How do you forgive people?

[TandemBanana]

My (D)M said some really horrible things to me a few years ago and I am really struggling to let it go. I have spoken to her a few times about it since then, but she appears not to understand why I am so hurt, so I know I am not going to get any resolution. I still think about it every single bloody day, and in my head I repeatedly go over the event and the conversations we have had since.
She lives very close and I have gone from seeing her a few times a week to may be once a month .
How do I let the go of the hurt and move on? Give me your techniques to forgive and forget please.

Counselling

I'm not very good at it...

No wonder you can't forgive her. She doesn't deserve forgiveness.

What were the goals of your therapy? Was it to be comfortable in the presence of a narcissist, to have a happy close relatonship with a narcissist, to be in close contact with a narcissist while also feeling good about yourself? If so, it was doomed.

How about working on self protection instead?
Maybe detaching from the narcissist, going LC or NC, then work on forgiving yourself for putting yourself out there for the inevitable narcissistic abuse again and again?

Some books that might help you are the Toxic books by Susan Forward.

She wrote one about having Toxic Parents and another about having Toxic In-laws.

I found the parents one the most useful even though it's actually my in-laws that are the issue.

And she doesn't expect you to forgive before you can move on. I think she liked that (forgiving at the beginning of the moving on process) to expecting to feel better before you take the medication when you're sick.

Sometimes you need things to be the other way around, to move on before you forgive, or even just to move on for your own sake without ever forgiving.

Another book that might help you is Byron Katie's Loving What Is. She also wrote Who Would You Be Without Your Story.

I find her a bit too 'woo' for me on the whole, but I like some of her ideas, and have put the bits that I feel I can work with into practice.

One of the things she works with is letting go of intrusive thoughts and not living in other people's business. She she might say that the things your mother said are your mother's business, and what's hurting you is that you're letting them stay in your head.

Maybe take a look at her website before buying the book. I think Loving What Is is the more useful of them but they're both interesting.

I'm sorry that counselling didn't help you before. I'm not sure what kind of counselling you had but it might be worth trying again, with a different counsellor or a different type of counselling.

Perhaps also, if you can think of what you want to get out of counselling.

You say you want to let go of the hurt and move on, so if you tell your counsellor that they will try to work with you to do that. They might explore how you could do that, what it means to you to do that.

Are you wanting help to stay with the hear and now, rather than dwelling what she said before and what you'd like to say or have happen next?

But it will be about you rather than your mother, so if you're looking for a way to manage her or change her it might not work for you.

I hope you find a way to work through this though OP. If this is how she is, at the very least I hope you can believe that this isn't your fault and you don't deserve it.

For me it's reminding myself it's not about them it's about me
There are certain things I say to myself too:

Just because you forgive does not mean it didn't happen - it did
It doesn't mean they were right - they weren't!
You don't have to tell them you forgive them (if you want to, fine, but it's not conditional)
This is about me acknowledging that the option of not forgiving leaves me with anger, bitterness, rage, fury (or whatever it is for you) and that I do not want those things inside me. They are not me and I don't like them
I am not allowing whoever did this to me to make me feel this way, I am actively choosing to let it go - because that is what is best for me

Sometimes I physically do something too. I am a christian so I have walked up to a cross and pretended to lay it down, but I have a friend who goes outside and 'puts it in the bin'!

Good luck - you actually feel quite powerful when you can do it

There is forgiveness and then there is forgetting.

Forgiving does not mean wiping out the past and carrying on like it never happened, it is about letting go of the anger at the person who hurt you, because the anger eats you up. About understanding why it happened, not pretending it never happened.

I have forgiven my DM for my childhood neglect and resulting abuse. I understand why she did nothing and that she was not mentally in a good place back then. But I cannot forget what happened to me and she still does not accept any of it really happened. Forgiving her allowed me to let go of the grief for the mother I didnt have and the childhood I didnt have, but I would never trust her with the care if my own DD. I forgive but I do not forget.

I suspect you are still hurt and angry that she is not being the kind of mother you want her to be. You say your DM has often said unkind things to you. You seem to think forgiving is about loving her anyway and not feeling hurt when she says unkind things. But IMO forgiving is about accepting how thing are and moving on, not trying to make things how you want them to be or wishing things were different.

I'm sorry your mum isn't the kind and loving and supportive person a mum is supposed to be. There are many of us struggling with the same disappointment

It depends on the relationship, I think.

Outing example but when I was younger my sister and I got in a god awful fight and she said that it was a pity my attempted rapist hadn’t succeeded as I obviously needed a shag.

I forgave her and we have a very close relationship.

MIL whose relationship with DH was strained due to her own issues and her abuse of DH said awful, awful things to him (him being the worst thing that ever happened to him, which she texted to him on his birthday apropos of nothing) and they are now NC.

So, my sister and I had a healthy enough relationship to be able to move on. It was a one off and while horrible was out of character.

MIL’s vileness was systematic and inherent to her as a person and so no good would have come from forgiving her, IYSWIM.

In my mind you can only really forgive somebody who asks for forgiveness. To ask for forgiveness you must acknowledge the wrong and be sorry. In my experience the people who I struggle to forgive and move on with haven't done these things.

I totally agree with the posters who have said that you don't have to forgive & agree with MadMags that sometimes no good can come from forgiving somebody. I have forgiven things done by horrid people and they have repeatedly behaved terribly and hurtfully. I do think though that holding onto a grudge can be very mentally destructive.

It's this destructive cycle of reliving our conversations I need to break.
I did buy and read the toxic parents book a few years ago - I should probably reread it.
She wants me to be her partner and best friend. When my dad left her decades ago she blamed him for her unhappiness (obviously!) and instantly latched on to me to be her new emotional partner. In my 20s I was too inexperienced to back away from this.
Over 2 decades later she has now shifted the blame for her unhappiness to me - if only I were a better kinder daughter, then she would be living the happy fulfilled life she is entitled to.
She manipulates me, her friends, family. The game is to get sympathy - for an illness, a holiday hotel that wasn't perfect, an issue in her block of flats, anything at all.

She'll go out for a meal with friends and fake an illness at the table. I've had her neighbour round complaining that I am not doing enough for her. I've had family phone me to complain about my behaviour based on a pack of lies she's told them.
Years and years of low level shit. I've just hit a wall with it.

You cannot forgive until your mother asks for forgiveness, and changes her behaviour.

Google loving kindness meditation. It might help.

Also, perhaps you should aim for acceptance and not forgiving?

Have you read about narcissism?
Counselling is what has helped me the most. The hundreds of things I felt guilty or bad about are so less front and centre than they were. It may be worth looking into x

Your mum has a victim mentality and is using you as her scapegoat. It’s not a nice position to be in and I went NC with family members as I was unable to navigate the negative feelings I had with them. The problem when your a scapegoat is that even when you raise an exception to something that has been said or done, you are further scapegoated so in my case it was “you are so sensitive, I feel like I have to walk on eggshells” or they will gaslight completely and make me feel like I have imagined the whole thing. Their complete unwillingness to take responsibility means escaping the scapegoat role is unlikely. Do not feel guilty about your boundaries if it protects you.

OP you're not her partner, or her best friend, and you're not responsible for her happiness.

That's the thing here, if someone puts all the responsibility for their happiness on your shoulders, and they take no responsibility for themselves, you're never going to make them happy. It's not that you're not good enough, it's that it just isn't possible.

Nobody can take on the responsibility for somebody's else's happiness, especially if it comes at the expense of their own.

You'll drive yourself mad or make yourself ill if you try.

And when it comes to people like your mother, they're just as satisfied when you fail as when you succeed. If you get it right, for a brief time, she might be happy. But it won't be sustainable because you would have to give up your own happiness in all things at all times to sustain hers. But if you get it wrong, she can pity herself and get pity from others and she's still enjoy that.

I think what I'm trying to say is that it doesn't matter how hard you try, nothing will be good enough for her and she won't actually care, because if the outcomes is positive or negative, she will still have everybody running around after her and she'll still be in the centre of the drama she's created.

But if you get it wrong, she can pity herself and get pity from others and she's still enjoy that.
That made me laugh out loud - it is so true!
About 5 years after dad left I ended up in counselling for the first time to get the skills to deal with her. Since then I have been really strict and rarely give in to her. I've been again recently but there is not much else I can do.
I feel like I am locked in a room and I can hear her raging outside and crashing against the walls and doors trying to get in.

As she’s a “stately homes thread” type parent then your current limited contact is probably a very sensible approach!

I've no idea how you do this.
It's sounds horrible for you.

Have you looked into mindfulness?
Might help a bit?

@cath2907 What a lovely and level headed way to look at it. I will remember this and try to emulate (am already quite forgiving/doormatesque).

I've managed forgiveness by thinking of it as wanting to set it aside as it's taking up too much of my mindspace or energy. So it's not a car of the other person being forgiven, more that I won't give them the power over me any longer. I used a technique where I imagine the unkind works and actions surrounded by a sea of acceptance, and white distanced from me. Not sure if it makes much sense written down, but it really helped me unhook. The bulk of it came from a forgiveness meditation by Stephen Levine, who explains it a lot better!
I noticed a new book come out called something like The gentle art of Forgiveness,
Sorry this has happened to you op, it's really tough when it's your mum.
Hope you find some resolve. X