It’s My Fault
It’s My Fault is a very common negative cognition that so many of my clients carry the burden of. Often these individuals assume things are their fault even if everything inside them questions the validity of this. Individuals who are quick to assume that things are their fault have usually been conditioned from a very young time in their lives to believe this. Unfortunately, the primary caregivers in their lives often are the ones who project this belief on them as a means of deflecting their own discomfort.
A good example of this would be a mother or father who struggled with their own anxiety and fears of being good enough in the eyes of others, and who couldn’t tolerate the emotional discomfort of their own shame. As a result, they needed to find a scapegoat, or someone to blame when their own feelings of failure or not good enough washed over them.
I Can Empathize
As a young girl, I remember very distinctly a message that was given to me by my mother. I was the middle child of three, and apparently, when I was sent off to preschool I felt attached to a preschool teacher who paid attention to me. Yet because I wanted to be the teacher’s little helper, I was labeled as someone who was “clingy” and this was expressed to my mother. I remember my mother being so angry with me when she picked me up, as if there was something innately wrong with me, and that I had somehow embarrassed her by seeking positive attention from another adult authority figure. That was the beginning of many more times when my mother’s own emotional insecurities would be projected onto me.
As a child and even into my adolescence I struggled to recognize that there were things that happened that were not really my fault, but I received blame nevertheless. When my mother had a feeling of discomfort or got frustrated with her own mistakes, she was really good at blaming others in our house. Instead of calming herself down and acknowledging her own emotional dysregulation (a skill she didn’t have), she would get really angry, blame someone in the house, and make the environment a pretty chaotic or scary place to be. So as a kid, I believed that something was innately wrong with me, and essentially took on more blame and responsibility for her emotions than a kid should have. I also learned from an early age not to “rock the boat”, or “have a lot of needs” and as a consequence, I became fiercely independent. It wasn’t until later in life that I understood this high level of independence and responsibility had a negative side to it.
Negative Cognitions
We don’t recognize these beliefs as kids. Yet they start early in life and we begin to believe them at important developmental times in our lives. Shame is a universal emotion that everyone feels, yet we don’t know shame until someone shames us or says something that makes us feel it. Kids aren’t born with shame, but they start to feel it around the age of 3-4.
Feelings of not mattering, not being seen, or being important often go back to infancy up to age 18 months. These develop from experiences where as an infant there was some level of emotional neglect or detachment from a primary caregiver. Think of the impact of “The Ferber Method” a technique invented by Richard Ferber to sleep-train infants by allowing them to cry in an attempt to self-soothe. How many of us experienced this parental strategy? It left many feeling alone, frightened, not seen, or as if they didn’t matter to their caregiver. These feelings usually need to be looked at from a somatic or physical experience as there are no words to accompany this time in a young child’s life.
Responsibility starts a little later during the early school years. Kids who believed their role was to be the good one, not make any waves or add to the chaos in the family environment, often become really good at managing their needs by stuffing their emotions. They develop into independent, productive, and often highly successful achievement-driven individuals who get praised for their accomplishments…which only further perpetuates their need to keep pleasing.
Recognizing What’s Yours To Own or Not Own
I share my personal experience as it is something that I think many can relate to. I also want to acknowledge that regardless of our parents’ own issues and or lack of emotional intelligence, it is our responsibility as adults to learn to let go and take ownership of our emotional well-being. We can’t live in a place of blaming or taking on the victim mentality, or we haven’t evolved much from our parents’ own mistakes. It took me looking back at my childhood from an adult lens to acknowledge that my mother did the best she could with the skills she had. Now, it’s not that I didn’t think she could’ve done better in certain areas, but I came to a place where I was able to forgive her for what I didn’t get, let go of judgment, and learn to hold the boundaries as an adult that I didn’t know I was allowed to have as a kid.
As we look at the patterns of family dynamics that continue to cause stress, our fear of blame, or something being wrong with us, it’s imperative that we take a step back and ask ourselves, Is this really about us or is this about them? Shame resilience begins when we recognize our shame triggers, pause, and take a moment to get to safety so we can start to get curious about what just happened, and then zoom out to take perspective. Learning to let go of the old beliefs takes work. We have to first feel all the pain held within those memories, and then we can begin to release the stories and replace them with adaptive beliefs that truly will allow us to live with peace.