Oct 08 2018
Blame the victim mentality is very subtle. It’s sneaky. It doesn’t ever announce its presence. It just sits there like a black cloud, draining you. This is because we’ve been taught to accept it much more than we realize we have been. This is also because we have never been taught to pick things apart …
Oct 08 2018
“Nothing can be loved into something” (song lyrics to Breathe by Seinabo Sey) To me this means that after removing the stain, the shame, of trauma there is nothing. In that empty space truth comes in and purity and from nothing grows something to be loved but before that the survivor feels unlovable. *** This …
Oct 08 2018
What if the Victim Did Make Mistakes? Sometimes, trauma survivors do play some role in getting into situations in which they end up being traumatized, and it can be important to examine potential mistakes, naiveté, and self-sabotage, as one stage of the therapeutic process (generally after other, much more important, symptoms and issues are worked …
Oct 08 2018
Why Do Trauma Victims Blame Themselves? Here are 16 possible causes of Internalized Blame the Victim Mentality 1. Perpetrators Feel Better Emotionally Perpetrators may shift the blame over to the victim because it makes the perpetrator feel better by removing their own culpability, guilt, responsibility, and shame. They may actively and/or subtly shift blame onto …
Oct 08 2018
The daily battle trauma survivors are engaged in is many times completely not understood by people who have not been traumatized. The thing is, this lack of understanding makes total sense. It Makes Sense for a Non-traumatized Person to Blame a Traumatized Person for Their Symptoms It would be natural, without the proper training, for …
Oct 08 2018
Although they can be Managed, Ongoing Trauma Symptoms Are Also Technically Not The Trauma Survivor’s Fault There are patterns in the way human physiology responds to trauma. Research suggests the nervous system was created with in-built mechanisms that get turned on in response to trauma. Physiological reactions to triggers, even years after the events, are …
Oct 08 2018
Have You Unconsciously Internalized Blame the Victim Mentality Without Knowing It? This is a checklist of items to reflect on for trauma survivors. They don’t mean you necessarily have internalized any blame for the traumatic events or for your symptoms, but it’s possible. These are just things to think about. You could possibly have internalized …
Oct 08 2018
15 Ways Blaming Trauma Survivors Harms Them “Self-blame is by far, the most devastating after effect of being sexually violated. This is particularly true for former victims of child sexual abuse and adult victims of sexual assault. In fact, ninety percent of rape trauma recovery is undoing a victim’s tendency to self-blame. Ten percent is …
Sep 29 2018
“It wasn’t your fault.” This is such a healing, repairing message for trauma survivors. In our society, all too frequently the conversation around a traumatic event shifts to the victim’s character, choices, faults, etc. as if to imply that something done to them was their fault. This is almost always untrue and it is harmful, …
Mar 08 2018
I haven’t written for my blog in a long time because I haven’t had the spirit to write; I’ve been exhausted, sick and depressed most of the time over the winter. The weight of the trauma and PTSD crushed my writing spirit entirely. So, I’m going to jump start my writing spirit not by trying …
