You know that guy you used to have? The one you lost? The one you think you were too much for, too needy with, or not enough of what he actually wanted you to be?
Yeah, that one.
He's gone now, right?
And you're sitting here, going back over every last conversation in your head. Every text, every message, every nuance. Until the very last one.
Blaming yourself. Beating yourself up. Ruminating over and over and over again.
It's not your fault.
But you're back here because whenever something painful like this happens, you make it your fault. You take the blame. You put it on you. You make it about what you should have done instead. It's what you do with painful things like this because it's all you've ever known to do.
But it's not your fault. It's that whatever familiar painful experience you went through that's being triggered in you here was only made traumatic and triggering BECAUSE you were assigned the role of it somehow being your fault.
Someone else, someone with power in an authoritative position over you, shirked their own responsibility for what happened and projected that onto you.
And you took it on you because you had to. You didn't have a choice, you were powerless not to.
Whatever that was that happened to you, when all those familiar feelings come rushing back because he's gone, you've lost him again, the familiar feeling that it's your fault and you could have done something to stop it, brings you right back here again.
That's why you can't let it go.
That's why you keep ruminating over it. Not because it happened at all, but because the responsibility for it - the blame - was put onto you. And now you're doing it to yourself again.
Different guy. Different situation. Same exact pattern.
Something bad happens you didn't want to happen and it's your fault. Painful experience made traumatic, bringing you right back to that little girl who actually was powerless to change it, and insert the blame.
Not your fault, girl. Not your fault. A relationship takes two. You weren't compatible, weren't on the same page. He's who he is, and you're you. You couldn't keep pretending anymore and that's why it all came out.
But you're not powerless anymore. Recognizing this is what gives you your power back.
See this pattern?
See how this keeps playing out over and over again. Go back and look at all those things you can't let go of. See how this pattern persists?
The worst thing is, it's conditioned, programmed, positively reinforced enough it's become ingrained in your neural pathways in your brain so that whenever something goes wrong, you've been perfectly programmed to blame yourself.
It's instinctive now.
Something happens, you feel the guilt/shame i.e. responsibility of it because that's all you've been programmed to do and you do it perfectly.
What was an objective "this happened" - 'the event" becomes 'my fault', 'my mess up', 'my blind spot', 'my responsibility' and we're right back there accepting the blame all over again.
See how this runs so deep?
The practical "It is what it is" doesn't apply to us when it is what it is BECAUSE we believe it was somehow our fault.
How so we change this?
Whenever you feel that sinking awful feeling in your gut or that headache pops up, ask yourself why. And then look at what you're feeling the weight of the responsibility for that's become literally second nature for you.
If someone else programmed you with THEIR responsibility by putting it onto you, that's you carrying it for them, not your responsibility doing the right thing recognizing this is yours to account for.
No! Shake it off you.
Don't minimize your pain. Feel it all. Let it all out.
Cry those tears. Feel that rage rising within you. Just ask for what you need from even just one person who loves you, who sees you, who cares about you.
This isn't on you, girl. We've learned to take it on. Now we learn to let it go!
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