Should we forgive our abusers?

Hi everyone, welcome to my channel. I'm Athena from Courage Coaching. In today's video I would like to talk about something that's very close to my heart. I would like to talk about the pain that comes with being told that you have to forgive your parents. Now you have to understand that when you grow up in a dysfunctional family and as a child you are completely helpless and you were not asked to be born into a family like this. When people say to you, why can't you forgive your mum? She is your mum, why can't you give her a chance? If your parents were abusive, and it doesn't matter if it was emotional abuse or physical abuse, abuse is abuse. If your parents were abusive and they didn't apologise for this abuse, if your parents were not accountable for the abuse that they inflicted on you, whether they knew about it or not, whether they were conscious of this or not, people need to stop expecting those of us who have been abused in childhood to forgive our abusers. When our parents continue to deny that they have abused us or hurt us in any way, it is not our responsibility to forgive them. If they are able to be accountable for the damage that they have caused, if they are able to sit down with us and talk to us about the damage they have caused and ask us how they can make it better, how they can fix our relationship, how they can help us heal, then that's great. But when our parents are not accountable and whenever we bring up the abuse they deny it, and this is still happening when we are in our 20s and 30s and 40s, then it is not up to us to forgive our parents. They need to show us that they can be forgiven, but if they are not showing us this, then it is up to us to decide whether we want a relationship with them, whether we want low contact with them, or whether we want to go no contact with them. So please, if you are watching this and you are someone who has told a friend that they must forgive their parents, then stop doing this. You don't know what has really gone on. You don't know how abusive they may have been. They may appear to be lovely people and you may not notice that they have an abusive side. Unfortunately, in families, these individuals are very good at hiding their true nature, but behind closed doors there is abuse, there is neglect. So don't assume that the parent is right. It is highly unlikely that somebody who has had abusive parents will be making this up. If they say that they have been abused, then this is what has happened. So stop asking them to forgive their parents, just accept that somebody who abuses somebody else does not need to be forgiven. That is the end of the video today. Thank you so much for listening and for watching. If you have any questions, then please feel free to send me an email at courageisallyouneedatgmail.com