Forgiveness.....

A Note to Victims about Forgiveness The first step for cult abuse survivors is to tell their story and connect with their outrage about the abuse. While these feelings are coming to the surface, it will be impossible to forgive the people in the cult. False forgiveness will only weaken victims' boundaries, prevent them from telling their story and thereby prevent healing. If you have been abused, sometimes a well-meaning friend or counselor may advise you to forgive someone or something. But only do it if you want to. Follow your gut feeling in the matter of forgiving a perpetrator. You are the only one who can know how much you were hurt and when you're ready to forgive. Forgiveness is not important. If the abuser is a psychopath, he will not appreciate your forgiveness anyway, but just laugh at you. Ultimately the healing has to take place within the individual, it cannot be forced from outside. Aggressive therapies to induce forgiveness or confrontation with the perpetrator can be destructive. Often the overt abuse has stopped, but subtle abuse lingers. Cults may even try to control their ex-members in covert ways. People often get stuck in the victim stage too long. This can be miserable for the victim and everyone around him. The main thing that leads to this stuck place is that there are too few qualified people to listen to victims' stories. The victim must tell his story and be acknowledged, not preached to, told to forgive, or further abused. Without a qualified person to listen, the victim (lacking personal boundaries) will try to tell his story to everyone he meets. This starts a downward spiral because the more he complains, the more confusion and mistrust he creates. His manner of discharging drives people away, leading to further isolation. Here are some signs that you may be stuck in the victim role: if you still suffer from childhood issues, if you are depressed or have suicidal feelings, or if you are being abused in a close relationship. It's okay to be a victim, but there eventually comes a turning point (or series of points) where you are vindicated and go into recovery. This usually happens after you finally feel you have told your story to a non-judgmental person (or group) and you finally realize that you did not deserve to be abused. Once you validate yourself you can throw away your resentment and integrate the lessons of your experiences. Having a qualified listener (or listeners) leads you to the next step, which is faith that you will heal.