You must forgive! - The psychopath's speciality!

That is; So that I can continue to abuse you.

The year was 1996. I, my husband, and our little son Peter were standing at Arlanda Airport, just outside Stockholm, waiting for the shuttle-bus to take us to the airplane that was going to take us to Moscow.

It was a bit exciting. Our church had a missionary work in the former Soviet, and we were a small group of people that were on our way to visit a young church in the Russian capital.

I looked around. I didn’t know anyone, but hey, I was new in Sweden and it would take a little time to get to know people.

I had already figured out that Swedes didn’t understand my West-Norwegian dialect very well, so I had to learn Swedish fast. Until then, I was mostly quiet, because every time I opened my mouth, they replied:

-Excuse me, what did you say?

As we were standing and waiting, two ladies came up next to me, and as I turned my head to look at them, one of them bluntly said:

-You need to have contact with your mother, Liv.

I was taken aback.

-Who are you?, I replied.

In fluent Norwegian, she said:

- I live in Bergen. I go to the Bible-school there.

(Bergen is Norway’s second largest city.)

She didn’t have to say anything more. I knew exactly what she was talking about. It was the same Bible-school that I had gone to. And it was where Karen lived now, after the divorce from Torleiv, my dad.

- So you know Karen? I asked her.

- Yes, and you know that you must stay in contact with her. She is your mother.

It was incredibly rude. A woman I had never met and that I did not know. Still she knew who I was - and even how I looked like!

Besides, this woman knew nothing about what I had been through as a child and teenager.

She didn’t know that I now enjoyed a new life, without abuse. I had no wish of seeing my abuser, anymore than a rape victim wishes to see the rapist.

She didn’t know that Karen never ever had said the words: -Can you forgive me?, to me.

Not even when she, in pure anger, threw a cup of hot coffee on me, so that the coffee was all over my jumper and my knitting work, did she ask me for forgiveness. I just about managed not to cry, by blinking away the pressing tears.

Still this woman seemed to have swallowed Karen’s victim story and in her “know it all” attitude tells me what is “right” to do.

What on earth is going on? Is Karen spreading lies to half the world about me?

Why? Is this her revenge on me for not taking any more abuse from her?

If she wanted to talk to me, she could call me. She knew my number. No reason to gossip to half the world.

But she never did, of course. Instead of contacting me herself, she seemed to enjoy spreading lies and slander about me to the people around her, and to the friends I once had back in Norway.

What a “lovely” person Karen was…

I mumbled something in self-defense to the women, and walked away, with my little son in my arms, and went in to the shuttle-bus that had arrived.

---

Karen never approached me personally. She always sent others. Some tried to get me to contact her. Others said that I was unforgiving, and couldn’t move on in life.

In other words, I had to forgive, and then move on.

They were tools in a psychopath’s hand, where the end goal was to get me back under Karen’s control again, so that she could continue, without changing, and I wasn’t allowed to demand anything from her side.

Here is the thing:

There is a difference between true and false people, where some people ask you for forgiveness, and they really mean it.

For others, it is just a weapon, to be able to continue to abuse you. They don’t regret a thing, and are not sorry at all.

The psychopath is such a person.

She/he has no regret, and will very rarely ask for forgiveness.

And in my case, she never did.

But they are clever, so they often use another person, to tell you that you have to forgive!

Forgive whom?

The psychopath! The one that does not regret a thing, but just wants you to forgive, to be able to continue to abuse you.

Karen my abuser, has sent people to tell me that I have to forgive her, and have contact with her, whilst she herself does not regret a thing, and has never asked me for forgiveness. After all, she has done nothing wrong……

By this, I don’t mean that we should be hateful, and have an unforgiving heart - but we shall not let them use the forgiveness weapon, to continue to abuse us.

And there is absolutely no reason to have anything to do with a person, that just wants to hurt you.

The only way to contact, would have been in the unlikely scenario, that the abuser really repents, regrets, changes and asks for forgivness, without expecting to be forgiven - which then has to be verified. After all, they have torn down all trust, and then they have to show that they really, really have changed - not just playing a game.

-Liv