Angry at Myself

When the anger is real, but pointed in the wrong direction.

Anger can be part of healing.

But sometimes the person we are angriest with is ourselves.

I am angry at myself.

I am angry at the weakness I displayed.

I am angry about what I allowed.

I am angry about what my children experienced.

I am angry that I chose the wrong person.

I am angry that I stayed, even when part of me knew something was terribly wrong.

For women who have experienced abuse, these thoughts can be difficult to admit. There can be tremendous anger when you finally begin to see clearly what you were living through. Things that once seemed confusing suddenly make sense. Behaviors you explained away become recognizable. Memories return with a different meaning.

And with that clarity can come a painful question:

Why did I let this happen?

Then other people’s words can make the anger even worse.

“Why didn’t you leave?”

“Why did you go back?”

“Why did you put up with it?”

“Why did you stay so long?”

Sometimes those questions are asked casually.

Sometimes they are disguised as concern. But to a woman who is already carrying enormous regret, they can sound like confirmation of what she has been telling herself:

You should have known better.

You should have been stronger.

You should have left.

As though staying was the easy choice.

As though she simply looked at two doors marked STAY and LEAVE, considered her options, and comfortably chose the one that kept her in harm’s way.

Abuse is rarely that simple.

There may have been fear. Financial concerns. Children. Faith. Isolation. Threats. Hope that things would change. Shame. Love. Confusion. Dependency. Pressure from family or community. Fear of what would happen if she left. Or perhaps years of being told that she was the problem had changed what she believed about herself.

Sometimes she left and went back.

Sometimes she knew something was wrong but did not yet have language for what she was experiencing.

Sometimes she was surviving one day at a time and could not see far enough beyond the crisis to imagine another life.

None of that means the anger isn’t real.

Feel it.

You are allowed to be angry about the years you lost.

You are allowed to grieve decisions you wish you had made differently.

You are allowed to wish you had recognized things sooner.

You are allowed to hurt over what your children experienced.

You are allowed to look back and say, I wish I had left.

Do not let anyone dismiss those feelings.

But while you are feeling them, remember something important:

You were the person being abused.

The responsibility for abuse belongs to the person who chose to abuse.

You can acknowledge choices you would make differently today without accepting responsibility for another person’s cruelty.

You can regret staying without deciding that staying caused the abuse.

You can wish you had protected yourself differently without concluding that you deserved what happened.

You can grieve what your children experienced while recognizing that the person who created the harmful environment bears responsibility for creating it.

There is a difference between reflection and self-punishment.

Reflection says, Now that I know more, there are things I would do differently.

Self-punishment says, What happened was my fault.

Those are not the same thing.

Healing may require holding two truths at once:

I wish I had made different choices.

And:

I did not deserve to be abused.

Your anger does not have to disappear overnight. Perhaps it shouldn’t. Anger can tell us that something mattered. That a boundary was violated. That something precious was harmed. That what happened was not okay.

But anger does not have to become a life sentence against yourself.

Eventually, perhaps the question can begin to change.

Instead of only asking:

Why did I stay?

You might begin asking:

What made leaving so difficult?

Instead of:

How could I have allowed this?

Perhaps:

What was happening to me that made this feel impossible to escape?

Instead of:

Why wasn’t I stronger?

Perhaps:

How did I survive long enough to finally get here?

If this is your story, we hear you.

Be angry.

Grieve.

Tell the truth about what you wish had been different.

But do not take the responsibility that belongs to the person who harmed you and add it to everything you are already carrying.

Your anger is understandable.

It may simply be pointed at the wrong person.