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7:23pm June 25, 2014
Anonymous asked: I just wanted to say that I'm really sorry some asshole came to you and sent you nasty anons about forgiving abusers. I'm very different than you on your stance on it--the principle of 'abusers can change' is really hard for me to even think about and I don't really accept it in a big way, but even so, that shit was totally inappropriate for anyone to do and utterly not okay. If anon is triggered by your stuff like I am, then they need to just avoid it, like I do. Best of luck w/ difficulties.

Thank you.  It’s nice when people can disagree without being horrible about it.  Mind you, I don’t think anyone is obligated to forgive their abusers at all.  I think that forgiveness, and how we feel about our abusers, all that is in the hands of the victim and it has to be our choice what we do and how we feel towards them.  Anything we give to them, any amount of forgiveness, any amount we still like them, that’s a gift, they don’t automatically deserve it.  And any abuser who doesn’t understand that this is a gift, that this is not something they deserve automatically, that how we feel about them is in our hands and our hands alone… is not someone who has changed, is not someone who understands the impact of their actions on others, is not someone I would trust.  And it is entirely the victim who gets to decide how they feel about their abuser – nobody else gets to dictate that.  Nobody.

I just want to be clear that I believe that.  What I said was something I think can happen.  It’s not something I think always does happen.  And to me, it’s always up to the victim to decide whether it has happened, whether they believe it has happened, for their personal abuser.  It’s never up to the abuser, it’s never up to other people to push that on anyone.  

And I understand why it’s triggering, especially because… I have one abuser, one continual abuser for the past fifteen years or more, who always convinces people he has changed.  Always.  He can try to rape someone and somehow get their forgiveness.  One reason he hates me and has singled me out for especial abuse (in this case, cyberstalking, harassment, and defamation – I don’t let him physically near enough to me anymore for any other kind of abuse, and I have no direct contact, yet he still manages to try to worm his way into my life) is because I’m one of the few people who sees through him.  I know he doesn’t change.  I know he will never change.  I know because I know the type of person he is, and he’s different from, say, the teenager with an anger problem who beat me up sometimes when I was a teenager.  You can get over an anger problem, if you care enough and try hard enough and understand your impact on other people.  You can’t get over being an abuser when you have no sense of right or wrong, and love to toy with people as your personal playthings.  If your abuser is anything like my stalker, then I understand precisely why ‘abusers can change’ is triggering.

Thank you for, despite being triggered, not going off on me the way that person did.  I just want you to know… I don’t think all abusers change, I don’t even know if most abusers change, and I don’t think forgiveness is mandatory.  Forgiveness is entirely up to the victim, and it is entirely okay to feel about your abuser however the hell you want to feel.  The person who wrote to me grossly misinterpreted what I was trying to say.  I wasn’t trying to tell anyone how to feel or how to respond to their abusers.  That’s entirely personal and entirely private and not my business to tell anyone.  Especially because every circumstance is different.