Yes, it hurts

Yes, what they did was inhumane

Despicable! Disgusting!

All the vile names suit them.

It hurts, it truly does.

Their actions have put one in a survival mode.

Having to watch out on whatever you do, because you were afraid their wrath from nowhere will be dumped on you.

Though one is out of those anguishes, it still feels like it happened yesterday.

Sometimes you’ll feel the need to avenge, and that is okay.

As time goes on, you realise the good things life is bringing to your attention, but the pain from the past anguishes just blurs it all.

Then you realise that as you dwell more on their despicable deeds, the more you miss out on the good moments you are ought to share with your loved ones.

The ones who truly mean it when they say they love you.

They don’t say it for the sake of the image that they have to maintain for the community.

They show it, and they are a ray of sunshine everyday, but you cannot see it because of the traumatic past.

It’s okay. It was very traumatic and how can we expect one to move on like it never happened?

Days go by and you realise the affection you are withholding from very important people in your life.

It is not deliberate. You want to show your loved ones love but the agony is holding you back.

You’re constantly consumed by the anger towards those who hurt you, that although they are not there anymore, their actions are still flourishing.

You then realise that, that misery upon your mental health and your life at large, was their goal.

You realise you should take action and sieze the good that life offers you in the present moment and enjoy it.

The only way is to sieze back your strength to yourself, by letting go of the misery from the past and living your life, sharing its goodness with those who matter the most,

Your loved ones.

Letting go of the past misery does not equate to letting them get away with it.

No. We let go, because it holds us back that we cannot live our lives as we are supposed to.

We let go, because dwelling on their actions affect us so bad that everything gets disrupted.

Dwelling on them hurts, that mental symptoms become transformed into physical symptoms.

If you need to report them for what they did, do it as you should.

If you need to talk about it, do it as you should.

Forgiveness is not embracing what they did.

Forgiveness is allowing yourself to move on and coming into awareness that they don’t matter anymore.

Forgiveness is not request for one to smile and being nice to their despicable abusers.

No, forgiveness is setting yourself from the chains they chained you with.

Forgiveness is all about you and no one else. It is act of allowing yourself to move on from the past.

Forgiveness is not a request for one to share a table with those despicable people. No!

Forgiveness is not a license for one to get away with their vile deeds.

We will never befriend them, but for the sake of our sanity and progress, we forgive.

We will lay those complaints.

We will report those cases.

For some time in our lives, forgiveness has been defined wrongly that it involves parties who offended us,

That when we hear the word forgiveness, we get more mad.

We get more mad because we are expected to undergo it overnight that our trauma is disregarded.

Healing is a process and we take it day by day and a year by year.

As time proceeds, we learn that forgiveness is an act of self-love.