The blame Shifters

                                                            The Blame Shifter

  I have been spending some time talking to other survivors. Those who are still unsure of their journey. Afraid to head out and full of self blame. It breaks my heart. To hear over and over their willingness to take the shame of the acts committed against them. That somehow, children are responsible for adult's behaviors. I remember so well, my mother's jealousy and accusatory stance. I never really bought into the fact that I was bad, or that it was my fault. I did believe that I was not lovable. But I never really thought that I controlled my father. Indeed I realized early on that I had no control. It can cause such a self loathing. This idea that we cause these wicked things. It is an absolution of the abuser and a condemnation of the victim. There by completing the victimization of the child. What a perfectly evil thing. To do life long harm to an innocent and to make them believe that they were the cause. That it was their fault and that the boogeyman is helpless in the child's presence. It is so exquisitely diabolical. A time bomb set to go off continually. Destroying that one small life, over and over again. What a rich and exacting poison. Slow acting and long reaching. Laying waste to all that is good and pure.

  You must cauterize the wound. Stop the seeping blackness that will creep into your entire life. Denial is no cure. Throwing up walls and barriers will not stop it's momentum. No, you must see it for what it is. Lies. Lies and slander. It matters not who the messenger is. Mother, father, priest or friend. The label that would be placed on you is not yours. Let it fall at your feet. Step beyond it and ask why? Why is this person telling me this thing? Usually, it is to divert their own guilt. To assign blame to another. Pointing fingers at the weakest. Taking the victim and making them the villain. So perfectly evil and self serving. It is so exactingly cruel. I have been repeating that rosary of faith.."you are not to blame, you are not bad, you are not alone..." There was a time that this would have made me angry. Indignant with the abuser who still found ways to inflict damage so long after they have last preyed upon their victim, the damage still echos on. My anger would be absolute. Someone must pay...I was a one woman boogeyman hunter. And there is still a place for that. There is still a need to bring them to bay.

  But the harder thing, the thing that takes the light right out of the world somedays, are the victims. The story tellers. The truth seekers. To look at the damage inflicted. To take stock of the sheer brutality of the fallout and to try and convince a bent and broken child, caught up in the body of an adult, that they are not to blame. They had no control. It wears me out sometimes. It is a simple truth and yet so hard for some to accept. I suppose it must be similar to when children blame themselves for their parent's divorce. Somehow a need to take responsibility for the failures of others. I struggle with finding the right words to help them see the truth. The correct technique to it. A blanket set of words that will illuminate the obvious flaw in their thinking. Many times I hear how adults blame children for another adult's behavior. I personally experienced this myself, so I should not be surprised and yet I still am.

  These pedophiles, these vampires who suck out all the joy of children and replace it with a seething venom. It colors everything. Age does nothing to dissipate it's potency. In fact it seems to distill itself with time. To ferment into a deadly mix of self loathing and loss of worth. No amount of words seem to help. There needs to be some kind of transfusion. A constant IV drip of love and acceptance. A continual dosing of esteem. A prescription, an antidote to the evil laying siege to a child's world. There must be a way. A solution to this life altering mindset of condemnation. It is as if the very fact that they were children was part of a crime. That they are such puppet masters. With the ability to cause grown adults to do the most heinous of acts upon them. This of course, defies logic. But emotion and logic can be strangers living under the same roof. Never acknowledging the other's existence. It is something left over from that tortuous childhood. This desperate clinging to a guilty verdict passed down upon oneself. A child's mind that believes in magic and make believe.

  A grown up would know better. If it were all laid out, they would come to the natural conclusion that the monster hunted the child. And not the reverse. It is as if, in a bid to feel something other than powerless, they take ownership of crimes against themselves. In a child like circular think, they refuse to relinquish responsibility for their own abuse. I have heard so much of this lately. "If I had not talked to him" "if I had not been naughty" "if I had not let myself be alone with him".....Victims who would rather paint themselves as villains, rather then admit that they were helpless to protect themselves. Helpless to stop their abuse. I wonder at it. Why? Is it so much better to believe that they harmed themselves then to realize they had no choice. It is a sad puzzle. I will continue working it....picking up one piece and then another...trying to find the right combination that will help others see the shame shifters for what they are, soul stealers. Preying on the innocent.