The Intermediate State: Forgiveness, Grace, and what lies between

I wrote this entry down in my journal this morning because I needed a space to vent. It gave me a bigger concept worth considering, and also the other side of it? In a way? Here it is, and then here is my processing of it…

Woke up feeling so mad, knowing i bled through that night despite wearing a literal diaper pad, and on fresh sheets fucking sucks. Also woke up to the loudness of landscaping work being done at 7 in the morning, for real? Why so fucking early? I went to bed late after a really long and productive day, and all i wanted was to sleep in. It is now 10am, and i somehow feel behind on school work for class and independent study, when I know it’s not even a huge deal to relax for one day and knowing that Adriana is super understanding. Deleted old photos, and had such mixed feeling: regret, anger, annoyance, understanding, i don’t even know. I feel like I should keep some as evidence, but I am honestly just so frustrated at the fact that everything I do to try and move on from the situation, still leaves me hurt and in pain—partly at myself, and partly at them. I just really want justice, I want a final understanding, I want to know how they are going to be better human beings. I want a sign of relief, but I feel like I can’t fucking catch a break from this. I feel so mad. Even writing this down isn’t helping. Therapy reminds me to write down things that would help me. Okay so music, a podcast, calling mom, more sleep, breakfast, heating pad, running (but don’t have the energy and I just showered so that’s a no), maybe a happy movie, maybe I DON’T KNOW. Fuck. Oh my god. I hate being a woman. I hate knowing that the fuck shit someone, rather, a man, rather, one of my friends and support system, rather, even worse, one of my girlfriends, could do some fuck shit to fuck me up this bad at 10am in the morning on a fucking tuesday. I can’t. I genuinely just can’t.

This was the entry of a day earlier this week, where I was hormonal yes, but also just being a woman in this world, and also living for the first time (I think) and also just having feelings and being human. This follows a lot of separate things, and I kind of always have this main event, this trauma that keeps following me wherever I go, like a shadow that won’t leave me even when I’m asleep, even in the dark. It is moments like this that feel so inescapable, even in its temporality—like I am experiencing insomnia full time, and there is no cure.

That’s the thing though. Is there ever any curing for traumatic events, especially in the case of sexual violence, and repeatedly. I came across the actual video of my so-called friend doing this to me, along with my entire “friend group” just there, watching, and not doing anything (a normalized reaction at this point). But when I saw this video, I was taken back to a dream that I keep having, along the same lines as this actual event. I am being pushed into a corner, and then either being physically assaulted or put in the same sexual assault scenario that I was in that night, sometimes escalating even more than real life, sometimes having my own defense, sometimes just taking it. I think it’s all of the ‘what ifs’ that make it worse; knowing I could’ve acted differently, and didn’t. I knew this was a repeated behavior, but it had become so normalized, and especially between our group, and in this state, that I would usually brush it off, act as if it never happened. In fact, that’s actually what I did that night, and after my friend pulled me out from his grasp, I merely walked away and carried on with my night. So was it the fact that I didn’t know any better, when I kind of did, but it was the collective agreement to never speak up, that really makes me so mad? Or is it the fact that now that I know, and sought out for a response, proceeded to never get one (or one that I wanted), which is keeping me so mad? I guess it’s a little bit of everything. But aside from that, and most importantly, this is an act of violence, which shouldn’t happen to anyone regardless of circumstance or situation, an act that was done not with care, not with consideration of my position, or his, or anyone else’s for that matter. This was intentional, and so yea, it makes sense to still feel hurt.

The process of self-forgiveness and grace is another thing though. It doesn’t really matter what anyone else says, whether it’s an apology, or more excuses, it doesn’t matter. Because in cases where a person is left with a traumatic memory of it, that is the thing that sticks. Any apology or acknowledgement from the opposite party does more for them than it does for me. But then how is forgiveness even achievable? Because I used to think that upon knowing a person, truly knowing them, where they come from and who they are and why they are, is what makes forgiveness attainable. But, I don’t think that’s necessarily true, and I don’t think knowing someone inside and out is actually any reason as to why you even should forgive or feel any grace towards them or the situation. I can have compassion for the person and where they came from, but not forgiving or giving grace does not have to be mutually exclusive in that regard. It matters internally, and individually as the person harmed in the matter.

Being generous to someone who did harm onto me, feels wrong, no matter the morals behind it. No matter who tells me I have peace in knowing that I have moved on from it through the grace given and forgiveness of it and of them. But the thing here, is trauma is not something that magically goes away. And what’s parallel to that is this idea that the healing from trauma is linear and the grace given to yourself is something achievable and you can beat it! No, I am sorry to say, but this is not true, you cannot beat that shit, because it also shaped who you are. There is a cultivation of morals, ethics, realizations, understanding that comes from experience, and that is something that dates to the beginning of humanity; you cannot learn from nothing, you learn from experience, from mistake, from triumph, from tribulation. This is not unknown, but it is the ongoing trigger of it, the discomfort in knowing you still experienced these things that lingers and forever sticks with you.

This is also a danger in this. In allowing understanding and grace to a person. How can I not forgive you, because knowing where you came from and know you only hurt me just because you’re hurting? People don’t just hurt people because they’re happy, nor is it because they’re in a good place. But that actually isn’t justification, it is only an excuse. And especially in the case of knowing better, being addressed of these actions before, or being capable and old enough to find the moral choice when it comes to harm based off of your own experience. That is still the main issue, and that is why in cases of harm, it doesn’t really matter where they came from, if they still caused this much harm onto you knowing themselves what it means and the implications of it. This is not reason for remorse, this is not reason for forgiveness, and this actually is something that only makes the one hurt in this matter, feel worse.

It becomes an internal battle, a process of giving yourself grace. There is perhaps even a neutrality from traumatic events that can be met. You can feel indifferent from the person you were, from the person they were, but that is most likely the furthest you can get from it. Not as an escapism, but there does have to be some sort of middle ground, a place of understanding and accepting that yes this happened to you, yes it fucks you up pretty bad still now, but I guess the biggest triumph that can come from it is actually from yourself. Being the person that did the harm is a much worse conscious to live in, or not.. It doesn’t really matter, or concern the victim in this sense because there is no coming back from something that has been proven time and time again to not be possible. Like Aristotle, and his ethics of virtue, of intermediate state, and this idea that mistakes are ultimately inevitable, but it is how you respond to it, how you adjust your conscious state to reflect, and create new habit deconstructing the old. This applies especially to the one hurt, because it can be the acts done to you which suggest such reflection and adjustment to those you surround yourself with.And like Nussbaum even writes, anger becomes a cage that you fight to escape, but it isn’t really productive; anger like healing is a transitional process, moving through it is for yourself and not for the perpetrator’s sake.

Maybe accountability, something Hooks says is the thing most necessary and needed for the process of healing. Forgiveness has a warped moral imperative that keeps people thinking that you owe it, that withholding it is what keeps you stuck in that cage. Maybe it’s the deep religiosity behind it, Christianity thrives off of it actually. But I don’t think it’s that simple; by allowing forgiveness, the one who caused harm gets absolution, redemption even. The harm is the forgiveness, the harm is thinking forgiveness is the solution but mistakenly gets repackaged as liberation for only the perpetrator. The neutrality, the intermediate state, is the most honest and proactive framework to apply here; to owe yourself the grace that is so often given to those who have harmed.