07: I Spent 8 Years Angry at Doctors (Here's What Forgiveness Actually Fixed)

Going through 8 years of debilitating topical steroid withdrawal (TSW) left me with deep regret, anger, and a profound sense of betrayal by the Western medical system and even myself. This experience created significant emotional trauma, anxiety, and depression, shaping my perspective on health and trust. In this episode, I share my journey of navigating these complex feelings and the path towards self-forgiveness, emotional integration, releasing resentment, nervous system healing, and breaking free from trauma patterns.

CHAPTERS:

0:00 - My journey with TSW, Anger, & Regret

1:17 - What Is Forgiveness Really?

2:50 - Forgiving Others: The Ultimate Lesson in Staying in Your Own Lane

4:12 - 4 Signs You Need to Forgive Yourself

5:39 - How I Reached Forgiveness in TSW

6:45 - The Most Powerful Tool to Practice Forgiveness

8:12 - Applying Forgiveness to Big Systems

9:20 - Going from Wound to Wisdom

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Content Warning: This episode discusses mental health struggles. I'm a registered nurse sharing my personal story for educational purposes only — this is not medical advice. If you're struggling, call or text 988 (U.S./Canada) or visit https://findahelpline.com/

• Full episode transcript (click to expand)

  00:00:00 Cassie: When I was at my lowest point, going through a debilitating health crisis called TSW that spanned eight years of my life. I was so full of regret, anger, and sadness. Thinking about every choice that had led me there, I felt scorned by the doctors. I trusted the people that were supposed to help me by huge institutions like the Western medical system, the Catholic Church, colonialism, and by myself for the decades worth of steroids that I continuously put on my body. I was stuck in anger and regret. I couldn't forgive myself for not knowing what I didn't know. And that inability to forgive only prolonged my time suffering in those wounds. It took me so many years to finally learn that forgiveness wasn't about excusing anyone, but about releasing my own grip on the pain. Welcome to Healing the warrior. I'm Cassie. I'm a registered nurse, shamanic practitioner, and emotional integration coach who spent eight years healing from a severe skin condition called topical steroid withdrawal, or TSW. What I learned is that deep healing doesn't just happen on the surface. It happens when you address what's beneath it. In this episode, I'm talking about forgiveness, what it really is, why it matters, and how to start forgiving yourself and others. So here we go. So what is forgiveness, really? When you get into true forgiveness, honestly, I think it's pretty nuanced and a lot of people conflate it with other things with forgetting about the scorn or hurt that you felt about telling the other person it's okay, and feeling like you're giving the other person permission for what they've done. But really, it's none of these things. Forgiveness is actually letting go of resentment and anger so that you yourself can feel peace. It's not necessarily to excuse the person or thing that you feel did you wrong. It's not about them. It's about you. And that's why it matters. Whatever the situation is, and no matter who was at fault, you are the one that feels anger, resentment, betrayal, hurt. Forgiveness isn't about saying that you're not right for feeling those things, but it's true that those are the emotions and trauma that you are holding and storing, not the other party. Forgiveness is you finally saying, I can release my grip on these feelings, even if what happened wasn't right. I can release my own hold on these things because I know ultimately that's what's best for me. And then there is forgiveness of a lot of things, right? But they can kind of be broken down into two categories forgiving yourself and forgiving others. And some people think that one is harder than the other. It really just depends on you as a person and what your experience is. So you don't necessarily need to do one before the other, but usually starting with one makes the other easier. So let's start with forgiving others. One of the biggest unexpected lessons that I learned on my own healing journey was, honestly, how to stay in your own lane and forgiving others is like the ultimate lesson on staying in your own lane. And what this means is understanding that you have no control over other people or other things outside of yourself. And even that lesson alone can be a hard one to learn. So when you don't forgive others that you feel did you wrongly, and you're still holding on to the anger and the resentment, it's likely that emotionally and energetically, you're still very much in the wound. And when you're operating and living your life from inside the wound, you're suffering it rather than experiencing the pain in a neutral way. Forgiveness allows you to step out of the wound and to step further and further from it, one step at a time. This doesn't mean that you're excusing that it happened or that you're forgetting about it, but when you're operating from a place that's outside of it rather than in, you have greater perspective. You're not in the place of suffering anymore. And with each step further from the wound, you don't just gain greater perspective, but more wisdom and lessons that the wound was there to teach you. When you're able to operate and live your life from this place of wisdom rather than suffering, you usually end up in a happier, more content place. And now the other side of the same coin is forgiving yourself. So how do you know if you need to forgive yourself? Here are some examples and signs that you might need to. The biggest and most obvious one is just ruminating and reliving the past. Thinking about what you did wrong. Thinking about the decisions that you made that led you to that event or place rather than learning from it. You might feel a lot of regret about the past and feel things like, I wish I didn't do that, or how could I let that happen? A second sign is that you might be very self-critical. You might have a habit of beating yourself up about past choices or not meeting impossible standards that you set for yourself. Having a habit of just being really hard on yourself is a common and really unnoticed sign that there's room for self-forgiveness. The third sign is that you might feel a lot of shame or guilt, either about doing something or something that happened. And the fourth sign is if you have a habit of continuously making excuses rather than taking responsibility. Like, I didn't do this because x, y, z. And then this happened and then that happened, which all might be true, but the avoiding responsibility exists in those excuses. Rather than just saying, I didn't do this and I should have. I forgive myself for not doing it. Forgiving yourself happens when you forgive your past self for whatever decisions you made at that time. And one very powerful way that you can start doing this is by having a dialogue with your old self. Here's what that journey to forgiveness looked like for me. So I mentioned before that there's forgiving yourself and forgiving others. And when I was in my healing journey, I wasn't like, oh, let me start with option A, it wasn't clean like that at all. How realizing that I needed to forgive even came up, was just that I was so overwhelmed with anger and feeling betrayed that I eventually realized this is causing myself more harm than what I'm really trying to do overall here, which is to heal. And eventually I was faced with really needing to forgive myself for using steroids on my skin, which is what eventually led me to the eight years of debilitating, severe TSW. I realized that I was holding so much contempt and regret thinking, how could I do that to myself? How could I do that to my body? I felt conflicted because on one hand, I felt these things and on the other I felt like, I know I did it because I felt like I didn't have a choice. It was a confusing process to move through, but integrating those two parts that felt like they conflicted is what led me to be able to forgive. The dialogue that I was eventually able to have with myself was body. I am so, so sorry. I'm so sorry for basically feeling like I was abusing you. I didn't realize that was what I was doing, but now I feel like it was. And I'm so, so sorry. And to my old self, I'm sorry I let you down. I'm really, really sorry. Thank you so much for everything that you've brought me through to this day. Thank you for carrying me strongly, even when I feel like I wasn't taking care of you. I'm so sorry. And I also know that you only were doing the best that you could at that time with the information that you had. I know that you were making the best decision that you knew how with all the resources that you had at that time. I know that you were just doing your best. I'm so sorry. And I really, really hope that you can forgive me eventually. Having conversations like that, really honest, raw conversations like that with myself now and with my old self, I slowly started to release my grip on the resentment and regret that I had held on to for so many years. And even with this dialogue, it wasn't always necessarily a one and done situation. It was something that I had to keep talking about, that I had to continue a practice of. And once I started growing that practice, then I learned how to apply it to a lot of other different things and different avenues in my life, different areas that I felt scorned by. I was able to have a personal inner dialogue with all the doctors that I had gone to that I felt like were supposed to help me, but that I felt like betrayed me. And I was able to apply this conversation to that situation and remind myself that the Western medical system doesn't train doctors for certain things. And I had to remind myself that that person whose intent really was to help me also was only doing their best with the information that they had at that time. And continuing this practice, cultivating it, making it stronger, created a habit and practice for myself of letting go and gripping the pain so much that I was eventually able to apply this to huge institutions, like an upbringing in the Catholic Church and the system of colonialism. Those are enormous institutions to find forgiveness for, and that I didn't realize how I was still operating from inside the wound regarding all of these different things and different aspects that affected my life. Once I was able to forgive myself, my life changed. I wasn't living in the wound anymore. I was able to take a step back, and the more I forgave myself and others, the further I got from the wound. And that didn't mean that I forgot about it, but I wasn't suffering it anymore. It's the difference of operating and making your life decisions from the wound versus the wisdom that the wound taught you. When you finally forgive, you're no longer suffering the pain. You're integrating the lessons from it. A lot of people might have fear to forgive because they worry that if they forgive, that means they forget that it happened, or that they're saying it doesn't matter that it happened, which isn't true at all. You don't forget what happened. You just stopped being held captive by it. Forgiveness isn't weakness. It's a powerful way to reclaim your own peace and your own power. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up to let the algorithm know that it was helpful and so that it can help more people just like you. Be sure to subscribe! I put out new videos every Tuesday and if you want more right now I have a free video training on affirmations that actually work. The link is in the description and I'll see you next time.

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