Survivors of Abuse recovery (soar)

I wanted to add to something I had said about faith. That is, I don’t know that anyone has all the answers, but we are taught from a young age what the answers are, and what we need to do in order to please our higher power once we pass away, but, in reality, it seems as if we are taught what it is that we need to do and believe in order to please our friends and our family.

Religion is very much about belonging to a group. And if someone can find the comfort and guidance they need for their life by being a part of that group, then that works for them. If you are not sure what is right and you are looking for answers, there are more than enough people who are willing to share “the truth” with you.

For instance, you may have heard the theory that Mary was not visited by an angel, but rather an alien being who used artificial insemination in order to ensure her pregnancy. And that Jesus was indeed a good man who was able to perform miracles simply because people at the time did not understand the knowledge He possessed. I have also heard it said that Jesus did not die and rise again, but rather was healed of His wounds by medical advances that are advanced to us even in this day and time. And that the ascension was not necessarily back to Heaven as back to another planet.

But what is truth to one person, may seem like blasphemy to someone else. My feeling is that belief is personal and what makes sense to someone and brings them peace and the ability to handle life, is what they need to go with.

And yet, as much as I respect others to have their own opinion and beliefs, I still get triggered and riled up and feel the need to stifle an “Are you nuts?”

I have been especially sensitive to trusting people and hearing how nice someone is because of their outward appearance or their occupation or social status. My mom and I can get into a disagreement very easily…like we did this past week.

For years, my family had a family lawyer. He was the family lawyer because he was my dad’s age and my dad’s cousin had lived with the family and was basically their nanny. They were a very wealthy and prominent family in our town. So, this man took care of all of the family’s legal needs…until he passed away in 1995.

It was then that his son took over. His son was about 40 when his father passed, and like his dad before him, he was a partner in the law firm. My dad did not have the connection with him that he had with the father, but it became a generational thing, and I had no reason to question anything. So, nobody questioned him.

I did not question anything when my father passed away and this man seemed to spend a lot of unnecessary time with my mother, sending her a huge bill for services for basically transferring her own money from my father to her.

Long story short, he is now disbarred and in jail for stealing from clients.

My mother is concerned for his well-being. You read that right. My mom wanted to be sure that he is in the good jail for people who didn’t murder anyone. She was appalled at the thought of him actually being behind bars. And…she made excuses for him. He was weak. He was used to having money growing up rich like he did and even though his salary was almost a half a million dollars a year, it wasn’t enough for the things he wanted and that was…understandable. Right?

This type of thinking makes steam come out of my ears. He did hurt people. He took money from people who needed it and didn’t give it to them when they were dying or needed access for things they actually needed. He most likely padded my mother’s bill. I don’t know. He could have called her ten times a day to chat and charged her each time. She would have thought nothing of it.

Does this sound familiar? My mom said that he was such a nice man…”a true gentleman”. He shouldn’t be in jail.

Again, a person in a powerful position over others took advantage of that and was sorry that he got caught. Yes, we are all human. But my mom didn’t want to hear that maybe, just maybe, this lawyer was not as good of a person as she thought he was.

She had a preconceived perception of him in her head and anything that didn’t jive with that image had to have an explanation. We have all seen that happen before when we just can’t believe, or maybe we don’t want to believe, that someone isn’t who we thought they were.

This is why I don’t think it’s a great idea to feel the need to forgive. I think we need to have a firm grip on the reality of a situation and feel strong enough to accept the truth without emotional fallout to ourselves before we can release. To forgive someone when you only have half of the picture can be misleading.

How many times have we projected our own thoughts and intentions onto someone else in order to make them more human in our minds, or to understand them better and what it is they have done?

They were lonely. They were confused. They were desperate. We try to put ourselves into their shoes and ask ourselves what would make us do such a thing? They didn’t really mean to hurt anyone. They aren’t bad people because they hold a high place in society. They know good people. They have done good work. They have helped others. They are educated. They don’t look scary. They didn’t have a weapon. They were good to me.

I’m not morally better than anyone else. I have done stupid things in my life that I am not proud of. Mostly before I turned 18. And I claim stupidity, never knowingly setting out to hurt anyone and not caring about it. There is a difference. A line that gets crossed. Boundaries that get pushed. And when that happens, it is never “okay”. And it needs to be stopped, not forgiven. Not excused. Not allowed to continue.

Power needs to be held accountable so it can then be trusted, not automatically given trust because they hold the power.

Because for every person in power who abuses their position, there are far too many people who enable them. It’s a sickness that runs in families and into congregations and belief systems in society. And it can get really exhausting holding up boundaries and trying to figure out everyone’s motives. Don’t get me started on the trying to please everyone.

The thing is, I have no power to convince anyone else of the things that I believe. I worry about people being vulnerable to unscrupulous people. But I’ve been told that worry is a form of control. A need to have things under our control. All I can say is that I have learned to start by forgiving myself. And I try to follow that up by the knowledge that my father gave me when he said, “People are not against you, people are just for themselves.”. In other words, don’t blindly trust anyone. Don’t make excuses for bad behavior. Doesn’t mean you slap someone back, just means you recognize that friends don’t hurt you. You walk away from people who keep hurting you, no matter what reason you think they have for doing it in order to justify not walking away, or firing them as your lawyer if that be the case.

I’ll end with a kind of a funny story. It’s about my poor mother who I write about because she is a large influence in my life. I was at her house one day last week and I was looking over the knick knacks she has collected over the years in her China cabinet. Tucked in the far left corner was something I had never noticed before. It was a very old pill bottle. I asked her what it was. My mom has been known to hang onto medicine for years. She didn’t know. So, she reached in and took it out. I saw something move inside the plastic bottle. Looked like rolled up paper. Um, no…couldn’t be what I thought it was. But it was. She opened the screw on top and out came…what was most likely a very very old…marijuana joint.

I was shocked. Where did she get that? She said she had it for years…she found it laying around in my brother’s room. How long ago had he lived there? Maybe temporarily about 20 years ago. But then she surprised me even further. “What side are you supposed to light?” she wanted to know. Um…either one, I said.

I don’t know if my mom will ever light up the joint, but if she does, I hope she does it when I’m there with her. I’d love to see that. Have a great week!