Forgiveness rather than revenge has recently become a hot topic, and most religions and philosophies side with forgiveness. Revenge is rejected as being unChristian, bestial and a bygone behavior that existed in earlier centuries. Now the trend is to forgive almost everything, although some people still reserve the right to reject the perpetrators of, for instance, the Nazi Holocaust in the 1930s and 1940s and 9/11 in NYC.
Naturally forgiveness has a variety of definitions, but the one we will use here maintains that there is no forgiveness unless the person apologizes and takes responsibility for whatever misbehavior occurred. As I mentioned earlier, in the case of my sib, I do not expect that I will ever confer forgiveness on her because she basically laughs off the idea of a sincere apology. She thought that by repeating meaningless words of apology to "satisfy" my "weird" need that she could get us back on an even footing. I'm not sure her motives for reconciliation were purely positive; they might have been attached to ulterior reasons--I don't even want to speculate what they might be except money might play a distinctive role. She doesn't always say what she means, and in this case, I am highly suspect.
Still, many people can and do forgive the OCS person who hurt them in various ways. Of course this entails sitting down and having an honest discussion with the OCS adult. If apologies emerge, you are on the right track and I heartily endorse your efforts and encourage you to persevere. As people mature, sometimes they are able to reflect more objectively on past actions. If this is so, apologies are more liable to flow naturally.
I'd like to end on a positive anecdote, since reconciliation plays better than revenge. I was in revenge mode for several years, and it does not enhance your relationships. You are liable to become more suspicious of others' actions, and this is not pleasant. What I can say honestly regarding my OCS sib is that in preventing the execution of revenge I became more realistic. Not everyone can have a perfectly loving family--the kind immortalized in TV sitcoms like "Father Knows Best," but you can modify that fairy-tale thinking to reflect your own imperfect situation. Which is why this blog is dedicated to the Dysfunctional Family, a large group of people whose high hopes and dreams have in some way been diminished by internal demons such as anxiety and depression and external forces such as OCS adults.
If you read all these 30 blogs you now are a mini-authority on the OCS child and adult, but beware, they're all around you. You may be sitting next to one right now!
I just returned from the #veterinarian with Maddie, my eight-year-old #schnauzer with valley fever. She's on a half dose of her meds, and we're seeing if this has any positive or negative influence on the course of the #disease. Valley fever is a plague in the Southwest, especially Arizona, and it's one of the crazier #fungal diseases out there. For instance, Maddie never showed any #discernible symptoms but when I chanced to test her for the disease, she showed a high titre. So either the test was really wrong-----about three times in a row--or else Maddie's immune system is so good that it's #clobbering the disease but not ridding the body of it. This is a long way of stating the obvious. Although dogs like Maddie as well as cats, miniature horses and even bunnies are regularly being used as #therapy animals at nursing homes, hospitals, schools, and all kinds of venues, they also are capable of traumatizing people or just plain breaking their heart. Wai
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