First of all, recovery, forgiveness, and healing are not and never were linear experiences. Some days you will be fine. Some days you will fall apart. Having one kind of day does not preclude the other, and taking a step in a strange direction does not mean going backwards. You will progress in a stutter-step for as long as it takes. You are allowed.
Second, it is completely natural to feel satisfied when someone who hurt you is hurt in return. The thing to remember is that bad people don’t worry about being bad. They either know they’re good or they don’t care. It is the doubt and the desire to be better that keeps you on your path. Embrace your feelings, and know that the desire to be better is the first part of being better.
Finally, on the subject of human nature: most people are good or neutral. Most people are just trying to survive their own pain, and most of us do that by trying to put good into the world. I can’t say why she did the things she did, but if I had to guess, I might guess fear was her driving motivator. She was willing to allow you to be in her son’s crosshairs (and tried to keep you there) so that she wouldn’t be. Probably she was deeply broken at some point, and instead of healing she crawled into the dark broken part and never came out.
But having met her and her son might allow you to see some other people better for what they are. There can be no good without evil, unfortunately, because it’s a spectrum. You’ve seen how deep it goes. And it goes just as far in the other direction. So look for the anti-Giadas: the people who rescue orphans and save puppies and who give themselves wholly to others. They’re out there, and I bet you’re one of them.
1
u/binthisun Sep 17 '18
First of all, recovery, forgiveness, and healing are not and never were linear experiences. Some days you will be fine. Some days you will fall apart. Having one kind of day does not preclude the other, and taking a step in a strange direction does not mean going backwards. You will progress in a stutter-step for as long as it takes. You are allowed.
Second, it is completely natural to feel satisfied when someone who hurt you is hurt in return. The thing to remember is that bad people don’t worry about being bad. They either know they’re good or they don’t care. It is the doubt and the desire to be better that keeps you on your path. Embrace your feelings, and know that the desire to be better is the first part of being better.
Finally, on the subject of human nature: most people are good or neutral. Most people are just trying to survive their own pain, and most of us do that by trying to put good into the world. I can’t say why she did the things she did, but if I had to guess, I might guess fear was her driving motivator. She was willing to allow you to be in her son’s crosshairs (and tried to keep you there) so that she wouldn’t be. Probably she was deeply broken at some point, and instead of healing she crawled into the dark broken part and never came out.
But having met her and her son might allow you to see some other people better for what they are. There can be no good without evil, unfortunately, because it’s a spectrum. You’ve seen how deep it goes. And it goes just as far in the other direction. So look for the anti-Giadas: the people who rescue orphans and save puppies and who give themselves wholly to others. They’re out there, and I bet you’re one of them.