If you didn’t leave or tell someone when you were experiencing trauma, you may be falling into the trap many survivors fall into after a trauma: victim-blaming. A lot of onlookers do this, as well. When the victim is you, victim-blaming often looks like self-blame. In your case, you might be trying to make sense out of everything. Blaming yourself can sometimes feel easier than accepting that another person chose to hurt you or failed to protect you.
There are some other possible reasons you never tried to leave or tell someone:
- You were too young. You couldn’t have gone far and you couldn’t have protected yourself. You were trapped.
- You told people who didn’t believe you.
- You were threatened that if you told or tried to leave something even worse would happen to you or to someone you loved.
- You didn’t realize that kids shouldn’t be experiencing those events. If it was normal in your family or your community, it likely wouldn’t occur to you to try to leave or tell others.
- The people hurting you were also the people responsible for caring for you. Children depend on caregivers for food, shelter, protection, and emotional connection. Leaving or reporting them may not have felt possible.
- You froze. Trauma responses are not conscious choices. Some people fight or flee, but others become quiet, compliant, or unable to act when overwhelmed.
This page is part of the What Counts as Trauma? section of the CommuniDID site, which explains how trauma can occur without obvious violence and why survivors often doubt or normalize what happened to them.
Explore more:
- Questions about What Counts as Trauma?
- Why Trauma Survivors Minimize What Happened
- Common Ways Trauma Survivors Minimize What Happened
- The guide What Counts as Abuse? helps readers evaluate past experiences and understand why confusion about abuse is common.
- What Counts As Trauma?
- Why Do I Blame Myself for what Happened?
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