It's Okay To Not Forgive

It happened again this morning.

I was on Facebook, scrolling as I drank my first cup of coffee.  One of the pages I follow posted some platitudinal rubbish about for every person you forgive, you heal a wound of your own.

Platitudes are high up on the list of things that are the bane of my existence.
By definition, they are dull and insipid; a banal, trite, or stale remark.  You know, the kind of thing that inspires eye rolls.  The kind of thing that is a blanket statement that is supposed to apply to every single person, no matter the/their circumstance, as if the entire population of the entire world should all be doing the exact same thing all the time without exception and then we will achieve some kind of Stepford Wife-ish nirvana.

Then later, adding insult to injury and also on Facebook, I saw a post that said:

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
I forgive people. It doesn't mean I accept their behavior or trust them again. It means I forgive them for me, so I can let go and move on with my life.

So according to those who post and promote such things, we are all supposed to forgive all the time, for everything, big or small, by pressing the magical forgiveness button; and if we don't, then clearly we are bad or faulty humans.

We are "weak" if we can't forgive, "strong" if we can.

In other words: shame on you if you can't forgive.

The idea of that message makes me crazy.

I can easily think of countless scenarios where forgiveness would be amazingly hard to achieve, if not completely impossible. I don't need to spell these scenarios out; you, too, can think of a bunch of non-forgivable offenses.   Yet, a bunch of yahoos are out there, arrogantly and insensitively tossing around the word forgive, like giant pompous oversimplified judgmental asses.

I can't imagine telling someone who has experienced something terrible that they should work on forgiving the perpetrator.  "Hi, I know you feel bad and are struggling and your life has potentially been turned upside down and changed forever but I'm here in a glory of arrogance to add to that and make you feel even worse by telling you that you instantly need to get over all of the things you are feeling and dealing with so that you can forgive because if you can't do that you are a faulty, weak human."  So much for compassion. 

There is a supreme insensitivity in dismissing the pain someone might be feeling.

It can take a long time - if not forever - to heal from something/someone bad. Ask anyone suffering from PTSD, for example. The onus for the bad thing belongs squarely on the shoulders of the transgressor, not the victim*.  Where are those messages?  Where are the memes and Facebook posts about asking for forgiveness?

To be clear, I am in no way saying that forgiveness is a bad thing.  On the contrary, if it's within reach, I think it's magnificent in the truest sense of that word.  Almost breathtakingly so. But the message to forgive has become so overused and maybe even perverted...that the grandeur of the genuine act of forgiving has been lost.

Someone once pontificated told me I should forgive another person.  They said that they had chosen to forgive every single person who had wronged them in their entire life and now their life was better because of it.  Fast forward a year or two later and that same person has since stopped talking to me, cut off all contact, for some unknown mysterious thing I guess I did to them that they never once tried to discuss with me. Neither myself or anyone else can figure out what I possibly could have done that was so heinous because all the while I was just over here minding my own business.  Nonetheless, I was - poof! - eradicated, discarded, tossed out like yesterday's trash. And apparently...unforgivable.

So which is it?  Forgive all the time?  Some of the time?  I could be wrong - it wouldn't be the first time, for sure - but I suspect that real forgiveness doesn't work that way.  If you're forgiving some people and telling people they should forgive, then that's across the board and not a pick and choose thing, no?  Or is it that forgiveness sounds good in theory (and on Facebook) but in practice?  Well, maybe not so much.  Forgiveness is in and of itself is a moral virtue.  But is telling people you've forgiven others just a new form of virtue signaling?

If you haven't forgiven those who've trespassed against you, I understand.
Don't feel bad if you just can't. Right now.  Or maybe even not ever.
It's okay.
There's that human thing.
Please know - really know - that you are not weak or flawed.
Focus on what you need, work toward that, and take care of yourself as best you can in the meantime.
That's really the best thing you can do. 
When you get to the place where you can put the other (bad) stuff on a shelf, you can get busy focusing on not bad stuff. 
Maybe that's what actual forgiveness is.  Putting stuff on a shelf so that you can just get on with it.

Forgiveness can be sweet and healing; that’s no lie. But please, before counseling forgiveness, take heed of the power and diversity of injuries as well as the nature of the person or group you are counseling. If we counsel forgiveness as a general practice, we turn a blind eye to so many—a blind eye that may put salt on wounds or add a layer of shame for those whom forgiveness is not the next step. - David Bedrick J.D., Dipl. PW

It is in my nature to question things, especially when they're simplified generalizations.
As such, I keep the links to these articles handy so that I can pull them out whenever someone or something pulls out the forgiveness clichè.  I encourage you to bookmark them and share or read them whenever necessary:

Why I Don't Use The Word Forgiveness In Trauma Therapy
Why You Don't "Need" Or "Have To" Forgive Anyone If You Don't Want Or Feel Ready To
6 Reasons Not To Forgive, Not Yet



*I strongly dislike the word (and mentality) victim, and rarely use it, but in this case it's appropriate.