Self-blame
Self-blame is the feeling that something going wrong was your fault, and often more of it than was yours. The project failed, the kids are fighting, a friend is upset, and the first thought is that it's on you.
- On the wheel: Ashamed, then guilty, then to blame
- Nearby: Remorseful, sorry, guilty
- Often sounds like: "If I had just..."
- Often points to: A wish for control over something that was partly out of your hands
The replay with one detail changed
If I had left five minutes earlier. If I had noticed sooner. If I were a better parent.
Every version of the replay ends the same way, with you as the cause.
"Our team missed the launch date. Three people were out sick and the vendor shipped late, but all I could think was that I should have planned for it."
"I didn't check" or "I'm careless"
Psychologist Ronnie Janoff-Bulman drew a line between two kinds of self-blame.1
| Kind | Blames | Sounds like |
|---|---|---|
| Behavioral | A specific action, which could be different next time | "I didn't double-check the order." |
| Characterological | Your character, which feels fixed | "I'm careless. I always ruin things." |
Her work tied blaming your character to depression, while blaming a specific action kept open the sense that the future could go differently.1 Character blame turns one event into a verdict on you.
In depression these feelings are common. More than 80 percent of 132 people who had recovered from major depression had felt self-blaming emotions during their worst episode, and self-disgust and self-contempt were even more common than guilt.2
After something terrible happened to you
People who go through a frightening or violent event commonly search hard for what they could have done differently. The National Center for PTSD notes that in trying to make sense of a traumatic event, you may blame yourself, and that most of the time that guilt, shame or self-blame isn't justified.3
If someone hurt you, the blame belongs to the person who did it, even if you froze, stayed or never told anyone.
The frozen page explains why freezing happens.
Cutting the pie
- Draw a responsibility pie. List everything that contributed: other people, timing, luck, systems, and you. Give each a slice of a circle, and put your slice in last. Mind Over Mood, a widely used CBT workbook, includes this step for guilt and shame.4
- Rewrite character blame as action blame. "I'm careless" becomes "I didn't double-check the order." The second one has a next step.1
- Ask what you knew then. Hindsight adds facts you didn't have, so judge the choice by what you knew at the time.
- Repair your slice. If part of it was yours, own that part and fix what you can (the sorry page walks through it). Then let the other slices go.
- Check for a pattern. Blaming yourself for most things that go wrong is a thinking pattern called personalization, and you can work on it directly.
What part was yours, and what part was not? Draw a circle, list everyone and everything that played a role, and give each a slice. Add yours last.
Answer this with JoyQuestions people ask about self-blame
Is self-blame a trauma response?
It's a common one, and the National Center for PTSD lists it among the common reactions after trauma.3 If self-blame after a traumatic event is lasting or intense, a trauma-informed therapist can help.
What is self-blame called in psychology?
Psychologists use the term self-blame, and many split it into behavioral and characterological kinds, following Ronnie Janoff-Bulman.1 In CBT, the habit of taking too much responsibility for events is called personalization.
Related
- Guilt: feeling bad about something you did.
- Shame: when the blame is about who you are.
- Personalization: the thinking pattern behind "it's all on me."