You know pachyderm, I have done what you are describing here about understanding the person who hurt you and if you read my posts all the way back to others about who or what their perpetrator was, I did tell them to look behind the person that hurt them. I have used the phrase know thy enemy but it can mean different things.

What I mean by saying this is that when someone wants to fight back or address the person that hurt them, they cannot just act on thier feelings of anger or that now they are older or stronger in some way. Because, as I have warned, they may again get very hurt and confused as often the person who hurt them can and often will react in a way that is only defensive and not give the victim a sense of resolve.

I have talked to victims of abuse and encouraged them to look past the act and beyond to abuser for a better perspective of that person who commited the abuse.
This is what you have described about your mother. And pachyderm, for some reason I have done this all my life. And I am pretty amazed about it. Even as young child getting on a school bus with her brother and watching others mercelessly pick on her brother the whole way to school. I was so very little and yet I tried to understand WHY. It had a profound effect on my brother, and an even more profound effect on me. I was abused by my brother, he was abused and even though I was so frightened, I felt sorry for him. My brother was beaten in a shed for his bad behavior. He was riddled with anxiety and sucked his thumb until his lips grew swollen and bleeding and he soaked his bed with urine and I can remember my mother had to put shower curtains on the bed and on the walls by the bed and on the floor. And my brother was punised for that tool. My brother hurt me, and tried to climb on me and pin me down and
I was very frightened and yet I knew that if I told, he would be beaten more and that he could get so angry that he could kill me. I lived that way for YEARS and yet
I continually tried to understand WHY. As a little child, I knew something was wrong with him, but I didn't know what, I did know he suffered and I did witness it and it was horrible. But not once did I think of him as evil. I ran a lot and I often didn't have time to dress warm and I climed up some trees very high pine trees and sat shivering way up high, I can still remember him calling out and searching for me and I caught pneumonia and almost died, but I still did not tell.
I have a problem with doors, never really realized it, the sound of doors really triggers me. I didn't realize it until I had a Flashback and saw all the doors, the holes where I tryed to place hooks and eyes and the doors that I ran through and shutting them behind me to give me time to get away. Oh and there were doors in my marriage to, and they had scars on them too.
It really never occured to me how deep that was in my brain.

For me, it almost seemed like all I did was go from one abusive situation to another in a marriage. All I really wanted was to feel safe and be able to grow and function and have a family. But again I had to deal with something that, again, I didn't understand and again, I was a victim. And again, I saw a good person and focused on that and the WHY and I did my best to work on it and be patient and supportive and it was really hard. It was very hard on me psychologically and yet , I did not even think of the word evil.

Pachyderm, it has been a pleasure to know you, because it is really nice to know that someone else tries to see things the way I do, or did. Because most people that I have come across have told me that I should not be so forgiving. They have asked me how many times will it take before I just accept that there are bad people and that is just the way it is.

I know that I did try very hard to do that with my neighbor. I was very angry that they were constantly trespassing and not respecting me or my business or my property at all. Their actions were very disrespectful and they even expressed that they liked my property and would like to own it. But I did try to look pass that and I did try to get along and find some kind of ground to form an understanding with them.

But, what happened to me was toooooooo much pachyderm. They really never changed thier respect for me or what I had. Instead, their containment system failed and they just let their dogs out at night while I slept thinking they could get around my rules. They did this for 3 months. In that period it cost me sooooo much. And,
it was really the straw that broke the camels back for me.

My efforts to find the good in others has really cost me. It has cost me in more ways than I could ever have imagined, ever. But I still didn't use the word evil.
The one word applied to me is MISUNDERSTOOD and I know that is because I did give others a chance and I did try to understand others. But at least knowing that you feel like me is a comfort, because up until PC or meeting you, I have actually felt very alone. I am that one that trys to understand the WHY and see the GOOD in others. And, I have always been that way, I feel that I was just born that way.
My husband has told me to change to stop being sympathetic. My only reply is that he is asking me to not be me. Is there a disorder for me? Sometimes, I really wonder. I do know that I have PTSD and I do know that it goes all the way back and I am trying to understand WHY. Why if I do remember and how I did try to understand my past, WHY do I get FLASHBACKS? Even though I have made an extreme effort to explain it and see every aspect of it, somehow it effected my brain.

Even in that, I still look to others with a more compassionate understanding as I experience my own illness and have withdrawn to try to understand it. I have come to PC to be supportive and learn and try to understand where I go wrong or how I can change or how I can get stronger or better or not internalize, but learn how to externalize the actions of others and the circumstances I am in. But, I struggle with unwanted flashbacks and triggers. I get very angry because I don't want to have that happen, I don't like it. And PC has really been the only place where I can rant. And somehow others don't pick on me for it, no, they understand it. And, so that goes back to my feelings about the good in others. And I wonder if I come here for that somehow.

No, I did have to look up that word EVIL. And I really think about it and really look at it's meaning and just the meaning alone. And I am not one to be quick to use it or abuse it. I even wonder if somehow I am a born atruist. Because, like you, I don't want to think of people as bad. Even when I have had tifts in PC, I appologize and I still try to understand that other person and I really try to get to know them and understand them and am even sort of driven to reach out somehow and listen and learn about them, so that I can find that good spot.

I hide while doing this, I do it late at night, and I know others may consider this an illness. Because I seem to be attracted to wanting to understand others here in PC.
I listen and read thier opinions and ideas and I don't pick on them. I try to look at the good in them, or even that injured person and how it may distort their thinking or opinions or feelings etc.

To be honest with you, I struggle with what others say about just accepting the fact that there is EVIL in the world and there are just bad people and I should somehow stop trying to understand it. So all my posts here have been sort of a battle for me as I don't want to just somehow be deemed niaeve in feeling that there are reasons for EVIL. Because I have paid for my trying to give reasons and others have constantly told me to stop doing that. Someone is just bad and that is all there is to it. So, I have tried to just look at the word and separate it to a true meaning without denying that it does exist, as others seem to think I need to realize that somehow.

Open Eyes