Self-blame and inability to recognize abuse for what it is

[PrinceOfDarkness]

Hi, I'm new here and I've been trying to post a few topics but my mind is all over the place and I'm very afraid of saying something wrong. I'll try to keep this as short as possible while getting the point across, because I'm afraid of "flooding the board" by accident, which I read about in the guidelines, and then getting in trouble for it. For that reason I have to omit a lot of things and break them into separate topics, but right now I want to talk about one thing I struggle the most with, which is blaming myself for the abuse.

To provide some background, my parents were extremely abusive physically and emotionally and they also neglected me at times by being indifferent about whether I had enough food to eat, clothes to wear, if I looked presentable or not, they physically abandoned me at times by locking me out of the house or throwing me out of the car in the middle of nowhere and then driving away, etc. I've also been sexually abused by my mother, my brother, a few doctors, my parents' friend who rented a room from us for a few months when I was a kid, and a few others. I've been working with a trauma therapist for about a year and a half, and only recently have I been able to realize the extent of their abuse and how bad it was. Prior to working with my therapist, I figured there wasn't really anything wrong with anyone's behavior toward me, and I must have caused it somehow and therefore deserved it, or that it was just how people behaved in general. This was made even worse by my parents' denial that they behaved that way toward me, or they would rationalize it and say that they had to because I was crazy and out of control and a problem child or whatever. They even told me I've been abusive toward them all my life, since I was a little baby. I'm still not sure what to believe about that.

I was in a relationship with an individual for about three years and he abandoned me 14 months ago. The entire relationship was very odd. He used to push me around sometimes. He would also try to do sexual things with me (I think) without asking me or saying anything, touch me in ways that made me uncomfortable, and then suddenly get annoyed and become dismissive of me. Sometimes he would say hurtful things. He refused to have a committed relationship with me, almost always seeing someone else at the same time. After he abandoned me I found out because of his written correspondence with me that he was a pathological liar. He deceived me. He accused me of doing things I never did and saying things I never said and having intentions I would never have, and then refusing to let me explain myself. He also betrayed my trust in maybe the worst way I can imagine, blamed me for everything wrong with the relationship, mocked my PTSD and depression problems, called me toxic and abusive, etc...

Even though I have evidence of his behavior, and even though my therapist tells me abuse is not my fault, I still blame myself, and I punish myself severely. I've tried very hard to not do this, but whenever I don't, I feel like I'm just escaping responsibility and refusing to acknowledge my "badness", so to speak. My ex's behavior is similar in part to my parents' behavior, but then he'd appear so genuinely kind and loving that it's difficult for me to think his behavior toward me is not my fault. Then I wonder if his behavior was even abusive or not, if I'm just the abusive one and he was reacting to my abuse, because sometimes I would yell at him and say things I now regret because of his refusal of commitment and the hurtful things he's say. For the last 14 months I've been living with extreme cognitive dissonance, going back and forth between blaming myself and thinking it's all my fault, and then recognizing there was something wrong with his behavior, and then blaming myself again, like a circle that just keeps repeating.  (Sorry, I know this is getting long...)

My therapist has been trying to get me to understand that it's not my fault, but I feel like if I think it's not my fault, I'm just pretending in order to make myself feel better. I've read that blaming oneself is something a lot of people with PTSD and CPTSD do, but I still can't stop punishing myself for everything. I believe that I must be punished indefinitely because the experiences I've had throughout my life must be my fault, especially the things in the relationship that happened with my ex - if I wasn't so unstable, so crazy, so messed up, etc., he never would have treated me that way...

[Three Roses]

In having a hard time writing at the moment but I want you to know you're not alone. I feel responsible for the things that happened in my life too, in childhood and as an adult. But this I know is just our indoctrination at the hands of our abusers who couldn't face up to the fact they were responsible, and instead put it on us.

You were an innocent child.

[radical]

http://www.new-synapse.com/aps/wordpress/?p=1911

I found the article above really useful for understanding the problem of creating personal boundaries and how early childhood abuse means that some of us find we are trying to do so virtually from scratch.  The consequences of violation as a child, mean that it can an incredibly difficult task to understand what we are missing and to find ways to create something which is invisible yet integral.  The consequences of lack of boundaries, as you have described from your experiences can be absolutely devastating. 

I'm glad you've found your way here. 
You never deserved any kind of abuse.

[meursault]

You're not alone in that.  That feels like a brick wall to me, and is something I repeatedly work on in therapy.  My therapist is very explicit in telling me it's not my fault, but I often think she is just lying to me.  I KNOW she isn't intellectually, but it still seems that way.  I think it's still just that wounded little kid inside, thinking: "Why else would they hurt me if I wasn't bad?".  I think it's also a way to feel some sense of power and hope: "If I changed what's wrong with me then maybe someone would love me and not hurt me."

Seeing it rationally that I didn't deserve it, doesn't make it any easier to apply to myself though, it seems!

I wrote out a description of all sorts of details about my childhood for my therapist once, and since I had it so engrained that I deserved it as a male, I reversed the genders, hoping she would be able to accept that it was abusive.  When I saw it written out that way, it was horrendous, and no sane person could possibly think any kid (or adult) would deserve it.  It's led me to intellectually see it, and I can challenge the idea I deserved it much better cognitively.  Maybe that would help you too.  Seeing it apply to someone else may help you see how hurtful and unfair it really was.  How NO CHILD and NO-ONE could possibly deserve that.

I think now I am mostly working on experiencing a woman (my therapist) KNOW me and not attack me, and slowly learning how to replace that internalized abuser with a good parent for all the little boy MEs inside.  I don't know if any of that connects with you, but reversing the genders really helped.  It also helped to see my nephews and nieces and look at them and say: "At THAT age, my Mom was doing X...."

Meursault

[PrinceOfDarkness]

Thanks...I'm still having a very hard time understanding. How do I know something abusive or not? What if I'm just making it up? What if I'm the one who's abusive and projecting my abusive tendencies onto others? What if what I think is abusive behavior is just someone else's normal reaction to my "craziness" and they're not doing anything wrong, I'm just upsetting them?

[deptofhearts]

so sorry for your upbringing, what you have been through sounds horrendous. I agree with the other responses in that that's how abuse (and of course the abuser) bends us to its will - we think we must have deserved it, which is a total lie. I still battle with that one. But it does and can get better and you aren't alone.
Peace be with you! XX

[sanmagic7]

the idea of not knowing abuse when it happens has been a big one throughout my life.  i've been an abuser excuser, finding excuses for why people would do whatever it was they did to me.  i didn't blame myself, tho - because of my alexithymia, i haven't had much problem with inner critic stuff, was cut off from that kind of thing from a very young age - but i always looked at what they did as something they learned from their childhood, something they couldn't help, something that seemed important to them, and put myself in the role of 'i can deal with it' or 'i can manage this' and letting it go at that.  it was my training, pure and simple, that coerced me into allowing abuse while not knowing it was abuse.

i know what it is now, finally, just this year.  and i don't allow even the slightest bit of it in anymore, and have let go of the last of my abusers just a few weeks ago.  i've built my own wall against it and guard it like a tiger.  as you grow and learn, it will be made evident.  you are already becoming aware, and that's the first step.  best to you with this.  it will happen as you keep moving forward.

[PrinceOfDarkness]

I believe, in the case of my ex at least, that I've had no boundaries at all because growing up I was never allowed to have them, any time I'd try to have boundaries my parents or others would just plow right through them anyway. So when I finally tried to have boundaries with the person I was involved with, it became a problem, because I had pretty much just let him do whatever even if it made me feel bad or if I knew it was wrong. Part of me believed my feelings didn't matter at all. So when I finally brought it up to him that I felt like he was playing with me, jerking me around, using me, etc., he got so mad, made things up about me, blamed me, and then abandoned me. I don't know why he would have done that. Sometimes I think maybe he has serious problems involving emotional intimacy or something, and so projecting everything onto me and blaming me or everything was a way for him to push me away without having to admit a weakness or a mistake. He's hurt me terribly though, especially his betrayal of my trust. That just feels so violating and cruel.