(WE95) Accidental accusation

Greetings and I share my participation in the @theweekend community. This time with my experience with accidental accusations, grateful to @galenkp for this week's initiative.

Unjust accusation is painful, even more so when it is made by a loved one.

Source

It is difficult to forget when events occur that affect you emotionally. When you are unjustly accused by a stranger, it is an unpleasant and even frustrating situation, but when a loved one is the cause of that situation, the pain is even deeper.

I'll tell you my experience:

I was 6 years old and in the first grade of elementary school when it all happened. At that time we lived in a building located on the main avenue of a popular sector of our city on a 17th floor and upstairs we had as neighbors a family with three daughters older than me. The girls studied at the same school where I was, so we took the same school bus and every morning they would come down looking for me and on the way back we would go up together.

One day when we were on our way back, the neighbor who was smaller but still older than me, wanted to go to the bathroom very badly, it is natural physiologically we all have to expel the liquids that our body does not need, and she was holding the urge since we were coming from the transportation. When we arrived at the parking lot of the building, she was begging us to hurry up because of "her emergency"; so the older sister was signaling us to quickly enter the building.

I don't know why, but when we are in that situation and we are close to the place where we are going, the desire accelerates. The elevator was not arriving quickly, and the girl was desperate, her eyes wet and on the verge of tears. An old elevator going down from the top floor was an eternity for her.

The middle sister, was very unruly, always playing pranks, teasing and jokes, she did not stop laughing at her. She would make water sounds to make her suffer, and as I was the youngest I remember that I was scared, I was afraid that she could not wait to get home, I felt her desperation and suffered just by looking at her.

When the elevator finally arrived, we rushed in and big sister, while calming her down, pressed the last button on the board that would take us to our homes. Suddenly the middle sister with a sarcastic laugh began to press all the buttons so that the elevator would go to all floors. For me it was a horror, the little girl was crying, the older sister was threatening to accuse her to her mother and suddenly... the little sister could not stand it and the liquids rolled down her legs making a puddle on the floor.

Between cries and screams of the sisters, I can not forget and relive that moment when the middle sister ran to ring the doorbell of my house, my mom opens the door and she tells her to look at her little sister, my mom astonished asks how that happened and the big sister says it was an accident ... for pressing all the buttons on the elevator.

My mother, without stopping first to find out, gave me an inquisitive look expecting me to confess and then shouted, "Who was she?" pointing at me, while the frightened girls did not answer anything. Then she apologized to the girl, telling her not to cry anymore, that she would come up later to talk to her mother so that she would not be reprimanded. I was astonished at what was happening, I was in shock at that moment and did not understand anything, I only felt when my mother took me by the arm and pulled me into the house.

When I closed the door, I tried to tell my mother the truth of what had happened, the grief and indignation took over her, blinding her and turning her into rage, she would not listen to my version, she yelled at me, she talked about morals, values, about the things she had taught me and that I could not let this behavior go. She ordered me to kneel in front of the wall and with a strap she whipped me on my back, while she scolded me. I don't remember how many times he did it, the physical pain was strong, but so was the pain my heart felt. To stop him from hitting me, I began to scream that it wasn't me, and I only heard him tell me that I was a liar. In a moment of great pain I said "forgive me mom for something I didn't do", then the doorbell rang.

When the neighbors heard what was happening to me, they decided to tell their mother the truth and immediately went downstairs so that this injustice would not continue to be committed against me. A little late, wasn't it? The middle child confessed that it had been her and my mother, devastated by the mistake she had made, just started crying. That was the first and only time my mother physically reprimanded me.

Source

I don't remember if there was any apology, I know that my mom's tears were of true regret. I also do not remember if the girl apologized to me, and if I could feel anger for that. When the situation was clarified the friendship of the families continued and I forgave, it was an episode that I will hardly forget, and although this is the third or fourth time I tell the story, it is inevitable that I feel the emotion of that moment and the tears come out of my eyes.

Years later I discovered that when my mother was a child, her aunt, who was the person she lived with, had once unjustly accused her and reacted in a similar way as my mother did with me. A pattern of behavior that was repeated when she was an adult, because it was also a shocking emotion in her life. The events that occur during childhood somehow leave traces, and by becoming aware of them we can understand why we act that way and it gives us the possibility to change that behavior for our personal well-being and that of our environment.

From this experience, everyone involved had the opportunity to learn something. I learned that life sometimes surprises us and we have to go through moments that are not pleasant, but we have to forgive, not to have resentments, we are not perfect and we make mistakes, learning from the mistakes of others is also valid and not to repeat those patterns with our children as well.

Once my daughter was accused at school for a situation that happened with a classmate and the first thing I did was to listen to her, I let her give me her version, I put myself in her shoes, I gave her my vote of confidence. The day of the citation I was able to defend her position, all my arguments were valid, in the end it was all a misunderstanding.

Source

False accusations can be accidental, they can cause us a lot of damage, many emotions surface because we feel attacked, but venting is good because this way we do not somatize that situation and do it without clinging to the tragedy, the drama, without being catastrophic, let go and then act. The fact is that when this happens we cannot eliminate what happened, but we can look for a way out of the problem and for that it is best to focus on the present to see more clearly the facts and defend the position.