People need a sense of stability in their lives; a sense by which they can construct their lives. There is an inner need to believe that there is balance and justice in the world. Unfortunately, trauma survivors have the tendencies to believe that they brought the trauma upon themselves and that the trauma is their punishment for being “bad” or inadequate. Blaming oneself is a way in which one preserved the feeling of control over one’s life. The feeling of mastery helps to reduce the anxiety that a trauma will re-occur, but at the same time it makes the trauma survivor more vulnerable to pathology.
Individuals, who react to trauma with a sense of self-blame, feel that they are responsible for the negative events that occurred in their lives. A misguided sense of power over uncontrollable events has strong demoralizing and self-defeating consequences. Furthermore, self-blame is linked with more distress, anxiety, depression, harsh self-criticism, low self-worth and poorer recovery from trauma (Harvey & Pauwels, 2000). Self-blame is in fact an additional and internal trauma that individuals, who survived the unimaginable, inflict upon themselves. The survivor keeps thinking about the event and what he or she could have said and done differently. The individual feels responsible for what he or she did not feel/do or guilt for what he or she did feel/do. The images keep re-occurring in the individual’s mind and dreams. A re-enactment is an attempt to replay the situation and make it more acceptable. In the hope to relieve the burden and the self-blame, one remains stuck with the images, a fact that also causes a degree of psychological incapacity.
Self-blame can be divided into two types: character self-blame and behavioural self-blame (Jannof- Bulman, & Timko, 1987). Blaming one’s own character means focusing the blame on enduring and stable characteristics.An attribution of blame toward the character is global and stable. Repeated experience of negative events will suggest that there is something in the person that makes the events happen. The individual believes that it happened to him/her because of who s/he is. The individual perceives the self as evil and bad to the core. One might even believe that one was singled out because of some deviation of character. The trauma was the punishment. Character self-blame is associated with depression and low self-esteem. It makes the future seem helpless, unchangeable and uncontrollable. There is a sense of passivity, since they believe that their actions will not make a difference.
Behavioural self-blame refers to the blame of behaviour choices that produced the negative outcomes. The distinction between the two types is associated with perceived controllability. If one believes that a different behaviour could have produced different outcomes, one actually believes in the own ability to control and direct situations. By realizing that something happened because of “bad” behaviour, it also fosters the idea that it can be avoided in the future. Behavioural self-blame reduces therefore the perception of vulnerability. The belief that a change in behaviour will reduce the likelihood of reoccurrence of an event is seen as an adaptive coping method. Behavioural self-blame also promotes the belief in the ability to control, change and avoid negative outcomes. Believing that the future can be different, promotes positive feelings of control and motivation. Thoughts are invested in strategies that can be applied in the future and/or similar circumstances. These strategies can help avoid re-victimization. Nevertheless,behavioural self-blame can also raise anger and hate towards the self. Anger rises due to the thought that one could have done something to prevent the tragedy and yet did nothing. Intense self-hate reduces the ability to cope, to adapt to the trauma and increases the risk of suicidal behaviour (Everly & Lating, 1995).
Survivors try to create meaning to the terrible trauma that they have endured. In this manner, they try to understand why the trauma occurred to them and diminish the sense of uncontrollability of the world. It appears that trauma survivors have the tendency to believe that they brought the trauma upon themselves. The craving for feelings of mastery makes the trauma survivor more vulnerable to pathology. Part of the self-blame tendency also originates due to modern society’s attribution of free will. Modern society tries to cultivate the belief that one is responsible for one’s life (Lamb, 1996). If one is responsible for one’s own life, than one is also responsible for anything that goes wrong in it. Self-blame originates from this simple deduction. The question that needs to be debated is how much free will do we actually posses? Don’t we need to take situational factors into account before we the blame the victim, or before the victim blames himself or herself?
1. Toxic self-criticism
People who suffer from unhealthy self-blame are prone to toxic self-criticism.
Because a person has been overtly criticized, unjustly blamed, and held up to unrealistic standards when growing up, they internalized these judgments and standards and now that’s how they see and relate to themselves.
Such a person often thinks something to the following: “I’m bad.” Or, “I’m worthless.” Or, “I’m not good enough.”
False beliefs like these can be debilitating and a sign of low, skewed self-esteem. They often come up in various forms of perfectionism, such as having unrealistic, unattainable standards.
2. Black and white thinking
Black and white thinking here means that the person thinks in strong extremes where there is more than two options or an issue is on a spectrum yet they don’t see it.
In relation to self, a chronically self-blaming person may think, “I always fail.” “I can never do anything right.” “I’m always incorrect.” “Others always know better.” If something is not perfect, everything is perceived as bad.
3. Chronic self-doubt
Because of all these thoughts, a person has many doubts. “Well, am I doing it right? Am I doing enough? Can I really do it? I seemingly failed so many times. Can I be correct? I mean I know that sometimes I tend to overreact and think the worst—but maybe this time it’s really true?”
4. Poor self-care and self-harm
People who were taught to blame themselves for being hurt are prone to taking poor care of themselves, sometimes to the degree of active self-harm.
Because they lacked care, love, and protection when growing up, such a person has difficulties caring for themselves. Many people like that are raised to take care of others, therefore they often feel that they are not even worth of getting their needs met.
And since such a person tends to blame themselves, self-harm in their unconscious mind seems like a proper punishment for “being bad,” just like they were punished as children.
5. Unsatisfying relationships
Self-blame can play a big part in a person’s relationships. At work, they may take on too many responsibilities and be prone to being exploited. In romantic or personal relationships, they may accept abuse as normal behavior, be unable to constructively resolve conflicts, or have unrealistic understanding how healthy relationships looks like.
Other related interpersonal problems are codependency, people-pleasing, learned helplessness, Stockholm syndrome, poor boundaries, inability to say no, self-erasure.
6. Chronic shame, guilt, and anxiety
People with a tendency to self-blame often struggle with overwhelming or otherwise painful and intrusive emotions. The most common emotions and mental states are shame, guilt, and anxiety, but it can also be loneliness, confusion, lack of motivation, aimlessness, paralysis, overwhelm, or constant alertness.
These feelings and moods are also closely related to phenomena like overthinking or catastrophizing, where the person lives in their head more than they are consciously present in external reality.
Summary and Closing Words
Having a wanting or otherwise traumatic upbringing makes us prone to self-blame, which is only one of many effects of such a childhood environment. If unaddressed and fully unresolved, the tendency to self-blame, then, gets carried in a person’s later life and manifests itself in a wide range of emotional, behavioral, personal, and social problems.
These problems include, but are not limited to, low self-esteem, chronic self-criticism, magical and irrational thinking, chronic self-doubt, a lack of self-love and self-care, unhealthy relationships, and such feelings like toxic shame, guilt, and anxiety.
When a person correctly identifies these issues and their origins, then can start working towards overcoming them, which brings more inner peace and overall satisfaction with life.
It’s all my fault, why didn’t I do something different?
Blaming one’s self is a common response to having a traumatic experience. This is especially true even when the traumatic event occurs through no fault of our own -we didn’t ask for it, we didn’t want it and we certainly weren’t okay with it happening. And while this self-blaming response isn’t logical, the self blame can run deep, cold and hard to shake. There are many reasons why we take on this blame whether it’s a single event or prolonged childhood trauma. Here a just a few explanations:
1) We don’t have the capacity to see the flaws and wounds of our caregivers when we’re young. Developmentally, we do not possess the ability to step out of our own experience and perceive that our caregivers aren’t capable of meeting our needs. We can’t see beyond ourselves, so blaming someone else isn’t even possible. Because we are not capable of assigning blame elsewhere, that pain has to be directed somewhere, and that is often inward.
2) Self blame is a survival response. If we blame the caregiver at the root of our trauma, it undercuts our perception that they can provide for us. That, in turn, implies that we are alone in this world without the ability to take care of ourselves. By blaming ourselves, we maintain the perception that we’re still in control of the situation and ultimately safe -even when we’re not. That message of self blame commonly travels with us into adulthood, manifesting into thoughts such as, “I’m not good enough” or “I’m unlovable”.
3) When a traumatic event occurs, we are hard wired to respond rapidly on an unconscious level. Unknowingly, our nervous system is constantly scanning the environment for potential danger. It’s like a personal alarm system. When the alarm goes off, we assess the situation with a rapid fire response: “Do I escape, fight or hide?” Because we are not aware of this near instantaneous assessment, it often leaves one thinking that more could have been done. The truth is that we likely did everything that could have been done in attempt to keep ourselves safe -even if bad things still happened. Not being aware that this action unconsciously takes place leads us to conclude that we could have done better or more, thus placing the blame on ourselves.