Forgiveness, Self-Forgiveness, and Narcissism Recovery

We’ve talked about forgiveness and narcissism recovery before, from the standpoint of forgiveness, apologies, and relationship repair. Today we’ll explore the topic of self-forgiveness, which is one of the most challenging aspects of narcissism recovery.

For many people, forgiveness is a sensitive topic. If you have a parent or partner with narcissistic traits, they’ve undoubtably done some hurtful things to you. The idea of forgiving them can be hard to imagine.

And for some people, the idea of self-forgiveness is just as uncomfortable. If you have a parent with narcissistic traits, you may look back on your childhood, adolescence, or adulthood with regret and resentment. Being parentified might have stolen huge chunks of your life. Because you didn’t receive healthy other-esteem, you didn’t develop healthy self-esteem. As a result, you may not have taken good care of yourself, or you may have done things to yourself or others that you regret.

Research shows your choice of partner is the single most important decision you make. If you have a partner with narcissistic traits, your choice of partner negatively impacted your life. You may have to live with the negative consequences of your decision for the rest of your life. Your decisions may have affected others negatively, and those negative consequences may affect them for a lifetime.

It’s easy to see why can be challenging to forgive yourself. That said, self-forgiveness is essential to a lifetime of health and happiness. If you don’t forgive yourself, it’s harder to engage in self-care, and easier to justify unhealthy decisions. And it’s hard to be content with your life as it is if you resent yourself for your past decisions.

So, today we’ll briefly explore forgiveness, self-forgiveness, and narcissism recovery, and see how self-forgiveness can benefit you. We’ll take a look at ways you can work on forgiving yourself, too. Let’s get started!

What Does "Forgiveness" Even Mean?

People often confuse forgiveness and reconciliation, when in fact they are two distinct things. Sometimes that confusion makes it hard for people to consider self-forgiveness, so let's recap forgiveness first. Forgiveness is accepting someone was doing the best they could at that time. That’s it.

Forgiveness is often confused for reconciliation, when in fact they are separate. In reconciliation, you agree to be in relationship with that person. You can forgive someone, and return to being in relationship with them. Or, you can accept that someone was doing the best they could, or that they are doing the best they can right now—and simultaneously accept that you do not want to be in relationship with them.

Regardless of what you decide to do about reconciling—that is, whether you choose to go no contact, low contact, medium contact, or see your person with narcissistic traits every day—it benefits you to forgive.

Why? The process of forgiveness means you learn to see the other person with accuracy. In the case of narcissism, that means accepting your person with narcissistic traits has the emotional life of a four-year-old. It also means accepting who they are, and accepting what you can expect from them in relationship moving forward.

It's the process of acceptance that makes forgiveness challenging in the beginning. It requires grieving what happened, what you didn’t get, and what you may never experience. That said, living in the present, with an open, honest perspective about yourself and others, is freeing. As the saying goes, the truth will set you free.

Accepting someone for who they are doesn't mean that you can't seek justice, or expect accountability. After all, forgiveness is something you do for you, not the other person. You can choose to tell the other person you've forgiven them, or not. You can choose to reconcile, or not. Either way, forgiving someone doesn't mean you are no longer free to advocate for yourself.

There’s one more thing about forgiveness that’s important to remember. For most people, forgiveness isn’t something you do once, and those thoughts and feelings never return. Uncomfortable feelings like anger, hurt, and fear are likely to come up again when you think about your person with narcissistic traits.

The challenge of forgiveness is to acknowledge your feelings, remind yourself your person with narcissistic traits was doing the best they could, and now, you are doing what you need to do in your circle of control to keep yourself safe. And you can know that every time you allow your uncomfortable feelings to rise and fall like a wave, you are healing another piece of your past.

Over time, the waves of uncomfortable emotions become smaller and smaller, and less and less frequent. When they happen, you will be easily able to observe them, ride them out, and return to the calm of the peaceful ordinary.

What is Self-Forgiveness?

Self-forgiveness usually comes up after forgiving others, which makes sense. After all, healing is the process of making sense of things. Most people need to make sense of what’s happened to them before they make sense of the things they’ve done.

If you were in a relationship with a friend or partner with narcissistic traits, and particularly if you had children with a partner with narcissistic traits, considering self-forgiveness can be challenging. The process of self-forgiveness is the definition of elegant—that is, it’s simple, but challenging.

Ultimately, self-forgiveness is understanding that the person you were when you met your person with narcissistic traits is not who you are now. This feels like an obvious statement, but it’s easy to get used to positive change, and completely forget about who you were a year ago, five years ago, ten years ago.

So, How Do I Forgive Myself?

First, I encourage you to be patient with the process. In the same way that forgiving others is not a one-and-done experience, self-forgiveness takes time. You’ll need to return to it again and again throughout your lifetime.

Second, because it’s easy to forget about positive growth, reflecting on who you were in the past is a powerful tool for self-forgiveness. Here are some questions to get you started:

• What have you learned about narcissism since you met your person with narcissistic traits?

• How do you see your person with narcissistic traits, now that you’ve learned about narcissism?

• What changes have you made in the way you think and the way you act since you learned about narcissism?

• Would you still be attracted to your person with narcissistic traits if you met them now?

• What did you look for or listen for when you met people at the time you met your person with narcissistic traits? What do you look for or listen for when you meet people now?

If you’ve learned even a little about narcissism since you were a child, or since you met your person with narcissistic traits, chances are good you’d do things very differently now. That's because Past You didn’t have the knowledge and life experience that Present You does.

It’s normal to blame Past You for what you didn’t know, because it gives you a sense of power and control. But it’s a false sense of power and control, because the past isn’t in your circle of control now.

Of course, forgiving yourself doesn't mean you can't hold yourself accountable, and make amends and positive changes where you can in the present. Ultimately, though, it makes sense to forgive Past You, because you were actually doing the best you could at that time.

Because self-forgiveness is ongoing, I encourage you to revisit the questions above regularly. You'll see as you continue your narcissism recovery journey that your answers will continue to change--for the better! That'll make it easier and easier to forgive yourself for the things Past You did.

Self-forgiveness is challenging, and its ongoing nature adds to that challenge. If you feel overwhelmed or frustrated thinking about self-forgiveness, I encourage you to work with a therapist who is familiar with narcissism recovery. You deserve a life of health and happiness, and that life is grounded in loving yourself enough to forgive yourself for whatever mistakes you may have made!

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