Forgiveness is a very dangerous topic for people who have been abused as children by narcissists. I maintain my non forgiveness out of self-respect and also as a protection to not getting further abused as an adult. Narcisstic parents may not be able to physically or sexually abuse you anymore, but they sure as hell can emotionally and psychologically abuse you. Sounds to me like the studies done on this topic do not take into account serious transgressions in a meaningful way but are more applicable to everyday run of the mill transgressions with normal people. Not malignant narcissists.
Exactly. I'm not sure if you watched through to the last section of the video, but I discuss abusive relationships there. It seems to me, abuse is the exception to the forgiveness rule.
Thanks again Chess for this video. I forgave my parents many time for their behaviour not directly to them but to myself. I hoped they would change. That was my part in it, hoping forgiveness would somehow change their behaviour. It never did. But I changed, hence the estrangement from them now. ❤
What you say at 8.12 minutes was true in my case. I have emotionally forgiven my abusive x because I understood my part in that catastrophe, my low expectations of how I deserved to be treated combined with my inability to connect deeply with a partner on an authentic level that lead me to end up with him. In fact, I had the slight advantage over him I think in that I understood on one level that we weren't ''real''. What made me play that part!? Willingly!? He hasn't grown at all in 17 years, he continues to hate me for having left him. I have forgiven him completely. But I only managed that when I could see that I had repaired the damage he had done to my life. I now have a secure home, job, savings, pension et cetera. HOWEVER, I'M STRUGGLING WITH MY PARENTS. They were the ones who raised me to never advocate for myself. My mother raised me to understand that identifying my own needs in any situation was ''abusive''. Or even my own subjective experience of her is abusive to her. I'm trying to forgive my mother in particular (my father is just so weak). What you say at 15.00 strikes a cord because I guess I worry that forgiving her / them will lower my sense of my self and my self-respect which I've only constructed fairly recently. That's the obstacle to my forgiving them. Because they don't acknowledge they did anything wrong, an inability to forgive is a SHIELD to more of the same. If I lower the shield of this inability, will I be erased?
You raise such a great point here. When we are escaping from abuse, we need time to heal and I believe that forgiveness can obstruct that process if it's too early on. It is so important to look after yourself first and foremost- keep up that work on yourself because that is keeping you safe. Forgiveness, I think, comes later down the line and only if it will benefit us. Some of us (I include myself here too) need to keep a part back that remembers the harm done so we don't return to old patterns. That may be a bit of 'unforgiveness', but it's there to protect you, and that's a good thing. As for being erased? I don't think that's possible. I am thinking of doing a video on this kind of topic, but in short I truly believe that our need to connect to ourselves is so strong it's unavoidable. And it is a one-way street. Once we know a true part of ourselves, we can't disconnect from it. Narc parents stop us from connecting early on in life, but it slowly happens anyway. If we disconnect from them and work on ourselves then there is no stopping it. So, no, you can't lose yourself. I rarely promise, but I fundamentally believe that 100%. Take care.
I think this is in one of Chess' videos: 'it's not what [parents, abuser(s)] did in the past that prevents me from moving on and having [parents, abuser] in my life... it's their invalidation, minimizing, their not allowing space for my feelings about those things in the *present day*. That's the dealbreaker. Though, and not to speak for Chess or anyone else especially if I've misstated it, in light of Chess' video today I do think that when serious harm has occurred, *never* going back is 1000% reasonable and sometimes necessary.
ps, and although understanding my part in what went wrong helped me forgive my abusive x, I did go back to him once (after leaving the first time) because he had trained me to believe I owed it to him to see the best in him and that it was ''abusive'' of me to notice the bad. So he could do what he liked but if I had any visible reaction to that I was a bad person. So I can totally understand how forgiving perpetrators of domestic abuse needs to be done YEARS later, not at the time.
Take it from someone who learned this lesson the hard way: No remorse, no forgiveness, no exceptions. Forgiveness without remorse may appeal to your moral conscience, and surely to the moral conscience of your interlocutors (as in your prior video on forgiveness), but it will eat your self-respect. And truthfully, I am not even sure remorse is enough for the most heinous crimes.
Yeah.. forgiveness can serve to bypass our pain, to minimise it, to reorient us back to the person that hurt/abused/betrayed our trust. Maybe forgiveness just isn’t so relevant when you’ve been abused. I mean objectively I think everything is forgivable in the sense that human beings are fallible, complicated creatures who massively and quite frequently f-up. But focusing on forgiveness of the other person doesn’t really address the harm caused to me. If that makes sense. That’s how I’ve come to see it. Maybe forgiveness ‘happens’ naturally when we’ve reached a certain level of healing and recovery.
..finding compassion for my parents and their wounded parts has been helpful in processing and understanding how they behaved towards me. But forgiveness has a different ‘tone’ and suggests ‘moving on’ or back to some sort of previous ‘norm’.. which could simply mean ‘more abuse’ if the other person hasn’t radically changed. Which isn’t very likely if nothing else has happened to/with them to cause a change.
If there were 3 thumbs up I could click to say how much I appreciate this video I would want 6! And, couldn't help but think of the Princess Bride: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." I.e. when I hear this word out in the wild, it seems to mean, 'please stop rocking the boat and return to the status quo,' 'please stop holding people accountable,' etc. And it has never - not once - come from someone who took time to try to understand what happened to me personally. Rather, it's used more like a Pez dispenser. So, thank you Chess for this terrific video! It's a fascinating topic for me, too, and I'm delighted to learn of this research, as well as hear your insights. And thank you for re-recording it, that would have been frustrating for me. Lastly, kudos on the... sheep? Lol lamb for the slaughter? ...gazing out at the vast field of possibilities when it comes to forgiveness. Had to smile at that graphic.
Thank you! I'm so glad you liked it and found it useful. What a great quote from the Princess Bride- a classic comeback actually, I want to remember that for a future tricky conversation! Hope you're doing well and thanks again for the 6 thumbs up!!!! :)
This video is very impressive. I struggled with the concept and your summary makes a lot of sense to me. I have mellowed over time. Now I understand it, it's the adaptive nature of the thing. It costs more energy to stay resentful. But it also shouldn't keep us from being cautious. Chances are they are still the same person.
In my experience it doesn't help to place a demand on yourself to 'forgive' someone. It works better to think in terms of 'let go' or 'accept' not 'forgive'. What i found in my own experience was 1) i reached a place where i felt my head would explode if i didn't let it go 2) letting it go - going over it in my head on and on and on - created more peace than i had known for years. Sometime afterwards 'forgiveness' seems to have arisen naturally without decision on my part. Looking back on what it was like before i had to let go i am now deeply suspicious about the pictures we all build up in our heads. There is a role for rigourous analysis but after a certain point it becomes part of the problem.
Great perspective- thank you for sharing! The more I think about the word forgiveness, the less I like it. I really like the acceptance you describe. To me, it's freeing and isn't loaded with societal expectations around what next.
The word 'forgive' is heavily loaded with Christian overtones which don't help. It's like you've got to be saintly and give 'forgiveness' to the other person like it's a gift. Then you get brownie points in heaven for it. My experience has been it's more like a switch that had to be triggered in me or I was going to self destruct. So 'letting go' or 'acceptance" are better words - something like giving myself permission to stop fighting a losing battle.
My idea of forgiveness is that 1. It is much harder to forgive my narcissistic mother since she does not take any responsibility on herself, therefore she doesn't feel like she needs to ask for forgiveness 2. I can and do forgive her without letting her back in the place where she will be able to keep abusing me.
Most people talk about forgiving transgressions that have taken place in the past. Something that was done to another at one time, something that occurred but didn’t persist into an ongoing persistent pattern. My question is how does one forgive offenses that are not acknowledged as such my the offender and the offenses are ongoing, persistent and relentless. It reminds me of the faulty belief in some Christian Circles that believe if they have committed a sin they must return to the alter over and over again and lest the die before that next alter call they are doomed. Just being able to process the pain and suffering of egregious offenses it can take a very long time to reach a place of forgiveness AFTER the offense has taken place, but when it comes to ongoing, persistent offenses that are never acknowledged as such the only way one can ever reach a place of forgiveness I would imagine is to complete extract oneself from the abusive pattern and to never return which if this involves your one and only adult child it’s likened to a tragic death that is also ongoing and persistent because they are still alive so this death can never fully be grieved where there is definitive closure but rather a daily struggle of feeling ongoing rejection and punishment. Yet you can maybe reach a place of forgiveness because the direct offenses are no longer occurring, just the indirect offenses of being denied access, being ignored indefinitely and discarded for good. My biggest issue is I think I must’ve done something to deserve this hence an inability to forgive myself and this where I can end up in a very dark and scary place where looking over a ledge becomes appealing yet traumatic.
I think you've raised a really important point, that forgiveness is not useful and can even be harmful if the abuse is ongoing. If or when someone continues to harm you, first and foremost, get away. Once that has happened, time has passed and you are starting to heal, forgiveness can be a tool to help you move on. But I agree it should never be used as a way to continue hurting another person. Sadly, sometimes it is. Please take care of yourself, and remember that you did nothing to deserve feeling scared or unsafe. That's always them- not ever you.
Blame and forgiveness don't come hand in hand, "imo". Forgiveness is all about grace and grace goes in the opposite direction as blame. Blame is all about lack of grace.
It seems like you might be saying one cannot forgive without attributing some of the blame onto oneself, but I think in relationships we forgive all the time without taking any blame. We give grace to the other person. I feel like I forgive my abusive parents and give them grace for being very emotionally immature, while still holding then accountable for what they did by not reconciling and reconnecting the relationship. But it seems to me like you wouldn't define that as forgiveness. Am I misunderstanding?
Great comment! And I think in a lot of ways you are picking up on a really valid point. The research shows that if (and only if) we have a part of the responsibility around a rift with another person, then acknowledging our piece of that can help with forgiveness. Another part of forgiveness, which I think you are referring to is similar but different. Empathising and being compassionate. When we give grace, or think about it from their perspective, that helps forgiveness too. Perhaps it didn't come through as strongly in the video, but it's there, and thank you for highlighting it.
![MV วิถีชีวิตใต้ - ผา อัยย๊ะ [Official MV HD]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nODlkOUu9B0/mqdefault.jpg)
Forgiveness is a very dangerous topic for people who have been abused as children by narcissists.
I maintain my non forgiveness out of self-respect and also as a protection to not getting further abused as an adult. Narcisstic parents may not be able to physically or sexually abuse you anymore, but they sure as hell can emotionally and psychologically abuse you. Sounds to me like the studies done on this topic do not take into account serious transgressions in a meaningful way but are more applicable to everyday run of the mill transgressions with normal people. Not malignant narcissists.
Exactly. I'm not sure if you watched through to the last section of the video, but I discuss abusive relationships there. It seems to me, abuse is the exception to the forgiveness rule.
Thanks again Chess for this video. I forgave my parents many time for their behaviour not directly to them but to myself. I hoped they would change. That was my part in it, hoping forgiveness would somehow change their behaviour. It never did. But I changed, hence the estrangement from them now. ❤
What you say at 8.12 minutes was true in my case. I have emotionally forgiven my abusive x because I understood my part in that catastrophe, my low expectations of how I deserved to be treated combined with my inability to connect deeply with a partner on an authentic level that lead me to end up with him. In fact, I had the slight advantage over him I think in that I understood on one level that we weren't ''real''. What made me play that part!? Willingly!? He hasn't grown at all in 17 years, he continues to hate me for having left him. I have forgiven him completely. But I only managed that when I could see that I had repaired the damage he had done to my life. I now have a secure home, job, savings, pension et cetera.
HOWEVER, I'M STRUGGLING WITH MY PARENTS. They were the ones who raised me to never advocate for myself. My mother raised me to understand that identifying my own needs in any situation was ''abusive''. Or even my own subjective experience of her is abusive to her. I'm trying to forgive my mother in particular (my father is just so weak). What you say at 15.00 strikes a cord because I guess I worry that forgiving her / them will lower my sense of my self and my self-respect which I've only constructed fairly recently. That's the obstacle to my forgiving them. Because they don't acknowledge they did anything wrong, an inability to forgive is a SHIELD to more of the same. If I lower the shield of this inability, will I be erased?
No, you will not be erased. The only way that can be erased is by a story that was never written.
You raise such a great point here. When we are escaping from abuse, we need time to heal and I believe that forgiveness can obstruct that process if it's too early on. It is so important to look after yourself first and foremost- keep up that work on yourself because that is keeping you safe. Forgiveness, I think, comes later down the line and only if it will benefit us.
Some of us (I include myself here too) need to keep a part back that remembers the harm done so we don't return to old patterns. That may be a bit of 'unforgiveness', but it's there to protect you, and that's a good thing.
As for being erased? I don't think that's possible. I am thinking of doing a video on this kind of topic, but in short I truly believe that our need to connect to ourselves is so strong it's unavoidable. And it is a one-way street. Once we know a true part of ourselves, we can't disconnect from it. Narc parents stop us from connecting early on in life, but it slowly happens anyway. If we disconnect from them and work on ourselves then there is no stopping it. So, no, you can't lose yourself. I rarely promise, but I fundamentally believe that 100%.
Take care.
@@thescapegoatclub I look forward to that video.
@@thescapegoatclub thank you. You are right. I won't be erased. Worst case scenario, I will sit with some discomfort. 🌹 ☘️
I think this is in one of Chess' videos: 'it's not what [parents, abuser(s)] did in the past that prevents me from moving on and having [parents, abuser] in my life... it's their invalidation, minimizing, their not allowing space for my feelings about those things in the *present day*. That's the dealbreaker. Though, and not to speak for Chess or anyone else especially if I've misstated it, in light of Chess' video today I do think that when serious harm has occurred, *never* going back is 1000% reasonable and sometimes necessary.
There is no forgiveness for what was deliberately, ruthlessly done to me and my life as sick, evil "sport." None. No forgiveness for the unforgivable.
Keeping yourself safe is the most important thing- absolutely! I hope you're doing ok now.
ps, and although understanding my part in what went wrong helped me forgive my abusive x, I did go back to him once (after leaving the first time) because he had trained me to believe I owed it to him to see the best in him and that it was ''abusive'' of me to notice the bad. So he could do what he liked but if I had any visible reaction to that I was a bad person. So I can totally understand how forgiving perpetrators of domestic abuse needs to be done YEARS later, not at the time.
What you resist, persists. If they don't let you not forgive them, the lack of forgiveness stays there.
Take it from someone who learned this lesson the hard way: No remorse, no forgiveness, no exceptions. Forgiveness without remorse may appeal to your moral conscience, and surely to the moral conscience of your interlocutors (as in your prior video on forgiveness), but it will eat your self-respect. And truthfully, I am not even sure remorse is enough for the most heinous crimes.
Thanks for sharing! Very valid point around the worst offences. Non-forgiveness can be protection.
Yeah.. forgiveness can serve to bypass our pain, to minimise it, to reorient us back to the person that hurt/abused/betrayed our trust. Maybe forgiveness just isn’t so relevant when you’ve been abused. I mean objectively I think everything is forgivable in the sense that human beings are fallible, complicated creatures who massively and quite frequently f-up. But focusing on forgiveness of the other person doesn’t really address the harm caused to me. If that makes sense. That’s how I’ve come to see it. Maybe forgiveness ‘happens’ naturally when we’ve reached a certain level of healing and recovery.
..finding compassion for my parents and their wounded parts has been helpful in processing and understanding how they behaved towards me. But forgiveness has a different ‘tone’ and suggests ‘moving on’ or back to some sort of previous ‘norm’.. which could simply mean ‘more abuse’ if the other person hasn’t radically changed. Which isn’t very likely if nothing else has happened to/with them to cause a change.
If there were 3 thumbs up I could click to say how much I appreciate this video I would want 6!
And, couldn't help but think of the Princess Bride: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." I.e. when I hear this word out in the wild, it seems to mean, 'please stop rocking the boat and return to the status quo,' 'please stop holding people accountable,' etc. And it has never - not once - come from someone who took time to try to understand what happened to me personally. Rather, it's used more like a Pez dispenser.
So, thank you Chess for this terrific video! It's a fascinating topic for me, too, and I'm delighted to learn of this research, as well as hear your insights. And thank you for re-recording it, that would have been frustrating for me. Lastly, kudos on the... sheep? Lol lamb for the slaughter? ...gazing out at the vast field of possibilities when it comes to forgiveness. Had to smile at that graphic.
Thank you! I'm so glad you liked it and found it useful. What a great quote from the Princess Bride- a classic comeback actually, I want to remember that for a future tricky conversation!
Hope you're doing well and thanks again for the 6 thumbs up!!!! :)
This video is very impressive. I struggled with the concept and your summary makes a lot of sense to me. I have mellowed over time. Now I understand it, it's the adaptive nature of the thing. It costs more energy to stay resentful. But it also shouldn't keep us from being cautious. Chances are they are still the same person.
Go glad you found the video helpful. Thank you for your comment, and for watching! Wishing you the best with whatever brings you here.
In my experience it doesn't help to place a demand on yourself to 'forgive' someone. It works better to think in terms of 'let go' or 'accept' not 'forgive'. What i found in my own experience was 1) i reached a place where i felt my head would explode if i didn't let it go 2) letting it go - going over it in my head on and on and on - created more peace than i had known for years. Sometime afterwards 'forgiveness' seems to have arisen naturally without decision on my part. Looking back on what it was like before i had to let go i am now deeply suspicious about the pictures we all build up in our heads. There is a role for rigourous analysis but after a certain point it becomes part of the problem.
Great perspective- thank you for sharing! The more I think about the word forgiveness, the less I like it. I really like the acceptance you describe. To me, it's freeing and isn't loaded with societal expectations around what next.
The word 'forgive' is heavily loaded with Christian overtones which don't help. It's like you've got to be saintly and give 'forgiveness' to the other person like it's a gift. Then you get brownie points in heaven for it. My experience has been it's more like a switch that had to be triggered in me or I was going to self destruct. So 'letting go' or 'acceptance" are better words - something like giving myself permission to stop fighting a losing battle.
I'dd say you can distill it into "acceptance" and "change".
My idea of forgiveness is that 1. It is much harder to forgive my narcissistic mother since she does not take any responsibility on herself, therefore she doesn't feel like she needs to ask for forgiveness 2. I can and do forgive her without letting her back in the place where she will be able to keep abusing me.
I love this! Spot on. Thank you for sharing your thoughts 😊
Most people talk about forgiving transgressions that have taken place in the past. Something that was done to another at one time, something that occurred but didn’t persist into an ongoing persistent pattern. My question is how does one forgive offenses that are not acknowledged as such my the offender and the offenses are ongoing, persistent and relentless. It reminds me of the faulty belief in some Christian Circles that believe if they have committed a sin they must return to the alter over and over again and lest the die before that next alter call they are doomed. Just being able to process the pain and suffering of egregious offenses it can take a very long time to reach a place of forgiveness AFTER the offense has taken place, but when it comes to ongoing, persistent offenses that are never acknowledged as such the only way one can ever reach a place of forgiveness I would imagine is to complete extract oneself from the abusive pattern and to never return which if this involves your one and only adult child it’s likened to a tragic death that is also ongoing and persistent because they are still alive so this death can never fully be grieved where there is definitive closure but rather a daily struggle of feeling ongoing rejection and punishment. Yet you can maybe reach a place of forgiveness because the direct offenses are no longer occurring, just the indirect offenses of being denied access, being ignored indefinitely and discarded for good. My biggest issue is I think I must’ve done something to deserve this hence an inability to forgive myself and this where I can end up in a very dark and scary place where looking over a ledge becomes appealing yet traumatic.
I think you've raised a really important point, that forgiveness is not useful and can even be harmful if the abuse is ongoing. If or when someone continues to harm you, first and foremost, get away. Once that has happened, time has passed and you are starting to heal, forgiveness can be a tool to help you move on. But I agree it should never be used as a way to continue hurting another person. Sadly, sometimes it is.
Please take care of yourself, and remember that you did nothing to deserve feeling scared or unsafe. That's always them- not ever you.
Blame and forgiveness don't come hand in hand, "imo".
Forgiveness is all about grace and grace goes in the opposite direction as blame. Blame is all about lack of grace.
I love this! Yes!
It seems like you might be saying one cannot forgive without attributing some of the blame onto oneself, but I think in relationships we forgive all the time without taking any blame. We give grace to the other person. I feel like I forgive my abusive parents and give them grace for being very emotionally immature, while still holding then accountable for what they did by not reconciling and reconnecting the relationship. But it seems to me like you wouldn't define that as forgiveness. Am I misunderstanding?
Great comment! And I think in a lot of ways you are picking up on a really valid point. The research shows that if (and only if) we have a part of the responsibility around a rift with another person, then acknowledging our piece of that can help with forgiveness. Another part of forgiveness, which I think you are referring to is similar but different. Empathising and being compassionate. When we give grace, or think about it from their perspective, that helps forgiveness too. Perhaps it didn't come through as strongly in the video, but it's there, and thank you for highlighting it.