Flippant Thoughts on Forgiveness / Pain, Part 4

I recently applied for a writing joh. When they asked for a writing sample, I realized all my writing exists at an intensity level of roughly +487,000,000.

Here at the blog, it's all pain and suffering, all the time.

So, instead of titling this "Pain, Part 4," I'm calling it "Flippant Thoughts on Forgiveness." Let's dive headfirst into the shallow end, shall we?

Moo... Photo by bertknot

Forgiveness is hard, particularly when you can barely identify the source of the pain, particularly when you can't even bring yourself to write the words, "I'm hurt" or much, much worse, "I'm still hurt."

That's not how it's supposed to work, is it? I'm not supposed to still be hurt. Forgive and forget. Deal with it and move on. Positive mantra about moving confidently into the future. Hoorah.

This is the pain that never ends, it just goes on and on my friend...

I've found, unfortunately, that ignoring unresolved pain is a lot like ignoring all that C-4 you have buried in the backyard (analogy credit to labullets). It will explode in your face. You will wonder what happened. And then you'll be like, "Oh yeah, remember that time I buried all that C-4 in the backyard? Guess it wasn't as stable as I thought."

My buried pain usually turns into anger.

But why? Why am I so angry?

I'm standing outside the dorms on the second floor landing, watching his light blue pickup pull away from the office, and suddenly, I'm filled with uncontrollable rage. I kick at everything in sight, including a bright orange safety cone. Writing this, I still wonder if it is my fault. If I am a bomb waiting to explode.

I've written before about a traumatic experience that left with me with the kind of pain that doesn't get better. About how I blamed myself for hurting the person who had hurt me.

I actually apologized to him years later for using him as an emotional punching bag. At the time, it felt good to realize and acknowledge what I had done, to have a ready-made slot that I could comfortably slide the experience into, neat and snug.

I can see now how I reframed the experience, making him the victim, myself the perpetrator. I had blamed him unfairly for causing my pain. I projected my pain onto him. I hated him instead of hating my dad. I was angry at him without justification. I refused to forgive him—worse, I didn't want to.

I could label it, "That time I took all my worst inclinations out on an innocent person because I'm broken" and move on.

Telling the Truth

Except, that wasn't exactly the truth. But it made me feel better. I didn't have to alter any of my pre-existing ideas, particularly the one where there was something deeply and indelibly wrong with me.

I mean, what was the alternative? I needed someone or something to blame, and the only person available was me. Because the alternative was too dark to consider:

That what he had done to me was wrong.

That what he had done to me was wrong, though well-intentioned.

That what he had done to me was akin to spiritual, emotional "rape." 

That what he had done to me perpetuated for years the very shame that he sought to heal. 

And in the aftermath, I was left alone, emotionally shattered and unable to breathe.

This is what makes me feel a little sick to my stomach, now that years have passed. It's one thing to drag out someone's deepest shame by force—it's another to blame them for feeling wounded and angry after the fact.

You Need Witnesses

There's that famous passage in Matthew 18 about confronting someone who has sinned. About going back, again and again, trying to reason with the person, trying to get them to see your point of view.

This passage is often used to shame Christians who don't follow this exact procedure in every and any conflict with another believer, such as Christians who complain about Mark Driscoll on the internet, as if the correct thing to do were to show up on his doorstep tomorrow with a Bible and a stack of good intentions. 

But considering it now, I wonder about the part where you bring a friend or two with you as witness.

Because what if the other person refuses to see your point of view or denies that anything happened? ("No! I did not steal your oxen. These are my oxen. I've owned them for years, years I tell you!").

If this happens, you need other people who will stand with you in your truth, who will bear witness to your grievance: 

Yes, you were abused.

Yes, what happened was wrong. 

Yes, that is Buttercup and she is your cow.

Yes, I believe you. 

Yes, you are not imagining things. You are not crazy. 

You can't forgive someone for something that never happened—

I can't forgive him or anyone else if I don't acknowledge and accept the truth of what happened. And I need someone else to bear witness to that truth, someone else who can drown out the accusing voices that tell me that I'm crazy, I'm imagining things, I'm too sensitive, I'm making it all up to get attention, a unicorn gored me and I'm filing a formal complaint.

I've become convinced that forgiveness cannot happen without truth. Healing cannot happen without truth. You don't need the person who hurt you to say, "I was wrong. Please forgive me" but you do need someone in your life to say, "Yeah, I totally get it."

This happened for me last year. And in that moment, I could finally breathe.

What About Grace?

These three words have stuck with me.

I had just set clear-cut boundaries in a relationship. Someone I had been close to hurt me--intentionally or not, I have no idea. I set boundaries in order to protect myself, not punish him. And he responded with anger:

"What about grace?"

I remember how much he seemed to hate me, even as he uttered these words.

What I was doing was the opposite of grace: Not-Grace--condemnation, judgment, bitterness, unforgiveness (a sin for Christians).

By setting boundaries in a relationship, I was refusing to extend "grace." How often is grace invoked when a public Christian figure has an affair, sexually abuses children, uses shame and ostracism to control church members. How often is grace invoked by Christians in an--as far as I can tell--ungracious tone of voice.

Here, let me lecture you about what grace is, right before I bash you over the head with it, you sinner.

Grace as artillery. Forgiveness as a weapon.

What is grace, anyway?

I picture something beautiful. Something quiet, yet unrelenting.

In that moment, I didn't feel grace. I felt anger, hatred, and blame--if he hated me, if he abused me, it was my fault for not being graceful, or full of grace.

In this lopsided arrangement, grace is always for the perpetrator, never for the victim. It shames you for not being more forgiving. It reminds you that you too are an imperfect person in need of grace. It urges you to forgive, well before you are ready. It puts the burden on you to restore the perpetrator to wholeness.

So, what about grace?

Reflecting from a distance, Grace was setting boundaries. Grace was asking for help when those boundaries were violated. Grace was having the courage and the freedom to leave. Grace was feeling safe again. Grace was and is refusing to blame myself for the actions of another person.

Grace is not intimidation or threats. Grace is not a tool of manipulation or coercion. Grace is not an angry, 6'4'' man cursing at you, getting in your face, and demanding that you forgive him.

I crave the grace of small, tiny moments when I am allowed to grieve. When it is okay to be not okay. Where my reactions are not judged or rejected.

Grace. What about it.

Undateable: Why Single Christian Guys are All Dented Cans: Entitlement

I went back to the beginning recently, and read about the misogynist, the coward, the racist, and the guy who won't take "No" for an answer.

And I found it striking. Partially because a few things have happened:

1. I stopped going to church.
2. I'm not sure I want to date Christian guys anymore.
3. I encountered more than one man who is a husband, father and believer in Jesus Christ, and also spouts Red Pill Reddit language and rhetoric.

This last one, if I'm honest, leaves me feeling heartbroken and confused--I feel betrayed, somehow.

And that sort of leads me to today's topic, entitlement.

"Entitlement" feels like a hot button word that gets thrown around a lot, particularly in articles about Millenials and the job market. But what does "entitlement" mean in the context that I am writing about?

I turned to Google to find out what exactly people feel entitled to. The results were predictable and a bit dull--the short version is that people feel entitled to government benefits, such as:

Entitlement to medicare
Entitlement to social security
Entitlement to paternity leave
Entitlement to bank holidays

And the puzzling:

Entitlement to kill a mockingbird

My two favorite things to be entitled to:

Entitlement to wear kilt
Entitlement to tea breaks

Photo by George Redgrave

Sam Heughan in "Outlander" on Starz

Yes. One thousand and one times yes.

[Why has no one made a calendar of attractive, possibly shirtless men in kilts drinking tea? I would buy the hell out of that calendar.]

So here's my unofficial definition of entitlement:

Entitlement is an unwritten, unquestioned and often unconscious law held to be inviolable and true, so that when the law is broken, the entitled person is justifiably angry, hurt, and vengeance-seeking.

[And its converse: Entitlement is an unwritten, unquestioned and often unconscious law held to be inviolable and true, so that when the law is upheld or enforced, the "victim" of the entitled person cannot justifiably be angry, hurt, or vengeance-seeking.]

I feel like entitlement, taking the posture and role of the victim, and not taking "No" for an answer are all tangled up together.

You learn the unspoken rules of a relationship, sometimes when it is in the process of ending, often after it has already ended. In one of my relationships, the unspoken rule was: You are not allowed to leave.

Entitlement is the unspoken law that leads to violence.

You see, I don't think anger, or the pain at the heart of anger, causes violence. There's another step there, another component--

The man doesn't kick the dog because the boss yelled at him. The man kicks the dog because he believes he has the right.

Let me give a simple, everyday example:

The law: A woman must always graciously and without rancor accept a compliment from a man. [Especially if he is a stranger]

It's funny, really. It's violence wrapped up in "You're beautiful." And what's even funnier is that the violation of this law is already presumed, the compliment followed immediately with, "I can give you a compliment" or "That's a compliment you know," before the woman even has time to react--the hatred trailing so closely on the heels of love.

And it's not just strangers.

I've thought a lot about the disparate rage that men have directed at me--from the first emotionally abusive relationship I had in my early 20s, to more recent experiences. I think about a story that a friend once told me.

He was a friend of the family. And he had a crush on her, despite an age difference of some 20 years (she was in college, he was in his 40s or 50s). He was giving her a ride, but she had brought a friend along--probably for safety.

And for whatever reason, he was angry with her. Angry because she brought a friend. Angry because this wasn't going according to plan. Angry because she didn't reciprocate his feelings. Angry.

And he threw acorns at her.

In the scene I imagine, there is nothing playful about it. He is looking down, not making eye contact. Scuffing his shoes against the dirt. Casually picking up an acorn. Half-heartedly throwing it. The petulant anger of a 10 year-old in the body of a middle-aged man.

There's another guy that I know. And he's one of the good ones. But I was recently struck anew by the memory of something he once said about my writing. I was struck by how passive-aggressive it was, this single comment. Rage, buried deep.

I laughed it off, initially. "He's just intimidated," I thought.

It's always just some guy. Throwing acorns.

I have no desire to date an acorn-thrower. But if even the good guys are like that--I don't know. It breaks something open inside of me.

I wonder if entitlement is at the heart of misogyny--these unspoken laws:

"You don't respect me": You must respect me
"You don't give a s*** about my intentions": You must give me the benefit of the doubt at all times, and forever.

It's not anger. Because anger doesn't cause abuse. It's not pain. Because there are many, many men (and women) who experience intense, searing, heart-rending pain and yet fail to abuse anyone.

It's not that they rage--it's that they feel justified in their cruelty.

I'm trying to avoid dating abusive guys.

Going to Therapy Changed My Life

Not my notes, but a pretty cool idea. Photo by Sacha Chua 

I first sought help for my brain because my body was killing me.

I had been experiencing severe pain and discomfort that seemed to have no tangible physical explanation. A few WebMD searches later, and I was either headed to an early grave or doomed to spend the rest of my life with a debilitating, painful disease.

The fear was overwhelming.

I signed up for therapy, online (Thank you, technology).

I had been thinking about going for years, but it was pain and fear that pushed me over the edge.

Going to therapy changed my life, and all I could think was, "Why didn't I do this sooner?"

Therapy is not a panacea: a cure for every kind of physical, emotional, spiritual or mental pain. But it has been a powerful, healing force.

So in case you've been thinking about going, or you went once and never went back, or you used to go, but stopped--

My intent is to address some of the barriers that kept me from taking the first step. Maybe you can relate.

I didn't go to therapy because...

1. No one in my family ever went to therapy, talked about going, or mentioned it as an option.

There are certain kinds of pain that are not okay to talk about. It could be physical pain--to be transparent, part of what propelled me into therapy was the way in which my family both did and did not respond to my physical (and by extension, emotional) pain.

It might be helpful to ask:

What kinds of pain are okay? Not okay?
How am I allowed to talk about pain?
What does empathy look like in my family?
Is there a distrust around being vulnerable? Is there an escape from it, such as humor, sarcasm, distraction, ridicule, ignoring, anger, silence?
How does my family treat vulnerability in general?

2. I had never experienced a major, identifiable trauma that would justify going.

There's a social stigma to seeking therapy: that something deep and terrible must be wrong with you. Well, I definitely felt like there was something wrong with me, but I had nothing to point to, to say, "This! This is why I feel broken."

There's a false sense of shame that tends to go with trauma, even vague, unidentifiable trauma. There's a false sense of shame around needing help. But shame doesn't mean there is something wrong with you--and neither does going to therapy.

If your buddy sprained his ankle, would you ridicule him for going to the doctor instead of playing full court basketball?

"C'mon! What's wrong with you! Why can't you keep up?"

Just like you wouldn't feel shame over going to the hospital for an infected wound or broken bone, seeking therapy merely means that you are human, and that it's possible that things could get better, could be better.

3. I had a traumatic experience with pastoral counseling.

Just as there is a social stigma to therapy, there can also be a spiritual stigma--the belief that God, the church, your pastor, small group, the Bible, and ten hours of prayer per day should be able to cure all that ails you emotionally and psychologically.

There's the belief that simply grasping the truth of "God loves you" and maybe a few cathartic crying sessions at the altar will bring healing to even the deepest, most ingrained sense of shame.

I really wish that were true.

I'm not completely discounting pastoral counseling or any of the spiritual practices listed above. But I have also experienced firsthand how damaging it can be to receive non-professional counseling that both goes too far and doesn't go far enough.

I believe the intent of my pastor was not to harm me, but to help me. However, emotionally it was akin to performing surgery without proper training, exposing a deep wound to the air and the elements, and then expecting my heart to heal itself.

It didn't.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with seeking professional help outside of the church. There is nothing wrong with going to a non-Christian therapist, even if you are a Christian.

There is nothing wrong with being hurt because someone dug around in your emotional guts with a penknife and had absolutely no clue what they were doing.

I wish at the time that instead of shutting down because I was "broken" (and if not even God or my pastor or my spiritual community could help me, who could?), that I had sought out a professional therapist.

4. I thought I couldn't afford to pay for therapy.

This was a huge barrier for me.

Therapy is expensive. I had no health insurance. However, I was also unaware that there are many low-cost and affordable options for seeing a therapist.

I eventually found a non-profit organization in Los Angeles that provides sliding scale membership and counseling services. If it weren't for the availability of low-cost counseling, I don't think I would have ever gone.

Again, therapy is not a panacea. Not all therapists are created equal. It really helps to find the right fit.

If you are thinking about going to therapy, I hope that you take the leap. The barriers are real, but you are definitely, definitely worth it.



[If you would like information on low cost therapy options in the Los Angeles area, please contact me.]

Pain, Part 2

I wasn't quite telling the whole story in my last post about pain, entitled fittingly "Pain" (with a title like that, shockingly not one of my most popular posts). 

I wrote that the wound was infected and that was why I was still in capital "P" PAIN, pain that wouldn't go away, that didn't fade with time, that lingered in excruciating fashion.

I think there's some truth to that, but the larger truth is that I am still in a context and a situation that is not safe--that does not feel safe--in which I am constantly on alert.

I am still in the mix. And so I am still in the source of the pain.

I am afraid that what happened before will happen again--an instinctual, animal fear. I do not claim that my fear is logical, or rational, or necessary, that there is any way for me to know that it could happen again.

The fear just is. Much like the pain. 

So there it is. I'm not in a safe place--haven't been for months.

And speaking of safety, in particular emotional safety, it's something you only realize you had once you've lost it. I was safe; now I am not. The very definition of safety is that you are not thinking, "I am safe, I am safe, I am safe, I am safe, I am safe..." You are not thinking about it at all.

What I didn't expect after that initial "NO!" to what was not safe but rather violating, soul-battering, wounding--and this "No" felt good and right and true--was having to say "No" over and over again.

"I am safe, I am safe, I am safe, I am safe..."

"No" to having my boundaries violated and trampled. "No" to attempts at emotional manipulation. "No" to the endless cycle of brokenness and hurt. And "No" most of all to shame.

There is the thought at the back of mind that because I didn't leave immediately (for rational, adult reasons) I only brought upon myself everything that followed--that I brought all this pain on myself, basically. If only I had just left. 

Shame is such a huge temptation for me. And maybe that's why the fear has been so persistent. You would think that after all this time, I wouldn't be afraid that he would hurt me, again. But I am. 

You would think that after all this time, I would feel secure and safe. But I don't. 

Some part of me is extremely sorry that I am just that weak. That I can't overcome this fear of being emotionally brutalized by someone that I once trusted. That I'm walking around wounded and for the life of me don't have the means to protect myself or feel safe again.

But then maybe that's just the sane thing to do--move to safety as soon as possible. You're hurt, you're bleeding--get off the battlefield, remove yourself from the line of fire.

It's possible that it is impossible to heal while you are still flinching at every sudden noise and movement, when you are too much in fight or flight to even think about recovery. It's possible that fleeing to safety will mean that the wound can finally heal. 

And I'm extremely lucky to be able to do that. I have the means to leave. To get out. And I know that that is a privilege. 

No one deserves this, I remind myself. Not even me. 

Pain

[See a companion post from my friend on this same topic here.]

Last week I was in what you might call "serious emotional distress."

And I was watching a cheesy sci-fi drama called Believe (my apologies if you love this show). The Asian female character had been shot to raise the emotional stakes of the show while not actually harming any primary players, and was running a dangerous fever (they performed emergency kitchen-table surgery on her, but she couldn't go to the hospital because she was a fugitive-on-the-run and would go to prison for life, etc.).

So the leader of the supernatural gang kidnaps a doctor and brings him to her bedside. 

"She's not getting better because the wound is infected," says the kidnapped doctor. 

And at that moment, a lightbulb went off for me. 

Because I was in pain. And the pain wasn't getting any better. 

I was wounded. And the wound refused to heal. 

It refused to heal because it was infected. 

And furthermore, this was the wound. Suffering or hurting alone, in isolation, was the wound. I was in it. I am in it. This particular wound is multi-layered and deep, cutting all the way down to the bone. 

I'm no expert on medicine, emotional pain, or cheesy sci-fi dramas, but in my experience, emotional pain, while intense at first, usually gets better over time. It just doesn't hurt as much as it did when it happened. I cry. I feel better. I talk to a friend. More crying. Maybe some blogging thrown in for good measure. And the pain fades. 

This isn't about that kind of pain. This is about the kind of pain that just doesn't seem to get better. A foreign object enters the wound and the wound gets infected. 

Half the time I feel this force, this pain, stuck in my throat, choking me so that it's hard to breathe. 

How does an emotional wound become infected? 

Shame

Roughly 10 years ago I had an experience that left me hurting for what seemed like forever. I was "betrayed" by someone I trusted and the experience left me struggling to heal from wounds that went deeper in my history than I cared to remember or re-live. 

Even now it's difficult for me to articulate what happened, because on the surface it seems like no big deal. But it left me reeling emotionally, and at the time I didn't have the internal or external resources to deal with it. 

So I didn't. Deal with it. Time went on (as it does), and gradually I felt better, okay. Except I wasn't really okay. Somewhere along the way I decided that the way I felt was my fault and that I had used this pain to hurt other people (by not forgiving them, continuing to be hurt and angry, etc.).

I was wrong and I decided that I would never allow this to happen again. I would never again be so hurt that I hurt other people. 

Of course this meant shutting down vulnerability and keeping other people at a safe distance. 

It wasn't until recently when one of my facebook friends posted a quote by Brené Brown that I realized the connection in my mind between vulnerability and being terribly, gut-wrenchingly wounded. The greater the vulnerability, the greater the wound. The more intimate the relationship, the harder it is to recover.

It was a quote about the benefits of being vulnerable, and my mind went, "But what's missing is that the minute you open yourself up in vulnerability, you also open yourself up to be deeply hurt." 

Shame says, "Something is wrong with me. I hurt other people. I must stop myself from hurting other people." (See also, Frozen)

And so the wound doesn't really heal so much as get covered up with protective scar tissue. And getting wounded in the same place hurts like a $##@$%$%.

Isolation

Shame and isolation are closely connected. I felt shame over feeling shame (fun!). I couldn't kick the shame, the anger, or the hurt no matter how much I prayed, cried, journaled or tried to truly forgive.

The moment some of this shame started to lift I was actually crying to my dad about what had happened. And he said, "You can't make someone feel bad for feeling bad! You can't shame someone for feeling shame!"

And I was less alone. 

Shame says, "Don't let your pain and your grief touch other people. Protect them. Suffer alone."

Forgiveness

What was so frustrating about this entire ordeal was how much I tried--really tried--to do the right thing, namely forgive and move on. 

I read all the right verses about forgiveness. I prayed. I had the "I forgive you" conversation. I did everything "right." 

Because that's what Christians do. They forgive. 

But I now think that one of the worst things you can do is to forgive prematurely. 

Forgiveness is so often touted as the gateway to freedom and healing--forgive and be healed. But so often forgiveness functions as a kind of denial: 

You deny the depth of the hurt.

You deny the extent of the damage.

You deny the past hurts that make this present one hurt so bad.

You deny the process of healing that needs to take place before you can truly forgive.

Denial

I am a slow processor. It takes me an eternity to figure out what I am feeling and why. It's an agonizing process and most of the time I just feel like, "Wait. I'm crying again??" as one more layer of the wound rises into consciousness. 

Why didn't anyone tell me that practicing self-compassion makes you feel even worse? That acknowledging the truth of the wound is excruciating. That letting yourself get angry is scary and confusing. That setting boundaries doesn't mean that other people won't violate them, and in fact can serve as a trigger. That you can feel like &*$# and still not know why. That sometimes you ask for empathy and realize the other person is incapable of giving it. That being vulnerable and brave doesn't mean you won't have to do it again tomorrow and the day after that. That I still don't know how to make the pain go away. That I wonder all the time whether I'm crazy and this is just all in my head--that I'm being too sensitive or a drama queen. That asking for help doesn't mean you'll get what you really want or that you even know what you want or would be capable of articulating it if you knew what it was. That sharing your pain can make you feel even more alone and isolated. 

I wish I could say it's easier this time around, but I actually think it hurts a lot worse. 

As my friend mentioned, sometimes you find yourself telling the same story over and over and over again. It's because you haven't completely figured it out. You haven't gotten relief. The wound hasn't healed. 

Keep telling that story. Go deeper, if you have to. Find safe people who will listen. Don't stop.