I know all there is to know about he blaming game…
I was the victim! Everything that went wrong in my life was someone else’s fault. My mother, my father, God, the vodou lwa, the teacher, my ex, my boss, white people, straights; I could go on.
What I was failing to realize that there was so much in my life that I volunteered for; they didn’t just happen to me. I put my in situations that caused me harm and may have harmed others. All the while, blaming my problems on the sins of my father. Or believing that my mother did not do her best in raising me. Or that God was punishing me for some past life. Or I didn’t get the job because the interviewer is a bigot. The more I stayed in this negative thinking, the more projected onto others, the more I used. I wasn’t the problem, you all were.
My parents or God didn’t put me in psych-ward. I had a psychotic break while using and ended up there. I didn’t get the job because maybe I lied on my resume or simply didn’t qualify. My HIV+ is not a punishment from God, I had sex and I contracted HIV from an encounter.
Sure, there are some things that I had no control over. Beatings, verbal abuse, being bullied as a kid, and being raped as an adult. Those experiences play are part in who I am and who I am not today. For too long I allowed those events to reside in the present. Creating self-imposed limitations in my life based on my past kept me stuck and unable to grow and move forward. Keyword is self-imposed. Even when I blamed others for they’ve done it was almost like these acts were being committed now.
In recovery, I am learning to not get stuck in the past; I don’t live there anymore. I get to pause to see what role I play in the events that shape my life today and how my actions affect others. It’s a hard pattern to break after so many years of blaming everyone else for my issues but staying clean gives me the opportunity keep the focus on the man in the mirror - one day at a time