Do I Need to Forgive to Move Forward After Trauma?

Our lives can be changed forever when someone puts us through a traumatic experience. We may find it difficult to form new relationships, trust anyone or to even trust ourselves. While this makes sense from an adaptive perspective (i.e. Keeping people at arm’s length can keep us safe from experiencing the trauma again) many people can shame themselves into feeling that how they’re feeling is wrong. In my opinion, the push that many bring for survivors to forgive only intensifies those feelings.

In my clinical work with trauma survivors, I’ve met many people that have been told they should forgive the perpetrators of their trauma. In some cases, this comes from family members of the perpetrator and the survivor who want things to return to “normal.” In others, this can come from well-intentioned supports that don’t want to see survivors continue to feel the burden of anger, betrayal, etc. that was created by the perpetrator. There are also many religious teachings that emphasize forgiving people that have wronged us. But is this advice to forgive actually helpful for survivors?

In some cases: Absolutely. Take for example someone who endured trauma throughout childhood who has now grown and talked to their parent about what they endured. They are able to share with an open parent all of the invalidation and criticism they endured and how it affected them moving forward and their parent responds with apologies and a desire to make things right moving forward. Forgiveness can be a gift for both of these individuals and can lead to a positive relationship and an unburdening for that adult kid.

However, cases like these are few and far between, unfortunately. I’ve heard countless stories of people trying to talk to their parents about what they went through, only to be further criticized now as adults that “need to get over it.” I’ve heard of adolescents or young adults who don’t want to be around their perpetrators at a family gathering who have been forced to either co-exist with them or be exiled from the family, with no accountability being placed on their perpetrators. When someone refuses to acknowledge the pain they’ve created, how does it make sense for the burden of forgiveness to be on survivors?

In these cases, forgiveness is pushed as a rationale for further invalidation. Your pain is so insignificant that you should be able to just look the other way as those pushing the narrative have. It’s not the perpetrator’s responsibility to make things right, it’s yours. It’s a cycle that has led to many adults cutting ties with family members, leaving them stunned and resentful. When survivors won’t allow the emotions of others to shame them into invalidating themselves, that cycle is broken.

This is why I never push forgiveness as a necessary part of recovery. What suits some of my clients more is acceptance.

Acceptance, from my standpoint, involves acknowledging the reality that we live in and embracing all of the pain that this reality can bring, nonjudgmentally. We don’t rationalize what perpetrators did. We acknowledge that they did it and we weren’t responsible for controlling that, nor can we force them to apologize for it. We don’t push our feelings away. We embrace them as important parts of ourselves that are only trying to help. We don’t invalidate ourselves. We accept ourselves fully.

Acceptance allows us to focus our energy and attention on ourselves while forgiveness necessitates doing so for someone else. It’s a path towards healing that brings us more in line with ourselves as we acknowledge and accept the anger we have instead of pretending we don’t have it for the sake of someone that did something terrible to us. And if forgiveness is the ultimate goal, I think it has to come after acceptance because if we forgive someone else before validating what we’ve been through and how we feel, we might continue to shame ourselves for our authenticity.