"It's not your fault."
I cannot tell you how many times this has been said to me. My guess would be about the same amount of times that I ignored this statement, no matter who said it.
When a person is abused, they become a number of things: scared, confused, paranoid and full of self-doubt. This could be from any form of abuse. Such as physical, mental, sexual or emotional. Abuse does not ultimately end when the hitting, words and touching stops. Abuse stays with its victim as long as they let it, which is often forever. This can be because the victim believes that they are the one who has done something wrong.
It is in our human nature to believe that the only reasons for punishment would be because one behaved a certain way that is undesired by the punisher—therefore, planting the idea in our heads that we are the problem, that we deserve the punishment. I am here to tell you that this is 100 percent not the case.
There is absolutely no excuse for any type of abuse. (Definition of abuse: improper or corrupt treatment.) I do not care how old you may be—abuse is never justified. I do not care about your race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, disability, eye color, hair color or any other factor that would describe you. Abuse. Is. Never. Justified. It should never be tolerated. It should never be looked over. It should never, not one time, make you reevaluate your self-worth. Nor should you ever blame yourself.
It's not your fault.
You are not the one who chose to hit. You are not the one who chose to rape. You are not the one who chose to degrade others. You are not the one who chose to call others names and beat them so far down with your words that they feel as if ending their life is the only way out. You did not choose this. They chose this. They put you here. They made you feel this way. It has nothing to do with you and how valuable you are. I cannot tell you the reason they chose to hurt you. But I can tell you that it is not your fault. You are not the one to be blamed.
I know what it's liked being told that you deserved it, and that hurts you more than anything. And to be honest, I'm still suffering from believing that it was my fault, too. But I'm coming around to accepting the fact that there was nothing I could have done to prevent it from happening. Once you come to terms with this, you can start letting yourself heal.
