If someone hurt you, abused you, or wronged you in some way, and you’re still holding on to upset or anger toward them, how can you let it go and heal?
There are some people in the world that we don’t want to forgive, but we also don’t want to hold on to anger or pain because of what they did.
Forgiveness is one of those concepts we’re taught to embrace without question. Many of us are told it’s necessary for healing, and that holding onto anger or resentment will poison us.
But what if that’s not actually true? What if forgiveness, at least the way most people think about it, isn’t the path forward at all?
The traditional view of forgiveness usually involves directing something toward the person who hurt you. You’re supposed to tell them you forgive them, release them from your anger, and show them you’re above what they did.
And for some people, in some situations, that works. But for many others, especially those who’ve experienced abuse or trauma, that approach feels impossible. Or worse, it feels like another burden placed on top of the pain they’re already carrying.
There’s another way to think about forgiveness. One that doesn’t require you to absolve anyone else of what they did to you. One that focuses entirely inward, on releasing yourself from the weight you’ve been carrying. This approach recognizes that forgiveness isn’t about the other person at all. It’s about you and your freedom from the past.
When someone does something truly harmful to you, especially if it’s abuse or betrayal, the idea of forgiving them can feel like you’re minimizing what happened. It can feel like you’re saying what they did was okay, or that they deserve to be let off the hook. That’s not healing. That’s just another form of suffering.
We’re taught that we need to forgive in order to move on. But that creates a trap. If you can’t bring yourself to forgive the person who hurt you, you might believe you’re stuck. You might think you’re failing at healing because you can’t get to that place of forgiveness. And that belief itself becomes another source of pain.
I don’t believe that you have to forgive someone for what they did to you. I believe you can choose not to forgive if you believe what that person did was unforgivable. You can decide that person has to deal with their own life, their own burden, their own bad behavior, and you don’t want to be part of that anymore. That’s a valid choice and a healthy boundary.
But If I Don’t Forgive, I Can’t Move On
Forgiveness can still be part of your healing, but it doesn’t have to be directed at the person who hurt you. Instead, it can, and I believe, should be directed at yourself.
And before you think that means you did something wrong, let me be clear. Self-forgiveness in this context isn’t about taking blame for what happened to you. It’s about releasing yourself from the thoughts and beliefs you’ve been carrying about how you should have handled things differently.
When something traumatic happens, especially in childhood, there’s often a voice inside that says, “I should have done something different. I should have said no. I should have run. I should have told someone. I should have known better…”
These thoughts can haunt you for years, even when logically you know you couldn’t have done anything differently.
If you were young when something happened to you, and you find that you’re blaming yourself for that event, remember that your brain at that age simply didn’t have the capacity to come up with the right response. A three, six, or even ten-year-old doesn’t have the life experience, the verbal skills, or the consciousness to navigate abuse or trauma.
At that age, you’re still learning about the world, still figuring out right and wrong, and still developing trust in the adults around you. When someone violates that trust, you don’t know how to process it. You just go through the experience.
As a child, you look at adults differently. They’re supposed to be safe and protect you. They’re the authority! So when an adult does something harmful, you don’t have the framework to understand it, let alone respond to it effectively.
Of course, you didn’t come up with the right thing to say or do. You were under their control. You were dependent on them and had no power in that situation.
This is where self-forgiveness becomes vital. If you have any thoughts that lean toward regret, if you feel stupid or believe you should have known better, that’s what you need to address. Not by forgiving the person who hurt you, but by forgiving yourself for carrying these impossible expectations.
Trauma Creates Memories, But Not Always Conscious Ones
Sometimes the situation is even more complicated because you don’t have clear memories of what happened. Your mind might have protected you through dissociation, where you disconnected from what was happening as it was happening. You experienced it as if it were happening to someone else, not to you.
When you dissociate during trauma, the memories don’t get stored in the usual way. You might not have cognitive memories of the event, but your body remembers. You might have emotional triggers that seem to come out of nowhere. Someone gets close to you, or raises their voice, or touches you in a certain way, and suddenly you’re flooded with feelings you can’t explain. You don’t know why you’re triggered because you don’t have a conscious memory attached to those feelings.
This creates a difficult situation. You have these reactions, these emotional responses, but you can’t point to a specific event that caused them. You might wonder if something happened to you when you were younger, but you can’t prove it. You don’t have the memories to confirm it.
Here’s what matters. For the sake of your healing, it doesn’t actually matter whether you can prove something happened. What matters is that you’re experiencing real pain, real triggers, and real suffering in the present. And you need to address that.
Acting as if something happened, even if you can’t remember it clearly, gives your brain something to work with. It validates what you’re experiencing. It allows you to stop living with the mystery and start processing the pain.
This doesn’t mean you’re looking for someone to blame. And you’re not trying to create false memories. You’re simply acknowledging that your emotional triggers are real and deserve attention.
The Internal Process of Forgiveness
When you shift forgiveness from an external act to an internal one, everything changes. You’re no longer trying to generate positive feelings toward someone who hurt you. You’re no longer forcing yourself to say words you don’t mean. Instead, you’re reflecting on what happened and directing the forgiveness toward yourself.
This means looking at that time in your life and recognizing that you did the best you could with what you had. You didn’t have the knowledge you have now. You didn’t have the resources, the support, or the understanding. You were operating with limited information and limited power. And that’s not your fault.
Self-forgiveness is saying:
I forgive myself for not being able to show up differently.
I forgive myself for the decisions I made with the information I had.
I forgive myself for not having thoughts or responses that I could only develop later in life.
This isn’t about admitting fault. It’s about releasing the burden of impossible expectations.
When you forgive yourself in this way, something shifts. The person who hurt you stops occupying so much space in your mind. You’re no longer tethered to them through anger, through the need for them to acknowledge what they did, through the hope that they’ll somehow make it right. You release those tethers not by forgiving them, but by forgiving yourself for any negative feelings about how you showed up back then.
The effects of this kind of forgiveness can be surprising. When you’re no longer obsessively thinking about the person who hurt you, when they’re no longer taking up mental and emotional space, they often stop showing up in your real life, too. It’s as if releasing them from your thoughts creates distance in the physical world as well.
This doesn’t mean you’re dependent on them behaving a certain way to keep yourself healthy. You’re not waiting for them to change or apologize or acknowledge what they did. You’ve moved beyond that. You’ve just decided you don’t want to suffer anymore, and that decision led you to forgive yourself for how you showed up during that time in your life.
When you’re no longer carrying those old associations, you respond differently if you do encounter that person again. You behave and show up differently. And because you’ve changed internally, your external responses change too. You’re no longer triggered in the same way, and you’re no longer pulled back into old patterns.
This is the freedom that comes from self-forgiveness. It’s being no longer dependent on the other person doing anything. It’s no longer waiting for closure from them. It’s giving yourself permission to move forward without their participation in your healing process.
Forgiving yourself doesn’t mean you have to reconcile with the person who hurt you. It doesn’t mean you have to have them in your life. It doesn’t mean you have to pretend everything is fine now. Self-forgiveness is about your internal freedom, not about rebuilding a relationship.
You can forgive yourself for how you showed up during a difficult time and still maintain clear boundaries with the person who hurt you. You can release yourself from the weight of regret and still acknowledge that what they did was wrong. These things aren’t contradictory. They’re actually complementary.
The goal isn’t to make peace with that person. It’s to make peace with yourself and stop beating yourself up for not having responses you couldn’t possibly have had back then. It’s also to stop carrying shame for being human, for being vulnerable, and for being in a situation where someone took advantage of that vulnerability.
None of this means traditional forgiveness is wrong. If you’re in a place where you can genuinely forgive the person who hurt you, and that brings you peace, that’s valid. Some people do find healing through that path. Some religious traditions emphasize forgiveness of others, and for people within those traditions, that approach might feel right.
But if you’ve tried to forgive someone and it doesn’t work, if you can’t get to that place, if the thought of forgiving them feels impossible or wrong, you don’t have to force it. You have another option. You can focus on forgiving yourself instead.
The key is that forgiveness, in whatever form it takes, should lead to release. It should free you from the preoccupation with what happened. It should allow you to stop carrying the weight of the past into your present.
If forgiving the other person does that for you, then do it. But if it doesn’t, if you’re stuck trying to generate feelings you don’t have, then turn that forgiveness inward.
Choosing Not To Forgive The Other Person
Living without forgiving the person who hurt you is possible. You can acknowledge that what they did was unforgivable and still move forward with your life. You can decide that they need to deal with their own consequences, their own history, their own choices, and you’re choosing not to be part of that process.
This isn’t about holding onto anger forever. It’s about recognizing that you don’t owe anyone forgiveness. You don’t owe them release from your anger or peace of mind. What you owe yourself is freedom from the suffering you’ve been carrying.
When you forgive yourself, when you release yourself from the impossible standards you’ve been holding yourself to, the anger often dissipates on its own. Not because you forced it to go away, but because you’re no longer feeding it with self-blame and regret. You’re no longer stuck in the loop of “I should have done something different.”
When you free yourself in this way, the person who hurt you becomes less relevant. They’re no longer the central figure in your healing story. They’re just someone who did something harmful, and you’ve moved beyond letting that define your life. You’ve taken your power back not by forgiving them, but by forgiving yourself.
That’s the real freedom. Not needing anything from them. Not waiting for them to change or apologize or acknowledge what they did. Just moving forward with your life, carrying less weight, occupying your own space without them taking up room in your thoughts.
You don’t have to forgive the person who hurt you. You just have to forgive yourself for being human during an impossible situation. That’s where healing begins.
 | Paul Colaianni Paul Colaianni is an Emotional Abuse Expert and Behavior and Relationship Specialist who has been analyzing complex relationship dynamics since 2010. As the creator of the Healed Being program and host of the top-rated Love and Abuse and The Overwhelmed Brain podcasts, with over 21 million downloads worldwide, he specializes in helping people recognize hidden manipulation, navigate emotionally abusive relationships, and empower themselves to make informed decisions. |