I think the things we call abuse, co-dependency, passive/aggressive and so on are pretty much the same at heart, but just vary in intensity. A key element that pulls people into cooperation with these patterns is a pattern of language shifts which convey the philosophy behind abuse while obfustacating logical fallacies.
When someone is heavily involved in abuse speak, it can be impossible to speak to them of concepts which lie outside their world view. They think they understand you, but they translate your words or actions according to abuse philosophy. The result can be rather like the classic "Who’s on First" joke, where each effort you make to clarify simply deepens the misunderstanding.
"I FORGIVE YOU" AND "I’M SORRY"
A friend and I have had on going conversation about the meaning of forgiveness for a long time, maybe ten years. Recently, I've gotten some more understanding for why these conversations have been a bit of a puzzle to both of us.
The above phrases are especially loaded within abuse speak. The little dictionary beside my computer says that to forgive means "to give up resentment of". In abuse speak, "I forgive you" means, "We both know you’re an evil shit, but I’m so big that I will now let you go on pretending you’re a decent human being. I will covertly remind you of your transgression regularly and I will be overt about it everytime I get upset. The only way you’ll ever be really off the hook is if I forget about it."
This hardly constitues giving up resentment, does it? But doesn’t that sound very familiar to all of you?
"I’m sorry" also has a shifted definition within abuse speak. To me, it ought to mean, "I acknowledge that I did wrong by you, I am ready to deal with that in any way possible, and I will try not to do it again." In abuse speak, it generally has one of two meanings: Sometimes it means, "OK, I said it, now you just shut up about what I did." Other times it means, "I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I bare my throat to you, I beat my breast, I tear my hair, kick me until you’re tired and then never mention again what I did again because it hurts me so bad."
I think much of the confusion my friend and I have had over "forgiveness" stems from the fact that my mother taught me an abuse speak meaning for it. So, if someone says, "I forgive you" to me I tend to hear that I’m being told I’m irretreiviably bad. If someone asks me to say it, I hear a demand that I give up all hope of having my injury dealt with and that I cooperate in forgetting it ever happened.
True forgiveness does not require forgetting an injury. It also does not require you to set aside any needs you may have to get help with that injury.
I understand about the goodness of giving up resentment. I think it is an important step toward healing wounds, and probably even more beneficial to the one who does it than to the one who is forgiven.
But, lordy, lordy -- do I have problems with that word! Each time I write it, my mind reels off stories of people who used the abuse speak meaning on me or demanded that I adhere to it. "You’re so unforgiving!" just because I wanted to talk about it later.
Well, I’ll just have to work on that. The fact that there are people who can’t conceive of anyone giving up resentment unless they forget doesn’t mean I can’t use the word properly.