Let’s Talk About Blame
Sometimes something just happens
I don’t think blame is primarily a moral problem.
I think it’s a cognitive one.
Something happens.
A relationship breaks down.
A boundary is crossed.
A misunderstanding occurs.
Someone gets hurt…
The mind wants an explanation, and under cognitive load, it reaches for the cheapest one available.
They are wrong.
I am wrong.
Both answers feel like understanding.
Both answers provide certainty.
Both answers often stop the investigation before it begins.
That is why blame is so attractive.
And that is why it is often so harmful.
The Support Worker
I have support workers.
Sometimes my behaviour affects them.
There are two versions of this. The difference is the whole argument.
When I’m regulated, I still communicate very directly.
Not because I’m trying to be blunt.
It’s simply the lowest-effort path through the interaction.
Like many neurodivergent people, I don’t have unlimited cognitive bandwidth.
Every additional layer of translation, softening, framing, and emotional packaging consumes resources.
When I have those resources available, I use them.
I attach the frame.
I tell them:
This isn’t about you, Something happened. I’m setting a boundary so it doesn’t happen again.
The directness lands as intended because the frame is there to catch it.
When I’m dysregulated, it’s different.
Someone isn’t listening.
I can’t gather my thoughts.
I can’t bring the situation back under control.
The available bandwidth shrinks.
The frame disappears, and what remains is the shortest path to the point.
I attack the failure.
The pattern.
The behaviour.
The archetype.
Not the person.
But the person is standing where the words land.
They get caught in the middle.
Same critique, different outcome.
Because one version of me has the capacity to hold the whole model.
The other is operating under load.
This isn’t an excuse, it’s the mechanism.
Sometimes I get it right, sometimes I don’t.
The variable was never good person versus bad person.
It was capacity In that moment to maintain the frame.
What Blame Actually Does
Most people think accountability begins with blame.
I increasingly think accountability begins with understanding.
That sounds like a small distinction.
It isn’t.
Because blame feels like understanding.
Something happened.
Someone was hurt.
Something went wrong.
The mind wants closure.
They are wrong.
I am wrong.
Case closed.
Except it isn’t…
Blame is attractive because it reduces complexity.
It gives us certainty. It allows us to stop thinking.
The problem is that reality is rarely that simple.
The moment blame arrives, curiosity often leaves and curiosity is usually where understanding lives.
Not always.
But often.
The result is that we become more interested in deciding who should feel bad than understanding what actually happened.
Rejection Sensitivity and Self-Blame
Many people imagine blame as something directed outward.
In my experience, some of the most destructive blame is directed inward.
After one of these interactions, I can spend more time analysing my own failure than the other person spends thinking about the interaction.
They move on.
I replay it.
Was I too blunt?
Was I unfair?
Did I miss something?
Did I overreact?
Did I become the thing I was criticising?
At first glance, this looks like self-reflection, and sometimes it is.
But often it is blame causing an internal cascade of emotion. Shame, self worth.
The support worker example demonstrates the outward version.
Something happens and the mind concludes:
They are wrong.
Rejection sensitivity often produces the inverse.
Something happens and the mind concludes:
I am wrong.
Different target.
Same mechanism.
Both conclusions arrive before the investigation.
Both replace curiosity with certainty.
Both reduce cognitive load
One produces resentment, the other produces shame.
Neither necessarily produces understanding.
Blame is often mistaken for understanding and it doesn’t matter whether the it’s directed outward or inward.
In both cases, the investigation stops.
The conclusion arrives before the explanation.
The question is no longer:
What happened?
The question becomes:
Who should feel bad about it?
That is rarely where growth occurs.
Sometimes Something Just Happens
One of the most difficult lessons I have learned is that not every undesirable outcome requires a villain.
Sometimes people make mistakes.
Sometimes systems fail.
Sometimes communication breaks down.
Sometimes assumptions collide.
Sometimes incentives create outcomes nobody intended.
Sometimes two people can act in good faith and still produce a bad result.
And sometimes something simply happens.
Not because somebody is evil.
Not because somebody is stupid.
Not because somebody deserves punishment.
But because human beings are imperfect and reality is complicated.
The world is full of interacting systems, competing incentives, incomplete information, misunderstandings, limitations, and simple bad luck.
Understanding that does not remove accountability, it makes accountability possible.
Accountability Without Condemnation
You are responsible for your decisions.
You are accountable for your impact on others.
Others are responsible for their decisions.
Others are accountable for their impact on you.
None of that requires blame.
None of that requires shame.
None of that requires condemnation.
A person can make a mistake without being a mistake, and a person can create a negative outcome without being a bad person.
A person can unintentionally hurt somebody without becoming morally worthless.
The outcome still exists.
The impact still matters.
The accountability remains.
What disappears is the unnecessary moral load we often attach to it.
That matters because shame and condemnation consume attention that could otherwise be used for understanding, and understanding is where improvement begins.
The Better Question
When something goes wrong, most people ask:
Whose fault is this?
I increasingly think a better question is:
What happened?
Once you understand what happened, responsibility becomes clearer.
Agency becomes visible.
Improvement becomes possible.
The goal is not to determine who should suffer.
The goal is to understand reality well enough to respond effectively.