Reject
It’s Not Your Fault
One of the truly sad aspects of being on the receiving end of abuse, is that survivors often go through periods of doubt and self-blame after they finally find the strength to leave an abusive relationship. Your mind will be filled with a ton of complex and often conflicting emotions. You may feel afraid, confused, ashamed, angry, guilty, relieved, sad, happy, or hopeful. You may blame yourself or feel responsible for some of what happened in your relationship. You may wonder what you could have done, or if you could have done more to fix it. You might feel bad that you couldn’t fix it. You may wonder what is wrong with you, that you could stay in the relationship for so long or allowed your abuser to use and manipulate you.
If this is your reality, there is NOTHING wrong with you. These conflicting feelings are completely normal responses to any type of abuse. You are a survivor, and you are doing the best that you can. While it’s normal to think like this, it probably prevented you from leaving your relationship sooner and it will probably hinder your recovery now that you have finally found the courage to leave. To fully heal and move on more positively, you have to understand one crucial and important fact: IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT. It never was, it never will be, and it’s absolutely imperative that you don’t allow this self-blame to play games inside of your head.
There are a lot of reasons why we blame ourselves for being abused. They are completely natural, but they are inappropriate. Abuse is a choice made solely by the abuser. When an abuser chooses to dish out their abuse, or respond the way they do, the action of abuse or response is their responsibility and their responsibility alone. There are many different factors that encourage us to blame ourselves in an abusive relationship that it’s almost inevitable we will do this. But thinking like this can be destructive, so it’s important to move on from questioning or blaming yourself - to empowering yourself with knowledge. Here are a few facts to think about:
1. Abuse is always the fault of the abuser. It is, has been, and always will be about your abuser’s desire to establish, maintain and exert power and control over you.
2. Abusers abuse because of their past, not yours. Abuse is a learned behavior from an abusive and dysfunctional childhood, it is not a reaction to who you are as a person.
3. Anyone can become a victim of emotional abuse. All of us have vulnerabilities and situations in life that can leave us more exposed to someone trying to harm and take advantage of us.
4. People are groomed by abusers for abuse. Abusers are experts at grooming you to adapt and conform to their toxic behavior through repetition. They know how to wear you down.
5. Abuse says nothing about you as a survivor. It doesn’t say anything about your character or who you are as a person. All it says is that you were in a relationship with someone who was abusive.
6. You are not responsible for the abuse. You are responsible for your reactions to the abuse but your reactions don’t make you responsible for it. There is nothing you did to cause the abuse.
7. There’s nothing you could have done to change them. No amount of patience, trying harder or doing and saying the right things can change them. Only their personal commitment to long-term professional therapy.
8. Staying longer wouldn’t have made them stop. They can only abuse if you are available to be abused. And the more hurt you become, the less capable you are to help them anyway.
9. Not leaving right away doesn’t mean you deserve it. There are many reasons victims can’t or don’t leave. It could be financial considerations, children, social or religious pressures, isolation, lack of support or fear. You are human.
10. Your past doesn’t determine your present. Whatever has happened to you in the past, for whatever reason, does not absolve your abuser from abusing you or make you responsible for their behavior.
Healing from emotional abuse isn’t easy to do, and it will take time. It took time for you to get sucked into an abusive relationship, so it stands to reason it will take some time, effort and patience to recover from it. But the greater the distance grows from when you were abused, the stronger and more resilient you will become and you will gain tremendous insight that you didn’t have before. And knowing, understanding and believing that the abuse you encountered and were subjected to wasn’t your fault, is an important step in your recovery.