The brilliant Alice Miller on the fallacy of forgiveness:
Some therapists work under the influence of various interpretations culled from both Western and Oriental religions, which preach forgiveness to the once-mistreated child. Thereby, they create a new vicious circle for people who, from their earliest years, have been caught in the vicious circle of pedagogy . This, they refer to as “therapy”. In so doing, they lead them into a trap from which there is no escape, the same trap that once rendered their natural protests impossible, thus causing the illness in the first place. Because such therapists. . . cannot help patients to resolve the consequences of the traumatization they have suffered, they offer them traditional morality instead.
Remember, a therapist who is a professional and not a quack will never ever ever push you to forgive.
The idea that forgiving is somehow morally superior to not forgiving, to holding on to a grudge, to feeling anger is a means of social control. And every time you praise somebody for forgiving or push yourself to forgive you reinforce structures of oppression.
Finally, someone who gets it. I don’t forgive or forget, I can hold a grudge for a long time and people get freaked out. If someone hurts me or is a horrible person, I want to crush them, I can’t forgive. That’s part of the reason I am not a Catholic, I can’t be nice to people who hurt me or are assholes. I think it’s more acceptable for a man to be vengeful than a woman, we’re supposed to be nice to assholes.
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