💾 Archived View for pupdog01.flounder.online › journal.gmi captured on 2024-08-18 at 16:25:14. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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18aug24
bit of a stream of conciousness here hopefully it wont be too much rambling nonsense... i think i am finally learning how to do the "radical fogiveness" thing people speak about. i have long been held up thinking "well how can i forgive without apology?" or "how can it be okay to forgive myself if i am not forgiven by others?" but these are just roadblocks which do not truly negate the value and possibilities of forgiveness upon others or oneself.
on the point of feeling held up when attempting to forgive others, it is only allowing myself to live forever under the whim of those who have felt it is okay to harm me by making myself wait until they decide i am worthy of amendment. which, is such a disservice to myself. and, i have done this plenty of times in my life passively without sorta putting two-and-two together that I was, in fact, forgiving before the apology. i can think of some very personallt important examples, but honestly i would rather not list them, so please fill in that blank with *your* own examples from your life. just like, when after a long period of time and the pain has moved to a new form, one which we can live with, the forgiveness often inevitably follows. then why, have i felt myself resisting forgiveness while the pain still occupies me? am i really being served by this resistence? i think not! i had a very recent example of putting this into practice recently, where i told my closest and longest friend about a revelation of forgiveness that i'd had (one which had frankly just struck me out of no where in my sleep, i'd simply woken up anew and refreshed) and their response was (paraphrase) "you shouldn't force yourself to forgive, that takes away the need for accountability from the harm done to you." which, gave me such a good opportunity to defend my own feelings that i had gained fresh, relieving(!) access to, because i did not feel like i was forcing forgiveness and i have no ability to be on charge of anyone but myself. why, in any situation, should i wait until someone who has harmed me decided it is time to apologize until I am allowed accesses to the freedom, love, peace, and growth which come from understanding and forgiveness? that seems like such a continued disservice to myself. to be clear, though, i am not faulting this friend's anger on my behalf and they have been with me in my life for long enough that i am willing to let them take one for the team on the holding of the grudge (/playful). additionally, i think back to times when i was apologized to before i was ready to forgive vs when i had already forgiven, and it is much more fulfilling for everyone to be apologized to when all are ready. which, is a less long winded but not less important element.
as for, allowing myself to forgive myself before i have perhaps been forgiven by others is much more of a precarious topic, one which i have much more scattered thoughts about. i think it requires extreme critical thinking and self reflection, or else it *could* be harmful and a detration from ones own journey of growth. but perhaps i am conflating forgiveness and dismissal there. though, that only adds to my point of how its a confusing fine line. hmm. but to this, you do not know what the future will hold in terms of other people's digestion of a situation you both went through. i will tell you all a story here from my own life. many years ago, when i was just a little 18 y/o shiba, i had an emergency situation where i had to move with no notice to the first apartment that would take me. because of these factors, i ended up moving into this small studio apartment (like ~300 sq/ft) that had ~$1,300/month rent. you might ask yourself "how could you afford this?!" the short answer was: i could not. (skipping ahead some, i only lived there a couple of months before ditching the lease which i was LUCKILY not penalized for because the rental agent took pity on me and in fact that is how i even got into the unit in the first place because i did NOT meet the requirements). at the time as well, i was dating this kinda random boy, we shall call him victor (this is far from his name, but if he read this it would be no secret as to it being about him lol BUT i think it will be okay lol) now, victor and i had been hardly dating, if you even want to call it that, but, he also was in a kinda crappy situation and needed somewhere to live, so he decided that him and his LARGE dog would be moving into my apartment. at the time, i was relieved of my financial burden and i did like him enough and i felt quite grown up about the whole thing so i semi-enthusiastically obliged. granted, we were borderline strangers and i found him to be overbearing in a way that i found quite scary at the time. not necessarily too affectionate or "into me" he was more a bit too controlling and aggressive. he was quick to temper and would get very angry if i so much as spoke to other men in public, let alone had a friend who was a man. and he was prone to getting into altercations with people in the street. all of which, i knew probably would not bode well for me long term. so, i was definitely trepidatious about the whole thing. he got a new alright-paying awful manual labor job doing metal casting (not the last factory metal worker i dated which isnt important but i think its funny the random patterns we as people have). the very first day that he came back to my house from that job, he wasn't even fully moved in yet, he came back home just absolutely covered in metal shavings, which i, really did not want to immediately coat the entire very small space. there was a tiny in-unit w/d unit that could wash just about 2 days of clothes and i had him immediately take off these clothes so that i could wash them to avoid the aforementioned storm of metal shavings all over the house. i washed the clothes, then, put them into the dryer. in the dryer, we hear a clanking sound, only to discover this guy's phone AND wallet had gone through the whole wash cycle. at this, he is just screaming and angry with me, and my general thought on the matter is, "your pockets, your stuff, your problem." however, he is livid with me, saying it is my fault i didn't check his pockets, saying it was because i cared about the washing getting done and he doesnt, etc...this is not a unique argument and i imagine every couple who has ever shared laundry has had it, again, it certainly wasn't the last person in life i ever had this argument with. i have even been in similar arguments where i was the one mad at how my partner did my laundry. like i said, i think its a common one. but this guy was so aggressive and i was so freaked out, and it just felt so scary to imagine my life being like this for an indefinite period of time and like...for what?...for the chance of some financial safety? so i was like "fuck this" and kicked this guy out of the house and broke up with him over this whole ordeal. (in hindsight, this strength to do that is something i am incredibly proud of myself for and is an ability i have somehow long along the way in my journey, because my goal for the past like 3 years has been "shiba, you *neeeeed* to learn how to break up with people and stick to it when you don't feel right or safe or whatever reason") so, a few days later, he sends me a message over snapchat (woohoo 2017) telling me essentially that i ruined his life and im a bad person and that he is homeless now and it is all my fault. and, for years after this i held onto that, the conclusion i came to was "yeah, i really unfairly fucked that guy over and that was pretty messed up of me, but i had to be selfish and cruel in that as just a step on the path of life that i had to be on." which, is such an interesting version of forgiving myself, and quite indicative of my self-esteem i think, but is a version of being able to forgive myself without being forgiven by the other person. i accepted, man, i fucked up and i bet if i ever saw that guy again he would really just let me have it and it would be well earned, but i forgive myself for ultimately acting in accordance to my safety as best i could. so, fast forward a few years, around 2021 i believe or maybe 2022, this guy reached out to me totally out of the blue being like (paraphrase), "i am a father now and i have been reflecting of my life and i have always felt so guilty for how i treated you and i hope you know you didnt deserve all of that" etc, etc. and this like! totally rocked my world! i had no idea that he felt that was and that he found it to be so pivotal, he'd even at one point in the conversation that followed mentioned how it like completely shifted his perspective on how he had been treating people when he examined how he had treated me and acted in that whole blowout.
Like, the story here isn't that deep and surely you can understand what i am getting at. It might surprise you how people can come to completely different conclusions as time passes, and what a shame and a waste of myself and my life and my growth if i had allowed myself to be held back and ashamed of myself for this all those years, just for this person to have also felt like they wronged me. this isn't the first time or the last time i had an encounter like this go on in my life, one where someone apologizes to me years down the line and expresses worry that i am still holding it against myself. not to say that i have never been at fault either, and this was the story i chose because it is the most straightforward to the point i am getting at here. it is just, it can be okay for forgive oneself, because you can not know how it will shake out.
i think, in true forgiveness of oneself, if it is a well developed skill built over time. there can be space for self-forgiveness that also holds someone accountable when they are in the wrong, and that can be valuable too. especially because, i think to genuinely forgive is not to assign blame to the non-forgiven, especially forming these two things together, forgiving others AND forgiving myself, everyone is forgiven. as for if those who have harmed us will ever forgive us or forgive themselves or make amends, this is out of our hands, but what a relief to know that within oneself, all are able to be loved and held and healed.
lmao, someday i will be an old hippy i think from what it sounds like ...
anyways, i love you!
15aug24 pt 2.
sometimes u must pace around in the hundred degree desert heat listening to joe gets kicked out of school for drugs by csh and remember "i am an addict i am an addict i am an addict i feel the way because i am an addict and every addict before me and every addict after me we will all feel the void" i love you!
15aug24
feeling inspired by u all having your journal pages where you speak rather plainly about your lives and whereabouts i am doing the same! though, my life as of late has been the same exact bullshit playing over and over again to the detriment of me having a solid brain which exists inside my head so we shall see how much i say or how often i write in here. currently staying with family bc of how bad it is all going for me which everyone keeps telling me they are "proud of me" for :|
im trying to figure out how to rewrite my understanding of my place in the current city i live-live in, as the vast majority of the time i have lived there i ended up entangled in another situation that was harmful to me in all the ways that they are every time because i choose the same type of person to date over and over again despite knowing what i am doing.
i know this is an indicator of my self-views that have led me here again, but i am feeling more guilty for how i have harmed my loved ones in this process than how i have harmed myself. two close friends of mine during my time making trouble for myself said something along the lines of, "we can't be around you while you keep ignoring everyone's help to get out of this relationship, because at this point it is hurting the people who love you to see you get mistreated." which turned out to be exactly the tough love i needed, because like ... well if its for someone else then like duh i can do it (*´Д｀*) kinda a "what gives" moment for me to myself though. i have realized i have done a great disservice to those around me by NOT LISTENING! because, what have the people who love me done to deserve my dismissiveness at the thousandth time that someone i love and trust has a sit down talk with me telling me they are scared at what they are seeing happen to me?!?
i had a talk with a friend of mine -who uses this site- (mortifying) a few months back where i acknowledged that i realized i keep dating people who insult and degrade me, because i view myself so poorly that it feels like people who do that are the only people being honest with me and the people who love me and care for me and respect me are the liars. which is, i know, unfair to the people who care for me.
it was an equally mortifying ordeal when i told my dad and step-mom about the details of my past year and they were quick to notice that i am describing a person who is just like my mother. made worse by the fact that i already knew that. made double worse by the fact that i was so fucked up from the past month and all that is has entailed that i almost called my mother (for the first time nearly a decade, would have been breaking an intense no-contact that i have on her for my own safety) because i was so deeply craving the "honesty" of being told that i am a wretched thing that is a ruiner of lives. ugh! that blows!
all this oversharing to say, i am definitely in a state of recognizing all the ways in which i harm myself, and the root traumas that form those desires for harm, but still working toward not feeling powerless beneath them. also, i wanted to take this opportunity to also do like a bit of victim advocacy about something that has been on my mind ! one of the friends mentioned in this (and this isnt a call out or contradiction, more just like something i have needed to hear for myself and from myself and imagine someone else might too) once said how they view it as a sign that someone is actually the problem if they have a long history of saying that they have been harmed by a lot of people, and i think it can be true in many cases that if someone isnt willing to recognize that they have a string of interpersonal challenges that they always blame the other people that it might be a sign that person is the issue and that they are very skilled at deflecting blame and i do so think thats true! ~and also~ to people who feel like they must be the issue then because you have been hurt a lot i encourage you to remember that people who have been abused become easy targets for other abusers and that you are allowed to acknowledge that you have had a bad hand dealt to you where you have been harmed by many people. holding these two truths at once.
i hope any readers enjoyed my long winded poetic waxing! i do this a lot ! i love you!