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Message: [QUOTE="Karoline, post: 7390"] [URL='https://lissarankin.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/sm_yalocin_Mirror_-_self-reflection_and_accountability._velvet_gre_cb5b43c9-fba2-4d02-970c-a413c618520f-copy.jpg'][IMG]https://lissarankin.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/sm_yalocin_Mirror_-_self-reflection_and_accountability._velvet_gre_cb5b43c9-fba2-4d02-970c-a413c618520f-copy.jpg[/IMG][/URL] You know the drill. You go to the person who hurt you. You say “When you did x, y, and z, I felt hurt, abandoned, neglected, tortured, betrayed, enraged, devastated, disappointed, misunderstood, invisible, [fill in your emotion.]” The other person either cuts you off before you finish your sentence and starts blame-shifting with the DARVO cycle (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender). Or they put the burden of forgiveness on you and order you to let it go, to forgive and forget. Or they walk away as if what you’re saying is irrelevant. Or they accuse you for being ungrateful and hurting their feelings. Or they ignore the email/ text/ attempt to hold them accountable altogether. Or they minimize what you’re saying and invalidate the gravity of it. Or they justify what they did with a laundry list of excuses. Or more often than not, all of the above. They accuse you of never letting go of the past. They demand that you forgive them if you want to continue having them in your life. They blame you for not being spiritual enough. They roll out a list of all the other people who think they’re wonderful, as if something’s wrong with you for wanting to talk about what happened. Most confusing of all, they accuse you of doing what they’re actually doing to you (projection). When you come away from the dynamic, you feel gaslit, confused, self doubting, angry, frustrated, exhausted, helpless, hopeless, and guilty for making your perpetrator upset. You also feel unresolved, because the same thing happens every time you try to find some degree of resolution. [B]What Are Your Options?[/B] There’s a sequence to such things, an order with which to try to make things right. [B]1. Know your rights. [/B] If your perpetrator has perpetrated a prosecutable crime, find out whether you’re still within the statute of limitations. Different states and countries are beginning to change laws about statutes of limitations with regard to criminal abuses against children, so if the crime happened when you were a child, talk to a lawyer about whether suing your perpetrator is an option you want to consider. Even if you don’t choose to pursue legal action, it’s good to know your rights. And it’s good for your perpetrator to know that you know your rights. Some perpetrators think they have a right to get away with illegal activities, and it’s important to shatter their grandiosity by letting them know you are not a helpless victim. You are an empowered pursuer of inner and outer justice. [B]2. If it’s an option, decide whether to pursue legal action.[/B] If you are within the statute of limitations and you have the option of pursuing either criminal or civil legal charges, you’ll need to decide whether you want to pursue that option. If you do, hiring both a lawyer and a therapist can help you navigate next steps. If the pain you experienced was traumatic but not illegal, you’ll have to get more creative about how to get justice for your parts, but don’t despair! There are plenty of ways to pursue justice in ethical, legal, non-vengeful ways. [B]3. If you want to continue the relationship, make sure you register your protest. [/B] If you’ve been conflict avoidant and you’ve been waiting for your perpetrator to make the first move to apologize, just understand that highly narcissistic people will almost never admit guilt or initiate repair of their own accord. Perhaps they have no idea they hurt you, even if you think it should be entirely obvious. Or perhaps they know, but their fragile self image can’t handle the cognitive dissonance of thinking they’re such perfect people while also listening to how much pain they’ve caused you. Perhaps they have no shame resilience so they can’t handle feeling ashamed (in the healthy way that can lead to repair.) Or perhaps they’re simply shameless and they don’t feel bad at all. Either way, you’re going to have to make the first move. If you’ve never asked for an opportunity to hold the talking stick, speak your piece, uninterrupted, and give the other person a chance to actually make it right with you, by all means, start there. It can help to get your thoughts in order first. Try writing a Victim Impact Statement, like the kind victims in court proceedings write to submit to the judge for the purposes of sentencing. It’s your chance to let the perpetrator know all the ways their behaviors have impacted you, with regard to your capacity to have healthy relationships, your ability to earn a living, your financial life, your physical health, your mental health, your ability to parent children, etc. If your perpetrator agrees to meet with you, you can read this statement out loud. (I do not recommend emailing or texting or even snail mailing a Victim Impact Statement. It’s too painful for our victimized parts if the statement just goes unread and unanswered.) Get a family therapist to back you up and help you feel brave, if you haven’t tried that yet. If your perpetrator is willing to engage in a conversation about what happened to you, relational repair might be possible. Then you can embark on the steps required for restorative justice, which we’ll be talking about in more detail in my upcoming IFS-informed six week workshop [URL='https://coursesalestracking.clickfunnels.com/path-to-inner-justice-home']The Path To Inner Justice: How To Heal When Your Perpetrator Expects A Hall Pass.[/URL] [URL='https://coursesalestracking.clickfunnels.com/path-to-inner-justice-home']Learn more & register here.[/URL] If instead of sincere, remorseful confessions and apologies, all you get is DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender), or if your perpetrator has cut you off in withdrawal or rejection, you can’t force someone to participate in relational repair. Relational repair is a pro-social way of relating that allows for human imperfection and gives victims and perpetrators a chance to restore each other. Refusing to repair after you’ve hurt someone is antisocial behavior. You’ll have to go to the next step and make sure you’re not enabling their antisocial behavior with your own neurotic tolerance if you want justice to prevail. [B]4. Create consequences.[/B] If legal action is not an option and if your perpetrator refuses to listen to you, with or without a therapist, if they won’t read a Victim Impact Statement or allow you to have the talking stick, then you have to go to the next phase of the sequence, which is to put into place consequences for their refusal to be held accountable. Maybe this means they are no longer welcome in your house. Maybe it means there are strict boundaries around how you are or are not willing to communicate. Maybe it means you cut off all contact until they’re willing to have a repair conversation. The one thing that is guaranteed not to get you justice is tolerating their slipperiness around accountability. If there’s no consequences for avoiding accountability, there’s no motivation for your perpetrator to engage in a relational repair process with you. If no consequences have changed your perpetrator’s stubborn denial and refusal to cooperate in relational repair, there are next steps you can engage in, and we’ll be spelling them out in [URL='https://coursesalestracking.clickfunnels.com/path-to-inner-justice-home']The Path To Inner Justice.[/URL] [URL='https://coursesalestracking.clickfunnels.com/path-to-inner-justice-home']Save $100 if you register for The Path To Inner Justice before [fill in date][/URL] Many victims feel absolutely helpless at this stage, which is retraumatizing for many. But you are not helpless. There are things you can do beyond this stage. We’ll be walking you step-by-step through the process of healing, accountability, justice for yourself and your “parts,” and acceptance of what you’ve lost in The Path To Inner Justice. If you’ve been struggling to let go, if putting the burden of forgiveness on the victim has failed to help you heal, we hope to see you join us for [URL='https://coursesalestracking.clickfunnels.com/path-to-inner-justice-home']The Path To Inner Justice.[/URL] The post [URL='https://lissarankin.com/how-to-heal-when-your-perpetrator-expects-a-hall-pass-a-step-by-step-process/']How To Heal When Your Perpetrator Expects A Hall Pass: A Step By Step Process[/URL] first appeared on [URL='https://lissarankin.com']Lissa Rankin[/URL]. [/QUOTE]

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