I am rather 'stuck' at this I think. I know that the abuses were not my fault. I know that some choices I have make, and things I have done, they is my fault. But I do not seem to be able to divide the blame, I just feel guilty of what negative things I have done, and take onto myself the guilt and blame for the rest of it. I want to be responsible for mine own actions, but really am quite tired of feeling to be guilty of the other things. I just can not seem to get them seperate in my head.

VN

VN,
I shared some of the same feelings as you do. What my T told me was that I have punished myself long enough. It's like keeping yourself in jail after you get out. You probably punished yourself longer than if you would have committed a crime and went to jail. I did some bad things in my life and I paid for them in more ways than one. I had to learn to forgive myself, accept that I made some mistakes and move on. We are not perfect, we make mistakes. There is no need to keep punishing ourselves for the past. I have made amends where I could but there I some I can never make and I have to learn to find peace with that. I was not a very good son when I was a teen and put my parents through hell. My dad died when I was 18 and I never got to tell him how I felt, and that I was sorry for causing him pain and letting him down.
It took me years to get over this but eventually I did.

How much punishment is enough VN?

You are facing a really tough issue.

CSA affects development like an atom bomb affects a landscape. It affects all functioning. Some scientists are even speculating it can weaken the immune system. So take it easy on yourself.

As far as the things you feel you 'own', once you take responsibility for something, there's no need to repeat the self rebuke, right?

My feeling is that your abuser probably didn't and never will own any of it, so why should you. For myself, it seems like if I think for a minute that any part of it was my fault I end up feeling like it was all my fault..but when I realize that my abuser probably isn't feeling any guilt I think 'why should I?'

VN,
When we are abused as kids before we reach the age where we can really understand right and wrong, that part of us that will soon develope and understand that is damaged. Deep down what is happening to us feels wrong but sometimes also feels really good and that blurs the line badly. As we reach the age where we start to feel guilty over "Wrongness" that we do, by then we have been conditioned to ignore that feeling and override it. Not having anyone to talk to or sort all this out in our head we give in and go with the flow so to speak. Later in life we begin to understand what was wrong about it and we are terribly conflicted because we have memories of overriding that feeling of wrongness and hence the guilt.

Bottom line....It was not your fault. You were conditioned or trained to ignore your feelings and submit to or initiate whatever. IT really was not your fault. Forgive yourself and go from here.

Take care VN

I feel more times than not that:

I AM IN JAIL FOR A CRIME I DIN'T COMMITT

Then at times the "acting out" I do/did as an adult, I blame it on the CSA. It doesn't make my "acting out" right, but it relieves the pressue/guilt/emotions I feel today.

Ken