It's your fault this happened

It's hard not to blame the victim sometimes. I know I do it. It can be so hard to believe that what's going on isn't someone's fault, so we just decide that it is because it's easier than dealing with reality.

Usually we come up with language that tries to make it look like we're being sympathetic, though. Stuff like "if you prayed, God would fix it" is blaming the victim. It's saying that they're not praying enough, or worse, that God doesn't like them for some reason. "It's a lesson you must have needed to learn" or "it's bad karma you had to work out" is similarly blaming the person for what happened. Both of those imply that there was a "good reason" for it to happen and that it's the right thing to have happened.

But doing this is horribly, horribly wrong. When we blame the victim we're saying we can't help reality. That "you should have known better" or "you should have been more careful." It's a refusal of responsiblity and a refusal to admit that we are interconnected.

When we say it's something we can't do anything about, we're saying that the Universe can't be improved. When we blame the victim, we're saying the same thing. We can't improve the Universe because it's the victim's problem.

It's easy to do. But that doesn't mean it's not a lie.

Questions:
Where do I blame victims in my life? I try pretty hard to avoid it, but I don't always succeed. My problem is usually looking at parents and thinking that "they" should have done better than they're doing. And I do this knowing full well how hard parenting is. I blame myself for being a doormat in the middle of the night when my son wakes up screaming and I nurse him instead of encouraging him to sleep through the night. It's hard not to, especially when I do know it's going to make me cranky and that I could make him sleep.

What do I get out of blaming the victim? Control, in a way. If I "know better" but don't actually try to do something, I can hold out the belief that I can fix it. I don't need to deal with the possibility of failure if I don't actually do it. And I don't have to deal with the fact that I'm talking about a separate person. I can't control my son. It's entirely possible nothing I do will get me the result I want. (or it will be something I'd never think of). He's not a part of me. He's himself. When I blame me for what's happening, I deny that individuality to a point.

What needs to change so I stop blaming victims? It's an ongoing process, I think. There's not a once-and-done way of getting done with that attitude. Instead, you do it one piece at a time in each aspect. I've pretty much stopped blaming people for being "dumb" for not thinking the same way I do, so there's progress. And I'm sure there's something I do that I don't even think of. It's a constant process of self-improvement.

But it needs to be done.