“To preserve the illusion of control, safety and predictability, survivors blame themselves in an effort to to restore order to a world that has been incredibly shaken by trauma.
Rape survivors often experience hindsight bias – the belief that they should have been able to predict or prevent an assault. This belief, which further reinforces self-blame, is fortified by a culture in which rape prevention programs tend to focus on women as opposed to men, leading women to believe they alone are responsible for and can prevent rape.”
[…]
“Breaking through these self-preservation mechanisms often takes time – time that observers too often misinterpret as a false accounting of what actually happened.”
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