That’s a deeply painful and very real experience — many survivors of sexual assault struggle not just with anger or grief toward others, but with turning that pain inward. Unforgiveness toward oneself after rape is common, but it’s also one of the hardest burdens to carry.

Here’s what’s really happening beneath that feeling:

1. It’s a trauma response, not a moral failure.

After something as violating as rape, the brain often tries to make sense of what happened by finding some kind of control. Subconsciously, it can feel “safer” to blame yourself — “Maybe if I had done something differently, it wouldn’t have happened.” It gives the illusion that you could have prevented it. But the truth is, you were never responsible for someone else’s choice to harm you.

2. Shame and self-blame come from trauma, not truth.

Trauma rewires how you see yourself. You might replay the event and judge yourself harshly for how you reacted, froze, or survived. Yet freezing, complying, or dissociating are involuntary survival instincts, not choices. You did what your body knew to do to survive.

3. Forgiving yourself doesn’t mean forgetting — it means releasing the false guilt.

Self-forgiveness is not saying what happened was okay; it’s saying you didn’t deserve it and you no longer deserve to carry the blame. It’s choosing to believe your worth and innocence again, even when your feelings haven’t caught up yet.

4. Healing steps to begin self-forgiveness:

• Name the false guilt. Write down what you blame yourself for — then next to each line, write the truth (e.g., “I shouldn’t have gone there” → “The only person who should feel shame is the rapist.”)
• Practice compassion for your younger self. Visualize her and speak to her the way you’d speak to someone else who endured the same pain.
• Therapy or support groups. Trauma-focused therapy (like EMDR or somatic therapy) can help release self-blame stored in your body.
• Spiritual or emotional release. Many survivors find comfort in prayer, journaling, or symbolic acts (like writing a letter of release to themselves).