It’s Not Your Fault

Every survivor everywhere has been conditioned to believe that the sexual abuse they suffered as a child, was their fault. That they somehow ‘made it happen’, so if that is something you feel, you are not alone.

Whichever way you were groomed into thinking it was your fault, please know it was done with one clear purpose in mind: To shift the blame and responsibility for the abuse that occurred from the abuser, straight onto you.

He or she, was never going to hold accountability for what they were doing to you. Ever.

What they could do though, was to make sure you carried it for them.

It’s a natural consequence that you would carry guilt with you, and have it lodge very deeply into your mind and belief system, especially as a child and teenager. These are the formative years, after all, so the abuser knew exactly what they were doing when they chose to abuse you.

Let me be very clear.

Child sexual abuse is never, I repeat never, the fault of the child.

That sits firmly with the adult who abuses the child.

Logically you will know that, but, what if the message you received as a child is so firmly entrenched in your mind that you still somehow feel it must have been your fault? Otherwise, why would they have kept saying it to you? What if you can’t quite get over the sneaky feeling that somehow something you did made this abuse occur?

Again, let me be very clear.

Not possible.

In an adult-child relationship, the power 100% rests with the adult. There is no situation ever where the child holds responsibility or ownership over what happens to them.

They are a child.

Simply put, they do not have the cognition or ability to understand fully what child sexual abuse is. That is why in most developed countries, children are considered children, until they reach the age of 18.

For those of you who feel guilty because you experienced pleasure during child sexual abuse, I would like you to consider the following:

If you are cold your body will shiver.
If you are hot your body will sweat.
If your nose tickles you will sneeze.
If your genitals are stimulated, you will feel pleasure.

Are you starting to see the logic here? Your body is designed to respond to stimuli, and that is all that happened when you were a child. It’s that simple.

I am hoping that by understanding this, you will accept that there is no possible universe where guilt for this abuse, belongs to you!

Many survivors report that the guilt they feel is something they cannot seem to shake off and I want to address this.

Guilt is something survivors can hold onto because they feel responsible for what the adult did. It may have been they were repeatedly told it was their fault, or that they made the abuser do it. Or it may be that they enjoyed the attention they received and felt special. It could even be the gifts or money they got, as part of the grooming process, none of that matters.

As a child, once again, the ability to understand what was happening to them is not there! So therefore, it is impossible ‘as I said earlier’ for a child to hold any responsibility or accountability for what an adult chose to do to them.

I would like to finish this by having you say with me: ‘It is not my fault; it is not my fault; It is not my fault’.

Go well beautiful ones.

Let your spirit relax knowing this truth.

The Fault was never yours: it never belonged to you.

Time to let it go now.