Just a few minutes ago, I stumbled across a forum about siblings with narcissist sisters in which some of the posters wrote about working on forgiveness. I do not forgive.
Why? Because I do not feel forgiveness in my heart. In my heart, I feel aggrieved and wronged. Intellectually, I know I was emotionally abused and that the abuser still writes on her blog about how she did right and I did wrong.
I have read about forgiveness as being a way to move on, but for me to forgive, I would have to manipulate my emotions and expend a great deal of energy to make them submit. It would be the opposite of moving on.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a mental illness but it does not mean that the narcissist does not know what she is doing. There are clear choices my sister made in our relationship. I move on in knowing that she chooses her self-image over me. I grieve for the loss of my sister but I rejoice in regaining myself. It is the self I lost a decade ago when I went to live with my sister, at her invitation, and allowed my every action to be under her control. This self is valuable, it is precious to me. Becoming familiar with that self again helps me move on.
I am not perfect -- I can live with that. I admit that I am not one of those saints of old who forgave their aggressors even while they were being drawn and quartered, pierced by arrows, broken on the wheel and whatnot. I give myself permission to not forgive the sister who has not acknowledged her wrongs to me. I give myself permission to prioritize myself before familial harmony. I give myself permission to be angry at my sister.
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