It's Not Your Fault, But It Is Your Responsibility

A lot of what you are carrying is not your fault.

You didn't choose your childhood. You didn't design the calls you went on. You didn't choose the deployments you got sent to, You didn't build the culture that told you to shut up and drive on. You didn't build the system that rewarded self-abandonment and punished vulnerability. You didn't ask for the trauma, the betrayal, the moral injuries, or the years spent watching human suffering that no one should have to witness.

You adapted to survive it. That matters, and it deserves respect.

Your hypervigilance made sense. Your emotional shutdown protected you. Your anger kept you safe. Your perfectionism earned you a rank. Your people-pleasing kept you included. These weren't weaknesses. They were intelligent responses to impossible situations.

But there's another side to this that is just as important. Your healing is your responsibility.

No One Is Coming to Save You

This is the hard part, and I'm not going to soften it.

No one is coming to live your life for you. No one is going to climb inside your body, have the hard conversations, set the boundaries, or sit with the discomfort of change on your behalf. No one is going to make your partner understand you, fix your sleep, or teach your nervous system how to feel safe again.

Not your therapist. Not your coach. Not your spouse. Not your VA rep. Not your buddies from the unit. Not your parents. Not your pastor. Not your doctor. Not your ex-wife / husband / boyfriend / girlfriend / partner.

You did not cause the injuries, but you are the only one who can truly decide what happens with them.

Blame can explain the past. It can help you understand why you are the way you are. It can validate your pain and give context to your struggle. But blame cannot build the future.

You can spend the rest of your life pointing at what broke you, or you can start building something new with the pieces. Both paths are completely understandable. Only one of them moves you forward.

Taking Responsibility Is Not Self-Attack

Let me be clear: taking responsibility is not about beating yourself up. It's not about "man up" or "get over it" or any of that toxic bullshit that leaves you unseen, unheard, unsafe, and stuck.

Taking responsibility is about reclaiming agency. It is the moment you move from "this is what happened to me" to "this is what I am going to do with it."

It's the difference between:

• "The job destroyed me," and "The job changed me, and now I get to decide who I become next."

• "My childhood made me this way," and "My childhood shaped me, and I'm learning how to reshape myself."

• "My partner doesn't understand," and "I'm going to teach my partner how to support me by telling them what I actually need."
  

Responsibility means you stop waiting for permission, validation, or the perfect conditions to start healing. It means you acknowledge that the work is hard, unfair, and shouldn't have to be yours, and you do it anyway because the alternative is staying stuck.

What Responsibility Actually Looks Like

Taking responsibility might mean:

• Finally going to therapy or finding a coach who really gets it

• Doing the nervous system regulation work even when it feels stupid or pointless

• Going to couples sessions and actually showing up emotionally, not just physically

• Setting boundaries at work or with family, even if people are disappointed

• Changing the way you relate to service, achievement, and your sense of worth

• Asking for help without apologizing for needing it

• Telling the truth about how bad it actually feels inside instead of pretending "I'm fine."

• Staying in the hard conversation instead of shutting down or blowing up

• Choosing rest even when your brain screams that you're being lazy

• Letting people love you without performing for it
  

It's not dramatic. It's just consistent, very often uncomfortable, daily choices to stop living by the old rules and start writing new ones.

Two Truths at Once

It's not your fault. It is your responsibility.

Those two truths can coexist, and when they do, you become dangerous in a very good way.

Dangerous because you stop being a victim of your past and start being the author of your future. Dangerous because you stop waiting for someone to fix you and start building yourself. Dangerous because you're no longer controlled by shame, blame, or the belief that you're too broken to change.

You become someone who can look at the damage, honor what it cost, and still choose to grow anyway.

That's not weakness. That's the most powerful thing you can do.