Forgiving Yourself, Even When It’s Not Your Fault
Whatever the crime, real or imagined, I’ve found that forgiving myself can be the hardest part. Whether it was about my weight, a running injury or my stepfather’s abuse, letting myself off the hook was no easy task. On the surface I might be able to rationalize any of them, but it was an intellectual exercise. Of course, my stepfather sexually abusing me wasn’t my fault. I was a child, and he was an adult. He took advantage of me and preyed on my innocence in every possible way. So, on the surface I could say it wasn’t my fault. But deep down, I believed it was.
Herein lies the rub: there is a world of difference between understanding something intellectually versus emotionally. And until you believe it emotionally, there is no relief. You will be plagued with the same feelings of guilt and shame. At least I was. And it’s not just about the big stuff. I would torture myself for weeks about a binge or a running injury. All of them led to the same well of despair because they triggered the same feelings.
Shortly after I started working with my therapist, Rachel, I rejoined Weight Watchers. At the time I was 217 pounds and steadily lost weight. Two-and-a-half years later I was down to 160 pounds. Then I was suddenly up several pounds. I reasoned that it could be water weight or any of a million things and it would be gone in a day or two. But instead, my weight crept higher, and I was up five pounds in less than two weeks. And I’d been good, really good. I tried to reassure myself that it was temporary, but I wasn’t convinced. I had so many fears about what would happen if I wasn’t super vigilant, as if forces beyond my control would be my undoing. It felt as if I was being sucked under.
I told Rachel I feared I was to blame for the weight gain but didn’t know how. I was terrified that all my hard work would be undone. And for all the weight I’d lost and successfully maintained (a first!), I didn’t take much pleasure in it. All I could see was how far I still had to go, and my eternal vigilance was exhausting.
Rachel surmised that my feelings about the weight gain were a mirror to the abuse; that it was my fault. I tried so hard and still the awful things happened. That I was out of control when in reality it wasn’t in my control. She thought for me to make sense of the world I had to feel like everything was in my control, which is why I desperately searched for what I’d done wrong when things went awry.
I always search for lessons so that I can adapt on the fly. If something bad happens and I can anticipate it next time, it won’t hurt me. I will learn and move on. I can prevent. I can change the outcome. But not everything is in my control, no matter how much I want it to be. Even if it meant assuming blame that wasn’t mine, it was still somehow more comforting than knowing I couldn’t affect it at all. Sometimes awful, unexplained and unintended things just happen, with or without my consent.
On the surface, my weight and the abuse were unrelated, but I conflated them in my mind. My weight became the proxy for the sexual abuse. It was a metaphor for everything else in my life and the one place that I keenly felt it – the highs and the lows, the successes and the crushing defeats.
Running followed the same pattern. My desire to run was borne out of EMDR and it made me feel powerful and strong. That feeling propelled me forward to longer distances and, unfortunately, injuries. While I would back off somewhat while injured, I would often push myself too far or too fast and make a small problem much worse. After a few days of not running to address a minor knee issue, it was an especially beautiful day and all I wanted to do was run. There were obvious warning signs that something was wrong with my hip and, trying to be responsive, I stopped multiple times to stretch. But I didn’t do the one thing I should have done which was stop. I only thought my knee was a danger, not my hip. It set in motion an injury that would take more than a month to heal.
My heartbreak and despair at not being able to run was as real as my torment over any weight gain. Worse, they were my fault. I made them happen. I needed to forgive myself but couldn’t let it go.
Rachel explained that people who experience trauma tend to obsessively scan for a particular type of danger to ensure it is never repeated. In the process, they may miss other dangers, as I did with my hip. She thought it unfair to blame myself because I didn’t know the ultimate outcome – a much larger injury – was a possibility. Just as she thought what happened with my stepfather was simply not my fault, no matter what. In my mind, my unforgivable sin was not seeing the danger before me and therefore not escaping his clutches. I felt culpable. Rachel insisted that even if I invited him into my room, seduced him or otherwise instigated the encounter, it wouldn’t be my fault. It could never be my fault.
At the time Rachel and I had been working together for about five years and I still fundamentally believed the sexual abuse was my fault. What if the belief was so intractable, I could never shake it? I asked if it was possible for us to work on helping me forgive myself, regardless of whether it was my fault. Rachel didn’t think it would be effective in the long run. There would be a price to be paid and it may be that I could never have the type of relationship I’d like with a man.
I asked if we could focus on the running and help me feel that my injury wasn’t my fault, or, if it was, that it was okay to forgive myself. That, she said, was doable, and we continued to work on these issues of fault and forgiveness. Over time I had more weight gain and binges and running injuries that I tried to forgive myself for, with mixed results. The backlash and despair may not have lasted as long or cut as deep, but it was still there.
Then, one day I realized that I had been tormented by my past for more than 30 years. Even people serving life sentences are generally up for parole after that much time. In a sense, whether it was my fault or not simply didn’t matter anymore. I’d been paying off my debt for more than 30 years and I was done. I released myself from the guilt, from the blame, from my prison. I’d done life and it was over. I finally arrived at a place where I could tell myself that whether it was my fault or not, the debt had been paid. But it was a purely intellectual exercise. I didn’t believe it in my heart.
Rachel and I continued to address my feelings of blame. Intellectually I knew it wasn’t my fault and part of me believed emotionally that it wasn’t. My body is open to violation and I can be overtaken, outmatched, overpowered. Which also led me to realize that no matter what happens to me in the future, no matter how terrifying, unfair, or all around fucked up, I’ll always be better able to withstand it now than I could then. Because then, I was a child. I didn’t understand what was happening and couldn’t find a way out. Now, even if I’m in a situation where I’m overpowered and overwhelmed, even if I don’t understand the motivation, I can recognize that it’s not my fault. Sometimes awful things just happen that you can’t control. Like weather. You can’t control natural disasters. You might try, but you can’t.
It’s like the movies where they show people dancing to their gods for it to rain. And that was me. Desperately trying to arrive at that magic combination of attributes that would make everything right. If I worked hard enough, if I was grateful enough, a good person, strong enough, and on and on and on. In that moment, I truly believed that none of it was my fault. In my own way I’d been doing a rain dance for years to appease my gods, to implore them to forgive me. It was just as futile as praying for rain. But it made me feel in control, as if I could affect the outcome.
This wasn’t necessarily a revelation, but it was the first time I felt it. I believed it emotionally. I could finally see the futility and allowed myself to feel what I felt in that moment, which was that it wasn’t my fault. It was such a seismic shift I thought I would hyperventilate. I couldn’t breathe, as if I needed to sob but couldn’t let it out of my throat. I took deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling for a moment until it somehow righted itself. When I took that big breath that’s like the reset button on my breathing, I felt strangely calm, more relaxed. I knew that whatever happens to me, I’ll be fine. Because I understand that all the confusion, pain and terror of my childhood is where it belongs. Then. Not now. I believe emotionally and intellectually that there is nothing for me to forgive because I didn’t do anything wrong. And it’s not tied up in my weight or how far or fast I can run. When I gain a few pounds or injure myself running, I let myself feel the disappointment, frustration or sadness but there is no guilt. Because there is nothing to forgive. No matter what.
