Sometimes you have to try things that may seem counterintuitive to the way you have consistently approached life. My time away at intensive outpatient treatment center taught me many things but the most difficult lesson that I had to learn was to let go of things and use what I consider to be the real "F" word..... I had to learn how to forgive.
Up until that point I had always lived my life by the motto, "Never forgive, never forget!". Growing up I always told myself that I would go away when I was older, make something of myself and then come back to heap the same level of hurt upon those who had hurt originally hurt. This was a very hard and sad way to live but it gave me the strength I needed to survive. Defiance became something that I took strength in knowing that someday I would have my revenge. I think this is probably one of the biggest differences between Carly and I that kept me from following the same road that eventually led to her taking her own life.
I survived my childhood, my teenage years and my college years.....carrying a great deal of hate and resentment with me. As time wore on the sheer weight of all the resentment I was carrying became too much to bear. People over time had suggested that I needed to learn to forgive those who had hurt me in the past. This only angered me though, if I were to forgive people it was too much like admitting that what was done to me was okay and that the perpetrators were getting off with no repercussions for their actions. I felt that to forgive was show weakness and that most certainly wasn't what I was about. Never forgive, never forget, never show weakness, bide your time and wait for the chance to get even.
That's really not what forgiveness is really about though. In order to move beyond one's problems, one has to learn to forgive and release all of the resentment that is being carried like excess baggage. It wasn't until about week four of the program I was in that I finally accepted this concept. Oddly enough, it was a Christian priest that finally convinced me it was time to try another path away from anger and resentment. He made me see that holding on to all those hurts was doing nothing but poisoning my soul and preventing me from healing. He helped me see that forgiving is not about saying that what happened to me was okay, he helped me to see that forgiving would release me from my pain and lead me to a much happier existence.
I finally came to the conclusion that the way I had been living my life wasn't working very well and that it was time to try a new approach. So I decided to give this forgiveness thing a whirl. It's not like things changed for me overnight though. It took a great deal of writing on my part to come to grips with things, I had to process how I really felt about things. I had to look really hard at myself and the events of my life that led to where I was sitting at that point in time. It wasn't easy but I finally let go of some really big issues. I forgave people that I swore I would never, ever forgive. I doubt I will ever tell most people that I have forgiven them but the important thing is that I did it. I didn't do it for them, I did it for me.
I let go of a lot of pain over the next few weeks and found a new strength that I didn't know I had. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that everything has been peachy keen since. I still struggle with forgiving certain individuals (most of these instances seem to center around people who walked out on me at the weakest moment of my life). I write in a journal several times a week and I publish this blog to remind me of the lessons I have learned, to give me strength and hopefully help others who may be like myself. Carrying resentment around only hurts you, not the people you are holding the resentment against. I am so grateful that I understand this concept now though I struggle with it at times. I guess forgiveness really isn't an "F" word to me anymore. Now I just need to focus on the "L" word (L for Love).
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