[Tongalee]

I'm not certain where this is coming from exactly, but I'm finding that I need my therapist to tell me that I'm right. I'm right in my understanding of the situation, I'm right in the idea that I didn't fight hard enough, I didn't keep myself safe. I want her to say it out loud that it was my fault! Just say it already, I want to hear you to say it!

[NowhereUSA]

Idk. I argue with my T about being right. Sometimes I yell at him. He refuses to concede on certain points though.

[Tongalee]

Mine too! I don't care how little I was! You take care of yourself! If people are hurting you you say something! If I didn't say anything it was my fault! Why won't she just understand?

I don't think that's going to happen, but if she did say that...would you feel better?

[Tongalee]

Yes! I would feel better, I would feel great! As though finally understood to be the person I truly am. I feel like she doesn't see me. She offers me empathy and pity without realizing I did this to myself!

Okay. If that's your goal, it sounds like she's not going to help you reach it. Why continue in therapy with her?

I'm asking, in part, because I recognize myself in your comments. But I've given up trying to change her and am now just trying to find a way forward that works for me.

[Tongalee]

Because I want to know why she won't! Why is she so adamant in her placement on the other side of my argument? This is not a hopeful searching of a different understanding on my part. Attaching myself to her to someday absorb her understanding of my struggle. This is me needing to be validated. I need her to tell me that it's okay to be angry at myself! Stop telling me to place blame and upset on those who hurt me alone. Why should I not carry the same burden of guilt?

Because you are not guilty. You may feel ashamed, but shame and guilt are not the same thing.

[nottrustin]

I am pretty sure that will never happen. Sounds like you beat yourself up enough, you don't need her to also.

[Tongalee]

It wouldn't be "beating me up", it's simply succumbing to truth. Am I really alone in this?

[NowhereUSA]

If it matters, I blamed myself for a long time until I met a girl that was around that age. I realized I would never tell her it was her fault if it had happened to her. It was both frustrating and enlightening. I then realized that while I felt guilty, logic dictated it couldn't be my fault otherwise I had to go to this little girl and tell her it was her fault. (My stuff isn't abuse exactly... it's complicated)

And having my own kids has kind of made me aware too. Idk.

I still get pissed and yell at my T for things though

Originally Posted by Tongalee

It wouldn't be "beating me up", it's simply succumbing to truth. Am I really alone in this?

Not alone in the sense that many of us totally understand where your head is at, but yes, alone by the fact that no one is going to find you "guilty" for having caused your abuse. Only a very warped mind would blame a child for causing their own abuse; the abuser is the one who is guilty of having mistreated, manipulated, and placed you in the horrible circumstance. You are not guilty of having done any wrong.

You feel shame for what you perceive is your culpability in what happened to you, but that is an emotion (and a misplaced one at best). Children don't cause their own abuse. No therapist is going to agree with your misplaced blame on yourself there.

But I get it. So do many of us who have worked through what you are feeling right now.

[stopdog]

I have quit talking to the woman about it. What she said was so unuseful that continuing to converse about it was only going to make it worse. The first one tries to argue with me and the second one remains silent - but neither will agree.
I tried the kid thing (go find one and be around it) and thought the ones I chose must be idiots - even the ones who are my sibling's offspring. Frankly after spending time with some 4-5 year olds, I have no idea how the species has managed to survive thus far.

[NowhereUSA]

Originally Posted by stopdog

I have quit talking to the woman about it. What she said was so unuseful that continuing to converse about it was only going to make it worse. The first one tries to argue with me and the second one remains silent - but neither will agree.
I tried the kid thing (go find one and be around it) and thought the ones I chose must be idiots - even the ones who are my sibling's offspring. Frankly after spending time with some 4-5 year olds, I have no idea how the species has managed to survive thus far.

I'll go out on a limb and say it's because there are parents (or some form of responsible adult)...

Although you prove my point in some fashion. While I don't think of them as idiots, they clearly do not have the capacity to grasp what we do as adults. How can they be blamed for doing or not doing anything given they can barely remember to share their toys half the time?

[Tongalee]

This is not remembering to share your toys or tie your shoes!

Originally Posted by stopdog

I tried the kid thing (go find one and be around it) and thought the ones I chose must be idiots - even the ones who are my sibling's offspring. Frankly after spending time with some 4-5 year olds, I have no idea how the species has managed to survive thus far.

And that is the point. Children lack the mental, intellectual, and physical capacity to handle, reason, defend themselves against the abuse of adults. The just aren't there developmentally.

[NowhereUSA]

Originally Posted by Tongalee

This is not remembering to share your toys or tie your shoes!

That's my point. A child at the age of five or six can barely remember to do that. Why would you expect them to be able to speak up about abuse?

[WrkNPrgress]

Tongalee, are you talking about an incident that happened in your childhood ro somthing in your teens, or adulthood?

Just curious. I have some issues around some decisions I've made in my young adulthood that I'm working out and there are times when I think my Therapist might just be coddling me about it all. I guess I thought if I can blame myself — I can have some control over it. What I want is to feel a sense of agency. I don't want to feel like a "victim."

But what I began to see was that agency can be found in my own understanding of how this wrong happened to me. There were things I did that fell into place and made me vulnerable, but there are reasons I was in that place and no, it was not my fault.

Being vulnerable is NOT wrong. The person who hurt me took advantage of that — of me— was wrong.

[stopdog]

I am not certain I think the ones I was around should survive to further dilute the gene pool. I did not feel like they were blameless - just stupid.
I assumed I chose flawed ones to be around.
And I did sort of blame them for some of the things that went awry while I observed them. (not for not sharing - I find the whole sharing thing to be a bit of a bad thing - most adults don't just share their goods with others - why do we expect children to do so - when was the last time someone just handed the keys to their car to a stranger who asked? OR cell phone? or house? etc).

I don't think the therapist will ever agree with the OP even if the therapist secretly does agree. Even I know not to tell others what I wrote above if I am with people not on the internet.

[NowhereUSA]

Originally Posted by stopdog

I am not certain I think the ones I was around should survive to further dilute the gene pool. I did not feel like they were blameless - just stupid.
I assumed I chose flawed ones to be around.
And I did sort of blame them for some of the things that went awry while I observed them. (not for not sharing - I find the whole sharing thing to be a bit of a bad thing - most adults don't just share their goods with others - why do we expect children to do so - when was the last time someone just handed the keys to their car to a stranger who asked? OR cell phone? or house? etc).

I don't think the therapist will ever agree with the OP even if the therapist secretly does agree. Even I know not to tell others what I wrote above if I am with people not on the internet.

I don't really know what your point is. So, if a parent is beating their 5 year old senseless and the 5 year old doesn't say anything to anyone, it's the 5 year old's fault because clearly the five year old is an idiot?

[stopdog]

I think I was responsible for how I responded as a child and I have not succeeded in getting the therapist to agree and so I stopped talking to her about it is my point. None of the suggestions attempted changed my belief in that. Some further sealed my point of view as to myself.

[Tongalee]

That's it! I don't feel responsible for the abuse, but I am responsible for my actions after. Esp since this wasn't something that occurred only once. I shutoff have let someone know, I should have let my doctor examine me so she would see the scars. I should have for more than endure it, and I think I have the right to mourn my inability in the name of guilt and not shame

[Tongalee]

And I would certainly appreciate her telling me that I am right in this, and that I have the right as well to be upset at myself. She doesn't need to express anger at me, but at least validate that which I feel!

All of my therapists have understood how I felt. They knew where I had reached such conclusions about myself. But they also knew those were mistaken beliefs about myself that I would eventually need to work through and beyond in order to truly heal. I suspect your therapist understands your thoughts about yourself, but understanding and agreeing that they are rational and healthy are not the same thing.

Can YOU accept that your T can understand your thinking without agreeing with it?