Guilt and shame.
Two of the heaviest burdens a survivor can carry were never ours to hold.
They creep in silently after the storm. They often strike when the chaos has quieted, and you finally catch your breath. Maybe you think, “I should have left sooner. I should have known better. I should have seen the signs.” Or perhaps the whispers come from others who don’t know your story but feel entitled to judge it. People who don’t understand the tangled web of manipulation, fear, trauma bonds, and survival instincts.
But here’s the truth: You are not to blame for someone else’s choice to abuse.
You didn’t cause it, you didn’t deserve it, and you certainly don’t have to carry the weight of it.
Guilt is a normal human emotion when we’ve done something wrong. But what happens when you feel guilty for simply surviving? For protecting yourself? For making choices, others can’t or won’t understand? That’s not guilt rooted in truth. That’s manipulation. That’s shame being handed to you by someone who doesn’t want to own their part.
And shame? Shame is different. Shame says, “You are the problem.” But you are not. The abuse is the problem. The abuser is the problem. Shame belongs to the one who inflicted harm, not the one who endured it.
You were lied to. You were broken. You were made to believe that their chaos was your fault. That you were too much. Or not enough. It would stop if you just loved harder, prayed longer, and forgave faster. But abuse is not a misunderstanding. It’s not a communication problem. It’s not a mutual failing. It’s a choice made by one person to exert power and control over another.
And that choice was never yours.
Letting go of guilt and shame isn’t about pretending the past didn’t happen. It’s about acknowledging what did and releasing the parts that don’t belong to you. It’s looking at your story and saying: “This happened to me, but it is not who I am.”It’s waking up and declaring: “I am not what they said I was.”It’s learning to speak kindly to yourself and show compassion to the version of you who stayed, fought, and tried so hard to hold it all together.
You survived something that tried to destroy you. You kept going when you had every reason to give up. You’re here. And that matters.
God never asked you to carry the guilt of another person’s sin. He offers to take every weight you were never meant to hold.”Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
That’s not just for your exhaustion. That’s for the fear, guilt, shame, and the questions that haunt you.
Letting go is a process. Some days, it will feel easier than others. But every day you choose to release what was never yours—every time you reject the shame wrongfully assigned to you—you are stepping into freedom.
You don’t need to apologize for surviving. You don’t need to explain why you stayed. You don’t owe anyone an account of your healing.
The only thing you owe yourself is permission to heal, to rest, to live without the crushing weight of guilt and shame that were never yours to carry in the first place.
Let it go.
It was never yours. It belonged to them all along.
And now, it’s time to give it back.
If this resonated with you, know that you’re not alone. Healing takes time, but every step forward is sacred. Keep going.
Survivor Speaks Truth 