I’ll start by saying that I am not a psychologist or a mental health professional of any kind, but I can walk you through a lot of the process that I’ve done and has helped me. People always say just let go and move on, but it’s vastly oversimplifying and not really helpful to someone who hasn’t learned a process by which to do it.
The first step is admitting it and, for most people, it’s actually one of the most difficult steps. I know I spent a while in some state of justifying why something bad that happened to me either wasn’t bad or wasn’t as bad as I remember it or whatever. But once you admit it, you can actually start doing some work to resolve it.
The next part is to actually more or less experience whatever it is. Really, it doesn’t even matter if maybe it’s not as bad as you remember it or you feel like you’re overreacting. If you’re angry about it or hurt by it or whatever, that’s fine. What matters is how you perceive it, not some concept of a truly objective perspective.
After that, you have to be able to reach a point where you’re done with whatever it is. I think this is a point where a lot of people get stuck. For instance, maybe a step parent was physically abusive and you get the the point of recognizing the anger for that person, but continuing to indulge in it. At some point you’re done with that and it’s no longer serving you and you have to just let it go. The key thing for me to realize was that it is in the past and I can’t change it, but I can learn from it and I can help others to learn from it. In that way, I can make a negative experience ultimately a positive thing. And I’ve found that once I’ve learned lessons from past experiences and been able to apply them to help myself or others, a lot of that charge goes away. Like finding out about a friend betraying you and getting hurt by it, but then learning to pick up on those warning signs and being able to avoid having those sorts of friends in the future. But the point is, if you’ve found a way to learn something from it and become a better person, you’re not going to be charged about the harm that person did to you.
Finally, you have to forgive that person. A lot of people think an apology requires a confrontation, and it certainly helps a lot when there is one because you can both get an understanding of where the other one was at the time, but it’s not really necessary. Sometimes, those confrontations can make it worse if one or both of you is adamant about whatever it is. If you can really experience the grief, get past it to the point where there’s no charge, you can forgive that person from your end, whether or not they ever apologize. Similarly, you may even find in some of these situations you owe them an apology, and though you can’t apologize to them, the important part is recognizing the wrong you did, feeling remorse for it whether or not they do or don’t accept it, and making a legitimate effort to be a better person about it from then on.
So from my end, I’ve had these sorts of things. Some people I was able to talk to, get a great deal of understanding about what happened, and forgiving and moving on was easy. For some I coudl talk to, but it didn’t go smooothly, and so it took me longer to finish with experiencing the grief, but once I did, I forgave them and moved on. And there’s more yet where I couldn’t talk to them if I wanted to, it takes some effort to come to a point of understanding without their input, but I could still forgive them.
Even with all of this said, that doesn’t mean there’s not some other lasting effects other than the hurt. If you were abused by parents or peers, it could certainly have affected social interactions. That’s a place where some form of therapy can really help. It’s like recovering from an injury. First you have to heal, then you can get therapy to strengthen up or relearn how to do things that you’ve forgotten how to do. But also from my own experience, part of it is realizing where you’re deficient and making an effort to fix it.
But if you feel like you’re handling life pretty well, you may not really have to do anything. Sometimes you can experience the emotions and forgive and move on without actually intellectually understanding why it’s bad or what exactly went on. Hell, I’ve had things from years ago I only really recently figured out how bad they were, but there’s absolutely no charge for me and I can see where it had that affect on me and I’m over it now.