Forgive Thyself and Be True: Moving Beyond Self-Oppression
- Michael Cornell
- Mar 19
- 4 min read
March 23, 2026
Mike Cornell, Author & Peer Support Specialist/Group Facilitator and Podcaster
Tom O'Connor, Publisher
What is Forgiveness?
To forgive is, in equal measure, to give something up. When it comes to forgiving others, this most often takes the form of a pardon or remission: you release yourself from the burden of holding on to the distaste for the person and, hopefully, give that negative energy over to that individual to do with as they wish. Ideally, at least.
As many more intelligent people than I have pointed out time and time again, what forgiveness is not is just as important as what it is. "Forgive and forget" has a friendly, alliterative patter, but it both oversimplifies and outright lies. We do not forget; we accept.
We accept that we won't forget, as much as we'd like to. As much as our dour feelings and ruminate loops would like to send us back in time like so many tachyons and change the reality we're currently sitting in.
Forgiving is not an allowance or endorsement. It can bring peace and reconciliation, but it does not gloss over the offending action.
READ: Co-occurring Mental Disorders and Neurodivergence From Someone Who Truly Understands You! also by Michael Cornell
What Does Forgiveness Mean For Ourselves?
This may be why we struggle to apply the simple principle of looking beyond a folly we've committed and forgiving ourselves for those transgressions. Whether it's a major sin or a simple slip-up, we've all erred in ways that run counter to our values. So misaligned with what our chemical makeup is that it physically pains us to think back on the event or behavior.
How dare we hand ourselves a requital? How is that the responsible thing to do? How is that learning from our mistakes?
Those of us of the Major Depressive persuasion tend to hold onto a lot of guilt. Be it how our mental illness has made us act toward others, moral slip-ups we've made, or even just for our personal, darker moments. It's hard stuff to "get over." Many of us don't so much cry over spilled milk; we endlessly flog ourselves over it. We could punish ourselves for all the world to see, to prove we're taking accountability and care, that we seriously screwed the pooch, but it wouldn't be enough.
It wouldn't be enough because we'd still feel it.
Has someone ever done something mildly irritating and you've waved it off with a "no, no, it's all good, don't worry about it," then proceeded to mutter under your breath, "what an idiot, now I have to clean up this mess," or some version thereof? This is what we do to ourselves time and time again. Sure, we can say the words; we can even believe them to some degree, but following through with self-forgiveness is often more difficult than hugging our worst enemy.
Sometimes it's not even a deed we need to pardon ourselves for - it's merely the act of being and forgiving ourselves for life having been unpleasant; for our brains not operating to the same wavelength of others, for having to take medication, for having to go to therapy, for wasting hours/days/weeks/years struggling through a mental minefield. No matter how we slice it, our worst enemy is usually ourselves.
Reciprocity runs amok! Except when aimed at ourselves, there is no equivalent action that counters our self-view. When we forgive another, we relinquish the burdensome debt tied to us, and it is then on the other party to do with it as they please - become better, worse, or stay the same. If the other person were to, say, accidentally repeat the action in the process of attempting to be better, we're not the ones who have to dust ourselves off and get back on the metaphorical horse.
Worst of all, what if there is no direct overarching goal for us to aim for? There's simply sitting with ourselves and our self-loathing. We can say the words, read all the self-help books, and do the therapeutic work, but in the end, can we truly forgive ourselves?
"To understand is to forgive."
The original attribution of this quote is hard to assess.
Never could there be a more appropriate summation of our internal discontent. To understand ourselves - and I mean truly understand - is an adventure; arduous, dangerous, serene, and tantalizing. We want to bring our being into self-understanding, sure, but then we have to look at the whole picture… and to see the full breadth of what we are, we have to accept it. And so, we loop around to the true definition of what it is to forgive.
To forgive ourselves and whatever ill we have oppressed our state of self with - real or imagined - is to accept that it merely is. It is a part of us. It is understood that there are reasons, both within and beyond our control, that contributed to our self-antipathy. Be it for mistakes made toward others, for our personal struggles, inactions, overreactions, or whatever else we might be holding onto. Accept that the hard feelings are there, but they are only a fraction of what makes us wholly us.
When we begin to sympathize with the parts of ourselves that we struggle to accept, even without rationalizing or excusing, merely acknowledging that they are parts of our lives we wish to grow beyond, we can finally understand that we are, unfortunately, quite simply… human.
There's another quote that comes to mind, from a more random source. Dorothy, at the end of The Wizard of Oz, thinks to herself, "Oz had not kept the promise he made her, but he had done his best. So she forgave him. As he said, he was a good man, even if he was a bad Wizard."
Mike Cornell is a Peer Support Coach and host of the Neurodivergent podcast Spark Launch. He describes himself as "a punkish nerd who survived depression, anorexia & embraced a late AuDHD diagnosis." He can be reached at mike@followyourghostcoach.com.
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