Summary

The article discusses the importance of forgiveness in healing from emotional abuse and manipulation by family members, emphasizing personal growth and setting boundaries.

Abstract

The author reflects on the prevalence of articles discussing emotional abuse by parents, often labeled with terms like narcissism and gaslighting. It is noted that while these experiences can significantly impact a person's life, it is crucial to recognize that parents may also be victims of their own upbringing. The article advocates for compassion and forgiveness towards parents, suggesting that holding onto anger hinders personal healing and the ability to be a good parent. It emphasizes the need for setting boundaries to prevent further hurt and the importance of cognitive behavioral therapy in this process. The author also touches on the idea of cutting emotional cords and filling the resulting void with positive practices, such as spirituality, to move forward.

Opinions

The author believes that labeling caregivers with terms like narcissism and gaslighting, while accurate, may not facilitate healing or improve parent-child relationships.
There is an opinion that parents who have not forgiven their own caregivers may struggle to be good parents themselves.
The article suggests that therapy should focus on clarity and healing rather than assigning blame or fostering more anger towards parents.
The author expresses that forgiveness is a crucial step in moving beyond past hurts and that it is more beneficial for personal growth than seeking justice or retribution.
The author endorses the use of guided meditations and spiritual practices as tools for emotional release and healing.
It is implied that continuous dwelling on past grievances and excessive reliance on therapy can become an unproductive cycle, and that proactive steps must be taken to fill the emotional void with positive experiences.

Emotional Abuse, Gaslighting, Manipulation, I Don’t Want to Call My Family These Names

We Must Heal Our Wounds with Forgiveness

There are so many emotional articles on Medium that shared personal experiences about their parents’ poor parenting skills. The emotions are heightened with clever words and a sense of unfairness and anger arise among the readers because it’s relatable. A lot of claps are won.

They used many professional words like narcissism, gaslighting, victimisation, emotional abuse, etc. to label the caregivers. What we learn is that many children are screwed until adulthood, and constantly underperform or fail because of how harsh the emotional environment they grew up in.

What we must appreciate, with compassion rather than anger, is that the fact that we now identify all these mental traps created by our parents are perhaps not too different from the traps and wounds their parents have created on them. A person who hasn’t forgiven their own caregivers and themselves perhaps will never manage to be a good parent.

We can’t be responsible for our parents’ own healing process, of course. But to make their lives tougher with more accusations and little love and compassion shall not make their lives any easier, and equally harmful to ourselves.

Boundaries for forgiveness

We are taught by the cognitive behavioural therapists to set up and be consistent with boundaries so that our intrusive parents learn not to overstep the line and hurt us over and over again.

I am currently learning to do that, and this morning, I nervously wrote a letter to my mother to explain the concept of boundaries, including why she shouldn’t call me in the middle of the night to tell me off suddenly anymore.

Another boundary we must draw, which I think the therapists have every intention to introduce but not always explicitly discussed, is to draw a line between us and our past. If we are trying to re-program our brains to love ourselves a bit better, or to have a more positive and stable self-esteem, we can’t do it with anger about the past.

I know somebody who can identify what her mum has done but can’t seem to let it go. She keeps saying things like, oh I am like this because my mum was like that. That is not going to do anything good to her future, she remains absorbed by what her mum has done.

What now?

The question is always ‘what now’. We spend all the time with the therapist to know about our wounds, then the question is what should we do now.

The immediate answer should always be: so we forgive now.

At any given crisis we tend to point our fingers at others and call ourselves the victim. Our parents do it, our lovers do it, we do it. Who really is to take the blame?

That is a pointless question, because there’s no need to put blame on people. What therapy should do is to help us to find clarity on our situation and what’s happening to our brain, sometimes it points to the direction of our parents, but the aim should never be to get more angry at them, but to be able to let them go.

Let their faults go, we are not a judge. So what if justice is granted? I don’t want my mother to kneel on the floor, cry and regret for what she has done and beg for my forgiveness. I want to forgive her now! For my own sake!

Fill your hole

There are many guided meditations online about cutting emotional cord, it’s a graphical visualisation of cutting the tie between two people. I have done a couple of those, if it helps for you to forgive and let go, I recommend looking it up on Youtube.

We have to cut that cord of vengeance, as I mentioned in this article, we need to be clear about our parents’ intention, no matter how poor their execution is. If their intention was never to harm us, but perhaps they are too screwed up or unconscious, we must practise forgiveness.

Spending a lifetime and a lot of money with the therapist to figure out what has gone wrong is addictive, because who doesn’t like keep talking about themselves! But the more people sympathise with us, the harder it is for us to get back out there.

Many years ago when I tried to heal from my bulimia, I realised one golden rule. An addiction (to anything) is a means to fill up a hole within yourself, so to remove an addiction, we will be left with the same or even bigger hole. We have to fill that hole with something positive.

At the time I chose to fill it up with God’s grace. I replaced my “bad friends” with church friends, I replaced Saturday night drinking with church fellowship, I replaced cigarettes with prayers. I’m not here to preach, but you can see how spiritual practices can fill a hole.

Focusing on the past won’t fill that hole, forgiveness does. A new life, new friendships, new hobbies, does.