Blame
It seems to be something I have battled with for a long time. Not just me, but others like me, I know it is common to feel the blame and to look at myself and say it was my fault. After all what else do you have when you are a child and don’t understand how people work. Someone’s hurting you; It has to be your fault right?
I still can’t get passed this and I have tried. I was writing a couple of days ago and it wasn’t until going through it, that it really clicked in my mind that this particular incident was the moment blame took up residence in my mind on a permanent basis.
I was seven years old, it was the middle of the day, and it was daylight. So much different than normally, when it was night time and dark. I could close my eyes then. Pretend that I was asleep. I believed that if my father thought I was asleep then he didn’t know, I knew what was happening. Then he wouldn’t look at me in a way that showed my shame. If he thought I was asleep then neither of us knew what was happening. I believed that my father didn’t know what was going on between us and if he didn’t know, he wouldn’t look at me and hate me for it. If my eyes were shut and he thought I was sleeping, he was reading my brother and I a bedtime story, then neither of us was aware of what was happening.
However, the part I was going through happened in the day and I did something else at the same time, so it appeared I still didn’t know. My father wasn’t reading and I was awake. I didn’t leave the room. I didn’t say no to him. I didn’t stop him and I don’t know why. I could have done. I’m certain that had I got up off the bed and left the room he would have let me.
This is the moment when my shame became blame. When I started the truly hate that child. He didn’t stop his father.
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I understand if people reply to this, they will say it wasn’t the child’s fault. It was the mans. He was the adult and the boy was a child. That’s because no one ever blames the child.