I have a hard time forgiving the person who hurt me
I can’t forgive the person who hurt me. But maybe if I did, it wouldn’t hurt so much.
I’ve been very unfortunate when it comes to accidents. You could say I’ve had my fair share and then some. It’s not fair to say that only one person inflicted this damage, yet there’s one particular event caused by a single individual that really catapulted me into this permanent state of pain. It’s been something I haven’t been able to let go of for more than seven years. I figured that it’s about time I learned to let go.
Seven and a half years ago, I attended a huge street party. It was all the rage in the city come the beginning of summer, and I was smitten by the ravenous and youthful atmosphere as well. It might have been the crack of dawn when I finally decided to head home, exhausted but filled to the brim with happy memories. My friends and I rounded up for a quick and sweaty goodbye, and that’s when I was suddenly hit by a massive force on my right, my neck cracking loudly as it rolled to the left, the sensation the same had it been a twig that snapped. I felt like I had been run over by a truck. I was dizzy, nauseous — and not from the alcohol I’d consumed.
What happened was that an acquaintance of mine bounced into me, shoulder first, in what might have looked like a pretty cool wrestling move had it not been for the fact that I wasn’t in on it. At all. This guy was maybe twice my size. A weightlifting, crossfitting dude who had more muscles than anyone I knew. And apparently an urge to use them. I somehow managed to get home safely, but the next day, my neck felt like it was in splinters. My head was… I can’t even begin to explain how that felt.
I was diagnosed with whiplash syndrome and chronic migraines. In the years after, the pain worsened quite a lot. To me, it felt like all of that happened because of that one jump from a person I barely knew. As time’s flown by, I realize it’s an unfair assumption. Both for me and my pain and that guy who did it. I’ve made this memory into the root of my problem instead of facing what the real struggle is; getting better and getting to know myself as a disabled person (ugh, I’m wincing just writing that word).
Candidly, there’s a great reason for me giving that person the sole responsibility for my downfall. The reason why I’ve had a hard time forgiving him is the laissez-faire attitude with which he responded to my trauma. He had done it on purpose, he explained, because he didn’t like me. And he thought my body must be weak if I couldn’t take such a tiny push. Maybe I had been in the wrong place, had I thought of that? It made me extremely anxious that I would meet him again and be confronted with my trauma. I ended up avoiding an entire circle of friends because of that because I was afraid they would take his side. I became more isolated. If there’s a twinge of bitterness in my account of the story, it’s because it took a huge emotional toll on me. It changed my life and I’m still resentful for that, I’m sad to say. But bear with me — there is some good to come out of it too.
Finally, after more than seven years, I’ve begun to work on how I deal with pain. I’ve started many types of treatment, most of them to no avail, and more importantly, I’ve started working on my psyche. And that’s when I started thinking about this incident and how my own perceptions of that situation might be pushed in a more positive direction if I were to forgive that one guy. That one person I put on a negative piedestal so long ago.
Confronting your fears is never easy, but the moment they stop holding such power over you, you will be released from their grip. Ultimately, it’s more about forgiving yourself for becoming another person entirely — a less able-bodied person — than actually forgiving the instigator. I think I’ve learned now that if I want to forgive myself for not being who I was before the accident, I have to forgive the person that inflicted it upon me.
With this piece of writing, I promise I will let go. My pain is not someone else’s fault, nor is it mine. And that’s the lesson here: that I will work on exactly that and get better at accepting what I cannot change; me — and my pain.
