Why do we take the blame?

[Freida]

Not sure if this goes in avoidance, cognitive distortions or trauma so I'll just stick it here for now. :)

I know it's just part of the PTSD process, but I got to wondering today - why is it so important that we take the blame for what was done to us? I see it over and over in the forums, and anyone who spends 5 minutes in my diary knows I'm a master of it.

But why?

What does it accomplish for us? I know that at the time of trauma it can be what keeps us alive, or allows us to make sense of what is happening or to just keep putting one foot in front of the other and move forward. But then what? Why is it so ingrained in us that we have to continue to hold on to it long after the trauma is over? What would happen if we let go of the blame or put it where it actually belongs - on the people who landed us here? And does that last sentence make anyone else feel panicky?

Any brilliant ideas out there?

 

[bellbird]

But then what? Why is it so ingrained in us that we have to continue to hold on to it long after the trauma is over?

This is a very good question.
In fact, I think I'm going to take this to T next week and ask if we can do some work around it, because going by the weird feelings thinking about it is causing, you've probably hit on something pretty big :laugh:

Ok, thinking... Why do I hold on to the blame, even though I'm 2 years out of the Abuse Years?

-because part of me still wants to (does?) believe that my abuser was a good person who was only wanting to help me.

-because it gives me a feeling of control over what I went through if I think that I somehow caused/deserved it.

-because it's somehow easier to take on the blame than to except that Z was a piece of utter shit with major issues and in that moment, and for what he was doing, I was vulnerable.

-because I haven't yet been able to detach from the cognitive belief that he instilled in me that everything that went wrong was my fault.

-because I still fear punishment should I think any differently.

And does that last sentence make anyone else feel panicky?

Uh, yes!!!

 

[grit]

why is it so important that we take the blame for what was done to us?

Where is this coming from? Who said this?

I honestly do not understand where that question is coming from?

IMHO and story, I never took the blame of being abused for the first 18yrs of my life but I could not accept I loved my mother as a child all along...this feeling made me feel yuck. I was like no I hate my mother...but I had to accept, I may hate my mother as an adult, but as a child, I loved her and suppressed/dissociated from hating her...hence, my body and mind went to perpetual fake world of acting I loved my mother all my life, where my deepest cells were like run, hate, hostile to this person who abused me....and the panic came from if I admit I hate my mother and accept, do I become a psycho? a person who cannot love even her own mother? I am not that person....resistance of reality!

But then, my long adult experience and my present life demonstrated I can love but the long way to get there was horrific. I had to feel so much hate and hostility to process the lack of power as a child while all along acknowledging my dissociation saved me from killing me or others...numbed me for good. I basically polarized as I am decent human vs I am horrible person who deserved all that...stuck in the wall of dissociation...not I feel both but not identify with strongly or get overwhelmed. I acknowledge I am experiencing stress to activate this or I am in bliss both just part of life...my bouncing in between is softer...not the hard wall of dissociation that made me feel amnesiac and weird or shame.

It is not blame we have to own, it is - we have to own, at minimum, we are animals and when we were abused there were a lot of feelings so powerful we did not own them then because we were busy surviving...but must own them as adult cause we survived now - and most people truly do not want to feel that cause it is too close to re-traumatization and do want to take the risk again. Avoiding that risk keeps most of us in perpetual wheel of flashback. for me I really believe (delusion or not) I wont die if I re-feel all the feelings I disowned as a child because when one or two things happened, my body (physical body) recover. That was incentive enough for me and prove that is healing.

No one told me I need to take blame...if anything, I could not let go the blame on my mother and did not want to face, what did I do since I have come an adult about my pain? Why am I still feeling my mom abandoned me like yesterday? because as much as I hated her she did that... I also loved her like she was my lifeline - my saviour. and by admitting this and feeling the love i had for her and how much I missed her, I felt my body relax for the first time.

PS. I have parental abuse...I suppose intimate partner abuse and not letting go is different but I also feel sometimes, the intimate partner may just re-awaken unfinished business from infancy or young childhood.

Now weirdly, I feel so pathetic, small, insignificant and sometimes useless and sometimes really I could crash others like a bug...but I just acknowledge them rather than going to route shame of:I am not a good person if I do not feel that or I hate people...naha....I have these feelings cause I experienced them before and they are runaway residues but I do not need to act on them or to identify with or to attach accolades! I just name them like I feel I hate that person cause they did this...and I make mental note do I hate them or dislike them? bringing from the past to the present...but it is almost automatic now..

Sorry for the long response. I want to say one thing about the word "automatic"...that is all I want really having my feelings good or bad automatic and I am not processing them anymore...cause the processing them is taking so much energy from my body who could have done other things like writing a poem...LOL.so to me having automatic life of no fear is my motivation bigger than having panic about I hate my mother...that is just a memory.

Work in progress...

 

[mylunareclipse]

From what my understanding is, is that it’s all about control.
If it’s our fault, then it’s something we can control in present or in future. If only I could be better, if only I didn’t say that, if only I had been nicer, maybe I wouldn’t have been abused. It’s too terrifying to believe even after the abuse is over that we could have done practically nothing, because then as we look at the future we would feel hopeless and panicked, if there was nothing I could do then, maybe it will happen again, because i have no way to stop it.
At least that’s my understanding of it.

 

[siniang]

why is it so important that we take the blame for what was done to us?

I think it’s a form of self-protection. In order to make sense of things that not necessarily ever will have a sense to it.

If you’re religious, you must’ve done something to upset your God, or otherwise you wouldn’t be punished like that, right? No God would allow something like this just like that.

For us non-religious folks, it’s because it’s so friggin f*cking hard to accept that sometimes things “just happen”. Without reason. Wrong place - wrong time. For someone like me, who’s a hardcore causalistic person, this just doesn’t get in my head. Chance is a concept I’ve always struggled with.

Hence. If something awful has happened to me, something somehow must’ve triggered it (narrator: No, it must not).

Like in my case, I can accept that >I< did not cause the person wanting to do what he did. That’s completely all on him. BUT: had I not made the mistake, he simply COULD NOT have carried it out. That was on me and me alone.

Where is this coming from? Who said this?

I honestly do not understand where that question is coming from?

IMHO and story, I never took the blame of being abused for the first 18yrs of my life

Different traumas? There are many many traumas out there and only a fraction is parental or domestic abuse.

And it’s not about being told to take the blame. It’s about automatically taking the blame.

————
Edit: what @mylunareclipse said

 

[mamachick]

mylunareclipse-I totally agree, that is how I see it. When I have felt suicidal, this was also my train of thought. I will not let others or the world or circumstances destroy me, I would rather end it by my choice. Of course its unhealthy thinking, but that is how I felt at that time.

 

[grit]

Where is that automatic believe is coming from?
When did u or Freida learn or felt or made or felt that?

That is what I was asking....what are the genesis...wrong word maybe...of having this knowledge organically or cognitively?

edit - I want to add yes there are multiple ways of being traumatized or abused other than parents or intimate partner.

 

[Friday]

If it’s my fault? I can fix it.

***

There’s a longer answer tied up in this (and, yep. That core belief + trauma shit + avoidance are all woven together... making the whole much stronger than the sum of its parts. Like a rope.), but where my heads at right now, trying to trace the strands = a damn novel. TBI stuff. When I can concise it up, I’ll hit back.

 

[Mach123]

It's a punishment. Specific to what you said. Big picture, I'm bad I'm wrong I'm defective. All means the same thing. Even bigger picture now it's all my fault so I'm an available victim if you need one you can blame me.why not? I do. It's like "here someone take this" and I just naturally assume it's me.

But it's not. I still do it, not as much I hope, even though I don't believe it anymore, at least not consciously.

 

[Tinyflame]

Because no one else is taking responsibility for it.

 

[Warrior Chicken]

Threads like this one and @Ronin on safety make my brain implode. Thanks though for it cuz thinking about concepts like this can be incredibly cathartic. I can’t say I’m a good contributor to thought provoking content....but right now on this my brain says.
- I take blame as punishment and control
- I survived so as a result I had a part in the event(s) - good, bad, indifferent. I blame me for my part so that it will NEVER happen again like it did then.
- blame for me is also protective - knowledge. Stay alert, watch for these things, behave this way, train for that, etc (when things went wrong, I can only hold myself accountable for my action or inaction)

Sure, very likely distorted. Also often not a productive or healing way to be....that’s how it is for me, now. But I can change.

 

[Tinyflame]

And for what we are responsible for.