Discussion Responsibility and accountability

[pepperfarmer]

Growing up a cocktail of stress, abuse and horrible internet influence caused me to be extremely destructive growing up and for the longest time I was incredibly callous and engaged in disgusting behavior. Dealing with it as an adult now, this means I now have had to engage in a process of holding myself accountable and owning up to the harm I've caused. It sucks and it has involved constantly interrogating myself, but I know I have to do it because I know I don't want to be like that anymore and hurt more people, even if it's too late to take it all back.

A result of this is that I've contemplated a lot on human behavior, forgiveness, and morality, and how to deal with one's own moral failures and/or antisocial behavior, so now I'm curious what other people here think/deal with themselves but also with the world at large, especially those who have strong regrets of that nature.

How do you cope with it? Do you forgive yourself? Externally, who do you forgive and who do you not forgive for hurting you?

As a personal example; I once had two Moroccan (I'm European) friends when I was 16 and at some point they showed me a video of

Spoiler: CW: homophobic violence

a gay dude in Morocco being stoned to death

. They knew I was Queer. I'd forgive them because they were being racially bullied and I was being bullied over my sexuality and they were coping in destructive ways just like me, as disgusting as it was, I know they didn't intend to hurt me. I'd find it a lot harder for the rest of my bullies because they weren't under such pressure, but I likely would if they showed genuine regret. I certainly wouldn't forgive the adults that abused me in my childhood, they knew what they were doing.

 

[Somewhat Suicidal]

I answered in your other thread already, so I won't repeat all that here.

Regarding this part I think you bring up several interesting points.

I'd forgive them because they were being racially bullied and I was being bullied over my sexuality and they were coping in destructive ways just like me, as disgusting as it was, I know they didn't intend to hurt me. I'd find it a lot harder for the rest of my bullies because they weren't under such pressure, but I likely would if they showed genuine regret.

So in addition to what I referred above to, I would add:
I think the fact whether or not

1. external factors might have motivated people misbehaving or not knowing better
2. the intention to harm someone with said misbehaviour wasn't present
3. there is genuine regret about what someone harmful has done, even if the previous 2 statements are untrue

makes a huge difference on our ability to forgive others.
This helped me personally to forgive myself for some things I'm not proud of and also helped me forgiving others who have deeply hurt me, at least in some cases. In other cases I still think I didn't fully forgive others and I'm not sure I ever can, or how.

But when you think a little more about it, forgiving people (and by extension ourselves) is not something we do for our tormenters anyway, but for ourselves as several quite smart people over the course of history have said and I firmly believe this to be true. Mostly, not doing so will be a burden we have to carry while they won't and probably have forgotten about the whole thing long ago.

 

[PimpHand]

And yet you are a collectivist who will defend this kind of people against the "evil white man".

 

[Vombie12]

Idk if it falls under this exactly, but due to BPD and depression I ended up completely isolating myself from everyone with a mindframe of "Isolation b/c they dont want to deal with me blah blah" but all I did was make ppl think I was mad at them due to sudden complete isolation of everyone. I kind of forgive myself as I've explained it after the fact and know that was not usual for me, but it still had an impact and makes friendships really hard. Noone ever cared either, and ik its not up to other people to try and ask/figure it out, but literally no one even asked if I was alright so, selfishly, makes it harder I suppose. Ik it's morally wrong, but yet I still did it even though I'd never want anyone to do that to me. I think its a social, environmental and being raised a certain way that led to this. I don't really cope, but I'm also rn in complete isolation so I don't really have to deal with it?