Dear joanna:

The recommendation I used to read in a lot of places, to forgive, used to greatly confuse me and hindered my healing for many years. This is what I learned: anger has a message in it, that a certain person and situation is dangerous to you. The person and situation need to be attended to and resolved. It is harmful to try to eliminate the anger without resolving the situation. For example, to eliminate anger for a particular person and continue the interactions with that person that hurt you. The interactions need to be terminated and then… the anger will resolve by itself because it would have served its purpose.

And this is what I did (answering your question in the last line): I ended all contact with my mother, will be having no contact with her for as long as I live. I was angry with her my whole life, repeatedly. Even after ending contact. But a few years of no contact and finally the anger is gone… except when I see how she is still hurting others who are in contact with her. But as far as her hurting me, situation resolved, anger served its purpose, and is gone.

anita