Trashy television programmes are my sugar laced, sleep deprived, late night pleasure, and with my screeching tinnitus becoming my co-joined twin, I truly relish any distraction.
Married at First Sight Australia (or MAFS, yes I’m a BIG fan) has been helping me through some of the worst days lately, with a new episode released every weekday on the streaming service All4.
For those who aren’t in the know, the premise is pretty simple, but always powerfully explosive. Singles are matched by experts with a partner who they marry without having met, and the following weeks in the ‘experiment’ are televised for our pleasure. Season 10 has been the rollercoaster we’ve all come to expect with misogyny, affairs, secret partners on the ‘outside’, revealing ‘butt dials’, and the odd drunken feud peppered in for good measure. There’s no question it’s intrusive and delves uncomfortably deep into personal feelings, but you find yourself rooting for couples, and rooting for some to give up and move on. The narrative is highly addictive.
One couple have been through the ringer this season – Jessie and Claire. I’ve been cheering them on from the other side of the world throughout their ups and downs, but I won’t give away what’s going to happen. No spoilers here.
Saying that, while listening to Jessie talk to producers about his feelings for Claire, he made the following comment…
“Forgiveness is a choice…”
There was much more to his speech, but I found myself stuck in those 4 simple words. Forgiveness is a CHOICE. A choice? A CHOICE? Is he sure?
He said it weeks ago, and I’m still considering what it should mean for me, because honestly, I hadn’t realised I can CHOOSE to forgive until that moment.
It’s well documented that I feel my emotions pretty deeply. My partner is the antithesis of this, letting comments bother him less than oil penetrates Teflon. He just doesn’t care. For me, emotional scars are probably even more hurtful and dangerous than the real ones I can show to people. Someone making a decision to be deliberately emotionally hurtful towards another human is a concept I find hard to understand, so when the nastiness is directed at me I find it pretty consuming. I wallow in it, and HAVE wallowed in anger for decades, and all over some significant emotional scars. DECADES.
Now, I’ve simmered the thought of forgiving others for a while, and in some cases I have, in some cases I don’t care anymore (everyone has just moved on), and in some cases I simply can’t forgive because I can’t forget. Some wounds never heal, especially where answers are now burned or buried with their owners. I’m sure many people struggle with forgiving those who have passed while leaving unanswered questions behind.
It was while I was mulling all of this over, chewing it round and round and round in my brain, that it occurred to me there’s one obvious person I should be able to reconcile with, that I should be able to get answers from, and that I can ultimately, finally, forgive.
Myself.
To realise this, I first had to realise what I’m angry with myself for, and (although it took a while) i realised it mostly stems from failure. My list of ‘fails’ will probably resonate with lots of people.
Failure to be the parent I wanted
Failure to be a better daughter while mum was alive
Failure to be as well-educated as I should be
Failure to be likeable and have a close knit circle around me
Failure to be ‘normal’
Failure to stay active, thin and attractive
And failure to be a supportive partner, rather than becoming such a burden for him.
I chewed these facts for a while too, and I realised that, in the end, I’m blaming myself for my circumstances. Is that fair, or is there room to reconcile with my own brain? Internet searches and general forum discussions on the subject are mixed in their thoughts. We’re all the end product of our own decisions, surely? Yes, I’ve got some health issues now, some past relationships that were dangerously destructive, too much grief to recall here and now, and a selection of mentally challenging problems to juggle, but I’m lead to believe I shouldn’t be blaming myself for all this.
Yet I do blame myself.
So, as always with these posts, I find myself at the problem solving end of my musings. What do I do to forgive myself? How do I accept the past as my own, regardless of culpability, and move on from it?
Self forgiveness is a real bloody thing! And, judging by the millions of pages dedicated to the subject online, I guess there are many people who need help with it.
I’ve found ideas from affirmations to mindfulness techniques…you really could get lost in the suggestions out there.
But the page that helped me most was from the website of the all-seeing, all-knowing powerhouse that is Oprah Winfrey. Her website, Oprah Daily, has a whole page dedicated to how to forgive yourself, and as a snapshot, here are the ideas that made sense…
- Understand the difference between guilt and shame
- Admit the mistake
- Apologise
- Imagine forgiveness
- Learn from the mistake
I don’t think for a second that reconciling these feelings is a quick fix, but accountability, understanding, and education should be the things we all get from difficult experiences, so maybe there’s some sense to it.
I’ve also added gratitude to the list because it feels right to be thankful for something that happened, however insignificant it might feel.
So back to the title question – can I forgive myself? I’m not sure, but I’ve only just realised I’m holding a grudge, so I should give myself time.
What I can do is practice the suggestions from Queen O, keep trying to let go of the past, and allow myself to be the person I am now, rather than the person I believe I should be. She’ll probably be a bitch anyway!
The picture
I drew this on a late snooze-lacking, tinnitus screeching, insomniac evening, and to be honest, I don’t know where it came from.
I’ve found the use of patterns to be really helpful lately, and the uniformity makes it easier to draw, while the light and shade of the colour palette makes them look really pretty.
In the end, I was concentrating on colour and lack of symmetry as I drew this and thankfully, the self hatred was silenced for a short while.
Thanks for reading, as always 💜
Creative Steph 