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How do I stop blaming myself for the abuse? It’s been over for a couple of decades. Yet I still feel those same feelings come back every now and then. I should have done as I was told then it wouldn’t have happened. He raped me before we started living together yet I still moved in with him because I couldn’t stay at home. I do get angry at him occasionally but I’m more angry at me. I’m finally getting therapy to deal with it. Yet no matter what happens during my therapy sessions, I still can’t stop blaming myself.
My head is a jumble of different emotions and a wide range of abusive incidents. They jump around from one event to another. I can’t focus on them properly enough to deal with it all very well.
How do I stop blaming myself? -
Hi Shaishai,
You’re not alone in struggling with blame, it’s a huge part of the impact of domestic abuse. Sometimes we can even logically understand we’re not to blame but our emotions don’t match up with it. When you’re being told, or otherwise made to feel, repeatedly over time that something is your fault then it’s hard not to internalise that. When you’re in an unsafe situation, there may also be an element of wanting to feel like you have some control, like there’s something that you could do to keep yourself safe. That isn’t true with abusers, they take that control away from you and choose to abuse regardless of what you do. It sounds like you had no choice but to move in with him, that doesn’t make you to blame for what he did to you. Nothing you could have done would in any way justify his abuse.
You had many traumatic experiences stacked on top of each other and you’ve been reliving them for decades. Therapy can certainly help but it can take time to work through all of that. You’ve retold yourself the narrative that you’re to blame a lot and so unpicking that might go slower than you’d like. You completely deserve to give yourself this time and cut yourself free of the blame.
Bloom have some courses on healing from trauma that you might find helpful. They’re created in collaboration with mental health professionals and survivors. It might be worth talking to your therapist about them to make sure they will support what you’re trying to achieve together.
Take care and keep posting,
Lisa
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