HERR A.Some things are not your fault.
People lie to you. Disappoint you. Treat you unfairly. Cross boundaries. Make decisions whose consequences you have to live with.
It happens. And sometimes it leaves damn deep marks.
But sooner or later a question comes that you cannot avoid: How much longer will you give others power over where your life goes next?
There is a difference between being a victim of a situation and remaining in the victim role. That is exactly what we should talk about.
When it is always someone else's fault
Your partner. Your ex. Your parents. Your boss. Your colleagues. Society. Circumstances.
Of course others may be responsible for what happened. But if the explanation for your life today lies entirely in other people's actions, a problem arises: apparently only they can change your situation too.
You wait. For insight. For understanding. For an apology. For justice. For someone finally to recognise what they did to you.
While you wait, you give power over your life to the very people you want to be independent of.
Responsibility is not blame
People often confuse the two. Taking responsibility does not mean: “It is my own fault.”
If someone lies to you, the lie is their responsibility. If someone crosses your boundaries, that is their behaviour. If someone treats you disrespectfully, you do not have to find a justification for it.
But after that, your part begins. What do you do now?
Do you stay? Leave? Raise it? Set a boundary? Say No? Or hope for the twentieth time that someone will change after showing you nineteen times that they will not?
That is not about blame. It is about taking responsibility for yourself.
The uncomfortable truth
The victim role can be convenient. Not pleasant. Convenient. There is a difference.
As long as others are responsible, I do not have to question myself. I do not have to make a decision or draw consequences. I can explain why something cannot work. Why I cannot. Why I had to act as I did. Why others would have to change something first.
And sometimes we even have damn good reasons. Only: A good reason does not change a life by itself.
At some point you have to decide whether to keep using your past as an explanation or as a lifelong justification.
Look at your own part
Now it gets uncomfortable. And this is exactly where self-reflection begins.
Not: “What did I do wrong?” But: “What part of this is within my influence?”
Where did I stay silent too long? Where did I say Yes and mean No? Where did I fail to take my own boundaries seriously? Where did I see warning signs and ignore them? Where am I repeating the same patterns? Where do I expect something from others that I do not clearly express myself? And where might I have stopped fighting for a solution and started fighting only to be right?
These are not pleasant questions. But self-knowledge is not meant to be pleasant. It is meant to be honest.
You do not always need an apology
I had to learn this too: Not everyone will eventually understand what their behaviour caused in you.
Some will keep their view. Some will justify themselves. Some will stay silent. And some will tell a completely different story from yours.
You can spend half your life fighting that. Or at some point you can say: Screw it.
Not because it did not matter. Not because it did not hurt. Not because the other person is suddenly right. But because you have understood: I do not need your understanding to find my peace.
Boundaries do not need permission
You may say No. Take distance. End a conversation. Change your mind. Disappoint people. And stop explaining yourself all the time.
A boundary does not become valid because the other person likes it. It becomes valid when you take it seriously.
The same applies to other people's boundaries. Taking responsibility does not work in only one direction. Anyone demanding respect for their own boundaries must also be willing to respect others'. Otherwise, self-determination quickly becomes self-righteousness.
Perhaps that is freedom
You cannot control what others say about you. You cannot control whether someone understands you. You cannot force someone to take responsibility. And you cannot change the past afterwards.
But you can decide what you do with it today. Perhaps that is why at some point we must stop asking “Who is to blame?” and start asking: “What is up to me now?”
What can I change? What will I no longer accept? Where must I look more closely at myself? Which boundary must I draw? And what step will I take now?
Freedom may not begin when everyone else finally takes responsibility. It may begin when you stop making your own responsibility depend on them.
You are not responsible for everything that happens to you. But you are responsible for what you make of it.
And sometimes “Screw it!” does not mean indifference. It means: I let go of what I cannot control and take responsibility for what I can.
Herr A. — Author