative guilt, you have to forgive yourself
since you are the one blaming you.  You have to make peace with
yourself for what you have done, not only with others, but to yourself.

Life is so incredibly beautiful and fragile and exciting. This afternoon
the sun is shining and the sky is a beautiful blue with puffy white
dream clouds floating across it.  A warm breeze is blowing the tops of the
trees.  The stereo is playing and my husband is in the kitchen cooking
dinner.  It is so peaceful, so safe, so tenuous.  Moments like these
are a blessing.  Yet into this peace creaps my quiet concerns:  how long
can my life like this last?  How is my husband's heart, really?  When
will the bottom drop out on me again like it did last month?  But
somehow, the courage to enjoy the moment can be found and life continues.
An old song comes on the radio "... the path that I have chosen now
has lead me to a wall.  It rises up before me, a dark and shining barrier
between all I am and all that I could ever want to be..."  Time to
break out the grapling hooks and ropes.

They'll drag me out of this life kicking and screaming.

Mary Otto


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