Katherine,

Thank you for such an honest response. I can feel your pain and struggle.

First off, I simply want to apologize for the hardships you endured. I’m sorry you had to go through that, and I’m sorry you didn’t have people in your life that saw your pain and empathized with you.

You have been wronged by your parents. They hurt you. This hurt demands payment and restitution. A debt is owed to you.

Forgiveness means you aren’t demanding that payment.

In my opinion, you don’t have to trust your parents (or anyone) ever again if you don’t want to. Trust is something that is earned and requires us to be vulnerable enough to possibly get hurt.

But I would encourage you to forgive. As hard as it may be, I believe you will feel better if you release your parents from the debt they owe you.

There’s a quote attributed to various people, so not sure where it originated from. But it says, “Unforgiveness is like drinking poison yourself and waiting for the other person to die.”

Forgiveness doesn’t demand apology, it doesn’t say what happened was “OK”, and it doesn’t automatically heal the connection that’s been broken between you and your parents. That takes a lot of other work from both parties.

What forgiveness does is it stops you from drinking poison, while at the same time not requiring your parents to drink it either.

As for “getting to a place of peace,” I can only offer what has worked for me.

In my current season of life I am choosing to look at how my trauma shaped me and find the good that came out of it. I’m trying to shift my mindset to be that of: my past didn’t happen to me, but happened for me.

For example, as I mentioned in the article, I feel that being my mom’s emotional surrogate created the co-dependence that makes my life a struggle. However, it also made me a caring and empathetic person. That’s a good thing that happened for me.

Additionally, I find peace when I pray and meditate, or when I read my Bible.

Getting to a place of peace is not a one-time event. It’s a daily practice of consciously choosing to change our thoughts, connecting with our souls, and connecting with something greater than ourselves (be that God, the universe, Mother Earth, etc.).

Again, this may not be the answer for you, but it’s what has worked for me. Oftentimes I really suck at it. But then I just try again the next day.

Good luck on your healing journey.