Forgiveness, Pt. 1

I was inspired recently to write about forgiveness. So this post will contain at least two parts. I have a feeling that this first part is not going to be easy to read, and at first, it may not sound much like forgiveness. It may even make some of you angry. I'm cool with that. Comment if you feel so inclined, but before you get completely enraged at me or at anyone else, let the second part get posted...and maybe even the third part.

David Holthouse, a victim of child sex abuse, was once a man plotting murder, planning revenge. “I arrived at a point in my mind,” he says, “where it seemed to me that murder was entirely rational, justifiable, and even a morally responsible course of action.” That, my friends, is sanity. I should take a moment to clear up that what is right is not necessarily what is sane. What is legally acceptable is not necessarily the same as what is rational. We like to think that morality and legality are both synonymous with rationality and justifiability.

Let’s think for a moment about battered wives. Many of the women serving long-term or life sentences in the prison system were abused by their husbands until one day they couldn’t take it anymore, and whether in self-defense or out of the helpless feeling of being trapped in a dangerous situation, they killed their husbands. That’s rational. That’s almost justifiable in my mind. And it’s certainly sane. Insanity is staying in an abusive situation. Granted, that was not the best example, because for battered women there are safe houses and other programs available, though the women do not always see those as viable options.

But let’s get back to Mr. Holthouse. He was sexually victimized by an eighteen-year-old, when he was just seven. The perpetrator? The son of his (Holthouse’s) parents’ best friends. Holthouse never told a soul. He spent the rest of his childhood avoiding the guy.

Fast forward about twenty five years. He became a journalist and moved all around the country. While he was living in Denver, Colorado, his father called to tell him that the same guy, the one who abused him as a child, was living in Denver too. And he had a wife and kids. And so, quietly, and without leaving a trail, Holthouse began to make plans to have this guy murdered. There would be no motive to link it to him, because no one knew about the abuse. It seemed to be the perfect crime.

But, as fate—or whatever you’d like to call it—would have it, his mother found his childhood journal and figured out what happened. His plan was thwarted. Now, though, Holthouse was forced to confront the man he calls “The Bogey Man” instead of just doing away with him.

Let’s stop right here. It seems to me that when you do something wrong, you ought to feel some guilt, some remorse, some negative emotion as the smallest of consequences for your actions. Perpetrators have a conscience too, right? Why is it that while a victim is racked with guilt, shame and emotional trauma for years on end, the perpetrator goes on to have a family, lead a productive life? Or worse, offend again?

Being a child and being victimized instantly makes the crime unlike any other. Child victims are different from other victims for multiple reasons. First of all, the adults around them do not always believe them, so the child quickly feels isolated. Second, if the case even gets to court, the child is often considered an unreliable witness, prone to mixing up facts or getting easily confused by the cross-examiner. Third, and most importantly, the child will likely never come forward because the perpetrator is in some position of power or authority: a parent, an older relative, a teacher, a coach, etc. The perpetrator’s abuse the trust and authority they hold with the child/teenager, and not only is that ability to trust any other person altered, but there is fear of what sort of “retaliation” could come as a result of telling someone about what happened. There are, as with most other victims, also negative emotions involved, such as guilt, fear, and shame, and often those are so burdensome that the child may feel at fault for what happened and be unable to see the truth and do something about it.

Holthouse often tells other victims of child sex abuse: “Not only do you have the right, but arguably, you have the obligation to exact some form of revenge on the person who sexually assaulted you when you were a kid.” Why? Because you know a predator. Although I still do not condone murder or any other form of revenge, I can certainly sympathize with this. There were many days when I was sure that the only way I could ever move forward with my life was to see the permanent incapacitation of my abuser. I wanted him to suffer. I wanted him to regret what he had done. I wanted him to spend time in jail or feel remorse… Something, anything, to even partially compare to the trauma I had experienced at his hands.

I was sixteen when I was sexually abused for a series of days by a man. Until I had become a victim, I didn’t understand the power of hate. I didn’t understand how passionate rage could drive you to feel so out of control. I didn’t know what it felt like to want deeply to see someone else’s pain come full-force and want to witness their suffering.

Again, I’m not in any way excusing people who kill. But I am also not about to say I haven’t been in a place where I was sure that the only way I could move forward in life was to hurt the person who hurt me. That’s sanity. And sure, what is sane is not actually “right,” but it makes perfect sense if you follow basic human reasoning. The best way to ensure the hurt never happens again is to eliminate the source... the source of so much pain, physically and emotionally in my life, the source that has forever affected who I am and who I will become.