In this text I will explore the concept of owning our part in situations and discuss where this powerful tool is appropriate and contrast that to when it becomes the proverbial hammer for every job.
Trauma, the commonly resulting addictions, and the world of treating these harms intersect so much that they cannot be well-understood in isolation. Observing this constellation as an intersecting mass, we can gain insight into which related truisms are in fact true and useful, and see where traditional wisdom fails to offer correct guidance.
The Good Stuff
True adults understand that they make mistakes and comprehend why it is important to take ownership of their own behaviors. Any person not on board with this concept is not a fully developed adult, but instead remains trapped in a childlike pattern of thought. The idea that “they made me do it” is at its core both immature and false because it tries to transfer agency from the doer to someone who did not do it.
The truism that we must own up to our mistakes and misdeeds has inescapable value to all discerning people. This idea has given birth to phrases that claim universal truths that are in fact not universally true. For example, it takes two to tango is a phrase that suggests that conflict cannot involve only one party. That is of course strictly true, but it also implies that conflict must have more than one responsible party, which is not true at all.
The Bad Stuff
When a child has an abusive parent, that child has no part to own. The parent will tango them no matter what the child does. When the child becomes an adult, they still have no part in that to own, but rather must own what they do as an adult. This includes whatever trauma-responses they have acquired as coping mechanisms.
Two similar phrases are that there are two sides to every coin, and that there are two sides to every story. Again, these are facts in the strictest sense. But a coin can be minted with two identical sides, and one version of a story can be true when the other is false. Some people will think this is black and white thinking, but they fail to internalize two salient truths.
Making Sense
First, black exists and white exists, no less than any other perception of light exists. We must therefore relate to the fact that everything cannot be grey. Second, the covert black-and-white thinking is really the assertion that everything is grey. Everything is a type of superlative word, and to claim that everything is a certain way is black-and-white thinking in disguise (unless the claim is true, but when that is the case, the claim also doesn’t add value to anything because it will be obvious to anybody guided by reason).
When we seek treatment for addiction, for instance, these concepts of personal responsibility are always a core part of what we must learn to make any progress. But sometimes these ideas fail us because they are not universally true. For example, when I turned on the lightbulb inside a closet one winter morning so I could get dressed for work, and spent the rest of the entire day being berated for how selfishly I disturbed his sleep, there is simply nothing there for me to own. This true anecdote illustrates how a person can be fought at, rather than fought with, and how one part can be entirely at fault, and the other without any blame whatsoever. I later participated in helping this particular abuser getting his diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).
Getting Clarity
What adults in abusive relationships need to own is not their part in those conflicts. Instead, the necessary ownership that leads to progress is owning why they stay in such relationships. Abuse is always the responsibility of the culprit, and applying the traditional wisdoms of conflict responsibility is nothing but victim-blaming and participating in The Abuser’s Culture.