Becoming honest with yourself about who has injured you and what behaviors have risen out of these wounds allows you to begin shouldering the responsibility of making changes in your life. As you embark on the process of recovery, you may choose to address those who have offended you, or simply write a letter. Whether or not you mail it is entirely up to you; the purpose of being honest about your past is not about making your offenders recognize what they have done. Many of your offenders are probably in the grave anyway, and the truth is, if they are still alive and have not come to you and made things right by way of apologizing for the injuries they inflicted on you, it may never happen. You have every right to be happy and healthy, so the best response you can give to those who have injured you is to leave behind the emotional baggage that their wounds have caused.
The step of moving on is very important, because if you continue to carry that baggage with you, it gives what they have done the power to infiltrate your present life, and not just color your childhood memories of when you were weak and vulnerable. Don’t wait on someone from your past to make things right before you let yourself become successful in your present relationships. If you do, you will probably spend the rest of your life stuck in problems of your own making, acting
out childlike emotions that stem from when you were first wounded. As much as
you may hate what happened to you, when you choose to deal with it maturely
your offender no longer remains with you by proxy through your self-defeating
behaviors. May God give you the courage to take that life-changing step.
