Blame
Blame
- Thread starterTrevor
- Start date
Trevor, if you had a child and it happened to him would you blame that child? That is one of the ways I address this issue in my book, it helped me to understand it much better. This is not the only way but it is one way to help. It also helps to have children it makes it easier to understand.
I hope it helps,
I hope it helps,
Trevor,
I use to blame myself too for my abuse. Sure I was just a child but I knew what my abuser was doing was wrong and I never said a thing to anyone. I feel I asked for it by not protesting and telling someone. I still blame myself sometimes and this just shows how deep my conditioning really goes.
This may offend, but I've found a way to deal with the whole blame issue is to simply blame God or whatever Higher Power you happen to believe in for putting you in this screwed-up situation. This isn't being irreverent, it is being sincere. You didn't choose to be put in this mess did you? Blaming and hating yourself will not help you at all and will make it worse. Neither will hating others help since it will transform one problem into another. Only someone or something with enough love to take everything we can dish out without hating in us in return can be a source for inspiration and healing. This person can sometimes be a therapist, a minister, a counselor, a relative, or even a friend but if you have trust issues you may need to find someone else like a Higher Power.
I'd suggest letting your Higher Power know what he put you through. Direct at him all those negative emotions that are bottled-up and are bothering you: anger, sadness, hate, envy, frustration, give him all of it--hold nothing back. Once you have emptied yourself in this way, you will begin to taste a deep and serene tranquility that comes from having a still mind.
May you find peace within yourself.
Jesse
I use to blame myself too for my abuse. Sure I was just a child but I knew what my abuser was doing was wrong and I never said a thing to anyone. I feel I asked for it by not protesting and telling someone. I still blame myself sometimes and this just shows how deep my conditioning really goes.
This may offend, but I've found a way to deal with the whole blame issue is to simply blame God or whatever Higher Power you happen to believe in for putting you in this screwed-up situation. This isn't being irreverent, it is being sincere. You didn't choose to be put in this mess did you? Blaming and hating yourself will not help you at all and will make it worse. Neither will hating others help since it will transform one problem into another. Only someone or something with enough love to take everything we can dish out without hating in us in return can be a source for inspiration and healing. This person can sometimes be a therapist, a minister, a counselor, a relative, or even a friend but if you have trust issues you may need to find someone else like a Higher Power.
I'd suggest letting your Higher Power know what he put you through. Direct at him all those negative emotions that are bottled-up and are bothering you: anger, sadness, hate, envy, frustration, give him all of it--hold nothing back. Once you have emptied yourself in this way, you will begin to taste a deep and serene tranquility that comes from having a still mind.
May you find peace within yourself.
Jesse
Hauser
Registrant
The only thing I blame myself for is the series of bad choices I made in my teen and adult life long after the abuse occured.
Things like lousy grades, no set goals, no intimacy found, no nothing ever really attained. I just drifted day to day without ever really trying to do anything except cope I guess.
That's all I blame myself for, the fact that I couldn't cope with this as well as the others here have. I never once thought that the abuse itself was my fault.
Things like lousy grades, no set goals, no intimacy found, no nothing ever really attained. I just drifted day to day without ever really trying to do anything except cope I guess.
That's all I blame myself for, the fact that I couldn't cope with this as well as the others here have. I never once thought that the abuse itself was my fault.
Grunty1967b
Registrant
Hauser makes an interesting comment about how he sees as a child he was not to blame, however he sees his own choices later on and a level of accountability for those.
I see and hear those points and Id like to add that we are responsible for our own actions however so many times we act and do things we dont intend to out of conditioning or fear or in some way that can be attributed or linked back to our abuse.
Im not saying we can all do whatever we want and forget about consequences but Im seeing more and more the reasons why I have and still do certain things. Until I learn about these and am able to consciously move on then I think Id still err on the side of not being too hard on myself and blaming myself. Ive got enough to work through.
I see and hear those points and Id like to add that we are responsible for our own actions however so many times we act and do things we dont intend to out of conditioning or fear or in some way that can be attributed or linked back to our abuse.
Im not saying we can all do whatever we want and forget about consequences but Im seeing more and more the reasons why I have and still do certain things. Until I learn about these and am able to consciously move on then I think Id still err on the side of not being too hard on myself and blaming myself. Ive got enough to work through.
what if you had said no ?or fought or threatened to tell on him ?would he have let you leave knowing you might tell? not telling could be the only thing that kept you alive dude. dont think for a minute that perps wont do whatever it takes to keep you quiet,even shutting you up permanantly.
Your inability to defend yourself at the time of the assault was the best you could do. Ask yourself: would you defend yourself now? of course, because now you can but then you couldn't. One of the paths to healing is to be gentle with yourself. No matter how much you feel you could have done better, you couldn't. Be soft and gentle with yourself first and foremost. The answer to your self doubt lies in your response above "sometimes I wish he did shut me up permanently" - it seems you were in fear of your life. Who wasn't at some deep level?
Be easy.
AKN
Be easy.
AKN
roadrunner
Registrant
Trev,
The arguments you are making are the ones that we all go through at some time or another and it's good you are asking yourself these questions.
I don't recall you saying how old you were when you were abused, but as I am sure you know, a guy's teen years are full of a million changes, mainly maturing in all sorts of ways. These changes can make a lot of difference in a short time. For example, two kids may be friends if one is 9 and the other is 12, but if one is 16 and the other is 13 that's a big difference and in a lot more than years!
My point here, Trev, is that at 16 you may not understand that only a few years ago there is no way you could have seen or made choices that now strike you as obvious. That's what happened to me, for example. My abuse ended at age 14, and I looked back and wondered why didn't I run, or say no, or a million other things, when the abuse began when I was 11. I didn't understand that an 11 yo will just freeze, exactly as I did. His first reaction will be fear and confusion, and if he knows the abuser he may trust him when he says "this is our secret". Later on, sure, he will look back and see the abuser was a bastard, but that wasn't information he had from the start.
I also don't know how long you were abused for. But I can tell you that with time an abused boy comes to think that what is happening is his fault and it means he is worthless. Once he starts thinking like that, resistance just isn't worth the effort. Again, that's how it was with me. I just did what I was told and went with him without the slightest question.
All this is really complicated and you will see it more clearly in time, but here on MS you will get one basic truth over and over again: It is NEVER the kid's fault.
Much love,
Larry
The arguments you are making are the ones that we all go through at some time or another and it's good you are asking yourself these questions.
I don't recall you saying how old you were when you were abused, but as I am sure you know, a guy's teen years are full of a million changes, mainly maturing in all sorts of ways. These changes can make a lot of difference in a short time. For example, two kids may be friends if one is 9 and the other is 12, but if one is 16 and the other is 13 that's a big difference and in a lot more than years!
My point here, Trev, is that at 16 you may not understand that only a few years ago there is no way you could have seen or made choices that now strike you as obvious. That's what happened to me, for example. My abuse ended at age 14, and I looked back and wondered why didn't I run, or say no, or a million other things, when the abuse began when I was 11. I didn't understand that an 11 yo will just freeze, exactly as I did. His first reaction will be fear and confusion, and if he knows the abuser he may trust him when he says "this is our secret". Later on, sure, he will look back and see the abuser was a bastard, but that wasn't information he had from the start.
I also don't know how long you were abused for. But I can tell you that with time an abused boy comes to think that what is happening is his fault and it means he is worthless. Once he starts thinking like that, resistance just isn't worth the effort. Again, that's how it was with me. I just did what I was told and went with him without the slightest question.
All this is really complicated and you will see it more clearly in time, but here on MS you will get one basic truth over and over again: It is NEVER the kid's fault.
Much love,
Larry
with the stepfather i was about 4 or 5, with the stepbrother i was 6. i know what youre saying and i agree with it, i guess i forget sometimes that who i am now isnt who i was then. i dunno. i try not to blame myself but theres certain things i remember where they gave me a choice. ok maybe it wasnt my fault and i just made bad choices? i dunno.
trev
trev
Hauser
Registrant
Me again. Trev, if they gave you a "choice", do you really think that's an appropriate word for it?
I was always free to leave anytime. And I never ran from him. And my perp never once asked me not to tell, becuase he knew that I was never going to!
They are masters of deceit and manipulation. Just talk to any kid younger than 12 and notice how easy it can be to dupe them into thinking something is true, or not true.
This comes back to that issue of power. It's the power to manipulate and warp the natural boundaries that we otherwise had when we were kids.
I would suggest to you that now that you're starting to come around to the reality of what really happened to you, that only now can you start taking any real responsibility for yourself. So give yourself a break ok?
I was always free to leave anytime. And I never ran from him. And my perp never once asked me not to tell, becuase he knew that I was never going to!
They are masters of deceit and manipulation. Just talk to any kid younger than 12 and notice how easy it can be to dupe them into thinking something is true, or not true.
This comes back to that issue of power. It's the power to manipulate and warp the natural boundaries that we otherwise had when we were kids.
I would suggest to you that now that you're starting to come around to the reality of what really happened to you, that only now can you start taking any real responsibility for yourself. So give yourself a break ok?
I think this is one of the hard things about being a man. We're always expected to be the strong ones, the ones who figure things out, and get things done. So as an adult, its hard for us to ever think of ourselves as helpless and clueless. But, that's exactly what children are! And that's exactly how you were when all of those things were happening to you.
It's easy to say 'go easy one yourself' or 'give yourself a break' when you're thinking like an adult. Try to think of yourself like a child who doesn't have anyone to trust or anyone to turn to. Then, I think you'll see that how you handled the situation when you were a kid was really the only way you could have.
It's easy to say 'go easy one yourself' or 'give yourself a break' when you're thinking like an adult. Try to think of yourself like a child who doesn't have anyone to trust or anyone to turn to. Then, I think you'll see that how you handled the situation when you were a kid was really the only way you could have.
Trevor, Haven't read what the others have said. I always read them after, because I find they always color what I would have said somewhat. As an adult, I know what all of the standard answers, the healthy answers, should be. My abuse started as early as the age of two, perhaps earlier. But my kid thinks, and I cannot make him feel otherwise, that, if he had been a better boy...a boy that his father could have loved....that his father wouldn't have found it necessary to do those things to him. He thinks that, when his father looked at him, he became so enraged and so discusted with who he was that his reaction was to try to destroy what he thought didn't deserve to live. The adult knows better, but it's hard to change the mind of a little kid.
Bobby
Bobby
roadrunner
Registrant
Trev,
What you say here is sooooo true to the ways that survivors gradually learn to rethink things. You say you "know it's true"...that's the easiest stage to reach. But as you go on to say, you don't "believe" it. That takes more time, to really believe in the things we think we know about ourselves and what happened to us. And the final stage, I think, is to TRUST what we have learned.
It's all a matter of time, so hang in there.
Much love,
Larry
What you say here is sooooo true to the ways that survivors gradually learn to rethink things. You say you "know it's true"...that's the easiest stage to reach. But as you go on to say, you don't "believe" it. That takes more time, to really believe in the things we think we know about ourselves and what happened to us. And the final stage, I think, is to TRUST what we have learned.
It's all a matter of time, so hang in there.
Much love,
Larry