Trauma Is Never One's Own Fault
Traumatic situations and experiences may happen towards a person. People may become victims of abnormal events, and people may become hurt, or harmed in some way as a result of these events. Many trauma victims/survivors have been hurt in some way by others, and these actions could have been avoided. Nobody deserves for these types of experiences to happen to them.
If you have encountered something traumatic, where somebody has chosen to engage in actions that they could have prevented, and which ended up to cause you harm, know that you did not deserve for these types of things to happen to you. These events were not your fault. One can strive not to take these things personally. No matter who a person is, and no matter what types of characteristics they may possess, nobody deserves to be hurt, or harmed in any way. Try not to blame yourself, because it wasn't your fault that other people made decisions to do harmful things to you (in the case of that type of trauma). They are responsible for their own actions and choices, and created these decisions themselves. There is no reason to feel guilty about what happened to you, or to blame yourself for what happened, which can happen to some survivors of traumatic incidents.
Any input on this topic is welcome.
Interesting.
I was talking to a man today (in real life) who repeatedly puts himself in risky situations and ends up being harmed by others. He believes that because he doesn't deserve to be hurt, he will not be hurt. Even though he has frequently been hurt, sometimes very seriously, he continues to believe that not deserving to be hurt is enough to make risky situations OK.
Police and social workers have been trying their best to protect him, but no one has been able to convince him that going into a risky situation is connected in any way to him waking up in hospital the next day, just like all those other times.
It's kind of like he hasn't been traumatized enough yet.
So when you say, "Trauma Is Never One's Own Fault", I disagree. I think almost all of us have what is called agency—we can almost always take action to protect ourselves from harm. (All of us except the very young, the very old, and a few others who have serious disabilities.)
Of course, the action we take doesn't always work. Sometimes we are harmed anyway. And in that case we cannot be blamed.
I'll go to sleep tonight hoping that the man I was talking to will survive until tomorrow. I hope he survives until 2019. I hope he has a long and happy life. He deserves to, but sadly there's a real risk he won't.
@PositivityStrengthFaith
I think that when a person is in a situation, no perpetrator has the prerogative to cause to them harm, on a purposeful level. That was not the victim's fault. I believe it's a perpetrator's choice in creating harmful actions, and a victim cannot be blamed for harmful things which happen to them. This is an example of victim blaming, or victim shaming. In the example of a person who goes through a traumatic experience and becomes the victim of sexual assault, it is not the victim's fault that this harmful action would have happened towards them. That was the perpetrator's decision in order to engage in that ill action, which was not warranted. In this case, it cannot be said that for example, a person wore promiscuous clothing and put themselves at risk in a situation; it would still be seen as the perpetrator's fault for having initiated the assault towards that person. It wasn't this assault victim's fault that the instigator of the assault performed the erroneous action.
So, my thoughts would still remain that people who cause harmful incidents to others intentionally are at fault in those situations, and not the fault of victims. But yet, each person has entitlement to his or her own opinion.
