Ecdysis
Sponsor
So, I think many of us have heard from T's that the reason we evoke "self-blame" for traumatic events is because the brain prefers "control" to a lack of blame...
That never made a whole tonne of sense to me until today... I was just writing something about death in another thread:
We all constantly tell ourselves that if we do "everything right" then "everything will be okay"... If we eat fruit and veg, and get checkups at the Dr's, then we can preven things like heart attacks and cancer...
And so on and so forth... All the million things we "do" to make sure that things will be "okay"...
And as we muddle through life, that more or less works out for most things... Eating fruit and veg and going to the Dr's does prevent a lot of preventable illness...
And I think we like to kid ourselves that everything falls into the category of "preventable".
But of course it doesn't...
And those of us with trauma know that for a fact, very viscerally...
But I think the idea that we are "powerless to stop bad stuff happening" is so awful, so scary, so daunting... that we literally try to banish this and will instead obsessively look for the "tiny thing" that we could have done differently that could have prevented the trauma... If only we'd left the house five minutes earlier or later that day... If only we'd taken a different route to work... If only, if only, if only... then that car accident wouldn't have happened...
And each of us can find those things for our trauma... Those typical "victim blamey" things that other people pick out too, in their attempt to kid themselves that "trauma is preventable" and that if they always do everything "right" then they can prevent trauma happening to them too... You know, that "she shouldn't have worn a short skirt" type crap... Like, yeah, if we all stop doing those tiny "could have done it differently" things, then there would be no trauma and no bad things would ever happen to any of us...
So, I've never understood that thing T's say about "the brain craves control more than it craves not being at fault"... but I think I do now... My brain almost wants there to be some minor or major thing that I did wrong that led to my trauma, because then if I can avoid that one thing, then magically, I can avoid all trauma...! And I will be safe for ever more...
Evolutionarily, I think that makes a lot of sense... That animals are programmed this way... That when something traumatic happens... That they work out what they "did wrong" (went too close to a bee's nest, didn't see the snake in the bushes, didn't listen to the snap of that twig...) and that it's burned into their memory to make sure they will avoid this thing at future and never, ever forget it again...
And I can see where it goes wrong and becomes a ridiculous mess of over-thinking and self-blame, when there "is no real thing" that led to the trauma, when it's just random trauma... If you ate some black berries before an awful storm which led to terrible flooding, then no, it's not the black berries that are to blame... I can see how brains can get into a messed up obsessive loop of "looking for what caused it" in a frazzled, desperate attempt to prevent it from ever happening again...
So, to me, it's not that self-blame is so much related to "control"... Rather, self-blame is the logic by how I can potentially have the magic power to prevent death, trauma and all-the-bad-things...
That never made a whole tonne of sense to me until today... I was just writing something about death in another thread:
And I've just realised that I think it's the kind of magical thinking that obviously children engage in, but that I think we all engage in to some degree in terms of our own mortality and the possibility of bad things happening in life...I think it's a compulsive attempt to figure out "how I can prevent death and illness and suffering"... I think that's what my brain is trying to do... Like if I just search hard enough, then I will find the miracle power that means I can prevent death and other bad things from happening...
I can see why my brain is desperately trying to find this solution... Cos that would be so comforting, wouldn't it...? And to face up to the vulnerability that none of us can do that... None of us can actually prevent harmful things happening... That feels so raw and so helpless and so painful and so vulnerable...
So my brain would rather have it be all my fault cos then I can figure out how to do it differently and then I can beat death and prevent all bad things...
We all constantly tell ourselves that if we do "everything right" then "everything will be okay"... If we eat fruit and veg, and get checkups at the Dr's, then we can preven things like heart attacks and cancer...
And so on and so forth... All the million things we "do" to make sure that things will be "okay"...
And as we muddle through life, that more or less works out for most things... Eating fruit and veg and going to the Dr's does prevent a lot of preventable illness...
And I think we like to kid ourselves that everything falls into the category of "preventable".
But of course it doesn't...
And those of us with trauma know that for a fact, very viscerally...
But I think the idea that we are "powerless to stop bad stuff happening" is so awful, so scary, so daunting... that we literally try to banish this and will instead obsessively look for the "tiny thing" that we could have done differently that could have prevented the trauma... If only we'd left the house five minutes earlier or later that day... If only we'd taken a different route to work... If only, if only, if only... then that car accident wouldn't have happened...
And each of us can find those things for our trauma... Those typical "victim blamey" things that other people pick out too, in their attempt to kid themselves that "trauma is preventable" and that if they always do everything "right" then they can prevent trauma happening to them too... You know, that "she shouldn't have worn a short skirt" type crap... Like, yeah, if we all stop doing those tiny "could have done it differently" things, then there would be no trauma and no bad things would ever happen to any of us...
So, I've never understood that thing T's say about "the brain craves control more than it craves not being at fault"... but I think I do now... My brain almost wants there to be some minor or major thing that I did wrong that led to my trauma, because then if I can avoid that one thing, then magically, I can avoid all trauma...! And I will be safe for ever more...
Evolutionarily, I think that makes a lot of sense... That animals are programmed this way... That when something traumatic happens... That they work out what they "did wrong" (went too close to a bee's nest, didn't see the snake in the bushes, didn't listen to the snap of that twig...) and that it's burned into their memory to make sure they will avoid this thing at future and never, ever forget it again...
And I can see where it goes wrong and becomes a ridiculous mess of over-thinking and self-blame, when there "is no real thing" that led to the trauma, when it's just random trauma... If you ate some black berries before an awful storm which led to terrible flooding, then no, it's not the black berries that are to blame... I can see how brains can get into a messed up obsessive loop of "looking for what caused it" in a frazzled, desperate attempt to prevent it from ever happening again...
So, to me, it's not that self-blame is so much related to "control"... Rather, self-blame is the logic by how I can potentially have the magic power to prevent death, trauma and all-the-bad-things...