I have the right.
I am right to be angry, to be hurt. No one would blame me for loathing; no one would hate me for screaming and cursing, or wanting to lie in bed all day. In the culture I live in, I would be in the right to do those things.
And for a long time, I did. I angered and hurt and loathed. However, no matter how long it went on, it never made me come to terms with the deeper pain I was drowning in. I wore anger like a mask, or pretended it didn’t bother me, like I was beyond it. Still, it slid its grimy hands around my heart and pressed so long that it became hard.
Emotional abuse was not something I knew much about in high school. Manipulation, coercion...they were terms I tossed aside. I didn’t understand the impact a person could have through his or her words. I don’t think I ever considered the power of a well-inflicted lie, or considered how deeply embedded emotion is to our very being.
Because of those reasons and several more, I did not recognize the abuse for what it was when it was happening. I saw people as trustworthy and dignified; I believed them because I had no reason not to. And it wasn’t until it was long over, when I was in counseling, that I finally saw it.
If there’s anything I learned from the experience, it was that the longer I held on, the more I angered and hurt, the more bitter I grew. And bitterness only gets stronger over time. Bitterness traps you in a dark closet with only one painfully humbling way out: forgiveness.
It is not an easy step to take, but it is necessary. We can’t control some of the situations life doles out at us, but we can control our responses to them. Pain has a beautifully tricky way of shaping us into stronger, better people (if we let it). And I fully believe, with all of my heart, that forgiveness is the way to let it.
We can’t wander the earth, hardened and cold by our pain. If we can’t see past our own, we’ll never be able to see that of the people around us. And if we can’t be compassionate and love those who are hurting, we are not capable of anything at all.
