This blog post was originally published by GoodTherapy.org.
People who are depressed due to childhood trauma often tell me they don’t want to blame their parents; they think it’s healthier to forgive them. They may even tell me their spiritual practice tells them to forgive, and that they can’t heal until they forgive everyone, especially their abusers. This is a very confusing issue.
One of the problems I keep running into is this: Children naturally prefer to blame themselves for whatever feels bad in their relationships with their parents, and without help take self-blame into adulthood. That self-blame becomes shame, and shame gets expressed as self-condemnation, negative self-talk, beating up on oneself, and low self-esteem, among other things. All of that interferes with potentially every aspect of one’s life—relationships, work, friendships, creative expression, parenting, happiness, resourcefulness, peace, resilience, handling life’s challenges without dependence on something harmful, etc. Read more
