“He was a person with a disease that made him do bad things.”
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Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Miles from Nowhere
Posts: 396
“He was a person with a disease that made him do bad things.”
“Learning more about alcoholism as a disease taught me that my father wasn’t a bad person. He was a person with a disease that made him do bad things...
“Eventually I realized that I didn’t need my father’s apology in order to get better. I could move on by praying to lose my resentments and to replace them with forgiveness.”
Hope for Today –reading for September 30.
That’s the kind of thing that used to make me gag. Because you could say that about a lot of people, “He was a person with a disease that made him do bad things.” You could say it about Ted Bundy, about John Wayne Gacy…about anybody who does bad things.
I used to read things like this and get disgusted, because it sounded like the writer was granting the father absolution for whatever bad things he did….and then everything was all lovey-dovey, wonderful daddy….wonderful parent-child relationship….
Except the writer didn’t say that in this case. The writer didn’t say if s/he ever had anything to do with him any more. The writer could’ve gone no contact with the father.
It was greatly freeing to me to learn that “forgiveness” does not equate to “absolution.” And that forgiveness does not mean you have to let that person back in your life—regardless of whether you share DNA with that person or not.
All too often, in abusive and/or disrespectful relationships, the abused is told to “forgive” the abuser, with the unspoken implication that they’ll have to put up with more abuse from the abuser.
“Eventually I realized that I didn’t need my father’s apology in order to get better. I could move on by praying to lose my resentments and to replace them with forgiveness.”
Hope for Today –reading for September 30.
That’s the kind of thing that used to make me gag. Because you could say that about a lot of people, “He was a person with a disease that made him do bad things.” You could say it about Ted Bundy, about John Wayne Gacy…about anybody who does bad things.
I used to read things like this and get disgusted, because it sounded like the writer was granting the father absolution for whatever bad things he did….and then everything was all lovey-dovey, wonderful daddy….wonderful parent-child relationship….
Except the writer didn’t say that in this case. The writer didn’t say if s/he ever had anything to do with him any more. The writer could’ve gone no contact with the father.
It was greatly freeing to me to learn that “forgiveness” does not equate to “absolution.” And that forgiveness does not mean you have to let that person back in your life—regardless of whether you share DNA with that person or not.
All too often, in abusive and/or disrespectful relationships, the abused is told to “forgive” the abuser, with the unspoken implication that they’ll have to put up with more abuse from the abuser.
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Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Pa
Posts: 4,872
Forgiveness is a gift that you give to yourself. You do this to let out the toxic anger that you have inside of you that is ripping you apart and killing you.
Forgiveness never means that you need to forget. It does not mean you need to let that person back into your life. That choice is yours and yours alone.
I can forgive, I can't forget. I think that each experience we go through is like a learning tool.
Forgiveness never means that you need to forget. It does not mean you need to let that person back into your life. That choice is yours and yours alone.
I can forgive, I can't forget. I think that each experience we go through is like a learning tool.
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Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Midwest
Posts: 11,481
I have struggled and struggled w/the idea of forgiveness. My signature line is the only definition I've found so far that made sense to me and that seems like something I might actually be able to do at some point.
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