How Does One Go About Forgiveness?

I've started reading some books on the topic of forgiveness. Absolving the atrocities that have been done onto you and granting reprieve to your mind. In order to fully let go of your traumas, you have to reconcile with the finality of outcome and accept what has happened to you. From there you must forgive and let go.

This will not be easy.

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There's a lot my father has said and done to me that I will never forget. From degrading comments about my weight and appearance, to incessant gaslighting and manipulation, I can't erase those memories, no matter how hard I try. Because as much as he disagrees, these things happened.

He is not a loving or stable father, he is selfish and close minded. For a lot of years, I tied my self-worth into his appropriations about me, his voice always entering my mind when embarking on a new experience: "You don't know anything", "You're stupid", "You're lazy". The damage he's done runs deep. I think the worst part of it all is that he never acknowledges his wrong doings. In nearly every confrontation regarding the traumas he's placed upon me, he remains firm on his stance that he was the model parent. He never yelled, only raised his voice. He never called me fat, he just said I should go to the gym. He never pinned me to the floor aggressively, we were just playing around.

There's always an excuse for his behaviour. In his world, nothing happened because it didn't affect him. He wasn't facing the emotional brunt his words brought on. He said them in heated moments of blackout and likely doesn't even remember he was saying them. Or at least this is what he hides behind.

I'm sure that somewhere in that black heart of his, he knows exactly what he did. He knows precisely how it has affected me and altered my mind. But to admit this would mean admitting he's not the great person he perceives himself as. He doesn't like the truth being called out and not having control over me. Classic signs of a narcissist, in my opinion. Everything revolves around him. If he's unhappy in his life, he'll make damn well sure I'm miserable too. He'll redirect this anger onto anyone in his life and sink in his manipulative claws. It's a cycle, one I've never seen him try to break.

He himself has suffered plenty of trauma at the hands of his parents. They were unsupportive and I'm sure his father abused him, though he's never implicitly talked about it. On top of this, two months before my sister was born, his father committed suicide. He's never been the same since. My mom describes it as a switch being turned in his head. Click. And everything changed.

He became withdrawn and verbally abusive. His eyes seemed to portray a deep anger and hatred burning within. Dull, yet so full of contempt. Soon after I was born, he cheated on my mother. Threw away nearly 20 years of marriage on a relationship that didn't last more than six months. One day he came to her and said he was starting a life with another woman. It seemed he had this all planned, had been sneaking around behind her back, determining his quick escape.

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Whenever the topic of their divorce came up, he was ready to fight the accusations. He'd say that my mother's parents made it up so he looked bad, that they decided mutually that things weren't working anymore. One time he told me that he did it for my sister and I. That he didn't want to provide us with a poor example of what marriage looked like.

He did that often. Framing things to make it look like it was for our benefit, not his own selfish desires. He will do and say anything to omit blame. He does not wish to be held accountable for his actions as he fears feelings of guilt and remorse. He does not have the capacity to accept those emotions. I don't know why he can't just own up to his shit. It's bothered me my whole life. Isn't it much easier to confess a mistake, move on, and be better? Maybe he doesn't want to grow from this place. Maybe he has become far too comfortable with the parameters he's set up to remain unfeeling and indifferent.

It just seems like a sad way to live. I can tell that he's deeply unhappy, likely even chronically depressed, but he's unwilling to seek help. I just wish that he would allow himself to process his emotions rather than shoving them into the recesses of his mind. Perhaps then he would be a person I would allow back into my life.

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I remember this one time I was supposed to go to his place for the weekend. I had decided beforehand that I was going to put real effort into trying to connect with him again. I had been in a place of heavy dissociation during my time spent with him. I relied on my regular coping mechanisms around him: don't be myself, answer his repetitive questions with as little 'sass' as possible, and be docile enough to not provoke him. But not too much because he didn't like that either. He had once again convinced me that I was the problem in our relationship because I barely interacted with him. I took it to heart and decided that I would be outgoing, amiable, and talkative with him, a side he's never really seen.

I left my mother's house, bundled up at the end of winter, clutching my trusty suitcase in my arms. I put my belongings in the boot of his car and got in the passenger seat. I remember putting on a big smile and greeting him openly. He was fine at first, a little off, but okay overall, then randomly asked me if I had my gloves. Thrown off by the question, I told him, "No, and I don't need them because we won't be going outside anyway, right?". Anger overtook his expression. His eyes darkened and his lips grew taut. He told me that it was absolutely necessary that I have them, but I said I could just use the ones I had at his place. He wouldn't accept this for whatever reason and started yelling at me. I was in shock from the rapid change in his demeanour. Why was he getting so worked up over something so small? I just kept trying to tell him that I didn't need the gloves.

His reaction was way out of proportion. If he had asked me calmly to go get them, without swearing and treating me like the stupidest person he'd ever met, maybe I would have done just what he wanted me to do. But he didn't. He was disrespectful and I was not about to reward this behaviour. So I stood my ground, for the first time in a long time. I told him that he couldn't talk to me like that and left his car. I rushed up the steps to my mom's house, tears streaming down my face all the while, and greeted her with a tight embrace once inside. I asked her to get my bags from him, that I couldn't go back out there and face him. Thankfully, she did. When she came back she said that he told her I was being overdramatic. That he only asked for me to get my gloves and I was being quite ridiculous about the whole thing. Ice ran through my veins. Did he not remember how he just berated me? To minimize it felt like a stinging slap to the face. Of course, my mom knows the games he plays and believed what I told her happened. I'm grateful that she was always in my corner in times like these.

After having back to back panic attacks, I finally calmed down and tried to carry on with a change to my plans. Though I never quite loosened its grip from my mind.

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Clearly something else in his life had riled him up and this set him off. He took it out on me simply because I was there and I seemed to be his trusted dumping place for anger. This is just one instance of many. After this one, I didn't speak to him for over six months. I didn't want to face a repeat of his behaviour that I knew would be soon to come after being shown fake kindness. His niceties were always a trap, soon to be followed by impending cruelty.

This was not our main falling out, and there are many in the span of our relationship.

Just as I predicted, he was the same person when I saw him again. He did not do any internal reflection, not seeing to the fact that he may have been the problem in that situation. And the onus shouldn't have been on me, I was the child and he was the parent. It is his duty to set an example and do best by his kid.

That's the underlying theme with him: nothing is ever his fault, there's always someone else to blame.

Not being allowed to express to someone the hurt that has been caused, with them listening and not making up excuses, has damaged me severely. It makes me hesitant to ever forgive him because, does he really deserve it?

A better question, one that I can answer:

Do I deserve it?

And yes, I do. I deserve to unburden all of this trauma and heartache. The pain of a parent not being open to truly love and appreciate their child for what they are. I deserve to forgive him in order to fully move on. This does not mean I will forget these things or not hold him accountable, for how could I? Rather I will forgive that he was not willing to work on himself to provide better for me. I will forgive his selfish actions that directly and indirectly made me suffer. He is not ready to accept his faults and grow. But I am. That's all that matters here.

I will no longer feel that squeezing, breath-stealing sensation in my chest when I think of him. His beliefs will not mar my future. I am in control. I have the power to let bygones be so. That was my experience and now I will make a new one. If he can't meet me where I'm at, then I have no capacity for acceptance.

I will forgive and move on and be happy.

It is what I am owed.