None of It Was Your Fault (Even When They Said It Was)
You’re eight years old. Your mum is screaming. Face red. Veins bulging. Spit flying.
You don’t remember what you did. Spilled something? Spoke too loud? Looked at her wrong?
It doesn’t matter. The rage is enormous. Fills the room. Fills you with terror.
“You make me so angry!” she screams. “Why do you always do this? Why can’t you just behave?”
You’re small. Frozen. Trying not to cry because crying makes it worse.
“I work so hard for you! I put a roof over your head! Food on the table! And this is how you repay me?”
You whisper: “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry isn’t good enough! You need to do better! You’re the reason I’m stressed! You’re the reason I can’t cope!”
You believe her. Of course you believe her. You’re eight. She’s the adult. She must be right.
If you make her angry, it must be your fault. If you could just be better—quieter, more obedient, less difficult…. she wouldn’t have to yell. Wouldn’t have to hit. Wouldn’t have to punish.
Thousands of children grew up this way…. believing rage meant love and compliance meant safety.
You carry that belief into adulthood. Twenty years later. Thirty years later. Forty years later.
I was difficult. I made them angry. I deserved it.
But you didn’t. You were a child. Children don’t cause abuse. Adults choose abuse.
None of it was your fault. Not the yelling. Not the hitting. Not the cruelty. Not the neglect. Not the emotional warfare.
None of it.
Even when they said it was. Even when they convinced you. Even when you still, decades later, believe them.
It wasn’t your fault.
What Childhood Abuse Actually Is
A woman sat in my practice. Forty-two years old. Successful career. Stable life.
“I don’t know if what I experienced counts as abuse,” she said. Hesitant. Uncertain.
I asked her to describe her childhood.
“My dad never hit me,” she started. “Not really. I mean, he’d slap me sometimes. Or grab my arm too hard. But it wasn’t like… proper abuse.”
She paused.
“He yelled a lot. Called me names. Stupid. Useless. Worthless. Said I’d never amount to anything. That I was the reason he drank. That my mum left because of me.”
She looked at me, eyes searching.
“But that’s not abuse, right? That’s just… parenting. Discipline. He was stressed. Working hard. I was probably difficult.”
I asked: “Did it hurt you?”
She nodded. Started crying.
“Then it was abuse.”
Abuse isn’t just the extreme cases. Not just the horror stories. Not just the ones that leave visible marks.
Abuse is:
Physical: Hitting. Slapping. Pushing. Grabbing. Shaking. Throwing things. Anything that hurts the body. Even “just once.” Even “not that hard.”
Emotional: Yelling. Name-calling. Belittling. Humiliating. Threatening. Manipulating. Gaslighting. Making you feel worthless. Making you feel unsafe. Making you feel like you’re the problem.
Neglect: Not feeding you properly. Not providing medical care. Not keeping you safe. Not giving affection. Not paying attention. Not being emotionally available. Absence can wound as deeply as presence.
Sexual: Any sexualised behaviour toward a child. Any boundary violation. Any inappropriate touch. Any exposure to sexual content. This is never, ever the child’s fault.
If it hurt you, it was real. You’re not exaggerating. You’re not too sensitive. You’re not making it up.
A man told me about his childhood. His father worked long hours. Came home exhausted. Angry.
“He’d snap at me for small things,” the man said. “Leaving my shoes out. Being too loud. Asking questions. He’d tell me to shut up. Call me annoying. Sometimes he’d grab me. Shake me. Tell me I was giving him a headache.”
He paused.
“But he was just tired, you know? He was working hard. Providing for us. I should have been quieter. More considerate.”
I asked: “Did other tired parents in your neighbourhood treat their children that way?”
He thought about it. Shook his head slowly.
“No. My friends’ dads were tired too. But they didn’t… they were kind. Patient. Even when stressed.”
His face changed. Realisation.
“So it wasn’t just stress. It was a choice. He chose to take it out on me.”
The Excuses They Give (And Why They Don’t Hold Up)
“I’m stressed.” / “I’m tired.”
Yes. Parenting is stressful. Exhausting. Work is hard. Life is overwhelming.
But stress and exhaustion don’t justify harm. Millions of depleted parents don’t hurt their children. They find other ways to cope. They regulate themselves. They take responsibility for their own emotions. They ask for help. They take breaks. They don’t terrorise their children because they’re overwhelmed.
Your parent’s stress was real. Their choice to take it out on you was abuse.
“I work hard to provide for you.”
Providing food and shelter is the baseline. The legal requirement. The bare minimum.
It doesn’t buy the right to hurt you. It doesn’t excuse mercilessness. You don’t owe gratitude for being fed while being destroyed emotionally.
“You’re so difficult.”
Children can be challenging. That’s normal. That’s development. That’s childhood.
Challenging behaviour doesn’t cause abuse. Abuse is the adult’s response to normal child behaviour. The adult chooses violence. Chooses cruelty. Chooses to make the child responsible for the adult’s inability to cope.
You weren’t difficult. You were a child. They were abusive.
“I had it worse.”
Maybe they did. Maybe their childhood was horrific.
That doesn’t justify what they did to you. Trauma doesn’t excuse trauma. Pain doesn’t excuse causing pain.
They had a responsibility to heal themselves. To break the cycle. To not pass their damage onto you.
They didn’t. That’s on them. Not you.
A woman described her mother’s favourite line: “I’m doing my best!”
“She’d say it after screaming at me. After hitting me. After telling me I ruined her life,” the woman told me.
“And I’d feel guilty. Like I was being ungrateful. Like I should appreciate that she was trying.”
She paused.
“But her ‘best’ was still abuse. Her ‘best’ still hurt me. Her ‘best’ still left me with PTSD.”
She looked at me, eyes hard.
“Doing your best doesn’t mean anything if your best is harming a child.”
This Is Common (And That’s Horrifying)
You might think: surely my experience was rare. Surely most families aren’t like this.
But they are. Disturbingly common.
In Australia, 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men experienced physical or sexual abuse before age 15. Those are just the reported cases. The ones people felt safe enough to name.
Numbers don’t feel human until you realise each one is a child who thought it was their fault.
Emotional abuse? Neglect? Those numbers are likely much higher. But we don’t count those. Don’t report those. Don’t acknowledge those.
This isn’t isolated incidents. This is societal. Systemic. Generational.
Your family wasn’t uniquely broken. They were participating in a pattern of harm that’s been normalised, minimised, and excused for generations.
I sat with a man in his fifties. He’d never told anyone about his childhood. Not his wife. Not his children. No one.
“I thought I was the only one,” he said. “I thought my family was the only one that was like that.”
Then he joined a survivor group. Heard other people’s stories.
“Everyone had a version of it,” he said, voice cracking. “Different details. Same pain. Same shame. Same silence.”
He looked at me.
“How is this so common and no one talks about it?”
Because we’re taught not to. Because family privacy is sacred. Because children are told to be grateful. To not complain. To protect their parents’ reputations.
Because acknowledging how widespread childhood abuse is would require society to do something about it.
So we stay silent. And the cycle continues.
The Gaslighting: “You’re Remembering It Wrong”
You finally tell someone. A friend. A partner. A therapist.
You describe your childhood. The yelling. The violence. The fear.
Your parent finds out. Or you confront them directly.
Their response: “That’s not how it happened. You’re exaggerating. You’re too sensitive. You’re remembering it wrong.”
A woman told me about confronting her mother. Years of emotional abuse. Cruelty. Manipulation.
“I laid it out,” she said. “Specific examples. Specific incidents. Things she said. Things she did.”
Her mother’s response: “I never said that. You’re making this up. You were a difficult child and I did my best.”
The woman looked at me, devastated.
“She made me doubt myself. Made me think maybe I am too sensitive. Maybe I am exaggerating. Maybe it wasn’t that bad.”
She paused.
“But then I talked to my sister. My sister remembers it too. Exactly the way I do. It happened. It was real.”
If your body remembers it, it was real.
If it affected you, it mattered.
If it hurt you, it counts.
You don’t need anyone else’s validation. You don’t need your parent to admit it. You don’t need your siblings to confirm it.
You know what happened. Your body knows. Your nervous system knows.
Trust that. Even when everyone else denies it.
You Were a Child. You Had No Power
This is crucial: Children cannot cause abuse.
Children can be loud. Messy. Defiant. Emotional. Demanding. Difficult.
That’s normal. That’s childhood. That’s development.
None of that justifies abuse. None of that causes abuse.
Abuse is the adult’s choice. The adult’s failure. The adult’s responsibility.
A man told me he spent decades believing he deserved the beatings. Because he was “bad.” Because he “didn’t listen.” Because he “made his father angry.”
“I was seven,” he said finally. “Seven years old. How could I have been responsible for an adult man’s violence?”
He looked at me.
“I couldn’t. I was a child. He was the adult. He had all the power. I had none.”
That realisation changed everything for him.
You were small. Dependent. Powerless. You couldn’t leave. Couldn’t fight back. Couldn’t protect yourself.
They were adults. With power. With choices. With responsibility.
They chose abuse. That’s on them.
You were just trying to survive. That’s all children do. Survive.
You did nothing wrong. You were never the problem.
They were.
When Your Abuse Doesn’t Look Like the “Bad” Cases
You hear stories. Read articles. Watch documentaries. About extreme abuse. Horror stories. Children locked in basements. Starved. Tortured.
You think: well, mine wasn’t that bad. At least I wasn’t locked up. At least I had food. At least they didn’t…
This comparison invalidates your pain. Minimises your experience. Keeps you silent.
A woman told me: “I had a roof over my head. I was fed. I went to school. My parents didn’t lock me in closets or burn me with cigarettes.”
She paused.
“But my mother told me daily that I was worthless. That I ruined her life. That she wished I’d never been born. She’d give me the silent treatment for days. Weeks. I’d beg her to talk to me. She’d ignore me completely.”
Her voice cracked.
“That wasn’t ‘bad enough’ to count as abuse, right? Because I wasn’t starving. Because there were no broken bones.”
She looked at me.
“But it destroyed me. I’m forty-three and I still hear her voice telling me I’m worthless. I still panic when people go quiet. I still believe I ruin everything I touch.”
I told her: “It counts. It was abuse. It hurt you. That makes it real.”
She cried. Relief. Finally someone said it counted.
There’s no hierarchy of trauma. No threshold you have to meet. No level of severity required to call it abuse.
If it hurt you, it was real. If it affected you, it mattered. If you’re still carrying it, it counts.
Stop comparing. Stop minimising. Stop waiting for permission to call it what it was.
It was abuse. You were hurt. You deserved better.
Why You’re Not Making It Up
Your nervous system doesn’t lie. It can’t.
If you flinch at raised voices, something taught you that raised voices mean danger.
If you freeze when people are angry, something taught you that anger leads to harm.
If you apologise constantly, something taught you that existing causes problems.
If you scan rooms for exits, something taught you that you might need to escape.
Your body is telling the truth. Even when your mind doubts. Even when others deny.
A man described this: “I couldn’t remember specific incidents. My childhood is mostly blank. But my body remembers everything.”
He explained: loud noises make him flinch. Sudden movements make him duck. Anger makes him freeze. Authority figures make him panic.
“I don’t have clear memories. But my nervous system does. And it’s not lying.”
You’re not making it up. You’re not exaggerating. You’re not too sensitive.
You’re traumatised. That’s different.
Trauma lives in the body. In reactions. In triggers. In the nervous system’s desperate attempt to protect you from threats that look like old threats.
You’re not broken. You’re injured. There’s a difference.
The Validation You’ve Been Waiting For
You’ve been waiting for someone to say: “Yes. That was wrong. That shouldn’t have happened to you. You deserved better.”
I’m saying it now.
Yes. That was wrong.
What happened to you was abuse. Not discipline. Not parenting. Not “just how things were back then.”
Abuse.
That shouldn’t have happened to you.
You were a child. You deserved safety. Protection. Love. Care. Gentleness.
You got hurt instead. That’s not okay. That was never okay.
You deserved better.
You deserved parents who regulated themselves. Who didn’t take their stress out on you. Who saw you as a person, not a problem.
You deserved to be a child. To make mistakes. To be messy and loud and emotional without fear.
You didn’t get that. And that’s not your fault.
A woman told me: “I’ve been waiting my whole life for someone to say: none of that was okay. What they did to you was wrong.”
She was sixty-three. Sixty-three years of carrying the belief that she deserved it. That she caused it. That it was her fault.
“Hearing you say it wasn’t my fault…” She couldn’t finish. Just cried.
None of it was your fault.
Not the yelling. Not the hitting. Not the cruelty. Not the neglect. Not the manipulation. Not the emotional warfare.
You were a child. They were adults. They chose abuse.
That’s on them. Forever on them.
Not on you.
Practical Steps: Beginning to Believe It Wasn’t Your Fault
When the old belief surfaces…. I deserved it, I caused it, I was difficult…. pause.
Place your hand on your heart. Feel it beating. This heart that kept you alive through all of it.
Say softly, out loud or in your head: I was a child. Children don’t cause abuse. Adults choose abuse.
Repeat it. Not to convince yourself immediately. Just to plant the seed. To offer a different narrative than the one you’ve carried.
Write one sentence: At (your age as a child), I deserved…
Finish it with what you actually deserved. Safety. Kindness. Protection. Love. Patience. Care.
Not what you got. What you deserved.
Put it somewhere you’ll see it. Read it daily. Let it sink in slowly.
Find one photo of yourself as a child. Look at that child’s face.
Ask yourself: Did that child deserve to be hurt? Did that child cause abuse? Was that child responsible for adult violence?
You’ll know the answer. No child deserves that. Including the child you were.
Why It Matters
Your nervous system learned to carry blame that was never yours. It thinks: if I’m at fault, I have control. If I can just be better, the abuse will stop.
But that’s a lie. A survival strategy that no longer serves you.
Releasing the blame doesn’t happen all at once. It happens in small moments of recognition. Small whispers of truth. Small acts of self-compassion.
Your body needs to hear, over and over: It wasn’t your fault. You were just a child. You deserved better.
Eventually, slowly, it might start to believe it.
If You Remember One Thing
You did not cause your abuse.
No behaviour justifies hurting a child. No amount of difficulty. No level of stress. Nothing.
Adults who abuse children are responsible for their choices. Always. Completely. Without exception.
You were powerless. They had power. They chose violence. They chose cruelty. They chose to harm you.
That’s on them. Not you. Never you.
Even when they said it was your fault. Even when you believed them. Even when you still, sometimes, believe them.
It wasn’t your fault.
You survived something you should never have had to survive. You carried blame that was never yours to carry.
You can start putting it down now. Piece by piece. Moment by moment.
It wasn’t your fault then. It’s not your fault now. It never was.
You deserved better. You still do.
And that matters.
Take one slow breath. Feel your heart still beating. That’s what survived. That’s what’s yours.
🌱 Childhood And Family Support Abuse
I’m Geoffrey Clow, a trauma-informed counsellor bringing both professional training and lived experience to this work. I specialise in helping survivors of childhood and family abuse move from constant survival mode into steadier ground, building real capacity through body-based, somatic approaches that work with your nervous system, not against it.
This isn’t talk therapy that leaves you raw. It’s person-centred support that meets you where you are and helps you develop the practical tools your body actually needs to feel safer.
Request an online one-on-one session or learn more about my support services.
This article is Part 1 of a 10-part series on childhood abuse and recovery.
