Psychoeducation · Trauma responses
How did I end up being the one who always apologized?
You might think…
“I set them off.”
“Somehow I was the bad one again.”
A closer look
When you speak up about being abused, the person who hurt you may deny what happened, attack you for bringing it up, and turn things around so they seem like the victim. This pattern is called DARVO: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.
By the end of the argument, you may be defending your tone, your tears, or your anger, while what they did gets pushed aside.
What matters
Maybe you tried to tell them how they were hurting you. Instead of taking responsibility, they started criticizing how you acted. They questioned the way you spoke to them, why you cried, or why you got angry. In the end, you were the one explaining yourself, and what they'd done was barely mentioned.
After something like that, it can be hard not to blame yourself. If you keep hearing that you're the one who hurt them, you may even start wondering whether you caused the whole thing.
But apologizing didn't make you responsible for their abuse. Your apology didn't erase what they did, and it didn't change who was hurting whom.
A reminder
Apologizing didn't make me responsible for their abuse.
They blamed me, but they're still responsible for what they did to me.
Sources and research (3)
- Harsey & Freyd (2020) · Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender (DARVO): What Is the Influence on Perceived Perpetrator and Victim Credibility?
- WHO (2014) · Health Care for Women Subjected to Intimate Partner Violence or Sexual Violence: A Clinical Handbook
- Harsey, S. J., Zurbriggen, E. L. & Freyd, J. J. (2017) · Perpetrator Responses to Victim Confrontation: DARVO and Victim Self-Blame