Posted by alexandra_k on August 23, 2019, at 3:58:56
In reply to ever not forgiven someone, posted by rjlockhart37 on August 22, 2019, at 20:42:24
I've been thinking about apologies since I have apologised recently about too many posts.
When I think about other people apologising to me I find it hard to credit the apology when I think it likely they are going to continue on doing whatever it was they apologised for.
Sometimes... If it is a relationship thing, sometimes I think people move on. I mean, you might have a good relationship. Then something happens. Maybe you did something they didn't like. Then they didn't spend as much time hanging out as they used to. Then you apologise. They accept it. But things don't go back to the way things were. Not because they don't forgive you. But just because time has moved on and they have other things going on in their life now.
My Mother wanted me to say I forgave her, once. I cannot express to another human being how horribly horribly tormented I felt at her hand for so very many years when I was a child. There is no forgiveness for the extent of that. There just isn't any. Is none. When I beg and plead to her face to stop hitting me and so on... And she just ignores it because she thinks I'm just a kid and I just don't matter at all... I just can't forgive stuff like that.
But I think I said I forgave her. Because... Well... What is the point in not saying it? For a person who was so intentely persistent that no little kid should ever believe in the lie that was Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy or whatever childhood magical thing there was... For the person so insistent on speaking the cold hard honest literal truth about that... This is the very same person who has expressed quite clearly they want / expect to be pleasantly humored and emotionally lulled along during their final days when they have social sanction to forsake all that is reasonable and honest.
Sigh.
I was honest with her at some point. And I thought forgiveness might come out of that. Someone on the boards said something to the effect of 'why say that to her, you know that is only going to hurt her'. And then I felt bad. But I had never been honest to her previously about how horribly I had suffered at her hand, before.
But strangely enough things turned out alright because of it. She got very... Quiet. And still. And I was like 'sorry' and she could have swallowed that hook line and sinker like she typically chooses to do but instead she was like 'you really mean that, don't you' and I was like 'yes, I do actually'. And she was like 'that's mean nasty elder abuse' and I was like 'well... It's how I feel' or whatever. Because it wasn't nasty -- it was an honest expression of how I felt.
And she took some time with that. I almost want to say that she didnt' forgive me. Only... I hadn't actually done anything wrong so there actually wasn't anything for her to have to forgive me for. She actually took some time to integrate what I said. And mostly it's that that she does not / cannot do. Integrate anything from outside herself into herself. Normally she can only project herself into others.
Sigh.
She is a very hard woman for me to deal with.
I realised the other day. Finally worked it out. She chose to work as a cleaner when she was with Dad. She actually said something to me once about how he expected her to clean up after him... So she went off to him about how if she was expected to clean up after him she may as well clean up after everyone so she got a job as a cleaner.
The idea being to... Humiliate him, I suppose. She does things like that sometimes. If she can see she is embarrasing you or humiliating you (especially if you feel kind of bad about having that response to it) she really does everything she can to magnify that and there is a real glee. I don't know if you know what I mean. Maybe someone you have seen. Maybe someone picking up cigarette buts of the ground or someone rummaging in a trash can and they see you notice them and there is no shame or guilt in them. But if they see you feel a little of that perhaps on their behalf there is a triumph that is expressed.
Like with teasing sometimes people see they are getting a reaction and they poke and prod and poke and prod and poke...
That would have been her about her job as a cleaner. She would have gotten immense personal satisfaction from telling all her friends all his friends everybody who she could possibly get to listen about her amazing new job as a cleaner and about how she took the job since her husband thought that that was what she should be doing all day!
And of course... My Father wasn't a messy man. I don't remember him leaving the top off the toothpaste. I remember him getting up in the morning and making his own lunch. I remember us all doing grocery shopping after work on Friday or Saturday morning.
So what did mother actually do all day?
I'm not entirely sure.
And why didn't she go back to nursing then (she never finished her training because she got married instead) if she decided she didn't want to be a homemaker and she wanted her own career?
Then when they split up (and we surely could have used the money) she never worked again.
And that's my Mother.
And I wasn't allowed a newspaper route because it would be too hard on my bike and because I wouldn't do it and so Mother would have to do it and so I wasn't allowed to do it. And I wasn't allowed to work in the supermarket because... I wasn't allowed.
This is the woman who made me miss school camp (3 day educational trip) because I forgot (actually was just f*ck*ng dreading) telling her that I was supposed to take a packet of biscuits. It would be just a little thing like that that would set her over the edge, you see. So I was going to not tell her at all and then just pretend I forgot when I was at the camp and it was time to hand them in. Especially because she would only organise the cheapest and intentionally most unapetising busicuits she could find to give to me to take, anyway. Which would be embarrasing for me. That's the kind of thing she would do intentionally. She would find the bargain bin of ones that had expired and then she would tell everyone within hearing range that she found some expired biscuits for only 50 cents to take with me to camp! What a bargain! This is while the other kids mothers send them along with the nicest ones they can find because... Because most people are not as nasty as her. I don't know what to say...
It isn't that she couldn't afford it. It never was about the money.
It was just about her nastiness. I don't know what to say.
Forgiveness...
I don't know what that means.
Self-forgiveness...
I think I am doing better. Coming to peace with me.
I think I am learning to externalise more the way most people do in order to cope.
I also think I am feeling more secure in myself. I am not like her in important and relevant respects.
She does have some nice qualities that I value. But I can't forgive her for choosing to have me instead of going on birth control.
Do you forgive you??
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1105867
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20190715/msgs/1105871.html