With my messianism dissertation no longer being useable, my advisor offered to work with me on a new project. I assume that he did this in order to keep me quiet and not go public with my side of the story. As strange as it sounds, I took him up on the offer. I was desperate to get a doctorate, which had been my goal in life. Furthermore, like anyone in an abusive relationship, I needed to believe the best about my advisor. If he really was as bad as the evidence suggested then what did it say about me that I was taken in by him. Better to continue to live in the fantasy that he really was my friend, even if he made a few mistakes. He would make it up to me and help me finish my doctorate. Surely, he realized that what he did was wrong and would make it up to me by getting me funding. How else could he expect me to write the dissertation?
This state of affairs lasted for a few months. I eventually realized that he had no intention of getting me funding. That would have required him to go to the department, admit that he was the one who had messed up and that, as such, I was a worthwhile investment. Furthermore, I found dealing with him to be utterly humiliating. He took a Vernon Dursley attitude toward me. Implicit in his communication with me was that I needed to acknowledge the falsehood that I was the one at fault for being in this predicament. As such, he expected me to be grateful to him for not casting me out as I "deserved."
Making my peace with stepping away from the second dissertation did not mean that I forgave my advisor. On the contrary, making peace with myself meant accepting that it was not my fault and there was nothing I could have been expected to do differently. As I saw it, I deserved the doctorate and my advisor had stolen it from me. He made a conscious decision to ruin my life simply to make himself look good in front of his colleagues. As the victim of such malice, I could be absolved of any blame for the failure of the first dissertation and for giving up on the second. What happened to me would have happened to anyone else with the misfortune to end up with my advisor. This defense mechanism parallels that of the fantasy anti-hero Thomas Covenant. He is someone whose life is ruined because of leprosy. He mentally survives by insisting that what happened to him was not his fault and that he is powerless to change anything.
While this attitude allowed me to survive the loss of what I wanted most in life, it still left me with an incredible amount of anger toward my advisor. This anger was a Hell for me, but one that I refused to release myself from. I needed to hold on to this anger toward my advisor because some part of me was also angry at myself. To not be angry with my advisor would mean that he had not wronged me in a truly unforgivable way. This would mean that I was responsible for my failure as an academic. Since, my advisor really had wronged me, it was only right that I should be angry. The problem was that my anger did nothing to harm him and only served to make me miserable.
To my mind, the solution was for my advisor to ask me for forgiveness. To be fair to him, it should be acknowledged that several years later he sent me a $900 check of his own money to cover what the department was supposed to have paid me for some expenses and an award but never did. What he did not do was admit that it was his fault I never got the doctorate. Most importantly, he refused to go to the department or to any of his colleagues and ask them to help me as a personal favor to him to right a wrong. Instead, he limited himself to some vague generalities about how it was unfortunate that things did not work out.
I tried to reach out to him in 2020 and we had several e-mail exchanges about the possibility of him helping me out without any success. With my advisor not getting me a job or even offering me the emotional solace of an honest apology, I was left to stew in my anger. This made me feel helpless and angry with myself for being helpless. This anger, in turn, was redirected against my advisor. All of this anger did nothing to bring me "justice," but only harmed me. Recognizing this, I have desired to forgive me advisor, understanding that my failure to forgive was a failure on my part. I kept on getting stuck on what it would mean to forgive him in light of the fact he had not acknowledged his wrongdoing.
My solution is to say that forgiveness here means to give up any claim to compensation. One might imagine that, putting aside the emotional harm, he owed me $100,000 for the financial harm he did to me and not the mere $900 he gave me. While it would be right for me to get that money and not getting it would be highly upsetting, I also have the power to forgive the debt. Giving up on money that I am never going to get, even if I deserve it, is better than living in anger over not getting the money. Furthermore, giving up on the money means that I am forgiving my younger self for putting me in this situation of being owed the money. In essence, I am forgiving my debt to myself.
To my advisor. If you are reading this, here is what I want you to know. I forgive you. There is nothing you need to say to me or to give me. If you understand what you did, that is punishment enough. If you do not, then you deserve to be pitied. I give up all claims to your money, your body, and even your soul. I even give up all claim to moral superiority. You were not qualified to be an advisor. I was not mature enough to be a doctoral student. You lied to cover up for your mistakes and protect your reputation, leaving me to take the fall. It is quite possible that I would have done no better if our situation had been reversed. It was by God’s grace and not any virtue of mine that I was never placed in a position of influence like you were that I might wrong others merely to protect my place in the social hierarchy. The ordeal that I went through was something that I needed to undergo. You simply had the misfortune to be the instrument by which this came about. If I can forgive you then, perhaps, I can forgive my youthful self for not living up to what he could have been.
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