http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2012/03/exposed-to-light.html
But no matter how tough, sharp-wit, take-no-stuff person you believe yourself to be...........
No matter how tough, sharp-wit, take-no-stuff person you want your public image to be .......
you WILL end up in situations where you are either 1) to caught off guard or 2) in such a severe power imbalance, that you won't have a response to someone who is hurting you physically, emotionally, whatever!
You got people preaching forgiveness when forgiveness isn't deserved! You got people preaching nonsense like "let it go" as if they don't care how much it hurts.
Well, I wrote about it in the blog post "Pick a side, Mediate or Get out of the way".
http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2012/03/either-pick-side-mediate-or-get-out-of.html
That "preacher of forgiveness" gave me UNSOLICITED ADVICE when I wrote that "Exposed to the Light". I did NOT write that blog post to get a response, I just wrote it because YOU CAN ONLY HOLD IT IN FOR SO LONG!
He wants me to surrender to my enemies.
He doesn't want me to stand up to the troublemakers.
He thinks it's healthy to hold it in forever!
He thinks you shouldn't hold others accountable for hurting you!
He thinks you should just be a doormat when others hurt you!
He just preaches this "let it go" manure!
All that does is make me more angry!
Forgiveness is fine, but it has to be earned!
You don't just give out forgiveness for free!
Forgiveness is earned by a VERY LONG-TERM RECORD of CONSISTENTLY improved behavior!
However, to those forgiveness preachers that believe "forgiveness should be given out for free or for cheap" YOU ARE PUTTING PEOPLE IN DANGER!
You wonder why people are reluctant to leave abusive relationships? You wonder why kids hang out with "friends" who bully them? You wonder why people are reluctant to quit jobs in which they have abusive bosses/co-workers? You wonder why people still put up with emotionally abusive parents decades after they are able to provide for themselves!
It's because they heard forgiveness preachers all their lives!
It's hard to turn that message off in your head after so many years of hearing it!
Now, this is just one of many examples of a person who "forgave" her abusive husband for too long!
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/08/08/i-can-handle-it-on-relationship-violence-independence-and-capability/
(skipped paragraphs)
In early 2001, a group of friends who had introduced me to my then-boyfriend sat me down at a kitchen table. “We’re worried about you,” one said. “Has he hit you?” The answer, at the time, was no.
Ten months later, I stumble into the emergency room, blood dripping from my nose onto my ripped pajama top, barefoot in the November chill. The receptionist says words to me that make no sense. The only words that make sense are the ones that spill out of my mouth over and over again, the only words that will let the receptionist and the nurses and my friends and my parents know that this isn’t what it looks like, that I’m not one of those women, those women in abusive relationships, those women who can’t help themselves enough to get out: I went to college, I went to college, I went to college.
I called in sick to work a lot, or would drag myself in after sleepless nights spent in various states of frenzy that, thankfully, I cannot now recall. I forgot the most basic of things: why I’d walked into the grocery store, how much my rent was, my own phone number. It was depression, sure, but I’d been depressed before, and this was different. This was a fog of having no idea who I was, where I’d gone, or if I might return. This was a fog of having my life completely rearranged to center upon the eye of the storm—an eye that seemed to be the only point of clarity, however distorted it was. This, as it turns out, may have been biological: Abuse, even without resultant PTSD (which I didn’t have), can change brain structures; couple abuse with PTSD and you’ve got increased cortisol levels and other hormone fluctuations.
Which is to say: I was in many ways incapable of helping myself—which, even years later, pains me to say. But there it is: The fog of abuse ensured that my emotions, instincts, and principles were muted; every ounce of energy I had went into my relationship and keeping up the general appearance of sanity. Had you somehow been able to land my healthy, normal status-quo self smack-dab into the worst of my relationship, I’d have gotten out immediately. That’s not how abuse works, of course. Abuse is gradual; abuse is systemic. Abuse changes you; abuse reduces you. Abuse took the me out of me.
I needed the people around me to be more alert than I was capable of being. I needed them to not rely on my cues; I needed them to not take me at my word; I needed them to not treat me as though I were functioning at my best, fullest, most autonomous self. There’s a sentiment within the abuse-prevention community—and the feminist community—that we must respect victims’ autonomy, and it’s a necessary point when coupled with a solid understanding of abuse. But without that fuller understanding, respecting autonomy can too easily lapse into a hands-off approach. Which, when you’re concerned for someone who is in the fog of abuse, can lapse into the realm of danger.
And the comments in response to that blog mentioned the same things. They were from other people who were in abusive relationships, people who thought "it could never happened to me" but it did happen to them, and people who basically FORGIVED their abusers after all the verbal AND physical abuse FOR YEARS, then they finally figured out they forgive too easily and that "forgiveness" MADE THE PROBLEM WORSE!
Sometimes the problems end up with a spouse getting severely injured or EVEN KILLED!
All that happened because people kept demanding unearned forgiveness instead of standing up to the abuser!
While this type of thing has been written about in many articles about domestic abuse, these things are also common in the workplace, among groups of friends, and in other phases of life! People are expected to forgive those who didn't earn their forgiveness! The attitude is "dont make waves, suck it up"
Dating columnist Shelley McMurty said it best in one of her daily e-mail - "Forgiveness can drive you BatS--- Bonkers!"
And just like money Forgiveness is supposed to be earned!
---
Yeah, I know, I'm not perfect either. I have said things that hurt others feelings. But I dont demand forgiveness from those I have hurt! I dont expect them to forgive me!
I just lead by example, behave in a better way consistently for long periods of time!
That's the only way to earn forgiveness!
