The Blame Game

blame (v)--assign responsibility for fault or wrong

Our society seems to be obsessed with assigning blame; everyone wants to point fingers when things go wrong. I'm sure you've noticed it somewhere: in your workplace, on TV, in your home, with our President...everyone is always looking for a scapegoat. There must be a reason, some sort of rationale, for when bad things happen, right? For many of us, it is impossible to accept that bad things happen for no reason. For those of us who are Believers in God or any sort of otherworldly force, we just can't accept that bad things happen without a source to blame.

For some of us, though, that source to blame often becomes ourselves. It becomes second nature to just take everything bad and throw it onto our own shoulders. Is it always rational, though? Is it justified? Usually not, but we accept it anyway. Sometimes it almost becomes an addiction...it becomes unhealthy...it becomes a disease that leads to self loathing and a whole lot of negative emotions. I think, though, as a society, we've come to allow this self-blame to be something that is widely accepted and happens far too often in certain scenarios or with certain types of people.

Those of us who have suffered a miscarriage or infant loss: we MUST stop blaming ourselves. I think we can all say with absolute certainty that we would have sacrificed it all for those babies...but it wasn't ever really in our hands. We have to be willing to accept that to have closure and move on with life. We have to let go of that guilt in order to heal...because that guilt is an incredibly heavy load that is weighing us down entirely too much to rise above. It's sometimes hard to accept the outcome, hard to accept the body we have been given and the betrayals it makes on our desires, hard to accept that a loving God would torture our heart in such a way if there wasn't a reason...but that reason is not inside of ourselves. It is hard to accept (and I'm not there yet, trust me), but I hope that we can all come to a place of acceptance and stop the blame game eventually. We need to be more open with sharing our stories, because part of what makes it so hard is that nobody talks about it. We all just suffer in silence, blaming ourselves, and being heartbroken and empty. It isn't our fault, though...it just isn't true.

Those of us who have been the victims of abuse in any form: we MUST stop blaming ourselves. It's easy to throw ourselves under the bus with this one, and usually the abuser pushes us to that point. But abuse is ALWAYS the fault of the abuser, PERIOD. Sometimes we blame ourselves by saying that we should have been smarter from the start, to see through what was happening. Sometimes we blame ourselves for not choosing fight or flight...we blame ourselves for freezing up at a moment of terror. Sometimes we blame ourselves for staying trapped for long periods of time, thinking that it must be our fault that we didn't get out. Sometimes we blame ourselves by saying that we somehow deserved it. NONE OF THIS IS TRUE! IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT! One of my favorite quotes is from Eleanor Roosevelt: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Sometimes, though, we do end up feeling inferior...we end up letting other people tear us down and chip away at us...and it takes a long time to heal that. We have to remind ourselves of our strength, of our beauty, of who we really are and that what happened was not because of that, but because someone else chose to treat us horribly for no reason other than they made that choice. We have to stop blaming ourselves for this! This is especially hard given how the media makes these things look, and how, again, this is a widely hushed topic. Awareness is the start of progress, though. And it all starts with remembering that this just isn't your fault as a victim. EVER.

To those of us who are parents: we MUST stop blaming ourselves. Sometimes, our children need to fall so that they can learn how to get back up...that doesn't mean that they fell because we are terrible! Sometimes our children are irresponsible, sometimes they make a wrong choice, sometimes they don't listen to us...none of that is our fault! We need to work to let go and let our children LEARN and GROW without us constantly worrying what we've done now to ruin them. In fact, if you are a parent who has constant fear, guilt, or blame then you are probably doing an AMAZING JOB as a parent and you should take a chill pill so the rest of us don't look like such huge failures. Haha, right? And, hey, guess what? Sometimes it's okay to take a half hour to yourself, a weekend with your spouse while leaving the kids with grandma, or having a night out with friends. Taking care of yourself doesn't mean you are neglecting your kids! Stop blaming yourself! Let go of the guilt! Encourage all your parent friends to do the same!

To those of us who get rejected, be it for a job, a promotion, a loan, a romantic endeavor, etc: we MUST stop blaming ourselves! Rejection happens every single day and happens to everyone at some point or another. Rejection isn't a sign that you are a terrible, flawed, unworthy person...it just means that something else is coming up somewhere else. For those who are self critical (like me), this is one of the hardest areas of blame for me: I ALWAYS take rejection to heart and ALWAYS find at least a dozen ways to blame myself....but I need to stop! I need to look at myself in a more positive way; I need to look at all the times I received acceptance instead of rejection and remember that there are always silver linings. Sometimes it just isn't in the cards, sometimes it just wouldn't work out no matter how much we think we want it to, sometimes we need to realize that it just isn't a good fit. Just like shopping for shoes or clothing: not all size 9 shoes fit the same. We know this. So why not remind ourselves of this the next time we get a big fat "NO" for something we try to land?

Mostly I just wrote all of this for myself because this is something that I MUST work harder to stop doing in order to start loving myself a little more. If I am constantly blaming myself, then I'm also going to constantly be focused on the negative about myself. Negative self worth and negative self talk translate into negative emotions and negative outlooks for everything. It's a work in progress?