Self-forgiveness is a choice, it is a gift of freedom that I give myself

Punishment and accountability get mistaken for one another constantly. Accountability is finite: you see it, you name it, you make whatever repair is available, you change the thing that caused it. It ends because it has a task.

Punishment has no task. It simply runs, it can run for decades, and the person you hurt is not made one degree better off by any of it.

Forgiving yourself is not letting yourself off. It is the decision that the punishing has served whatever purpose punishing can serve, and that continuing it now is only habit.