you hurt my body , but you wont hurt my soul .

This is santacruz again. Did you read my message to you? I responded down below your message the first time.

Hi Wonderfully,
I can certainly relate to what you're feeling. One of the first things that I learned when I first started learning about sexual abuse, which I very STRONGLY encourage all sexual abuse to do because it will help you a great deal in understanding and figuring out how to heal from it....but, I digress. One of the first things I learned is that sexual abuse survivors are recovering from being victims, more specifically, a victim mentality. A vicitm mentality consistently feels others "owe" him or her something and remains fixiated in the past. Back then, I didn't have a full understanding of what that meant. Now I know that having a victim mentality (and this is not a judgement because we have ALL said these things) is thinking or saying things like: "he pissed me off," "she made me mad," "you ruined my life," he owes me an apology." Which brings me to your question about forgiveness. Forgiveness is not expecting an apology or telling someone they're off the hook. It's letting go of the hope that the past could have been different, because in reality, we can't change the past. We can only change our present. So, how do you forgive? To forgive, you must open yourself to learning and accepting a new definition of forgiveness. Then you must practice patience because it won't come overnight. Also, you must be willing to forgive yourself. Many sexual abuse survivors are subconsciously angry at themselves for a variety of reasons: because they feel they "let it happen," or for not telling anyone, or for not being able to move past the sexual abuse as an adult. It personally took me about 8 or 9 years to forgive after I got on the road to healing. I can say, to forgive, you must first work on your own recovery, because forgiveness will come naturally when you have truly reached a much healthier view of yourself. To get to that point, you must be willing to do what you have been most reluctant to do. For some sexual abuse survivors, that means regularly attending an in-person support group, going to therapy, public speaking or trying one of the many wholistic methods of healing.

wonderfully wrote: For so long I've lived with this secret, and it hurt to keep it covered but i had to. It scared me more than anything to talk about it to anyone. I often wondered and still wonder why me? It stopped happening six years ago but it still affects me today. It hurts to know someone you love would betray and violate you and walk around as if nothing happened. But it's time for me to forgive. but how do/can i ?

My abuser stole something from me that i am trying hard to get back- self esteem and the right to control who touches me. I don't believe in forgiving someone who rapes you and makes you wish you were never born. the wounds are too deep for such a thing as forgiveness. if i forgive them, i become weak all over again.

Hi,
I definitely understand where you are coming from and one thing I want to encourage you to do is read the definition of forgiveness I give in the previous post on this string. The definition I give survivors has nothing to do with the perpetrator or even letting the perpetrator off the hook. It focuses on improving yourself. When you open the door to improving yourself (aka forgiveness), you eventually get back your self esteem. All this takes patience, and an OBSESSION (yes, obsession) to never give up on your healing which requires pushing yourself to use different recovery tools consistently. I appreciate your honesty and courage to share. Keep reading some of the other posts and you may find a new recovery tool for yourself. There are many options.

Sylvia
Administrator

pretty girl wrote:My abuser stole something from me that i am trying hard to get back- self esteem and the right to control who touches me. I don't believe in forgiving someone who rapes you and makes you wish you were never born. the wounds are too deep for such a thing as forgiveness. if i forgive them, i become weak all over again.