"It's your fault"-?

Started by ah, March 23, 2018, 06:23:28 PM

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ah

Not sure where to put this  ??? but I thought here would make sense.

So, sigh, people like saying pain is your fault. They like the oldie but goodie "it's your karma, you should lovingly accept it" and other similar things :blahblahblah: but the worst I heard was an admired spiritual figure who just openly said to me "You need to understand that it's your fault. It didn't just happen for no reason. You may be trying to do good things now, but you need to realize that nothing is happening to you for no reason, you caused this."
Acknowledged people are lying about me but turned it right back to me and said it's my doing.

I've been chewing on it, EF'ing on it, trying to throw it out of my system but it stuck like a plague. For a few reasons, maybe..? One is it was said by an authority figure and shaking off my implicit respect for them would be so painful. I'd much rather beat myself up and see them in a positive light. But I'm failing and trapping myself in such a cognitive dissonance I can't get out.

It's also hard because when I look around, I do see cause and effect all the time. Am I blind? Trying to ignore reality the moment it doesn't suit me?
I try to separate supposed responsibility from blame but I can't. Nobody ever sees anything good in me. Only bad. If you knew me and heard all the smear campaigns about me you would too.

I don't think I could say something like "It's your fault" to an abuse victim, let alone continued, non stop, lifelong abuse. Let alone in front of the abusers. But maybe I just don't understand the complexities and subtleties involved. Maybe I simply can't see any of my own faults and so on.

It just goes overboard and turns into a message of absolute hatred because saying that to someone who was told from birth they should never have been born is like pouring gasoline onto a flame. Or maybe saying it to just about anyone would be painful, but doing it to someone who's clearly got as much self confidence as a crumpled lettuce leaf is.... is.... I don't know what it is.

My self hatred loves this. It's not just a field day for ICr, it's paradise. But I also feel bad if I just shake off an argument because it hurts me or triggers me. That's a really biased reason to disagree with something.

I guess I'm asking: what do you think?
I've been trying to get out of this dead end for a long time now but I can't crawl out. Everything I can see is blocked.

Gromit

What?
Sounds like gaslighting.
Nothing is that simple.
G

sanmagic7

ah, honestly, the first thing that came to my mind when i read this title and saw it under 'spiritual abuse' was the age old religious teaching that we are sinners because we were born.  period. 

i heard that over and over in a progressive protestant religion i grew up in, took part in, was on the church council (with all these 'respected' church members), and even taught sunday school in.  however, every time i heard this adage, it never made sense to me.  how can a baby be a sinner?

the answer i got was something to do with adam and eve and original sin, but some part of me refused that rationale.  the more i learned about life and recovery (this was more than 30 yrs. ago, and recovery was a different animal than the one i'm riding now.  still, it was eye-opening about the reality of me and the world around me), the less and less a lot of these religious teachings rang true for me.

i have since left that whole religious thing behind, and have turned to the spiritual instead.  i took from the bible things that made sense to me or benefitted my life, but as far as accepting as truth everything i'd been told or taught, no more.  those people may want to believe it, and many do, but i'm not one of them.

blaming the victim is a popular game that many like to play, as it takes responsibility away from the abusers.  it's akin to a parent getting angry at a kid, knocking the kid's milk over, and yelling 'now look what you made me do'.  in essence, telling that kid it's their fault for the actions of the parent. 

it never is.  one person's actions are totally their responsibility.  there is always choice there.  i'm not necessarily talking about accidents or mistakes - there can be mitigating circumstances.  i once heard of a drunk driver blaming a kid for being hit by his car cuz the kid was walking on the 'wrong' side of the road.    but blaming an abuse victim, saying it's their fault, their karma, they must've done something bad in a past life - any of that - i'm not buying it.  crap, i'm not even renting it.

we often want to protect others because of our feelings for them.  may i just submit that they're adults, and deserve to be responsible for what they say and do?   we don't have to condemn the person, but we don't have to believe or follow what they say, either.  we are adults, too, and can believe what suits us best, what benefits our lives and beings.

ah, i already know you somewhat, and i know that smear campaigns are just that.  if you were my friend in real life and i heard neg. stuff about you, i would check with you about it, discuss it with you, find out your take on what's being said.  i don't believe stuff just cuz someone says it, especially not about people who i care about.  i care about you. 

smears are just that - mushy, inartistic, marred attempts at depicting something at best, lazy, inarticulate, messes at worst.   neither is worth much time nor energy.  you've been taught by master manipulators , you've learned so well (which is an acknowledgment of your intelligence), and your mind has integrated those teachings so well that it's difficult now for you to separate fact from fiction.

this is not your fault.  i'll say it again.  it's not your fault.  did you ever see 'good will hunting'?  the therapist repeats that phrase over and over until will is able to accept it as truth, instead of believing it the other way around like he did all his life.  it can be a difficult truth to accept, but it is the truth.  it's not your fault.  not the hurt, nor the pain.  you didn't want it, you didn't ask for it, and you didn't deserve it.

sending you a hug filled with love and kindness and acceptance just the way you are.  you deserve those for the mere fact that you were born, that you exist, that you are.  i believe that with my whole heart, and smear campaigns can go take a flying leap.

Blueberry

 :yeahthat: (to Gromit's post!)

Or currying favour with your abusers or something.

DecimalRocket

I agree with what everyone else says.  :hug:

woodsgnome

#5
"It's your fault" was one of the more frequent put-downs I experienced from people during my years of attending church-affiliated schools, so seeing this in the 'religious abuse' category seemed apropos.

It was a standard line and it wasn't until much later that I was better able to process the reality of what was being said; that "it's your fault" was just an excuse uttered by someone who didn't have a clue, and didn't care about me anyway; only about their control of me. All that mattered was that I fit their preconceived notions of behaviour, which seemed more like code for "we don't like you." Nothing to do with fault, but the words stung nonetheless (sometimes reinforced by worse means than mere words).

As I somehow got near the end of *, I mean high school, something came over me that allowed me some relief. I don't think it made any impact on the perpetrators, they didn't have a clue as to how off the mark they were regarding me, their chief problem-child/sinner, mostly because I couldn't stomach their blatant use of religion as a cover for their abuse, especially as the years went by. They were thrown by this, as I was clearly intelligent per my grades but didn't buy their religious side (after first trying to believe that yes, they indeed were 'holy').

One morning I just ran away, but that's a different story. What came to mind this time was once when the teacher who was a 'counselor' to my grade (this outfit didn't believe in real, trained counselors with any background in the field). Anyway, he had it in for me for years and when exasperated that I didn't play their game the right way (bow, scrape, surrender) just repeated that while my supposed and usually abuser-invented missteps were in need of certain correction, he'd fall back on that "it's all your fault" line, adding that I didn't just disappoint him, but someone 'upstairs'. I had the temerity to point out to him that there was no upstairs on that building, but of course he didn't get the joke. And the conversation plummeted.

Really, I asked myself over and over what was I truly at fault for, and usually found nothing that wasn't invented whole cloth by either my peers or their instigators, the school staff. Finally, I just countered him at his own game with a challenge--I dared him to step off his god-is-hurt-by-you [me] banter. I asked him to consider, just this once, explaining to me my faults without bringing god-in-the-attic into it. He was dumbfounded, sputtered some digression, and left my presence in a flash, as he knew he'd been taken...and he also harumphed that thank god [ironic use of language, eh? LOL  :bigwink:] I'd be graduating soon.

I never thought I could do something like that--to counter these sorts of "it's your fault" taunts in a reasonable way. So my point is it felt good to follow my own heartspeak for a change. It didn't change my years of being pushed around by their words, and I'm sure they didn't understand me any better (understanding wasn't one of their values). It got me nowhere, but I felt better for it, as I knew I'd been honest and for once got my point across, that I wasn't needing to accept fault where there was none other than being myself. My biggest 'fault' was always my smarts and curiosity, but in that environment those qualities were deemed offensive. Go figure--no, don't!

Sometimes we do make mistakes. That's the only acceptance that seems important, and only when it's obviously the case, requiring no explanation other than the fact of being human. Fault often comes down to the easy-out option, and abusers therefore love it.

DecimalRocket

#6
Hey ah, I wanted to come up with a much detailed post now that I'm stronger.

I have a complicated history with religion — though I don't hold the stand that it was as bad as others here. But I had a tutor growing up, and he was like a second father to me. Was. For the most part, he was kind, but as time passed, he got slowly more forceful in his religious views . . .

Whenever I'd doubt his forced preaching, he'd tell me it was my fault in some way that I didn't believe. I was closeminded. I was still a teenager, and those hormones are making me rebellious. It's just a phase. I wasn't being patient enough. I was being arrogant.

He said he was just doing it to save my soul. He wasn't forcing any views. Just "repeating" them over and over to "express" himself. Yes, being kind to me, and blatantly insulting any famous person who didn't agree with his views,

I respect the more tolerant religious, but some people are just . . .not. I think religions can teach something and offer life advice anyone can use of any religious identification — as I've studied many of the major religions for that reason, but well, many of the other ideas are still blatantly abusive, and others twist many of the good insights to out of context situations.

So many of the abuse I've dealt with beyond my FOO was from out of context advice. When people say it's your fault, that's often what's meant for people who neglect taking responsibility in their life. Not people like you. Some people don't individually try to understand a person's unique circumstance, or they see an insight in a way that's too black and white.

One of the symptoms of being on the spectrum is taking things way too literally or seeing things ad black and white, and so many of my issues in my life before was misinterpreting ideas that way even worse than the general population. I needed a lot of reflection to understand context, personal experience, reading other's insights, the balance between two ideas, people who understood me well to reflect back something accurate about me . . . not the crazy religious fanatics' forced preaching.

Take care, Ah. It's not your fault. I've been reading about your life for a couple months now. And you've done and learn so much to heal. I can tell it's not you that's worth the blame.

:hug:




Cygnus

I've heard that before and I agree it's a terrible thing to tell people.  Most people simply just don't understand the basics of how humans work, that childhood trauma damages the developing brain and affects adult life.  Society, whether it's secular or religious or new age, all have this same idea that everything is our fault.  But I think the spiritual world seems to get particularly nasty with it, telling people things like they're born sinful or that they're paying for things did in past lives.  It's very sick stuff, the result of ignorance.   We have a hard time seeing the reality because we survive childhood by internalizing the abuse and shame from our caregivers.  So even in adulthood we point to ourselves as the problem, not being able to face that it actually was done to us.  But science lights the way so we can understand reality and begin to heal.  So much pain and destruction could be avoided by understanding how humans work.