This is a necessary article because so often I’ve heard survivors of abuse — be it physical, sexual, social, spiritual, verbal, emotional, financial, neglect or other — all contend that the circumstances of their abuse and their responses are at least partly their own fault.
Here are just some of the reasons the abuse you suffer or have suffered isn’t your fault:
1. if someone is stronger than you and they force you physically, that cannot be your fault
2. if someone ridiculed you for not being strong or smart enough, or called you cruel names, or made a thing of laughing at you, it wasn’t and isn’t your fault
3. if you had no idea that they had abuse in them when you started the relationship — that they seemed so charming; and, they ‘got’ you — it’s not your fault
4. if you knew what you’d be dealing with, you would not be in this situation. If you find yourself thinking, “No, I would have chosen them anyway,” it is still not your fault that they choose or have chosen to mistreat you
5. you have no control over their behaviour. You may find, however, that they endeavour to have control over yours. Those motives are cruel
6. if their modus operandi is to exploit you, you can’t possibly know what they’re going to do. Clandestine motives are inscrutable, and you cannot predict the mind and actions of someone bent on destruction
7. if you attempt to respond to their abuses with gentleness and kindness how much more is it their fault? Perhaps nobody, no matter who they are, could make this relationship work
8. if the pattern of the aggression is all one way, whether active or passive or both, it indicates where the problem lies
9. if you were pursued and it seemed nice for a short time, but you’ve since learned it’s predatory, it’s not your fault
10. if you are busy and overwhelmed with constantly putting the broken pieces of life together again, time after time, and again and again they’re shattered, it isn’t your fault
11. if people have given up trying to convince you to get out of the relationship, it still isn’t your fault. There are too many factors to consider making this a simplistic problem
12. if you’ve gone back to giving them a ‘second chance’ and now it’s the twelfth time, you may be too compassionate, but it still isn’t your fault if they continue their ways
13. if they haven’t changed when they’d promised you many times they would, that cannot be your fault
14. if people have given up on you because it’s all too hard, that too isn’t your fault. The problem of your abuse is bigger than you
15. if you constantly face a paucity of resources or are riddled with fear or have some other overwhelming lack, feeling disempowered to this extent leaves you without control, and that’s not your fault
16. if you’ve faced being deprived of opportunities of support — and you will have — that isn’t your fault
17. if your body has been trained by trauma, and you freeze like a deer in headlights, especially when further abuses are perpetrated against you, that can never be your fault. You need protection, but it isn’t your fault
18. if you are the subject of gaslighting, you cannot possibly defend yourself; you don’t know how or when it happens or with whom
19. if someone chooses to lord it over you, and you freeze or take to flight, can that be your fault?
20. if you cannot control what comes out of their mouth — and you can’t — it can’t be your fault
21. if they won’t take responsibility for matters that are in their hands alone that’s not your fault. You know you can only take responsibility for your life
22. if they control the money and all key financial decisions, when you or others you love go without, it can’t be your fault
23. if you blame yourself for being a ‘bad Christian’ and they’ve sown spiritual negatives into you, your ‘lack of identity in Christ’ cannot be your fault
24. it can’t be your fault if they neglect you or those you love and care about
I’m sure it’s human nature for healthy humanity to take responsibility. If we take responsibility, we do so in an endeavour to take some control, and survivors of abuse desperately need some control over the circumstances of their suffering.
Survivors feel guilty, too, that they haven’t been able to protect themselves and others who depend on them.
They feel ashamed of the catastrophic impacts of the abuse that has wrought destruction through their lives, and that have rippled into so many other lives they love and care about, too.
The meld of guilt and shame, in stronger moments, leads to an indignant anger. And then there’s the bundle of confusion in the gut to deal with when you’ve felt guilty for being ‘forceful’.
I serve within a peacemaking ministry. There could be some who may think what I write is diametrically opposed to the concept of peacemaking. This isn’t true. The key issue is some people (not even most people) refuse to partake of peacemaking principles, which at their core promote reconciliation and the hope of peace. Some people hate peace. The costs of this are catastrophic.
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