Letting It Go: The Power of Forgiveness

When I was in sixth grade, I was bullied pretty severely. It happened on a daily basis, and it eroded everything about my self-esteem.

My bully was an eleven-year-old boy who called me names and encouraged the other kids to taunt me. Many of them would join in. At that time, I didn’t know what to do or what to say, so I did my best to ignore it. By ignoring it, however, that meant he got away with more and more. This went on for the whole school year and eventually became normalized by the kids in my class.

I don’t remember most of what was said, but I do remember he mainly targeted my ethnicity. He called me “Chinese” and made everything he said within earshot about me being Asian. I felt terrible. And since I didn’t have much of a support system at home, I felt very alone.

The Bullying Stopped, But I Didn’t

The bullying abruptly stopped at the end of the school year, and afterward I was always on guard—afraid of being blindsided. I wasn’t bullied at all during the rest of middle and high school. However, I began to bully myself. I would always be in my head, ready to tear down a good idea or doubt my worth. I degraded any attempt I made at growth, and I hated myself for being Asian.

I was the only Asian kid in my school and didn’t have access to the Asian side of my family. The messages were pretty clear to me at the time: I was the odd person out.

A few years later, I started college with a new perspective. I felt optimistic about making new friends, being in a new environment, and finally starting life outside the confines of the same 70 people.

When I started making real friends—people who genuinely appreciated and supported me—I realized something needed to change. At nineteen, I sought therapy and, although I didn’t know it at the time, took my first step toward reclaiming my power. Slowly but surely, I began to heal from the trauma of sixth grade.

Creating Space for Healing

Healing from that time—that short-lived, faraway time in my life—was difficult. In fact, it was almost impossible, and it’s all because I wouldn’t let go. I mention that this bullying incident was isolated not to diminish its validity in my experience, but to show how one single incident can define your whole life—if you let it.

Throughout college, I made small improvements, like thinking about my trauma less. Still, I continued to bully myself. I remained self-conscious about my ethnicity. The memories of what it felt like to be singled out and devalued—dehumanized—went with me everywhere I went. At the time, I didn’t have the boundaries within myself to check my thoughts—I just allowed them to run wild.

Yet, as time went on, I would still consciously try to find ways to feel better. It was like a tug of war in my mind—on one side, I hated myself, and on the other side, I knew that it didn’t have to be this way. Slowly, I began to accept my Asian culture. I quit berating myself out of fear someone else would do it first, and I started to understand the power of my own mind. Still, something was very much holding me back.

Perspective Shift

Flash forward to now—I recently went back to Ohio to visit family. Going back home is a very emotional and, of course, nostalgic experience. I am always grateful to be back. It feels so good to see the rolling fields, green grass, friendly faces, and small-town charm. Upon this particular trip back, though, I couldn’t help but think of people from that chapter in my life. I thought about girls I used to be intimidated by, old friends I had lost touch with—and my sixth-grade bully.

I looked him up on social media. He’s a grown man now but still looks the same. Of course, he’s no longer an eleven-year-old boy, just like I’m no longer that lonely little girl. But simply seeing this person—after carrying around all the emotional baggage I had assigned to him—was overwhelming. I had kept the sixth-grade version of him alive in my head for so long. I let that version of him cast a shadow over almost everything I did for nearly twenty years. That’s a long time.

It’s a long time to hold on to something that should have been released much sooner.

The reality is, I was consistently hurt during a formative period of my life, and I never really sat with those feelings. I didn’t have a support system. I didn’t allow myself to fully respond to that experience, and I never felt heard or understood. I only knew what happened to me and how I was feeling. It hasn’t been until now that I have the emotional maturity and understanding to appropriately process what happened.

This wasn’t about an apology. In fact, there’s a real possibility that he doesn’t even remember treating me that way. What I needed to do was create a safe space for myself to process those feelings from so long ago—for me.

Writing as a Mode of Healing

I initially wrote a separate blog post for Rosie about this experience. It was from the perspective of my younger self and other repressed versions of myself from over the years. My younger self needed to express how she felt, and I chose this inspired time to let her have a voice.

That other post was super victim-ey. In that post, I whined and complained—I wanted to metaphorically scream and cry and point fingers, and I wanted everyone to know what happened to me.

In my private journal, that’s what I did. Ultimately, the post was meant to be an outlet for her—my inner child, who was still hurting after all this time.

Feel Your Feelings—Then Make a Choice

The thing is, the pain my inner child needed to release and the perspective I actively choose to write with today are actually quite different.

Upon considering this post, I wanted to take the seeds of growth from that experience and expand upon those. Real forgiveness can be profoundly moving. It can change your whole life experience.

Sometimes in life, we try to move on from trauma by not acknowledging it. We might choose to ignore someone’s actions or our own feelings as a result. We might suppress our emotions or deny them in lieu of forgiveness. These things might even seem like good alternatives, but they are all very different from the real thing.

Real forgiveness can shake you up.

We get used to harboring feelings. We become addicted to the hormones released from all the stress of holding on. Or, we allow the ghost of old words or careless actions to hang around and take a toll on our self-esteem. However, when we choose to forgive and let go, that old way of being becomes irrelevant.

When you make the conscious decision to forgive someone—and really do it—you become free.

Forgiveness is the Gateway to Freedom

I realized I had chained myself, mentally and emotionally, to this person I only remember from sixth grade. I was not free in my own mind because I was a slave to the memories I had of him and the story I was telling myself about it.

Sure, it would be great if he could read this—or the expressions of my inner child from that time. The truth is, though, I don’t need that. I understand that he was just a kid. We both were. We were both going through whatever it was we went through when we went home. As it turned out he played the part of the bully and I played the part of the victim. That lines up with how I was thinking and what I was surrounded by at the time. He showed up for me as a direct result of my impression of the world: an unsafe place where people can and will hurt you.

Strength in Forgiveness

I made the choice to forgive him, and it opened up a whole new world of opportunities. I got to show myself that after all this time, I could make the choice to let go—for my own mental and emotional health. I chose to understand that this person was hurting, just like me. And I chose to take responsibility for my thoughts by allowing him to leave.

I had no control over his actions. Even though part of me was willing to stay here in my loathing, waiting for some kind of acknowledgment—it was always my responsibility to move on.

Can you relate? Have you ever experienced bullying? If so, what did you learn from that experience? Also, would you be interested in reading the other post from my inner child’s perspective? Let me know in the comments below.

Resources If you’d like to learn more about identifying the types of abuse, check out these links:

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