My PTSD therapist knows now the gist of all my traumas, she calls them traumas and Traumas. The big T means they are major. I’ve had three Traumas. And a billion traumas. I’ve shared the 3 big ones with her, not the billion small ones, but she understands how it went.
Well she always tells me “Your mental illness is not your fault, just remember that, its not your fault”
It feels good to hear it from her because she actually knows my story.
She says “Your genes were triggered off by your environment most likely”
I mean all the evidence is there and its true, but the fact I did drugs makes a lot of people put the blame on me. But she knows the real story and she assured me its not my fault and it makes me feel better
If you are anything like me @Jonnybegood, you feel guilty about a lot of things. This is something that is a very difficult issue to plow though for me as well. I have recently learned something that might just help you.
If someone calls a child, “stupid”, the child hears that he is stupid, and depending upon who they hear it from they believe it or they do not. They are more apt to believe it if a parent or loved one tells them they are stupid.
What happens next, and what the child does to themselves is the most damaging: that child repeats the phrase in his mind over 10,0000 times that he is “stupid”. Over time, this child will come to believe he is stupid.
Therefore, I try to remember that my internal dialog of myself is very important. When I hear voices that are constant and not okay? IT IS HARD to change the dialog, and it is not always possible.
Your brain is chemically imbalanced, and no different than having a broken leg or any other physical ailment, it is not your fault that you have this chemical imbalance.
If I can be the first one to tell you mental illness is not your fault?
Dear @Jonnybegood,
Mental Illness is not your fault."
Sincerely, @stayinsane63
BigJon, its definitely not your fault, I am sure of this!!! Me, I start to be very pissed off by people telling me its my fault. I have one old friend who says this to me, yeah. She Is just an ■■■■■■■, she cant understand. I didn’t chose to have suicidal ideation since the age of ten. And me too I did a lot of weed in the past, but even this is not the cause of our illness. A lot other people do it and they dont get sick. Its not my fault that my father was abusive, its not my fault the pedophile who was abusing me when I was kid… Its too much what we saw, ok? Never blame yourself! Be gentle to yourself, ok? The others are good to themselves, we have this right too in the end.
I even start to hate when others blame me that I dont do enough efforts, yeah. they should live with my messed brain for one hour in their life just to see… I did efforts in the past, now I need help, that’s all. Its the same thing for you.
Hugs
Thank you so much @stayinsane63!!! My original trauma is very embarrassing I don’t feel comfortable sharing right now. But it was when I was 11. Let’s just say it made me enter a fantasy world of delusion and voices at a very young age before I ever put a sip of alcohol or puff of weed in my system. And it has an effect on my self asteem. Sometimes I am top of the world because of my traumas. Other times i feel worthless. Trying to find the middle ground but the two poles drive me crazy. Then drugs I was self medicating with made me worse so as you can see it’s easy to blame myself. Sometimes I question if the delusions voices and fantasy world were really mental illness since they weren’t as intense as after I self medicated with drugs. But thanks to you and others lately I am moving toward not blaming myself. Even if you caused your illness 100% by drugs, I still don’t think we should blame such person. After all no one WANTS to be mentally ill. But still hard when it comes to myself! Thank you again.
@Jonnybegood, I also have severe PTSD. I know it’s not my fault. I have it because of what was done to me. And my so called delusions have everything to do with my past trauma. I know it’s not your fault too. We suffer because of what happened to us. Never blame yourself for your suffering from what happened to you. It was out of your control. That’s a lot of what makes it so traumatizing. You had no say in it. You couldn’t stop it or keep it from happening. You were powerless at the time. We can learn to take back control in our lives though by becoming empowered. It’s something I’m working on but haven’t achieved yet. I want people to believe in tough and can handle myself so I’m not a walking victim. But the truth is I’m still terrified and affected by what happened to me. So ill keep working on it. But it’s not my fault and it’s not yours. Hang in there. Be kind to yourself.
Well addiction is a disease and a lot of people blame the inflicted for trying substances in the first place. I think in the phillipines they are murdering all the drug addicts right now. Trying to eridicate drugs and drugs dealers.
Blame is just not productive. I blame myself a lot for my feelings, dreams and thoughts. Then not only do I have the bad stuff but then I feel bad about it.
Once, this friend of mine said that he had these thoughts that would frighten him because they were so strange. He just stopped reacting one day. He stopped judging his thoughts and felt better. But he couldn’t stop having them because of his OCD.
That whole blame thing is… It feels better, more reassuring to think that someone caused mental illness. If we find a cause and a responsible party, we can make sense of it. Then, we can have control. Yeah, right.
Btw @CoCo you said it so beautifully that I had no response to it but just know I appreciate your post greatly!! Seeing the ptsd therapist was one of the best decisions I made. She said she thinks I have ptsd and she knows I have more trauma than your average but I still haven’t been officially diagnosed with ptsd. It doesn’t matter the label though. The therapy helps and that’s all that matters really.
Yeah. Those people who blame others for those situations fail. They want easy solutions to complex problems and the easiest thing is to blame the person who is most hurt by it. Drugs and alcohol have been created by people. They are not evil. There are people that need them. Just ask a person bitten by an insect and has almost died only to be saved by adrenaline. Alcohol is used in social situations and is not evil. Personally, there are substances that give me a bad reaction if I put them into my body. I know what they are and avoid them. There are people who can use these things with impunity. I am saying that blame is about having power over others. If I say that you are to blame for being mentally ill because you toked up at too many parties, then I am like absolving myself of the responsibility for caring for you as you struggle with mental illness. It’s a cop out.
I had Trauma in my life and that could of started the sz cause it started at 13 before I did drugs bad although my grandpa had so to really bad and could of passed it down to me which I think had a part in my sz
The others are good to themselves, we have this right too in the end.
️ great post
