Is forgiveness possible without apology?: recovery through song

What does forgiveness mean to you? That's a good place to start when answering whether it's possible without an apology. And we're not all starting on the same page, here.

We might not even have a shared understanding about what an apology is. Is it saying sorry? Is it admitting defeat? I remember as a child when my brother and I used to fight, sometimes saying sorry was a synonym for, "fine, I give up trying to annoy you, you win". For me, as an adult, sorry is multifaceted. It's an acknowledgement of a sh*tty situation: 'I'm sorry, this is sh*t'; it's an inner recognition of perceived wrongdoing; it's a taking of responsibility and seriousness over your actions and their impacts. Or, if we're still childish, it remains an admittance of defeat, often sarcy.

When it comes to our collective understanding of forgiveness, it varies massively.

When my mentor and supervisor suggested I explore forgiveness, I told him, quite frankly, to f*** off. My thinking was,

• why would I let him (the perpetrator) off the hook when he's not asked for forgiveness

• He doesn't deserve my forgiveness

• I will never give him anything

As I scoured the internet for different cultural understandings of forgiveness, and spoke to Barbara J Hunt (author of Forgiveness Made Easy: The Revolutionary Guide to Moving Beyond Your Past and Truly Letting Go), I soon came to understand forgiveness could be much more about the forgiver than the wrong-doer...

Barbara writes,

In my approach to forgiveness, it's necessary to question and let go of all the inaccurate assumptions and misperceptions around what forgiveness is.

She then provides a pretty extensive list of what forgiveness is not. Including, it's not 'letting someone off the hook', or 'abandoning important values'. It's not 'saying something's OK with you when it's not', 'instead of, or the same as, restorative justice', and it's not 'dependent on the other person apologising, taking responsibility, or making amends'. To be completely honest, at the time of researching and writing, I blocked a lot of this out and continued on my path of thinking forgiveness was giving him something. I still wanted to say, I will never give you anything, and that was actually the working title of the song's first draft.

Let me take you back to 5 years ago when I was utilising song writing to better understand recovery from r*pe and the areas of growth/change/transformation involved in that process.

Imagining Apologies

Reluctantly, upon the suggestion of my mentor and supervisor, as part of my practice-based research, I begun exploring the possibility of forgiveness within my recovery. With the support from my co-writer and friend, Katherine Moynihan, I imagined an apology, 20 years in the future, from the perpetrator. In my imagination, he came to my doorstep to apologise for, and acknowledge that, yes indeed, he did rape me all those years ago.

This is something I'd gently invite you to try, too — as an exercise in imagination. There's something quietly powerful about using creative writing, whether it's a song, a journal entry, or even an unsent letter, to give voice to the apology you never received. Not because you owe it to them, and not because you're letting them off the hook, but because you might be surprised by what you discover about what you actually want, and what you actually need.

What would you want them to say? Could you write a letter to yourself, imagining it came from them? You don't need to forgive, or forget, or show it to anyone. You just need a safe space and the permission to imagine. That's all.

A word of care here, though: exploring forgiveness or imagining an apology doesn't mean lowering your guard. You can be working through your feelings about someone whilst still maintaining boundaries that protect you from further harm. Holding those two things at once — compassion for your own healing, and the knowledge of what you will and won't accept — isn't contradictory. It's actually quite advanced emotional work.

So: Imaginary Lucy's first response to her imagined visitor was panic:

what are you doing? Not here, not now, not at my door instantly shaking: my hands, my mind, sick to my core I wanna take a step back into safety, but I'm stuck, I'm stuck, I'm stuck so what are you doing? I was just fine before

Clawing her way up from the dirt, anger then pushed aside Lucy's panic:

what are you doing? This ended 20 years ago You denied what you ruined, and just like that the case was closed. Don't you remember the screams in the school corridor of "fuck you, fuck you, fuck you" so what are you doing? I should tell you to go.

After all the revenge-wishing, the this is unfair talk (present in my songs like, 'Haunted' and 'Prisoner'), I was actually beginning to move forward in my thinking and answer... what do I want as an outcome here? If I can't change what he did, or how I dealt with it in the aftermath ('I See You')... and there's been no lawful or restorative justice... did I want a change of heart from him and a delayed apology? Did I want him to show his learning? Did I want him to rehash the case and confess and go to prison? And what if he did? It wouldn't change the pain I've already experienced or the work I've put in...

After you'd taken so much, I was a shell of myself I've worked hard, I've worked relentlessly to be where I am Given love, taken back, raised my voice and taken a stand

What it might change is the certainty of knowing what he did... the doubts and victim-blaming thoughts in my head wouldn't be so loud anymore... But the stubbornness in me doesn't want that from him. I don't want anything from him. And I realised, supported by the ever loyal friend of anger who had my back as I stood in the doorway, I could give that to myself...

So what are you doing? I don't need to hear you say you're "sorry" I don't need your confession to be sure of what you did to me So what are you doing?

I don't need anything.

So although I didn't believe, at the time of writing, I had ~forgiven the perpetrator~, the song shifted something in me where I didn't feel I needed to pursue revenge against him anymore. This shift came around in the lyrics of a later song, 'The Clearing':

Though he might not be cleared of the crime, Maybe somewhere he's out there doing time

but the duty of revenge is not mine,

So I'm letting go.

Letting go: not of anger, not of boundaries, not of pursuit of change, not of my belief in my rights, but of the duty of revenge; the duty of changing him or his circumstances; the carrying of ill-will towards him.

Perhaps this is what forgiveness is. What do you think about that?

and the answer is...

I would suggest, yes, forgiveness is possible without an apology. Why? How? Because it's up to you.

I don't tend to speak of forgiveness because I want to avoid that trigger for victims and survivors, myself included. I don't think I've ever said the words, "I forgive him for what he did to me" - it just feels wrong. Perhaps my own experience of the word hasn't actually changed that much...

So, if you don't like the word forgiveness; if you can't possibly comprehend it as anything other than letting them off the hook, that's okay. You don't need to use the word. I will suggest, strongly, though: you can begin recovery without an apology.