Therapist Kati Morton returns to answer listener questions.
Check out Kati’s YouTube channel, visit her website or follow her on Twitter @KatiMorton
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Episode 226: Therapist Kati Morton #2
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SpookyGhost
- Posts: 222
- Joined: January 5th, 2015, 8:19 am
- Gender: Female
- Issues: Anxiety, self harm, PTSD, childhood sexual abuse, rape, emotional eating
- preferred pronoun: She
- Location: Newfoundland, Canada
Episode 226: Therapist Kati Morton #2
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Gorillachef
- Posts: 1
- Joined: May 22nd, 2015, 9:51 am
- Gender: Male
- Issues: Depression, anxiety
- preferred pronoun: He
Re: Episode 226: Therapist Kati Morton #2
Dear Paul,
Great episode with Kati Morton. Hope you continue to get her on the show.
During that episode, one of your listeners wrote in about why an abused person must express forgiveness toward their abuser as part of a recovery process. Both you and Kati said that a person doesn't need to forgive in order to recover from a trauma. While I understand why someone would not want to forgive their abuser, I think that it's important to define and agree upon the meaning of "forgiveness".
I was accused of rape by a woman who I had been seeing for a couple of months. We had sex one night and in the morning she kicked me out of her apartment. I was thoroughly confused by this, but we never spoke to each other again and I figured that she had just had enough of me. A week later I was visited at work by a cop who served me with a restraining order and a summons for a court appearance. She also didn’t press criminal charges; she only wanted a civil trial and demanded money for emotional anguish. Through the legal proceedings I discovered that she had done this to 4 other men.
This process sent me into a spiral of depression and anxiety around women. I couldn’t look at a woman without feeling defensive and even hostile. The rage I felt was eating me up from the inside and I was having trouble living a full, productive life. Even my work suffered because I had trouble trusting women enough to work with them. Something had to give, so I got myself into some therapy.
The issue of forgiveness came up during therapy many times and, as you can imagine, I couldn’t fathom a world where I could forgive someone who betrayed me so deeply and sent me into such an emotional tailspin that I lost what felt like 10 years of my life spent in a coma of anxiety. I can imagine that many of your listeners can identify with this idea.
The more I discussed it with my therapists, the more I explored the idea of forgiveness. It is not something you bestow upon the person who traumatized you, but something you do for yourself. It took me many years and lots of thought on that idea to finally internalize it and have it make sense for me.
In my personal situation, forgiveness appears to me as a way to take my ego out of the situation and say, “Yes, you did this thing to me. You hurt me. But I’m not the broken one – you are. You hurt me because you are broken.” Forgiveness was a way for me to feel pity for this woman who was so full of demons that she kept victimizing other people.
But don’t misunderstand my pity toward her as, “giving her a pass.” It’s anything but. She is responsible for what happened. I am still angry at her and I will probably be angry at her until the day I die, but I forgive her. My forgiveness is for me. It’s the boundary that I have set between her and me that lets me get on with my life. I would say to her, “I have forgiven you. Now fuck off and never look my way again.”
Thanks Paul.
Great episode with Kati Morton. Hope you continue to get her on the show.
During that episode, one of your listeners wrote in about why an abused person must express forgiveness toward their abuser as part of a recovery process. Both you and Kati said that a person doesn't need to forgive in order to recover from a trauma. While I understand why someone would not want to forgive their abuser, I think that it's important to define and agree upon the meaning of "forgiveness".
I was accused of rape by a woman who I had been seeing for a couple of months. We had sex one night and in the morning she kicked me out of her apartment. I was thoroughly confused by this, but we never spoke to each other again and I figured that she had just had enough of me. A week later I was visited at work by a cop who served me with a restraining order and a summons for a court appearance. She also didn’t press criminal charges; she only wanted a civil trial and demanded money for emotional anguish. Through the legal proceedings I discovered that she had done this to 4 other men.
This process sent me into a spiral of depression and anxiety around women. I couldn’t look at a woman without feeling defensive and even hostile. The rage I felt was eating me up from the inside and I was having trouble living a full, productive life. Even my work suffered because I had trouble trusting women enough to work with them. Something had to give, so I got myself into some therapy.
The issue of forgiveness came up during therapy many times and, as you can imagine, I couldn’t fathom a world where I could forgive someone who betrayed me so deeply and sent me into such an emotional tailspin that I lost what felt like 10 years of my life spent in a coma of anxiety. I can imagine that many of your listeners can identify with this idea.
The more I discussed it with my therapists, the more I explored the idea of forgiveness. It is not something you bestow upon the person who traumatized you, but something you do for yourself. It took me many years and lots of thought on that idea to finally internalize it and have it make sense for me.
In my personal situation, forgiveness appears to me as a way to take my ego out of the situation and say, “Yes, you did this thing to me. You hurt me. But I’m not the broken one – you are. You hurt me because you are broken.” Forgiveness was a way for me to feel pity for this woman who was so full of demons that she kept victimizing other people.
But don’t misunderstand my pity toward her as, “giving her a pass.” It’s anything but. She is responsible for what happened. I am still angry at her and I will probably be angry at her until the day I die, but I forgive her. My forgiveness is for me. It’s the boundary that I have set between her and me that lets me get on with my life. I would say to her, “I have forgiven you. Now fuck off and never look my way again.”
Thanks Paul.