A picture of a child

As always, this is a regular thought I grapple with - do I forgive the people who have hurt me tremendously, most particularly the young man at the root of much of my trauma? Ian Brown at the Globe and Mail today printed a lengthy piece on forgiveness. He muses that forgiveness is on some level essential to move forward, yet on another level nearly impossible without a range of conditions, generally involving an extent of reconciliation between the parties involved.

Brown's conclusions are ambiguous at best - not the holy grail in this lengthy internal journey. He does raise, however, a critical point near the end of his piece. Why is the onus on the victim (oh, I do hate that word), on the person wronged, to forgive? Should it not be on the perpetrator of violence, or broader wrongdoing, to seek forgiveness? Why must I forgive someone who might be in a position to commit the same violence to another person as he did to me, to hurt others once again? In my mental imagery, this "someone" is a monster who cannot be forgiven in a million years; a person of true evil, who has done unspeakable wrongs.

And so I went to my high school yearbooks, which I dug up the other day. A person who has done unspeakable wrongs? Well, that is unquestionable. I have never given details on this blog as to what happened, and have always been vague, not just because it hurts me to speak graphically and anatomically but also because it is too disturbing for most anyone who might read this. There was more wrong done on that day than there is room in my mind to process it. But a monster, a person of true evil? I found his picture in with the grade eleven students at my school, a few pages ahead of my grade nine photo. I never knew what he looked like, as I had very little vision when I met him, and not much more the day he raped me; I've closed my eyes each time since then that I've seen him, so I could not be triggered. The picture I found was of a child. In my flashbacks, his face has aged along with me, such that he became an adult. But in his picture, taken a few months before that day, he was a grinning boy, trying to grow a mustache, possibly, in a shapeless school uniform. A monster, and yet, a child. Evil, and yet, a child. Perhaps an adolescent would be a better description, but there is something distinctly boyish in his smile that I was never able to see. I have forgiven the children who bullied me years ago, because they were children. But I have always conceptualized him as an adult. Now, a child. Is a child able to commit rape on his own accord, as a budding sadist? Or is he a victim as I was, learning from media that taught him that violence would get him sexual gratification, and that placed this narrative in his hands? Is it his fault? Does he wonder about what he did, and how it hurt me? Does he care? Was it just a blip in his life, that he could forget as easily as what he learned in math class that day?

Is thinking about him and his feelings cannibalizing my own agency as a survivor, or fueling it? If he came to my door tomorrow to ask for forgiveness, as a man instead of a simultaneously terrifying yet somewhat impish boy, would I forgive him? Can I? If I forgive the child he was, must I then forgive the man he has become?

My mind is spinning tonight, and etched behind my eyes is a picture of two children...

To add to yesterday...

http://ellipsesproject.org/2012/10/19/forgiveness-is-a-luxury/

Interesting link here. Implying that it's a luxury that we can't all afford, though, implies that forgiveness is inherently desirable. And I'm not so sure it is.

On another note, I'm processing, processing, processing why I became so triggered tonight after a Facebook comment that sexualized me inappropriately. It's been a long time since I last felt that way.

My brain is trying to process...

A heavy blog night (don't worry, if you know me - I am actually totally ok, curled up with kittens and a lovely cup of tea, but writing about tough stuff)

A post on xojane, http://www.xojane.com/issues/rape-and-suicide (TRIGGER WARNING!!! talks about rape and suicide, PTSD, etc), got me thinking about that whole to-be-or-not-to-be thing. The blogger on xojane has survived several sexual assaults; for her, one more time would be the last straw. And this made me wonder - if it happened to me, again, what would I do? I want to think that it wouldn't happen, that lightning doesn't strike twice. Of course, life doesn't quite work that way; there is no life-long immunity to rape after it happens the first time. One of the commenters echoed what I think I feel about this as well - rather than it being the last straw, it would be another challenge to get through, but one that is perhaps easier than the first time, knowing that survival is possible even though it's hard as fuck.

So many folks in the comments (yes, I read the comments on everything...) say that they've always had suicide as a back-up plan. A friend of mine has often said the same thing for her life, and the possibility of having that last resort taken away from her was terrifying. I'm different (luckily, I guess) and I'm not sure what contributes to that. Not surviving has just never been an option that I'm willing to consider. It's letting him win.

Another thing I've been grappling with these past few weeks is the idea of forgiveness. It'll be 10 years this April, and I still cannot bring myself to look at his picture in my high-school yearbook for fear that I'll then know what he looks like (my eyesight was bad enough 10 years ago that I could not see him clearly enough to recognize him; in my mind, he doesn't have a face) and be able to know if I saw him on the street who he was - and I fear that then I'd kill him, or else explode with rage. So many people say to forgive, even though forgetting is impossible. I have trouble with that. I really do believe that some things cannot be forgiven.

Dying is letting him win; forgiving is letting him win; even as much as I'd like to push things aside, forgetting is letting him win. I can move past the flashbacks and surf on the waves of rage without being pulled under, but dammit if I'm going to venture inland.

[I still have never gotten a comment on this blog. If you read this, say hi?]