View Single Post
Ididitmyway
Magnate
 
Ididitmyway's Avatar
 
Member Since Jul 2011
Posts: 2,071
12
128 hugs
given
PC PoohBah!
Default Sep 03, 2018 at 08:40 PM
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by precaryous View Post
The trouble is, now looking back, I can see her point.
I feel devastated by the pain I’ve caused.
You may want to reach out to her and tell her how you feel and, hopefully, she will accept your apology and will be able to make peace with you. I intentionally don't use the word "forgiveness". I hate that word because it's often misused to invalidate legitimate pain and anger about something wrong that was done to a person. But I do believe in the value of working towards making peace with one's past.

Just keep in mind that you can't compensate her for whatever you've done wrong. Once you expressed a sincere regret and offered a sincere apology, there is absolutely nothing you can do for her beyond that.

Pain caused by past events cannot be erased by any actions in the present after many years have passed and it's not meant to be erased. This pain is a catalyst for change and personal growth. If our childhoods weren't painful, we would have no motivation to work on ourselves and to grow up. If our homes and our parents were perfect and always made us happy, we would have no reason to separate from them, to leave the home and to become our own person.

We all have been wronged by our parents one way or another to a more or less extend. Not always and not necessarily because the parents were bad people, but because they were limited human beings, with limited understanding of what their children needed and also limited capacity to provide them with what they needed even when they did understand it. Some parents struggle with their own traumas and have no emotional capacity to be present for their children, some struggle to survive literally. They work 2-3 jobs just to feed the kids, but they are physically unable to attend to them beyond their physical needs. This is not to excuse anyone, this is just to explain that traumas and pain are, unfortunately, the organic part of life that is meant to be used as an opportunity for growth.

I hope, your daughter will be able to go through her process in such a way that she would want to restore the broken connection between you and her. I also hope she'd understand, at some point at least, that she can't expect you to heal her wounds. While you were the cause of her pain, it is now her job to heal it, as unfair as it sounds. It is so simply because no one except us alone has the power to heal our wounds and no one except us is in a position to do that, because healing ourselves is a condition for our growth and maturation and so we've got to do this work ourselves, no one can do it for us.

I also hope she'd understand that while she has legitimate grievances, she is in no position to judge what happened between you and your abusive therapist. She has the right to judge what has been happening between you and her over the course of her life and to tell you how it affected her, but she cannot tell you what happened between you and your therapist. My hope for you is that you'd be able to set this particular boundary with her. Whatever you did wrong in the past and whatever pain you caused her doesn't give her the right to tell you that your abuse was your fault. This is the red line she should not be crossing and I hope you will keep this boundary strong. Demanding basic respect for yourself would actually help her to deal with her own pain constructively.

__________________
www.therapyconsumerguide.com

Bernie Sanders/Tulsi Gabbard 2020
Ididitmyway is offline   Reply With QuoteReply With Quote
 
Thanks for this!
precaryous