Dissapointed

I’m having difficulty with forgiveness right now. I listened to a YouTube video with the title “Grief - Pathway to Forgiveness”

I have so much to say I could not just reply the the post on forgiveness last week.

I had listened to that video hoping I would literally get some easy steps in how to forgive. Insteas it listed emotions associated with undisguised grief. Until I saw the list I didn’t even realize I was holding onto these emotions and they were blocking my ability to forgive.

For me until I let myself grieve for what created those feelings it would be very difficult to forgive those who caused them. “I need to grieve for what I deserved and didn’t get”. “For what I got and didn’t deserve”. This is not straight forward at all. Especially as I know grief is not linear.

Being raised by narcissists I was so disconnected to the point I consistently dissociated away from all feelings. So until I saw that list I couldn’t have articulated any of them for to anyone. I could try to explain and justify why I developed that strategy but I’m so tired. Tired of trying to prove that being gaslighted and scapegoated back to my earliest memory created so much difficulty, and suffering. This impacted my whole childhood up to this day. I literally accepted this treatment as “normal” until very recently. After years of therapy, emotional pain and suffering. This impacted every single friendship, romantic relationships and my work. It wasn’t even just my parents who gaslighted and scapegoated me. My 3 older siblings did too.

How do forgive 5 people who chose staying in their own denial so they could pretend they are all at peace at my expense. For years I was made to feel from anyone I ever had the courage to share my feelings, thoughts and perspective of my lived experiences. All got was more gaslighting and bullying. Unfortunately this made so vulnerable to others who had any level of a narcissistic personality style. In some cases unintentionally from people who thought toxic positivity was a cure to fix decades of what essentially was brainwashing. In my case I was brainwashed that I don’t matter. Doubting myself 24/7 about everyone and everything. Constantly accusing me that I was always blowing everything out of proportion, just being too sensitive and essentially made to feel I was making everything up. That how I experienced my life was figments, distortions

It is not easy or straightforward to forgive this. Even though I understand intellectually forgiveness is supposed to bring me peace and not to give my family a free pass for how badly they hurt me. Especially none of them are even willing to allow for any kind of healthy communication. I only get more and more gaslighting and scapegoating. #hurt #angry #sad #Dissapointed #shamed #gaslight narcisstic abuse survivor #scapegoated