[blām]
VERB
1.
assign responsibility for a fault or wrong.
"the
inquiry blamed the engineer for the accident"
synonyms:
hold
responsible · hold accountable · hold liable ·
NOUN
1.
responsibility for a fault or wrong.
"his
players had to take the blame" ·
synonyms:
responsibility · guilt
· accountability · liability
· onus
·
I
first experienced blame when the abuse began. That sounds obvious. But
actually, the things that were said to me by my abuser led me to blame myself for its occurrence. Maybe I
deserved it. Maybe I was such a terrible person that I deserved it. It’s so
much easier to blame yourself for all of the bad things in your life than it is
to blame another person. And by easy, I mean that it doesn’t take much thought;
you don’t have to think about whose fault it is. It was yours. And that’s it.
And when numerous bad things seem to be happening to you it’s easy to get it
into your head that since you are the common factor in all of these things then
maybe they’re your fault. I guess it’s all about where you are in the life
lesson that it’s not always bad things that happen to bad people. In fact, it’s
more common for bad things to happen to good people and for the bad people to
have good things.
Then there’s the development of beliefs about karma and that
eventually something bad will happen to that bad person and that actually, the
bad thing that happened to that good person has had a positive impact – it’s
made them stronger or has enabled them to help others who have a similar experience.
It’s hard to look at my abuse and say that maybe it was worth going through it
if it’s made me stronger, more trusting, more honest and truthful. And if it
means I can help others when they’re in the darkest of places perhaps I can be
almost, grateful for it? It’s a difficult subject because I don’t want to put a
positive spin on abuse… but I want people to know that if you can find the
smallest of benefits of it then maybe – just maybe – you can stop blaming
yourself for it.
Another way to look at it is
to blame the abuser. I mean, that person is legally responsible for what has
happened to you. If it wasn’t for him or her than you wouldn’t have gone
through it in the first place. But it becomes difficult to separate blame from
anger and I think there comes a point in your life when you learn that holding
onto anger isn’t helpful. It eats you up from the inside out and then it spits
out an awful, untrusting, unloving, careless, person. And it’s not about
telling someone not to feel angry; it’s about recognizing when the anger is
becoming poisonous and destructive and finding a way to let it go, move past
it, and grow from it. It’s important to acknowledge that person is legally to
blame but it’s equally important to not let that blame grow into a debilitating
anger and to realize that even where there is legal blame, there isn’t always
justice. And this is when blame can turn into frustration. It is one of the
most frustrating lessons I’ve had to learn; where there seems to clearly be
someone responsible for the abuse, how the bloody hell can they not be held accountable
for it?! The tough answer I’ve had to swallow is; it’s not as easy as that.
Can’t you
forgive me?
At least just
temporarily
I know that
this is my fault
I should have
been more careful
Ariana
Grande: One Last Time
I
was recently on BBC Radio Newcastle to talk about my thoughts on the government’s
announcement to put more money into mental health services and I was asked ‘do
you think that if services were as good as they should be, you wouldn’t have
gone through all you have?’ I think that the predictable answer and the one
they were looking for (so it was the one I gave) was ‘yes. If services hadn’t
let me down then maybe I wouldn’t have ended up making suicide attempts and
self-harming.’ For me, blaming professionals, and the people that were in my
life during the abuse, is a very desperate action because to be realistic, the
honest answer is that it wasn’t their fault. I hid the abuse so well that how
could I expect anyone to see through my smoke screen? It would be very unfair
of me to do that. But this goes back to my first point; because I then blame myself
for putting up that wall and stopping anyone who could, from helping me. Of
course, there are times when abuse occurs where professionals have genuinely
failed at protecting that person or preventing it from happening. But that wasn’t
me. No one could protect me or prevent it because no one had a clue it was happening…
I say that but – here’s something I’ve never shared with you all – apparently when
some people who knew both me and my abuser were interviewed by the Police they
said ‘I never saw it but I can imagine it happened from how they both acted
with each other.’ This, used to make me so angry to think about; but how many
situations have you been in where you’ve thought ‘oh my God if I’d done that differently
this wouldn’t have happened’? We all talk about not having regrets in life but
there’s bound to be times where you think about what might have happened if you’d
done things differently… And having these thoughts are completely normal, it’s
when you become obsessed with them and when you manage to turn it into blame.
Blame on yourself.
And
how can you ever move forward from abuse when you still hold blame?