While all of these things have helped me on journey, none of them worked on their own.  So what does work? 

You can't just decide to forgive someone based upon someone else telling you that you should.  There is no timetable on how long it takes a person to heal from another person's action's.  That being said, be careful how long you choose to stay angry with someone.  Granted, most of the time we aren't making conscious choices on this, I know that all too well.  But if you feel that the person who hurt you has been out of your life for long enough (we're talking hurt by abuse here, not other forms of pain), and you've put some distance from them (and been actively exploring your pain along with ways to heal), then maybe you'd want to consider going the forgiving route.  

If not, then no worries.  Sometimes we need to hold onto pain order to heal from it.  So please do not feel that forgiving is needed in order to be whole.  You are whole.  You always have been, you always will be.  Suffering is a part of life at times, it helps us grow and can change us in wonderful ways (even though the pain of suffering isn't wonderful at all).  Suffering doesn't break us.  It doesn't diminish us.  It makes us smarter, stronger, and better.  Even if you're choosing to medicate yourself to ease your suffering, you're still whole.  I wish the world would stop calling people "broken".  Making mistakes, like self medicating, doesn't break us either.  We are healable, always.  Sometimes healing is harder for some of us, but it's always doable.  Addictions (which is rampant in adults who've been abused as children) are healable when we truly explore our pain (in a safe place, with a safe person--like a therapist or a very trusted person) and break open those spots in us that are so scabbed over that we feel we can't access them.  But we can.  And when we do, forgiveness can end up being the result.  

Not just forgiveness of the person who hurt us, but forgiveness of ourselves.  Even though we did nothing wrong to cause another to abuse us (and no matter what we've done, we do NOT deserve abuse), we still feel responsible for causing our parents to hate us enough to hurt us the way they did. 

Even if forgiveness of our abusers is not always the outcome of these breakthroughs, we should always explore the idea of self-hatred (which so many of us suffer from) and learn to forgive ourselves.  

Forgiveness never says "What they did was okay".  We know it wasn't okay.  There is never an excuse for abuse.  If someone hurts us and they say they're sorry, we usually are trained to say "That's okay, don't worry about it", especially if that person guilts us into feeling sorry for them.  Stop saying that phrase right now.  If someone hurt you, never say "that's okay".  Because it's not okay.  

Instead say "Thank you for apologizing."  You can then add "That means a lot to me", if you like.   And add "I accept your apology" if you do accept it.  But never say it's okay for them to hurt you.  Take charge of your own life and don't let others hurt you, otherwise they will always think they can.  And start by cutting that sentence out of your vocabulary.  

The same goes for giving yourself distance from your abuser and then forgiving them after they are out of your life.  Never think to yourself "It's okay for them do what they did, they couldn't help it".  Do not make excuses for them.  You need to fully accept they did what they did, and it will always be a part of your life, but choosing to understand them as human flawed beings is the not same thing as saying what they did was okay.

Now, I know if my father could have done better, he would have.  But that doesn't make it okay what he did.  I do not make excuses for his mistakes.  I understand why he made them, but I don't say "Well, he couldn't help it".  Because he could have helped it.  He chose not to.  And I have come to terms with that, and accepted it.  

Addicts (drugs, alcohol, rage, hurting others, etc.) will choose their addictions over their children too many times to count.  My father was an addict with some horrible pain he wasn't accessing that was hidden deep down inside of him.  He chose to ignore his pain and to drink it away and beat his family instead of being a good father, husband, or person.  I acknowledge this about him.  But I made a personal choice to break free of his abuse and walk away from it (because his abuse was still hurting me 12 years later after he died).   I chose me, because he wouldn't.  I did for me what he couldn't.   I became my own parent, because I never had a proper one.  

Forgiveness is for me, not them (whoever "they" are).  Carrying around hate, anger, sadness, etc. isn't good for me.  I've recently been diagnosed with CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome) and when I let people take up so much of my brainspace because I can't understand their negative actions towards me, it causes me anxiety, depression, mind fog, constant tiredness, nightmares, migraines, and a wee bit of insanity.  

I am not mentally healthy when I am actively fighting my past.  

Nobody is.  So for my own physical and mental health, I am choosing to actively forgive my past.  Not for them, for me.  I just can't live that way anymore.  The constant nightmares are bad enough, but then we add all the extra crap on top of it, and I end up miserable on a daily basis.  I am worth  more than that.  The people that hurt me aren't worth giving space in my head and soul to worry about.  At least not forever.  

So forgiveness is a gift I am giving myself.  I do not forgive someone who has abused me so they feel better.  I do it so I feel better.  

In high school, I had a best friend whom I loved as family.  She was my everything.  I doted on her and did everything for her.  We were BFF's for many years, and we never had one fight.  Then one day, when I was 20,  I found out I was pregnant.  She then immediately told everyone my boyfriend was not the father of my child.  

And I mean everyone.  The rumor even got to my boyfriend's mother!

I was appalled.  People were calling me on the phone, people I hadn't talked to in years, telling me "You better reel in your friend Fozzie, because she called me to tell me that Borkenstein isn't the father of your baby!  I haven't talked to Fozzie in years, so I am confused as to why she's calling me and telling me this!"  Fozzie was also pregnant at the time.  I was horribly confused by why the closest friend I'd ever had was doing this to me.  What had I done to deserve this?

She had everyone believing I was sleeping around and even made me feel like a whore, even though I hadn't done the things she said!  I mean, there had to be a real reason for all of this, right?  

I confronted her, she lied and said it was our other old friend who did this.  I knew it wasn't, as our other old friend hadn't spoken to us in years (she was the one who called me to tell me Fozzie called her).  So I stopped talking to her completely. 

Little by little, for years after that, I found out things she was doing behind my back.  She told my boyfriend when we met to "go sit by her, she's a slut, she'll doing anything with you".  She also told my boyfriend's friends that I had AIDS.  She was also sleeping with all our guy friends, something I never knew about (nor did I care about, but she always projected her feelings onto me by telling people I was a whore).  She tried to date one of my boyfriends behind my back.  She'd force me to drive her everywhere and only used me for my car.  

So it ended up, she wasn't actually my BFF, nor was she even my friend.  I was her tool, her playmate she could control, her slave.  I worshipped the ground she walked on and when she blatantly did this to me, I was lost, confused, and horribly depressed.  

Fast forward to a couple years ago, I ran into her again and she treated me like shit so much that my son said "Holy shit, she's a fucking bitch, isn't she?"  I was sad that I, once again, ran up to her to chat, as though I somehow mattered to her.  I felt horrible all over again (I was 40, and hadn't seen her since I was 20).  

I went home and told my husband about it.  Being that he and I both know about NPD so well, it was obvious to him what was going on.  "Honey, she has narcissistic personality disorder.  Didn't you think of that before?"  

DING DING DING!  Oh.  My.  God.  How did I never think of that?  All of a sudden, everything made sense.  Her "secret" 3rd child everyone was talking about that she hid from everyone at age 39.  Her HORRIBLE and relentless teasing of her cousin Scooter behind her back (and everyone else--except me, right?  Ha!  No, I just didn't know about it---just know if someone is talking about everyone else with you, they are always talking about you--lesson learned).  Her strange attachment to those who were meaner than she was.  Her "love-bombing" of me every single time she came back in my life.  All of sudden, everything made sense.  

Fozzie is/was a narcissist.

And in that instant, I forgave her.  I forgave her of all of it.  I held onto that pain for so many years (try 20).  And the instant I realized she had NPD, none of it mattered anymore.  I wasn't the problem. I hadn't done anything to deserve her wrath.  It was never me *deep sigh*.  It was her.  It was always her.  And there was absolutely no rhyme or reason for her behavior to me.  It was narcissism.  And there was no reason for me to hold onto that anymore.  I could be done with it.  And I was and still am.  

It was one of the best feelings I ever had, being able to take all that bullshit she had put me through, and just let it all go!  She's like a sick child.  And who could be angry at a sick child for acting out?  You just ignore it, shake your head, and giggle at how silly they are.  

Now, wouldn't it be nice if every single instance was that easy?  Again, like my father, I had put a huge amount of distance between us (20 years) and while it still bugged me, I wasn't living in the thick of it anymore.  Any lingering leftover consequences due to her lies were long since gone.  When my kids were little, the idea that my ex may not have been the father of my children were taken out on them and on me by him and his family.  Now my kids were grown and hardly saw their dad or had much to do with his family.  So there wasn't anything to still be bothered about.  

Had I still been dealing with her actions?  Forgiveness would have not been so easy.  

With Fozzie, I was dealing with my own pain of "What did I do to deserve her behavior?"  When I found out it was nothing I did, it was easy to let go.  I forgive her because I see NPD as a disease that causes people to act like morons and there is nothing anyone can do about it.  So why stay angry? 

Whereas with my mother, I am trying to take the same idea that "Her narcissism on her, not me, so leave all this pain to be with her, and not me."  But it's not as easy.  I am still hurting from her words and actions.  And I know this because when I tried to write her a goodbye letter (we are moving out of state, and I wanted to write an unsent letter to her), all my anger came right back and flooded itself throughout the letter.  I knew then that I wasn't ready to forgive her yet.  

At first, I was so very disappointed in myself.  I wanted to rise above all this shit.  I wanted to leave it behind in the state I was born and raised in.  I wanted to say goodbye and leave it all here.  But, as it turns out, life isn't that simple.  And neither is healing. 

You can't rush what you're just not mentally ready to do yet. 

But that doesn't mean I should give up, either.  It doesn't mean I need to ignore it and think it will get better by itself.  Because it won't.  

When you think you've completely healed and then find out later that it's not true?  This is a sign that you need to dive into your feelings and issues and explore what's going on that's still bothering you.  Even if your goal isn't forgiveness, exploring your feelings through journaling, unsent letters, poetry/music/art/etc., or therapy is worth doing so you can get to the bottom of your anger.  

And remember: 

Forgiveness is only the act of letting go of your pain, that's it, nothing more.  

Forgiving my father has allowed me to remember the good times with him.  It has allowed me to let him back into my heart as the man he should have been, not the man he was (a little of the man he was, too, as he wasn't always abusive, only when he was drunk).  All the good times were blocked by my anger, so I couldn't see them, nor did I want to.  Which is where I am at with my mother right now.  I try to remember the good times with her, and my mind immediately goes to "They were all fake, so what does it matter?"  And I don't know if that will ever change.  My mother has NPD, my father didn't.  So there is a difference between the two.  I just hope one day I can get to that place with her.  I hope I can see her like I did Fozzie, as a sick child who is acting out.  I hope I can giggle at her behavior one day, instead of being hurt.  I don't quite know if I could giggle at her, but maybe I will be able to just roll my eyes instead? 

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I am reading a book that reminded me that there are two wolves fighting in your heart at all times: one that is angry, and one that is happy.  The one that will win is the one that you feed.  

Grieve, my friends.  Grieve your lost childhoods and lack of love you should have gotten from those that were supposed to love and protect you.  You are justified in your anger and sadness.  You have a right to it.  No matter how long it takes.  But when that wolf becomes full, and you feel it's time to move on, then consider letting it all go.  This doesn't demean what you've been through, nor does it dissolve it.  You will still carry all of it in your heart.  But you can transform it.  Only when you're ready, though.  And you'll know when you're ready.  Something you read will click with you.  Something someone says will spark a feeling.  Something will feel right, instead of wrong.  You will know when you're ready.  And until you are, work with your feelings.  Figure things out.  Explore who you are.  Get away from your abusers if you can.  Put some distance and time between you.  It's hard to actively heal while you're still experiencing it.  But when you're ready to break that chain that binds you to them, then do so without reservation.  Because like the video above says, it's an act of self love.  And it can change your life 😊

I will be writing more posts about forgiveness as time goes on, so stay tuned if you want to learn more about how to walk this path for yourself.  

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Sidenote:

There are instances when forgiveness is never okay, and with what we've all been through growing up, I thought I should include this here.  Sometimes our parents bastardize the word "forgiveness" which ends up making us see forgiveness as something negative. 

I have an old friend who forgave her father for molesting her daughters and her sister's daughters (and her and her sister) because the bible tells her you have to forgive.  And now she lets her father around her children, because of this biblical belief.  

When you forgive someone who will hurt your children and you put them in harm's way because of this forgiveness, then that is NOT okay in any way, shape, or form.  In my opinion, that's a narcissistic thing to do, to ignore your children's welfare so you can "get right with Jesus" or whatever else selfish reason there is.  Rather than coming from a healthy mental place, it's coming from a self-serving and inappropriate place.  

That's not true forgiveness.  That's egotistical nonsense.  Because you cannot forgive someone for someone else.  The only person who can forgive someone is the person who was hurt.  Period!  

I just hate when people use a word for their own selfish reasons and bastardize it for their own purpose.  Forgiving is beautiful.  Whatever this is?  Is ugly and gross.  So please don't let an experience like this in your own life color your idea of what forgiveness really is.  Because this is not it.