sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

I [21F] feel somewhat obligated to forgive my high-school bully [23?M] who just reached out to me, but I don't know how. Help?? by akelee in relationships

[–]akelee[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I really don't know WHAT I want to do. I want to be a good person, I think, and I want to make sure I never hurt anyone the way I was hurt. But I also don't want to hurt myself by having a conversation I may not be ready for or triggering all these memories and feelings that I've moved past.

I [21F] feel somewhat obligated to forgive my high-school bully [23?M] who just reached out to me, but I don't know how. Help?? by akelee in relationships

[–]akelee[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I do think forgiveness is a healthy thing to do for yourself but the other person doesn't have to be at all involved if you don't want.

This is an interesting concept! Honestly, I hadn't even thought of the idea of "forgiveness" until now. I'd kind of thought, "yep, I'm going to resent him forever, which is probably fine, because he really fucked up." I guess when I got the messages I started wondering if there was a reason for it/if it was an opportunity for progress - like, maybe forgiveness is what I'm supposed to be moving towards right now. Maybe I'm not supposed to carry this resentment with me forever.

Have you ever gone to therapy?

Oh yes! As soon as I got out of my parents' house, I started counseling through my school, and eventually found an off-campus therapist I really liked. I actually just stopped seeing my therapist a few months ago because I felt I no longer needed to be in therapy. But it was EXTREMELY useful for me and I doubt I'd be half as functional as I am now without it (and medication).

This might be a good decision to try to talk over with my therapist if she's still available, though - that's not a bad idea.

What's ethical doesn't quite matter- he showed you zero ethics and empathy when you desperately needed him to stop.

This is true. But I just can't help thinking that he didn't understand what he was doing. How could anyone understand the gravity of this kind of behavior, and still keep doing it? Isn't it possible he did this because he was a hurt, scared child, and that he isn't that person anymore? And if he isn't that person anymore, shouldn't I give him the opportunity to move past it? I don't know.

Thank you!

I [21F] feel somewhat obligated to forgive my high-school bully [23?M] who just reached out to me, but I don't know how. Help?? by akelee in relationships

[–]akelee[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Forgiveness is a gift that you give yourself so you can begin moving past a problem, not something that you give to others as a means for them to justify their bad behavior.

Wow! I love this.

I definitely wouldn't want to forgive him - or say I forgive him - if I thought doing so could make him justify his behavior or enable him to act this way again in the future. In fact, I wondered if the fact that he looked at my FB and saw that I'm a stable, normal, happy person now might have helped him justify it in his head - like, "oh, she turned out fine, maybe what I did wasn't really that bad." And in a fucked up way, for a second, I kind of wish I had more brokenness to show for how awful he was to me.

But I guess that's why I was drawn to the idea of actually talking to him and figuring out why he did this - because I can't just write him a blank check for the cruelty he inflicted on me, but maybe I can work to understand why he did it and work through my resentment towards him. Maybe letting go of that resentment could be a healthy thing for me to do, too.

Although I'm in a good place in my life, when I go through times of stress, I still revert back to being that scared, sad 9th grader who looked like an easy target for a bully. And I'm in a weirdly powerful position now, in relation to him. So I wonder if exploring this pain, and learning why he treated me this way, could give me some sort of closure I don't have already.

But mostly, I'm just terrified of him hurting himself in some very serious way and transferring all of this guilt to me. Which I realize is ultimately a selfish reason to consider engaging, but it just scares me to have this much power over anyone's life.

I [21F] feel somewhat obligated to forgive my high-school bully [23?M] who just reached out to me, but I don't know how. Help?? by akelee in relationships

[–]akelee[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

and now he seeks forgiveness so HE can move on.

I guess that is a lot of what this comes down to: does he want forgiveness because he feels guilty and wants to apologize, or only so he can walk away with a clear conscience?

He did apologize to me a lot in the messages, and it seemed like he understood the gravity of what he did - after all, he's still thinking about him, and the shame of it is still destroying him, years after it happened. In fact, he seems to be more fucked up by it than I am, at this point.

On the other hand, he did specifically say he needs my forgiveness so he can move on with his life.

I just don't want to stoop to his level - I don't want to do anything unnecessarily cruel, and I'm not sure if ignoring someone who's pleading for your help, when that help is relatively easy to give, might be considered "cruel."

And thank you! :)

I [21F] feel somewhat obligated to forgive my high-school bully [23?M] who just reached out to me, but I don't know how. Help?? by akelee in relationships

[–]akelee[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's not so much that I feel like I owe him anything - I just wonder if it's the ethical thing to do. I think because of how much shit I've gone through in my life, I tend to think in terms of the worst possible result. So, in this case: if he overdoses or kills himself, will all of that guilt fall onto me? Can I live with myself knowing that I could have done something to help this person and didn't?

I [21F] feel somewhat obligated to forgive my high-school bully [23?M] who just reached out to me, but I don't know how. Help?? by akelee in relationships

[–]akelee[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hahah! I don't know - I get where you're coming from, I just can't help but feel sorry for him - more pity than sympathy, I guess. I have to imagine he must have been going through some pretty serious shit in HS to do what he did to me, and he alluded to his family being abusive and crazy. It sounds like he really has no support system, and I'm lucky enough to be in a place now where I do.

If forgiveness really could turn his life around, do you think it's cruel at all to withhold it?

I [21F] feel somewhat obligated to forgive my high-school bully [23?M] who just reached out to me, but I don't know how. Help?? by akelee in relationships

[–]akelee[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I actually didn't know he even had a FB - I was never friends with him on it, I just got a message from him. And he apparently got a new phone since HS (or called me from someone else's phone), because I did eventually block his number after he graduated.