Psychoeducation · Trauma reactions
Who's really responsible? (rethinking self-blame)
Understanding why you reacted as you did may help you see that the abuse was not your fault.
You may still blame yourself. That doesn't make you responsible for what someone else did.
What is it?
Rethinking self-blame can mean separating how you reacted in a hard situation from the decision another person made to hurt you. Your survival responses didn't make their actions okay.
How can it happen?
As you better understand your limits at the time and the other person's responsibility, self-blaming thoughts may change. That can take time, even when you know the facts.
Supportive words
The person who abused me is responsible for what they did.
My survival responses didn't make the abuse my responsibility.
What it does not mean
It does not require an answer to every question or mean self-blame will never return.
What it might feel like
“I can see now that freezing or adapting did not cause what they did to me.”
Background and sources
A central area of work in trauma-focused cognitive approaches.
These sources relate to the topic. The explanation is independently edited educational content, not a clinically tested intervention.