Self Blame

“Jan. 27, 2020 — I always feel that sometime writing in my journal I am going to come to some ultimate Thought, the Master Thought that will eliminate all self-second-guessing and anxiety, all sense of something hanging over my head.”

This year, sometime this month (May 2021) in fact, I was finally able to name the feeling of something hanging over my head, and it is self blame. The list came down on me in a cascade of the most recent things I blamed myself for:

For looking older
For drinking some wine and then waking up during the night
For waking up during the night without having drank wine, just because of my over-50 hormones
For not being young
For not wanting to color my hair; for not having nice-looking hair
For no longer seeking out really high-intensity exercise
For having weeds in the yard
For not knowing how to draw attention to my writing
For not practicing guitar enough (I blamed myself for that in advance, as soon as I signed up for lessons)
For purchasing garden-watering timers that might not work well with our type of outdoor faucet

There are a lot more. Some of the blames I assign myself involve my relationships with Tom and with my friends, even though these are people who love or like me and aren’t upset with me. Some of my blames involve my worries about current events (and are often related to blaming myself for being older).

As soon as I became cognizant of blaming, I felt better. I noticed that almost none of these circumstances need to involve any blame at all. The only one that arguably does may be my purchase of watering timers that will be of very limited use, and that was a mistake I made because I didn’t know certain details about our outdoor faucet. Does a mistake need to have blame assigned? Maybe not. Learning from a mistake is different from taking on a burden of blame and its rhyming shadow of shame.

Is there blame in (for example) choosing not to color my hair, even though I might look younger — at a distant glance, anyway — if I colored it? No. I have made plenty of other personal choices in areas where most women choose differently and I don’t blame myself. I have never blamed myself for for choosing not to change my last name upon marriage nor for deciding not to have children, even though those affect other people, and coloring my hair doesn’t. There’s no logic to self-blame.

The problem is the habit of assigning blame to things that shouldn’t have blame attached. Blame usually isn’t useful. It’s better to describe behavior in objective, non-judging terms rather than labeling and blaming. “I wish he would apply to colleges, and he isn’t, and I don’t know why and it worries me. How can I help him see the importance of this?” is more useful than he’s lazy, or he’s stubborn, or he’s procrastinating. Describing the behavior and your own feelings about it are better, and should lead to curiosity rather than blame.

So how do I describe my own circumstances to avoid blaming myself? Luckily, it’s easier to stop blaming myself than to stop someone else from blaming me (not that anyone is). “I wish I didn’t look old, but my age is out of my control,” is one way to stop blaming myself. “Weeds grow in every yard and it can’t be prevented — and I’m only willing to spend a certain amount of time weeding,” is another. Saying those things makes it easy for me to find positives immediately: I’m lucky to be alive and inspired; I do have nice flowers that I love.

I’m fortunate not to have people in my life who like to assign blame. So, even at this late date in life, maybe I can break the habit of carrying around a burden of blame. It can be like a lead balloon somehow floating above me, blocking out the sunlight. It’s nicer to live without that shadow over me.