I am constantly bearing the blame--or blaming myself--and apologizing and feeling very badly over things that are not my responsibility, under my control, or even that involve me at all. If I'm in the vicinity of something that has gone even the slightest bit off-kilter, I immediately feel like it's my fault. Not just accidental dick moves, either, like trying to change lanes on the road and failing to notice the car in your blind spot until the driver leans on their horn at you. Or even stuff like writing someone's name or number or something incorrectly when they try and give it to you. (For this I do have some excuse--I'm partially deaf owing to years of chronic ear infections that scarred my inner ears and damaged my hearing.) But even when I'm not even in the room at the time, I still feel guilty and usually apologize even though people ask me what the hell I'm apologizing for.
It should surprise no one to know that this is yet another side-effect of having really shitty parents.
My parents blamed me for lots of things. Sometimes I really did do something wrong and it wasn't an accident, for which I absolutely deserved to be scolded, but my parents just blew shit out of all proportion like they were getting paid for the intensity of their fury at me. It really was completely excessive. The first time I brought home a C in school my parents were absolutely livid. Yes, a C is kind of a disappointing grade, but a child getting a mediocre grade is not grounds for yelling, screaming, hitting, and calling them horrible names and telling them they're stupid and going to go nowhere in life. My mom yelled for hours and hours before making me go to piano lessons where I seriously contemplated drowning myself in the reservoir across the street. I was ten years old.
I was ripped up and belittled and yelled at for accidents or errors made from ignorance and even for stuff I didn't even do at all. One day my parents came home from an outing somewhere and discovered the kitchen smelled vaguely sulfer-y like when someone burns a match. Admittedly I had a few times played with matches (yes yes, bad me, I know) but that hadn't happened for years. I hadn't struck a match at all. I didn't even know where my parents were hiding the matches they didn't want me playing with. But I was still blamed and punished for it.
The first time I really remember distinctly being blamed for a misfortune that befell me that I was in no way responsible for causing was when I was probably about five years old.
Before I tell this story, I have to provide a small piece of background information. My dad is notorious for wandering away without telling people where he's going, and not realizing that this is actually kind of a problem. He would be out with all of us somewhere large and public and crowded--like a museum or theme park--and since he's not a big talker no one notices when he hasn't said anything for a bit. And then we'd look to ask him something and he'd have completely vanished and it takes hours to find him. He'd come home from work, leave his car in the garage, and then wander off into the neighbourhood for an hours-long talk with someone without even bothering to reassure anyone he was alive and hadn't been abducted by aliens or dragged into the forest by the Blair Witch (we lived right near Black Hills territory) or something. The worst incidence of this was a few years ago when he went to meet a potential computer-programming-tutoring client he met over Craigslist (he would advertise there as a tutor for people who wanted to learn new programming techniques) that he'd never met before and whose identity no one else was aware of. He was supposed to be there until 2pm. By 9pm he wasn't home, hadn't called, and his cell phone was off. (It's always off. He's horrible about remembering to do that.) We were in complete panic because we had no idea where he was supposed to be or if he'd gotten there at all and we started worrying about the worst possible scenarios--that he'd been in some kind of horrible accident or, worse, the internet stranger he'd agreed to meet had turned out to be someone dangerous. We called the police and nearby hospitals. He only came home at 10pm and was genuinely surprised that anyone was upset at all. He'd just lost track of time chatting with the client, what was wrong with all of us? He really honestly didn't believe that completely fucking disappearing was not an acceptable practice. But since my mom was so angry and upset over it he at least started remembering to keep his phone charged and on him when he went out.
Okay, so my dad has a really bad habit of wandering off without bothering to inform anyone, and occasionally this is a huge problem.
When I was five years old, a huge problem happened.
My parents had taken my then-toddler brother and me to a children's science museum. Whenever my parents took us out anywhere, my mom was always in charge of my brother and my dad was always in charge of me. (I actually really hated this, because even though I didn't really get on well with my mom I still didn't like the fact that she kept consistently rejecting me in favour of my brother. It was just one of many little things that happened over the course of my life that made me think I was somehow just not good enough.) For some reason, on that particular day it was decided that we were going to split up and my dad was going to take me into another exhibit without my mom and brother. I remember what it was--it was a series of rooms and displays and tunnels and all about different kinds of bugs. I hadn't acquired my fear of insects yet (mostly because the really big, nasty, fear-inspiring ones don't exist in northern England), so I was fairly interested in it. I also distinctly remember looking into a display case full of vibrantly coloured butterflies. There was no warning, no words, no attempt at gaining my attention--I just looked up and my dad wasn't there anymore.
To a five-year-old child, it's probably one of the scariest things that could happen--you're in an unfamiliar place and surrounded by strangers and you have no fucking idea where your parents are, and all of this in an age where cell phones and other means of constant and instant contact didn't exist. In school they taught us that if we found ourselves lost somewhere to stay put. But I was in a high-traffic area and people kept pushing past me or bumping me, so I stepped to the side. And I waited. And waited. I called out for my dad but he didn't answer and no one seemed to notice or care. After a while I started trying to look for them. I backtracked through familiar exhibits with no luck. By then I was in Full Panic Mode and crying. What if they left me behind? What if they didn't want me anymore and this was just a way of abandoning me? What if someone else tried to take me home?
I wasn't a kid given to histrionics or powerful emotions, but I was pretty damn scared and sobbing.
Eventually I did find them, though I don't remember how. I think I just wandered by chance and luck over to where they were talking with a museum employee, possibly about having lost a child because my mom was crying as well.
The relief at having found my mom and dad again didn't last very long because I was immediately, loudly, and publicly reprimanded and scolded for having wandered away and not stayed close to my dad like I was supposed to. I hadn't moved and I know I hadn't. To this day I am completely certain that I didn't just accidentally wander off in distraction. I really hated--and still hate--being by myself so I was the kind of kid who takes great pains to assure their parents are around.
Yet here was my dad, one of the people responsible for pretty much every aspect of my well-being and, you know, an adult to boot and he was blaming his five-year-old child for getting lost when he had to have known that he was the one who wandered off and left me there. No matter how hard I insisted, still tearfully, that I hadn't done anything wrong and I'd just looked up and he was gone, my mother didn't believe me and my dad of course wasn't about to admit it was his own thoughtlessness and carelessness that had caused the whole situation. I was blamed completely for getting lost. It was my burden to bear--and mine alone.
Being blamed for shit I didn't actually do was a fairly common occurrence in my life, though it didn't happen nearly as often as those nuclear overreactions did. In the end I just learned to treat myself as some kind of scapegoat. Since everything was always somehow my fault at home, everything became my fault everywhere. It's a habit I don't think I will ever shake. Even if I do manage not to outwardly and vocally take the blame and apologize for things I'm not at all responsible for, I don't think I'll ever get rid of this persistent feeling and sense of guilt that creeps slowly into my chest every time something happens.
I might be able to stop apologizing for accidents and non-issues, but most likely I will spend the rest of my life bearing and adding to an immense burden of shame I shouldn't even have at all.
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