Do you wonder why you blame yourself for everything?
In this video you’ll learn why you might blame yourself for everything, how this can be a trauma response from your childhood, and how to stop doing it. And we’re going to use Batman as an example, But first….
Have you ever taken a shortcut, even though you weren’t really supposed to? (sign- don’t walk on the grass) I mean it seems like way too much effort to walk around this, so of course I’m going to take the shortcut too. No big deal.
Here’s the thing, your brain does this all the time. It takes these little shortcuts to save on time and energy. And while cutting across the grass causes little harm, there are some types of brain shortcuts that can cause a lot of harm, especially in the way you process trauma.
Let me give you an example. Let’s say you’re a little kid. You spill the milk. Your Dad blows up at you and yells, “What’s the matter with you? Why’d you do that!” Which one’s easier for a kid to think “Hmm, my parent doesn’t seem safe. I wonder about the difficulties of being an adult, and the nuances of simultaneously being a good person, while also making a bunch of mistakes.” or thinking “It’s all my fault”.
It’s clear to see how taking the mental shortcut of “It’s all my fault” is actually a much easier route than the emotional gymnastics of figuring out why people do bad things.
But, if we keep blaming ourselves over time, we can end up feeling guilty, ashamed, depressed, or angry. So in this video we’ll explore this common cognitive distortion of self-blame and some practical ways to replace it with more helpful thinking.
Explanation
Our brains are constantly trying to make sense of what’s happening in our world. But the brain’s interpretation is not always correct. It takes these cognitive shortcuts that aren’t completely accurate. These are called automatic thoughts. We don’t usually notice them–but we can learn to be more aware of them.
One type of automatic thought is to assume the worst. Does this sound familiar? “If I get a bad grade, I’m going to fail and never get a good job.”(Catastrophizing) Or we might see things in extremes: “Nothing good ever happens to me!” (Overgeneralizing). Blaming ourselves for things that aren’t our fault is another common automatic thought: “If I hadn’t made him mad, he wouldn’t have hit me.”
Will a bad grade mean you’ll NEVER get a good job? No.
Does nothing good ever happen to you? No.
And do you have control over the physical actions of another person? No.
But we believe these thoughts all the time. And self-blame is one of the most common forms of cognitive distortions.
Aaron Beck, one of the first scientists to describe cognitive distortions, tells the story of a depressed woman who blamed herself when their picnic was ruined by a thunderstorm. Now obviously, no one controls the weather, right? But a person in the mental rut of self-blaming will take on guilt over things that went wrong, even when those things were out of her control.
There are 3 common ways people blame themselves:
- They take full responsibility for every situation “It’s my fault my parents got divorced” “It’s my fault my brother died”.
- They believe they should have seen it coming: “I should have known that it would rain on my wedding day.”
- Or they make it about their own personal deficiencies: “I’m just so _____.” (lazy, stupid, inconsiderate, idiotic, clumsy). It can be surprisingly easy to fill in that blank.
Do you see how often and how easily we can slip into self-blame? Thankfully, just because you think something, doesn’t mean it’s true.
Function:
If we take an honest look at ourselves, we only repeat behaviors that are somehow rewarding in some way. So why the heck would we LIKE to blame ourselves? Let’s dive deeper into how our brains work, especially when we have a trauma response.
In Batman Begins, young Bruce Wayne got scared and asked his parents to leave the theater, but then they were killed in the alleyway.
Recognizing young Bruce Wayne’s trauma is not difficult. He witnessed the murder of both his parents. This led to brooding over what could have prevented their deaths. The helpless, powerless ten-year-old’s brain needed to make some explanation for why his parents died, and so Bruce did what is so common in real life. He blamed himself and held onto that wrong story long into adulthood.
So how does trauma lead to self-blame?
- Trauma is essentially when a situation overwhelms our capacity to manage it. Because trauma floods our emotional centers with fear or anger, we don’t have the capacity to make nuanced assignments of accountability. This is where the brain takes that easy shortcut to self-blame.
- We are much more likely to blame ourselves when the stress is high or our resources are diminished. When you’re feeling fresh and energetic, you might take the longer sidewalk, but when you’re exhausted, or carrying a huge backpack you’ll be more likely to take the grassy shortcut. Same thing with trauma. Instead of learning about the various villains who killed his family, Bruce Wayne took the shortcut and blamed himself. He was just a little kid, he was all alone, he didn’t have the contextual awareness to understand the complicated causes behind crime and violence. Victims often resort first to self-blame, and then hang on to that thinking, even in the case of crime victimization or accidents.
And so, blaming ourselves is a shortcut to make sense of the world when we’re overwhelmed or traumatized.
There are a few more reasons why Self-Blame can feel rewarding in the short term, even though it hurts us in the long-run.
- Self-blame gives us a sense of control. It may be scary to think that our own choices can’t fully protect us from bad things happening. By believing that things would have been better if we’d done something different, we gain a sense of power over unwanted outcomes, which makes us feel secure.
One woman described it this way: “I used to get harassed on dating apps, which I now realize I had no control over. But at the time, I would fret about what tiny adjustments I could make to my dating profile so the disturbing comments would stop”. Do you see how instead of holding others accountable, she created a false sense of control by blaming herself?
- Here’s another one. Taking blame can help protect the peace in relationships that we’re dependent upon. Just think about a time when you were a kid coming home after curfew. Maybe your friends were being irresponsible. You arrived home to your angry mother who waited up for you. If you said, “I’m sorry mom, it was all my fault that we were late,” that probably helped your mom calm down. You took the blame to keep the peace.
- At an extreme level, putting blame on ourselves might feel safer than blaming a dangerous person. If you’re in an abusive relationship your survival response (the fawn response) might override logic and take the blame in order to prevent retaliation.
- When we’re young, we simply don’t have the capacity to see the flaws and wounds of our caregivers, so we make sense of things by blaming ourselves. This also maintains our sense of security by believing that our parents are capable of protecting us. But, too often, we carry this belief that “It must be my fault” with us into adulthood, and this can show up as beliefs like “I’m never good enough”
- Blaming ourselves is also easier than taking action to address someone else’s wrongdoing. For example, if the government is not doing its job, then I would need to go protest, call my senator, or take some other energy-sucking action.
- Sometimes it’s just a habit that we learned, whether from our victim-blaming society or our family of origin. The good news is that if we learned it, we can unlearn it.
Treatment
OK, so blaming ourselves is a mental shortcut that our brain takes when we’re overwhelmed. It’s super common, but it also hurts us. So what do we do instead? We have to get out of autopilot and manually choose to process through that trauma in a more honest and helpful way. We’re going to identify our distorted thinking, question it, and replace it with something more helpful.
So #1. Let’s recognize our distorted thinking. Just because we think something, doesn’t mean it’s true. The easiest way to recognize distortions is to ask yourself “Would I treat a friend this way? Would I blame them for what happened?” If the answer is no, you’re using emotional reasoning, an illogical approach that’s unfair to yourself.
Let’s try to catch ourselves in these thoughts, here are 6 signs that you’re blaming yourself:
- Feeling guilty, helpless, or worthless
- Thinking or saying “It’s all my fault” (notice the ALL, that’s exaggerated)
- You apologize too much
- You downplay other people’s responsibility
- You believe that you’re irreparably flawed, like you’re “Never Good Enough”
- You think that you should have been able to see the future.
When you catch yourself doing these things, say out loud “I’m self-blaming again” this is called decentering or cognitive defusion. It’s stepping outside your thoughts and noticing your thinking, which can allow you to detach from that belief.
We don’t want to get caught in a struggle of arguing with our thoughts, but just separating a little from them.
Evaluate Honestly
Bat-man Pie chart
(2) The next thing we can do is to get clear on taking responsibility. There are plenty of times we mess up and can learn to do better next time by taking responsibility for our actions. The key is to know what we were actually responsible for, what was actually in our control. To get clear on this, I recommend asking yourself,“What are ALL the factors that led to this event happening? Write them out and then assign responsibility with a pie chart.
When you get this all out on paper, you can see that Bruce couldn’t have prevented his parents’ deaths, because the man who was responsible was the man who pulled the trigger, and that societal factors were also pretty overpowering.
If Simba were to do a pie chart, at the end of the Lion king, he could honestly say that it was scar’s fault.
Call to Action
If you tend to blame yourself too much, I challenge you to do this pie chart exercise. I would love to see in the comments what percentage you are realistically responsible for.
Values based action
#3. You might be asking, but how can I tell if it really was my fault? That’s a question to stop asking. Here’s the thing with blame, blame just isn’t helpful, you can blame yourself for something bad you did, or you can blame someone else, but blame doesn’t solve anything, it doesn’t change what happened. If you did make a mistake, then the better question to ask is “What can I do about it now?” Is there a practical step I can take to make repairs? To learn from the experience? To prevent it from happening in the future? Blame is a rocking chair, the endless rumination is like rocking and rocking but doesn’t get anywhere. Responsibility is like walking, it’s hard work but you actually get somewhere.
In the end, we have to ask ourselves- Does blaming myself help me live the kind of life that I value? Does it make my life rich and meaningful? Does it help me be the person I want to be?
Sometimes we mistakenly believe that blaming ourselves will keep us from making that same mistake in the future, but it can be helpful to look at the costs: self-blame makes you feel bad, guilty, worthless, it de-motivates you, and it’s not honest. So let’s shift toward values-based actions.
So step three is choosing helpful, values based action. What kind of person do you want to be? What actions would you take today to move one inch closer to that? If you believe in being kind, helpful, confident, courageous…those are things you can act on today. You can download my free values clarification exercise on my website if you want to learn more.
Summary
What all this really comes down to is:
- Can you see past the emotional reasoning and lies that come with the mental shortcut of self-blame?
- Can you look at the big picture and allow others to be responsible for their part?
- Can you take an honest look at your responsibility
- Can you allow some things to be out of your control?
Good honest boundaries are healing. “If it’s my responsibility, it’s mine. And if it’s not, then it’s not”.
When we get more truthful about our responsibilities, we can take back our sense of self, and our own personal power. When you let go of self-blame, you can feel empowered to accept the things you cannot change and have the courage to change the things you can.
Thanks for being here. Take care.
Click below to get the course, How to Process Emotions.
