Disconnecting
from the perpetrator Avoiding
hardening of the heart Staying
away from the sympathy trap
Learning to read people better
Giving the guilt back
Making our world safer
Forgiveness releases us - mentally and emotionally - from the perpetrator. Although we may never develop warm and
fuzzy feelings towards a person who has seriously wounded us or a loved one,
choosing not to cling to our anger and bitterness helps us to separate our own
identity and life from those of the perpetrator.
In
most societies, victims are encouraged to express and talk about socially
acceptable
emotions, and are discouraged from expressing and talking about emotions that are
not socially acceptable. For instance, in most of the U.S., a survivor may be encouraged to express anger towards
a perpetrator, but is discouraged from openly expressing grief
over the many losses the survivor has experienced. In addition, most survivors
are discouraged from expressing genuine concern for the welfare of the
perpetrator.
Some supporters discourage survivors from expressing soft emotions because the supporters fear that the survivors will set themselves up to be revictimized. Unfortunately, if the survivors are not given the opportunity to express their soft emotions about the perpetrator with safe people, they are more likely to return to the perpetrator. (For example, victims of domestic violence return to their abusive partners an average of seven times.)
Another problem that occurs when supporters discourage survivors from expressing soft emotions is this: most humans are not selective when they shut-down their hearts. If a survivor is encouraged to be angry and is discouraged from expressing soft emotions towards the perpetrator, the survivor is more likely to express increased anger, and deceased soft emotions, towards other people in his/her life...including supporters!
To avoid hardening of the heart, survivors may need to learn safe ways to therapeutically express their valid anger - and any underlying fear and pain - towards the perpetrator while also preserving their soft emotions. Some of the safest ways to express ones anger and pain towards a perpetrator are: expressive arts, Gestalt empty chair work, and handwriting unmailed letters to the perpetrator. (Note: for reasons of safety and legality, it's never a good idea to mail a letter when we feel strong emotions.)
When we
sympathize, we imagine what we
would feel if we were in the other person's body. Unfortunately, trying to
imagine what it's like to be in a perpetrator's body can draw us towards the
perpetrator and set us up to be revictimized. The biggest danger in choosing sympathy over forgiveness is
that we only have the ability to imagine what the perpetrator thinks and feels. When we
sympathize, we try to imagine what the other person thinks and feels, based on our
own inner world - not theirs! The danger is that the inner worlds of perpetrators are usually
quite shocking and incomprehensible to anyone other than themselves.
Because nonrecovering sociopaths - in general - avoid emotional pain, they cannot tap into their own emotional experiences to imagine what another person is feeling. Instead, they must use their intellect to imagine what the other person wants, needs, or expects from them. In general, most human predators prefer to target people who operate on sympathy. Predators find it easier to con people who can only imagine what the predator is feeling. Many predators become skilled at faking certain emotions in their voices, faces and other body language. Some have even learned to tilt their head gently to the side and squint the flesh outside their eyes to create false "smile lines" that put most listeners at ease.
The more we are able to build the social skill of empathy, which is based on intuition instead of guesswork, the more we will be able to see past fake emotions and fake body language...to the real person.
When we
empathize,
we instinctively sense - and accurately respond - to another
person's genuine emotional state. We instinctively feel a
"gut-to-gut" or "heart-to-heart" connection with the other
person, if that person is expressing genuine emotions. And if the person
is faking the emotions, we are more able to sense the "disconnect"
between the person's physical and verbal affect and the person's genuine
emotional state...which, for some predators, is the absence of emotion. Unfortunately, people who were abused or neglected as
children, and people who were raised by caregivers who did not emotionally connect
with them, may have never developed empathy. And survivors who did
develop empathy in childhood - and then experienced trauma or abuse - may have
lost their ability to empathize. The good news is: empathy is a basic skill that can be developed and
can be reclaimed.
Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again - Dag Hammarskjold
Most
perpetrators prefer not to feel the pain of guilt. And some perpetrators are
truly unable to feel guilt. A common tactic among perpetrators is to rationalize
that the victim is responsible for the abuse. Many survivors feel irrationally guilty for having been
harmed. Some survivors have a strong sense of right and wrong, good and evil.
Sometimes victims will unconsciously internalize the guilt of having been abused
"because somebody has to take responsibility for this".
The sense of guilt may become more strongly reinforced if the victim dissociated during the traumatic event. When a victim is being harmed, a normal response is to go into fight or flight mode. If the victim is not safe to fight back and cannot escape, his/her brain may then go into freeze mode. While temporarily frozen, the victim may experience a hypnotic trance-state. Unfortunately, whenever a human is in a hypnotic trance state, his/her mental defenses are temporarily disabled. The victim is unable to protect his/her mind from intrusive statements made by the perpetrator and other people in the environment. If the perpetrator or others verbally dump their guilt onto the victim, the door to the victim's mind is wide open and the statements can take up residence deep inside.
Some survivors will convince themselves, either during the trauma or afterwards, that they are guilty because that false belief provides an important sense of power. Helplessness is one of the worst sensations a victim can experience; it especially occurs when the victim goes into freeze mode. One way to avoid feeling helpless, after the event, is to use woulda, shoulda, coulda rationalizations. Choosing to avoid helplessness by owning guilt for a perpetrator's behaviors is a two-edged sword. Although we may feel more secure, the security will remain fragile. A part of us knows better...that we are not guilty, that it is not anything we had control over, that we can therefore be hurt again.
Survivors may need professional to explore these - and other - hidden dynamics that may make it difficult for them to let go of the undeserved guilt. And sometimes they can work through - and release themselves - from one "layer" of guilt, only to find that they still cannot let it go.
Perhaps for this reason, more than any other, it's important that survivors consider the option of forgiving the perpetrator. When we choose to forgive someone who has harmed us, we admit that the. perpetrator. is. responsible. for. the. harm. and - therefore - we are not guilty. Choosing to forgive can be a sneaky back-door way to bypass some of the guilt-blockages that we may - otherwise - never be able to break free of. It's not a quick fix and it's not a miracle cure, but it can turn us around in a healthier direction.
Whenever
society blames terrible human actions on spiritual forces or entities, I'm
reminded of a phrase from the musical game of limbo:
"How low can you go?" It's easier for us to believe that an
incomprehensible act was caused by spiritual evil, than to painfully consider
the biological, environmental and social factors that could have contributed
towards the action.
And yet, I believe it is crucial that we be willing to go through the very uncomfortable process of understanding the incomprehensible. Until we do, I believe we will continue to set ourselves up, and others as well, to be harmed by people who are difficult to understand and recognize.
For instance, when we choose not to understand why some humans do terrible things to us and others:
 | We may minimize or deny the person's legitimate need for intensive legal and/or medical intervention. |
| Believing that the source of the action was spiritual can make us feel unnecessarily helpless. |
| When we are advised that a person is harming others, we may allow the person to con us into believing that because he/she does and says the right things, the claims must not be true. |
| We may not report the person's crimes to legal systems that are designed to protect us and others from being harmed by the person. |
| We may not learn how to identify and protect ourselves - and our loved ones - from other persons with similar histories, traits and behaviors. |
| When we are unwilling to identify basic risk factors that may have contributed to the person's harmful choices and behaviors, we will not know how to recognize, and then intervene on behalf of, members of younger generations who are negatively influenced by the same risk factors. |
Disclaimer
No part of the Healing Journey recovery website is to be used as a substitute for professional therapy. If you need professional support, please contact a qualified ministerial or mental health professional. Materials in this website may be printed or copied for personal use only. Readers are welcome to agree or disagree with any statements made in this website, and may benefit from sharing and discussing them with support persons.