Why Me?

understanding why

Why Me?

One of the biggest questions I used to ask myself about my trauma was, “Why me?” I just couldn’t understand why this had happened to me, especially because I had three perpetrators. At one point, I wondered if I had hurt so many people in a previous life that my trauma was payment for this karmic debt.

I eventually realized that “Why?” is not a helpful question. Humans have free will, and many use that free will to do the most heinous things to each other. I cannot begin to wrap my mind around the idea of why they are capable of doing such sick things to each other. After researching sexual trauma, I learned that victims tend to sexually abuse others if their own trauma has not healed. It’s a painful vicious cycle. This is not a justification of sexual abuse, but simply an explanation for some of its origin.

Focusing on the “Why?” did not help or heal me. On the contrary, obsessing over the “Why?” why kept me stuck in the victim mindset for over two decades. The story below, about chasing an arsonist, is from a book called Taming the Tiger Within by Thich Nhat Hanh. This story is a great analogy for the victim mindset that used to consume me.

If your house is on fire, the most urgent thing to do is to go back and try to put out the fire, not to run after the person you believe to be the arsonist. If you run after the person you suspect has burned your house, your house will burn down while you are chasing him or her. That is not wise. You must go back and put out the fire. So when you are angry, if you continue to interact with or argue with the other person, if you try to punish her, you are acting exactly like someone who runs after the arsonist while everything goes up in flames.

When I had obsessive angry thoughts about the perpetrators, I was not giving myself the space to heal. This was like chasing the alleged arsonist…I was letting myself burn down instead of tending to my pain. When the pain of the chase was too much, and the burns became excruciating, it was time to heal! I had to accept that the trauma happened. This is not to say that I justified it. Nor does it mean that I forgave anyone right away. I simply mean that I accepted that I could not change my past. I could only work on my healing to create a brighter future.

It is natural to wonder why we experienced this horrific trauma. It’s normal to feel angry at the perpetrators, because they did something atrocious to us. It is common to experience a victim mindset, because we were victims. The key to remember is that the anger and victim mindset are not permanent fixtures in our lives. When we are ready, we begin the healing process. How long does it take to be ready? Each person decides for themselves when the time is right, and how much time is needed.