False Beliefs - Part 2 - There Must Be Something Wrong With Me!

Last time, I wrote about the first false belief that results from trauma, bad experiences or abuse. Today, we take on #2 ...

There Must Be Something Wrong With Me

This particular false belief strikes at the heart of one of the hardest questions we grapple with: Why me? We so much want to understand why it is that things happen to us and not the person sitting next to us in the coffee shop. We think, "Surely, there’s something engrained about who I am that caused this to happen to me."

One of the ways we attempt to make sense of trauma, bad experiences, or abuse is by trying to uncover what it is about who we are that caused it to happened. For example, I was an extremely cuddly little girl. To this day, one of my favorite memories is of time spent with my father when I’d crawl up on to his lap and “curl” and comb his hair. Physical closeness came naturally to me; I hugged everyone!

When I began trying to understand the abuse I experienced, I decided that my being physically affectionate towards my grandfather must have given him the go ahead to abuse me. So, I deemed this part of me to be at fault – and so withdrew and essentially experienced physical touching only in a very superficial way and withheld any real cuddling or intimate touching.

As a result of whatever we’ve come to believe about what is wrong with us, we then think or behave in very particular ways. This false belief is extremely heartbreaking to me, because we lose pieces of who we are in an effort to suppress the parts of ourselves that we hold responsible for causing the experience, hoping to prevent future hurts from happening.

Now, it’s true that there may be qualities and characteristics about who we are that inform the sorts of experiences we will have. If you are stingy and uncaring, that relationship ending shouldn’t be such a shocker! This isn’t what I’m talking about. I’m referring to those experiences where we did the best we could, and, still, things didn’t turn out the way we had hoped.

It’s time to take back who you are. To recognize and understand that there is nothing about who you are that could’ve caused those types of experiences to occur.

and … in case you’re curious … I’m an amazing cuddler these days!

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