Stepdad Blames Abused Child for her Death

Blame is a deadly thing. It incites our instincts to rail in self protective measures. When we indulge in blame we set up others and ourselves for misery. Our brains are wired to do this, to look to someone else to hold responsible for our misery. ?

Cesar Rodriguez was a young father, with 6 children to feed. Apparently he was having difficulty doing this and was dealing with a vindictive, angry wife (at least that's how he saw it). With six children to care for, a wife who (from his perspective) didn't appreciate him, and little psychological resources, Cesar Rodriguez broke. He held this young, rebellious but innocent, child to blame for his misery.

Or did he? He claims the mother was the girls mother. His lawyer claims the mother, beside herself with blame over the death of her unborn child, blamed the girl for miscarriage and killed the girl herself. The girl had been severely abused prior to her death, both parents had to have been in some way responsible for this.

Blame is the enemy

When blame happens our brains take over; not our thinking brains; our mammalian instinctive brain that executes survival strategies that are often outside our conscious control. Whether it was Cesar Rodriguez or Nixzaliz Santiago (the girls mother) it's clear the girl carried a load of blame that she did not earn, and had no control over.

When we fall into blame, we lose our ability to see things clearly. Our view becomes distorted by our belief in the blame. We fail to see the object of our blame as a human being, we see them as out enemy. Empathy never enters the frame of reference.

This is how these horrid things occur. This is how all acts of violence occur. When there is blame; there is a complete failure of empathy as well. We lose our ability to see how things are from the others position.

How does this happen?

This happens because our brains survival instincts are sometimes so incredibly strong they overpower our thinking brain. Generally, in my experience, the thing that makes these survival instincts overtake us is our own history of trauma. When we have been in situations requiring our instincts to take over as a child, these instincts become very strong. They become so powerful that it takes tremendous strength of will to overcome them.

I know, I've worked with some of the bravest people on the planet. The trauma survivors I have worked with in therapy have had the courage and tenacity to work consciously to overcome their automatic reflexes to move into a survival mode any time they feel threatened.

The rest of us need to be aware of our own survival instincts and how they cause us to blame the people we love and lose touch with who they really are. The price for our relationships is measured in the divorce rate. We may not kill our children; but we kill our marriages. Oh,wow, doesn't this change everything/p>

What needs to change?