A workable way to forgive

As I’ve discussed before at some length, the issue of forgiveness is a very difficult one for the victim of a narcissist. I’ve posted in the past on the dangers of sympathizing with your abuser. I’ve also posted the case for not pressuring yourself to forgive him or her. I want to emphasize yet again that in the early stages of narc abuse recovery–and even the not-so-early stages–forcing yourself to forgive can be detrimental.

That said, many narc victims do eventually find themselves making a sort of peace with their abusers. Before you balk at this (and if you do I totally sympathize), let me explain what I mean by this as best I can.

Let’s begin by looking at the example of Jesus (a pretty good idea when you’re talking about forgiveness). The fact that this innocent man was sentenced to a brutal death by crucifixion, at the hands of power-hungry men and a fickle crowd of ex-enthusiasts, definitely puts him in the category of someone who suffered abuse. When Jesus elected to forgive his abusers, it was not because he somehow found their behavior understandable or excusable. It was solely because of his nature: he was a being of utter love and goodness. For this reason, and not because his abusers deserved it, he had no desire to see them suffer no matter how much they deserved it. He could still see them as children of God with the potential for unity with God.

Jesus forgave because of the person he was, not because of anything about the unrepentant, evil people who tormented and killed him. And that, I believe, is the key to the narc victim’s situation as well.

Narcissists spend their lives flinging goodness away from them with both hands. Given the choice of being kind and giving or cruel and self-serving, they choose the latter every time. In the process they cause pain and do harm throughout their lives. They never come to a point of repentance, so hardened are their hearts. You can pretty much picture them standing in front of the gates to heaven and hell, and making a happy beeline for hell.

To expect anyone to forgive such people because of sympathy or compassion is absurd. Good people should be horrified in their presence and wish they could be removed from the earth so they didn’t hurt anyone else. Good people will not forget the pain they experienced at the hands of a narcissist…they will simply hope that the narc’s evil doings can be ended as soon as possible.

So being “understanding” or “letting bygones be bygones” is not the forgiveness you should feel for your narc, now or at any point. Nevertheless, I believe a true form of forgiveness is possible and beneficial.

There’s a saying that if you spend too much time fighting monsters, you become one yourself. And if you put too much of your energy and thought into thinking of ways you hope your abuser will suffer, that only brings suffering to you.

There’s a time for that, especially early in your recovery when you are just realizing you are a victim and the person you trusted and surrendered to is evil and heartless. You’ve got a lot of suppressed rage to get out and it’s not unhealthy to imagine revenge at this stage…and the stage can be pretty long.

But eventually, when you are healed and have moved on to living your own life and relegating your narcissist to your past, you may reach a new place. This is the time when you have enough strength to return to your natural, fully loving, goodhearted self. You are a person who never likes to cause pain, who wants others to be happy. Wishing evil on another person isn’t something you enjoy at all.

Not even where your narc abuser is concerned. This is the time when you can consider this terrible person and their awful life and say, “If there’s a hell I have no wish for you to go there. Instead I wish you could somehow be the being you were meant to be, the real person you should have been, before you derailed your life into the disaster it became.”

This doesn’t get your abuser “off the hook.” It doesn’t minimize his or her crimes or fail to do justice to your suffering. What it does is let you express your loving, good, positive nature and leave you not at odds with any other living creature.

I seem to be at this point towards both my ex-husband, and with my father, who is still living. And it really does feel much better than when I was enraged and full of hate, although I don’t in the least regret that period which was so necessary and helpful. I can’t really tell you how to get to this point, and I doubt it’s the same process for any two people anyway. But I do believe you’ll get there in your own time. Don’t rush it, don’t push it…just keep being compassionate toward yourself and it will come to you when you’re ready.

Does this mean I plan to attempt to reconcile with my dad? Absolutely not. I also believe that when a narc is involved, reconciliation is simply not possible.

Nevertheless, I am able to say that while I still wish his departure from the world would happen as soon as possible–because I know every day he spends here is another day he hurts someone–I also hope it is painless and somehow peaceful in the end. And the other thing I hope for and believe is that my own life can transmute the bad acts of these two narcissists into good things.

Yours can too.