What If You’re Never Vindicated?

I imagine it’s nice to be vindicated. I can’t say I have ever thought about this before in my life but the other night I  realized, it’s a safe bet there will vindication for me on a variety of fronts.  I was shocked when this came to me, but only briefly. I started to consider what it means to live without being vindicated.  This seemed a big question to me.

About 20 years ago, I found out that justice is not always served. You can get away with murder, for example; I know this for a fact. I called up the memory of when I realized this to see if I could relate it to this new revelation and it did help with perspective. I had a hard time reconciling these facts of life at that time. I thought if I could do it then, this should be a walk in the park.

Prior to this weekend, I was not even aware I was waiting to be vindicated, or that I even had the desire for this. But obviously I did because when I realized it wasn’t going to happen; right away I had a frown-y face on. Fine. So I would like to have some vindication, and I will not be getting it. What does that mean?

I quickly decided it meant nothing at all.  This could be a defense mechanism, but I don’t think so. I think I have come to a point in my life (or an age in my life) where public opinion is nearly irrelevant. This may be because I don’t think much of the public (sorry), or it may be that as I wrap up my time on Earth, I realize the public is not judge.

I know I am not the only one who wants to be right. I want to be right, and I want to be proven right. I want my right-ness recognized, and I see now, I am not going to get this.  The surprising thing is that it’s a relief!

It’s a relief, because I have been waiting for and wanting vindication, whether I realized it or not. Now that I know will die without being vindicated, am liberated from these desires and I now feel I am hurtling towards the future, unburdened.

How do you feel about being (or never being) vindicated?

41 thoughts on “What If You’re Never Vindicated?”

  1. I had a weird experience with this as a young child. I’ve always had a problem with being understood, I think because so much of what I think is nonverbal.

    Anyway, my elementary school teacher was misunderstanding me, and since this had happened with so many people before that, I realized that I was only going to be understood about 60% of the time. And, in a childlike way, I understood that I was better off accepting that. So I did.

    1. “I’ve always had a problem with being understood, I think because so much of what I think is nonverbal.”

      Nonverbal, yes. Me too!

      And/or… every thought I have is so complex (both wide and deep) I can seldom even BEGIN to convey it to another person, and when I attempt to do so, I generally don’t get far, lose the person early on (who has time?), and a misunderstanding ensues.

      The consequence of too many repeated such experiences is I now seldom speak.

      This leads to a very lonely existence.

  2. I wouldn’t be so sure you are *never* going to be vindicated, first of all. Sometimes it comes after a long wait, and sometimes it comes through a change in perspective.

    Just because it doesn’t come the way you want it doesn’t mean it’s not coming. Usually when a person wants vindication they’re in Saturn space, going for the RIGHT answer so…I mean it has to come, one way or another.

    So like the poster above said, maybe there is a different message than the one you expected, maybe the test was about something entirely different than the one you thought.

    And…sometimes…wanting vindication and getting it is an easy fix. If a person engages with reality this way and is *always* vindicated they never learn anything new about this place. There are other voices, other people who think they’re right. Sometimes wanting vindication and not getting it means you’re not right, and you have to change your mind entirely or broaden your perspective.

    I’d rather it be this way. I think if you’re right *all the time” your world is not big enough, or has gotten smaller. Kind of like a fundamentalist who, no matter what happens, is always one hundred percent sure he is going to heaven and everyone else is going to hell. It’s really a good thing to get knocked out of your paradigm every once in a while.

  3. Avatar
    curious wanderer

    I don’t know where I’m at in wanting vindication, or how much I receive this.

    The thought that comes to mind after reading this is that I have been vindicated in the past, and a lot of times all that really did was allow me to keep thinking of myself as a victim. It did not inspire any growth on my part, which as far as I’m concerned at this point in my life, makes it useless.

  4. I woke up and very soon afterwards, started obsessing about just such a topic-a whole group of people that I don’t even LIKE thinks that I did something *just awful*…and there’s not going to be vindication for me there, either, at least, not directly. B’s thoughts on the situation: That’s OK, she’ll think differently of her superior parenting when that kid of hers is knocked up at seventeen. (If she makes it to seventeen, I’ll be surprised, actually.)

    As for that woman’s opinion of me, or of the people in my past who were convinced that I was just the devil, even though I did nothing to deserve that…Why do I care so much? These are horrible people thinking horrible thoughts, and I’m not going to change them, their thoughts, their little bubble world. So why should I care? Why waste the energy? In fact, why not take it as a compliment? I think I will.

  5. During Saturn in Virgo, I definitely wanted to be right. With Saturn in Libra, I realized that everyone wants to be right.

    And then with all the mutable planets (especially in Saggitarius) in my chart, I want to find out what is the truth, from an intuitive, logical, big-picture and detailed perspective. I realize I’ll probably help humanity get closer to the truth, but it won’t be the final say on “truth”. Every generation will try to get closer to the truth, and all I can do is help a bit along the way.

    With Saturn in Libra, I was upset at the numerous injustices that happened at the time. Fortunately, I am confident justice is coming during Saturn in Scorpio.

    As a result, I no longer feel the need to be vindicated because I know that sooner or later, wrongs will be righted in some form or another. The time elapsed and the form of justice will vary.

    And in my case, if I make mistakes, instant karma will get me swiftly with Sun square Saturn. If I do the right thing, it’ll take a while for me to get recognition.

  6. I’m with you 100% on this one.

    Letting go of that need (if we call it that) is intensely liberating.

    I think it also falls into the category of shit I can’t control, anyway. You know, other people. Whether it’s one person, or a group.

    I have experienced a form of vindication, twice, and it was anti-climactic and confusing. Like: Seven years later someone tells me I was right? Why are you telling me this now? And… really, it didn’t change anything at all in my life. My life carried on. I went on to make more choices based on my own experience.

    The need for vindication almost keeps you shackled to a past that’s long gone…

    Great topic. I’ll be background-musing on the permutations of this one all day.

  7. I have a tendency to give words my own meaning. So, I when I think I’m doing that I’ll look a word up. Thankfully, my meaning for this word aligned with what it really was. BUT, what I fond interesting was that Meriam-Webster gives an obsolete meaning to “vindication” as “to be set free” So, in that sense, you were vindicated from what I’ve read 🙂

  8. It feels good when it comes. There have been times when, years later, someone I’d forgotten comes back to me and says, thank you, you were right, I wouldn’t have tried it if you hadn’t said something. It makes whatever I suffered at the time to get through (most of the time I make no sense) worth it.

    But if it never came, I would feel fine as well. At least I knew at the time I did something about what I felt was right.

  9. I spoke with my husband about this and he said I was vindicated when he married me for all my “You should have married me!” LOL

    I have been vindicated in my life many, many times. But this came to me like a bolt.

    I have always wanted to die well. I wrote that for the first time, 10 years ago. This realization was very valuable on that front because I can completely forget about seeking vindication and focus on my death.

    1. “I have always wanted to die well. I wrote that for the first time, 10 years ago. This realization was very valuable on that front because I can completely forget about seeking vindication and focus on my death.”

      Stop wanting vindication and focus on my death, on dying well. Wow. I love that. It’s a timely paradigm shift for me as I undergo Pluto transiting my 12th house. PERFECT. I need to sit with that, absorb it, and start living it. Until I die.

  10. Great post!!

    “The need for vindication almost keeps you shackled to a past that’s long gone…” I agree with Michele on this point.

    Also, about “hurtling towards the future, unburdened.”

    The few times that I’ve been vindicated, it was so long after the fact I ceased caring. I hate lingering around, waiting for life to happen and that’s what it feels like to me (waiting to be vindicated). Jupiter/Uranus.

  11. I agree. It always comes well after you care anymore. I have three situations that come to mind when I think of this. I admit I can get riled up and get pissy and dark and start throwing curses around. Then I immediatly have to nix that and bring myself out of ego. Those three people KNOW what they did to me (even if they lie about it) and that in and of itself is good enough for me. In those situations I’m okay because I see how sad a life it must be to always have to be right, even when they know the truth. That’s gotta be a living hell in itself. I think that’s a self-induced form of punishment.

  12. This is one heavy topic and one that is central to my existence this lifetime around. I have never understood God’s plan regarding all the abuse and power games we are subjected to in our lives and for the senseless annihilation of abuse victims on the planet. Where is the vindication for those that are innocent and good? How do you live a life knowing you might perish in the hands of the unjust and the cruel?

    I have alternately sublimated my desire for vindication and revenge, and then also quietly satisfied,even if many years later,when I hear about something that someone has experienced a life lesson that would be hard for them, even though it was too late to mean anything for my life. What is all this about? As my Scorpio
    grandmother used to say, suffering is the soul’s education on this earth plane. Or as people here say, God works in mysterious ways. I learned about “grace”, for grace is truly
    miraculous and liberating, because I asked myself so many questions about vindication. The way I look at this issue now, I need to survive first so that I can experience grace or vindication. I’ll take either or both, but I need a resolution either on simple mundane terms or on the spiritual level. But then I also
    remember a Brazilian alcoholic friend who said to me in an alcoholic stupor, in a mix of English and Portuguese: Revenge is a dish best eaten cold… I guess I am truly a Scorpio sun Pisces ascendant here: wanting it all: survival,
    vindication, revenge, grace, and ….. forgiveness and letting go….. What a dance… I would say, surely, this has been the biggest preoccupation of my life this time around.

    1. “The way I look at this issue now, I need to survive first so that I can experience grace or vindication. I’ll take either or both, but I need a resolution either on simple mundane terms or on the spiritual level.”

      This hits home as I am very much in survival mode and have been for so (too) long. My first concern is indeed to survive.

      Your holding up grace in one hand and/or vindication in the other, the mundane in one, the spiritual in the other…. wow… I need to sit with that.

      I don’t think vindication in the mundane world will ever come, in my case. But I would/could/(should?) be at peace and happy with the blessing/gift of grace on the spiritual level.

      This is very useful. Thank you.

  13. ** What I mean by that is…those three people can’t even look me in the eye. Why? because they know that I know and they may have fooled everyone else…but I’m onto them and their bullshit and they know it.How sad to not be able to look someone in the eye. Elsa~ I think you may have struck a nerve with this one. 😉

  14. Not a word I really use. It has such a single-mindedness to it.
    I’m with Steam among other great responses here – I don’t think humans really get each other as much as we think we do. I think we get flashes of insight and the fog clears now and then but mostly we’re in our own perspectives with our own stories we’re convinced are reality, and we’re responding to each other from that filter.
    And then, interesting paradox, it’s a human need to be seen. It’s all a pretty imperfect & tragi-comic business.
    Hard to let go of but not letting go keeps you trapped.

  15. J- I think exactly the fact that you used the word “get” is the point. People are afraid or don’t know how to communicate. They choose to put up a front. God forbid anyone should be vulnerable. I don’t think we are as different as we think we are. Yes, we are all colored by our experiences but I think we are fundamentally the same. And yes, how ironic that we all want to be seen and yet so much hiding goes on. And in addition, innocent parties get caught up in people’s incessant need to portray some illusion. Sorry, I’m not yelling at you. This stuff just hits a big nerve with me.

  16. Eva’s point about it not coming the way I expect it hits home with me. Takes some zooming out sometimes.

    And being grateful and enjoying each day is really all the vindication I need. I am getting that I have a choice in how I want to ‘experience’ my time on the planet.

  17. I so agree, Lioness. And the “horrible people” are ‘the public we don’t think much of’, as Elsa writes above. I recall my divorce lawyer, a wonderfully strong woman, saying to me years ago: “The day is going to come when you are going to realize that you do not have to justify yourself to anyone, not a coworker, a boss, a clerk, or a judge in a courtroom.” My first thought was “how refreshing!” as in liberating. For me, it comes later in life. I really admire the comment from Steam as an insightful child.

  18. Hmmm, that’s a really interesting subject. Now that you mention it, I do feel a certain sense of wanting or even halfway expecting vindication, though I wasn’t entirely aware of this. It’s good to recognize that desire, and see how it can hold you back. Thanks for bringing this up!

  19. This is a huge issue for my best friend (Sun in Libra, Moon in Aries: 15 degree orb, so not reeeally an opp. in my opinion). Talk about the swift sword of justice! Although she hasn’t yet reached the peace that you have Elsa. I suspect it will take some time.

    Getting vindication and righting wrongs is vital to who she is right now. Very difficult for her to let it go when she *knows* that an injustice has been done. I love her for it, though – makes her a heck of an activist 🙂

  20. @Elsa

    Someone asked, “How is it when everyone in your town likes you?”
    The Master said, “Not good enough.”
    “And how about if everyone in your town dislikes you?”
    The Master said, “Not good enough either. It is better when the good among the people like you, and the bad dislike you.”
    Confucius 13:24

    I’m totally with what you said, “public opinion is nearly irrelevant”. Yay relief indeed! 🙂

  21. I was apologized to for the abuse in childhood. It didn’t really help, I was a teen by then and already messed up.

    My husband wrote a letter vindicating me, apologizing for the way he treated me (I left anyway) and that didn’t really help either. My marriage still ended and my heart was still broken and I still felt like I failed.

    It’s nice to know they realize they did you wrong, but they benefit more putting down the guilt…

    That’s cool, I don’t begrudge them, but it doesn’t really change my life.

  22. Its not something that comes to mind much here either and when it does, for me, its not about being right, its more about being free from situations where I have been judged in such a way that is simply not me or having been wrongly convicted (by peers or family etc), I guess thats about people coming from their own “story” and looking for the scapegoat to project onto which unless it had legal ramifications i just let them and step away. So yeah occasionally it would be kinda nice to hear, I dunno why i thought that of you, must let the others know you have been falsely convicted on that one, but thats all really 🙂 There are others however I would love to see vindicated, whos lives have been ruined just because…

  23. Oh, I so get this! All those moments and incidents to which there was no witness. No understanding and no justice. I mean, think of the cumulative weight of those over a life time (Saturn in Scorpio, moi).

    1. This brings to mind C-PTSD. The C usually stands for Complex… but Cumulative is definitely part of it. And the weight becomes crushing until/unless you succeed in jettisoning some/all? of it.

  24. The thing that comes to mind for me is years of raising my children alone knowing to never say anything bad about their father. Even when I wanted to say out loud this deadbeat sob wont help …or whatever…I knew to shut my mouth.

    They thought he was a hero. I decided to let them think this. I love them. I was not going to be the one to ruin their perception of anything.

    Today they ask me why I didn’t tell them who he really is. They no longer speak to him. I told them it was for them to discover but I do have to tell you that knowing they have an idea now….(20 years later) does feel somewhat comforting.

  25. Love how you stir our minds,this is such a strong topic. Sometimes people up and die before vindication, assuming it ever would, can happen, or else the situation is so delicate it’d hurt more people. Maybe an actual need for vindication stems from the doubt that we are being believed, valued.The quiet wish that once day we might be vindicated holds us to the past too, I guess, and being severed from that possibility definitely sounds liberating, thankyou for sharing this, appreciated.

  26. The heart bleeds rivers of blood, and tears fall on parched places
    The heart cries out for justice, and hears its own echo, and tears fall on parched places
    In the desert, on the knees, the soul cries out for justice, and hears its own echo, and tears fall on parched places….
    And for all the rivers of blood, and all the cries for justice, it is the tears that green the desert of our despair, and sing the bones of our displacement….

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