My Fault?

I remember growing up that it was always my fault I was abused. In school I asked questions of the nuns I should not have so they beat me. At home I was beaten if either I did something wrong or someone else did something wrong and they felt I should have been a better example. They told me when I was raped it was my fault because I was asking for it. The rapist told me, “if I had known you were a virgin I would have made it special for you”.

When I was abused by my wives I was told, “men don’t get abused”. The cops also asked, why I was afraid of my wife, I should be a man and put her in her place. At one time I took on all these things and many more to justify the abuse that others inflicted on me. I also used the same rationales to justify my own self-abuse through the use of drugs, alcohol and self-torture. To me abuse became love and people showed you they loved you by abusing you and that it was all my fault, I deserved all of it.

What I have learned in the years since I walked away from the abuse is that abuse does no mean love and that I did nothing to deserve what happened to me. The people that abused me did it for whatever reason they felt they needed to to justify it their own mind. At first I hated them for what they had done to me. Later I would come to a point in which I felt sorry for them and the life they felt they deserved. To think they believed they needed to beat people into loving and respecting them is really sad.

I have since learned over time to look at what did happen in the light of reality. I have learned to look at each situation that I can remember and look at my role in it. Then I take responsibility for my actions in what happened and let the rest go. I have no control over what others do or how they react to what I did. I have learned that there is no room in recovery for fault finding and there is plenty of room for taking responsibility for your actions.

Was what happened my fault, no. Was it their fault either, no. Things happened I deal with it and move on with my life. I build the life for myself and my family that I want. I look at the abuser as a really good example of what not to do in my life. So to the abuser, thanks for showing me what I do not want to be and how not to act and above all how not to treat other people. Technorati Profile