Levels Of Responsibility
In understanding trauma, my therapist explains Levels of Responsibility.
This information helps me understand how as a child and young teenager, I am not responsible for a tragedy that resulted in a traumatic event for me.
How my feelings of guilt as a result of this traumatic event are not a real emotion. This guilt is my interpretation, my attempt to make sense of something horrible when I was powerless to stop it.
Levels of Responsibility goes something like this:
An unforeseeable tragedy. I am driving along a road. I am following all the expected rules – seatbelt is on, looking ahead, scanning as I drive, and driving the speeding limit. A child suddenly runs out in front of me. I slam on my brakes but hit the child.
There was no way I could predict this tragedy.
The matching emotion to this is grief and sadness.
I am responsible for the tragedy. I am driving along a road. I am speeding and distracted, texting while driving. A child runs out in front of me. I have time to stop, but don ‘t see the child because I am looking down at my phone. I hit the child.
There was no way I could predict this tragedy, but I played a role in the event because I was distracted, texting while driving and speeding.
The matching emotion to this is regret.
I cause the tragedy. I am driving along a road and see a child on the road. This is the child of a neighbour I hate. I hit the child on purpose to exact revenge on my neighbour.
I intended harm. I intended the outcome. It is my fault the child is dead.
The matching emotion to this is guilt (if I have a conscious).
CPT changes my incorrect emotional reasoning to blame myself for a tragedy by uncovering the actual facts of it that caused my traumatic response.
Who or what is responsible for the tragedy and my trauma response to it, is made clear by facts.
I eventually am freed of this guilt I’ve been carrying since the childhood tragedy.
This childhood guilt a toxic core belief I created about myself, a poisonous seed growing its roots into the very fabric of me.
It is only with the skilled experience of my CPT trained therapist that I am successfully able to do this.
It takes a lot of work and brings up a lot of repressed emotions.
It’s exhausting.
But worth it.
S, 🌻
