I'm being pressured to forgive and forget with my bully, who happens to be my stepsister.
Dear Prudence.
My stepsister was horrid to me growing up. She would use homophobic slurs against me, get her friends to lie and say I was staring at them in the changing room, and basically made my teens a living hell. Even a decade later, I avoid being in the same room as her if I can. She recently came out as gay and everyone in our family, except me, threw her a ticker tape parade. She is so “brave” and everyone is so proud of her. It honestly makes me sick.
She recently reached out to me to “clear the air.” Basically a non-apology where she soft-pedaled all her previous actions as a teen and using the excuse she was just a “confused kid.” I haven’t responded. What is there to say? I don’t forgive you for being the biggest bullying bitch to me because you happen to like girls now? You gave me nightmares? I hated going to school with you so badly it made me physically ill? She didn’t even contact me privately but on my open social media where our entire family saw and have been making comments to me. How do I deal with this?
— Don’t Forgive or Forget
Re: I'm being pressured to forgive and forget with my bully, who happens to be my stepsister.
I also think the LW needs therapy. Not that the sister gets a free pass but I'm reading this as the sister was using the teasing as a mask to hide her true identity and it was not excusable however that was her coping mechanism. Sister needs to acknowledge deeper the result of her actions and the LW needs to acknowledge that this was the result.
LW may do well to talk to their family to be clear that while they appreciate the honesty it does not change the past actions and the lack of punishment.
If it were me, I'd go back to the step-sister and say exactly that, privately. It doesn't feel like a genuine apology. Those years were torturous and I'm still trying to recover it from it, and as such, I'm not ready to let you into my life. And then explain the same thing to the family.
They could add something like banana wrote if they felt nice (I'm glad you're being true to yourself, yada yada) but honestly, I wouldn't. I have no doubt that SS was struggling with her sexuality but that is not even close to an excuse for treating another person the way LW says she was treated.
The only other question is whether to do it publicly. Since that's how the stepsister apparently likes to roll.
Or to take the higher road and send it to her privately.