The Role of Self-Forgiveness in Recovery
From the moment we’re born there are few certainties in life. A certainty that I’ve given a lot of thought to lately is the universality of hurt. When we’re given the gift of life it comes with the guarantee that at some point we will get hurt, and also hurt somebody else. Try as we might to live a life where we bring harm to no one in our orbit, eventually, we’re bound to make a mistake and hurt them. I believe that this risk is amplified greatly for those suffering from mental illness.
What I’m curious about is what happens once the mistake is made. Whether it’s a word said in anger, or the committal of a rash action, what are we then to do? More than that how do we forgive ourselves for mistakes that we made in the past? I’ve seen this both in myself and in a multitude of others around me, and it’s a failure to forgive oneself that can leave an individual trapped in a vicious battle with their own mental health.
In the early days of this year, I made a mistake. I hurt someone I really cared about. It wasn’t a huge thing, and it wasn’t intentional on any level but the truth is they said something that hurt me and I said something equally hurtful back. It was done. Since that time I’ve struggled to let go, and I find that while I can make peace with most of the situation I can’t seem to accept that I made a mistake and forgive myself for it.
Guilt is a funny thing. It’s vital to our human experience because it’s what informs our own moral code. It can also destroy us. It can infect us and run through our veins and make us doubt every thought and action from the beginning of our lives to the projected end.
So when we make this dreaded mistake and are stuck with the guilt, in effect we’re reliving the mistake every minute of every day. When I’m in this state and I feel guilt for something I should have long forgiven myself for there is a physical change in my body. My heart rate increases and I can hear each heartbeat in my ear, my breath quickens, and when in severe duress my brain feels like it’s on fire.
From my time grappling with self-forgiveness, and witnessing others fight this battle I’ve seen a few different ways of going about it, and I thought it would be worth exploring them.
Faith
The idea of faith and the belief in something beyond just what we experience every day is incredibly powerful. Furthermore, it’s something I see people use as an effective means to forgive themselves. For better or for worse, faith allows us to rationalize our mistakes and potentially find a degree of peace in the process. We can believe in a higher power or in destiny to say that we were “meant” to hurt someone else and that it was unavoidable. We hurt someone and learned something from it and now we’re free to be better in the future. No matter what we did we could never prevent our mistake and so now we must focus on the future and pledge to never make the same mistake twice.
While the power of faith is there, it is undoubtable that it won’t work for everyone. For starters, not everyone believes in a higher power. More than that events where we make a mistake are actually viable to make us question a higher power if we believe in it in the first place. “If there was a god why would they let me do this?” is a phrase I’ve heard a few different variants of over the years and it’s one I’ve never been able to answer.
Where possible I still encourage people to have some faith. It doesn’t always have to relate to submitting to a higher power but a part of it is submitting to forces beyond your control. The only definitive thing I know is that there will always be forces beyond our control. These forces will be other people, world events, and sometimes even the very chemicals in your brain. It’s here that I will gently remind you that while your mental illness doesn’t isn’t an excuse, you have to give yourself some leeway. Self-compassion is much easier said than done, but faith that you’re trying to navigate this world and it’s challenges the best you can makes it just a bit easier to be kind to yourself.
Moral Rationalization
This is a difficult one that I’ve seen more times than I can count. It’s where the perpetrator of a mistake feels so guilty and so unable to forgive themselves that they believe the only way out of it is through a game of logical moral rationalization. We can sit and rationalize about how our decisions were morally right for the world. About how the person we hurt was “actually really awful in retrospect”. While the process of self-forgiveness requires a degree of stepping back and being objective (as objective as one can be especially amidst feeling a vast amount of grief) in order to see things clearly. It’s important to be careful about the language that we chose to describe ourselves and those around us.
In our attempt to forgive ourselves we should be careful not to tip the scales too far in either direction and use overtly negative language towards ourselves or others. It’s so much harder to put your hands up and admit that sometimes awful things happen between people and that both parties are responsible, or rather life happens and neither party is responsible. It’s easy to blame yourself or someone else, and it’s something each and everyone of us is guilty of.
I genuinely think a degree of logical rationalization is important but, trying to rationalize things morally might just be a road to more unnecessary suffering and grief. As in all things, it’s important to remember that we all have our ideologies. We’re people. We’re human. Those ideologies may change and evolve over time, and that’s okay. Above all, if you think this is something you’re guilty of that’s okay too. Because at the end of the day the truth is one possibly immoral action doesn’t make you a bad person. It just means you’ve experienced more of the human condition, and a difficult fact of the human condition is that we’re all capable of inflicting a degree of pain. What matters is minimizing that pain when we can, and admitting it when we mess up. Because running away from the pain you’ve caused will almost certainly lead you to repeat your mistake at some point.
Tying Redemption to Someone Else
This is a rough one. When we commit a mistake the first thing we do upon realizing the mistake is seeking some sort of redemption. It is my firm belief that humans are symbolic creatures. We want the symbolic comfort of redemption, and sometimes the way we accomplish this is by doing right by someone, after we’ve already done wrong by someone else. On paper, this makes a grain of sense especially to a mind afflicted with a great deal of grief and pain. We “learn” from our mistakes with a previous person we cared about, and now we can apply those lessons to a new person or people. This time, we’ll be better and we’ll be smarter. We won’t hurt anyone this time, because we’re in control of our actions.
And yet, past the false optimism of this, the search for redemption can destroy our very foundation. Not only do we turn the new people in our lives into a prop to right a past wrong, we also allow a previous experience to dictate all our next moves. This is really where the beautiful cruelty of the world comes into play. This is where we are most vulnerable to repeating a harmful pattern from our past. And you know the worst thing that could come from this? If you do make another mistake, which you’re bound to, because you’re a human being, then you may find yourself lower than you’ve ever been.
Symbolically speaking, you would have lost your chance at redemption. Your shot at making things right. Your shot at being a good person. Your shot at being worth something to someone. To anyone really.
It’s in these moments that our brain does the cruelest act of kicking us when we’re down. We’ll remember every mistake and every decision that led us to blow this shot at redemption. This includes every previous shot at redemption. The mind will then compound these awful moments spread out across years and make them feel like the only real truth. I can’t speak for anyone else, but this is the most dangerously low I’ve ever felt, and I never understood all of this was even happening until I could step back and look at things symbolically.
If we really want to be better we have to slow down. There is no fast-tracking the process of self-forgiveness. No silver bullet in the form of faith, or circular rationalization, or any other human is going to save you the painful path it takes to really forgive yourself. If we want to look at things symbolically once more, then we know we have to do all of the above, to varying degrees. It takes some faith to know we are worth something, that we can do the right thing. It takes a degree of logic and quantification to know we’re on the right track with our measurable goals. It takes caring about and deeply loving other people to make it all worth it.
Above all know this: You don’t need anyone for redemption. You’re being a better person for yourself. It takes so much strength to admit wrongdoing, and even more to work so hard to find a way to prevent it from happening again. And yet despite all that hard work, saying that can feel like a cop-out. Years down the line, writing a piece like this you may still feel like you’re only saying this to make yourself feel less like an awful person.
But the truth is, you’re here. You’re trying so hard. You’re fighting to redeem yourself for yourself. I respect that so much, and whether this is something you’ve been struggling with for a day or a decade, I am proud of you. Progress is never a straight line, it just matters that we try. Take care of yourselves, and take care of each other. Know that no matter what, you’re human, and you’re here.
