Blame

Good morning to everyone. I'm sorry that I've been away for awhile. I was diagnosed in December with tongue cancer and I've been doing all the work to get to full recovery. I'm delighted to say that at this point, I'm cancer free and fully able to communicate. 

All of this got me to thinking, though. About identity. About trauma. About the things we experience as human beings that we just manage and keep it moving. About how we don't really ask for help when we need it, and how we brush off our experiences when it feels like our stories might be a burden to others. I did that, and sometimes still do, because I learned as a child that saying anything is dangerous. Being seen isn't safe. Asking for help is being needy. We believe that it is shameful and weak to be ill or struggling.

But it's not.

Cancer is somehow a disease underwritten by shame. I've had it twice. We question what we did wrong in the world, in our lives, to have gotten cancer. Everyone else asks too. Did you do this bad thing? Or that one? How are you to blame for what you are experiencing? Good people don't get cancer, you know.

Same goes for trauma. You must have been bad, deserved the abuse, deserved the assault, didn't obey, didn't listen, weren't good enough, weren't perfect, were too weird, wore a pretty dress, weren't a boy, weren't a girl, weren't enough, were too much. Society finds many reasons to blame victims of abuse. Good people don't get abused, you know.  But IT ISN'T TRUE. We need to stop self-blaming and self-shaming for things that happen to us that are out of our control. People are often bad and cruel and very careless with the well-being of others. That isn't, and never was, your fault.

If you feel like you did something to deserve your past, please let me assure you that you DID NOT. You've never done anything to deserve pain, neglect, violence, abandonment, abuse or illness ... it was never your fault. I'm sorry for your pain and I hope that, with time, you can forgive yourself for other people's actions. Be kind to yourself when others are not.

​You absolutely do deserve kindness.