Survivor Guilt and Shame After Abuse

Narcissist Apocalypse: Patterns of Abuse

Abuse Survivor Network

True Crime, Society & Culture, Education, Relationships, Self-improvement

4.7 • 791 Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2026

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of Narcissist Apocalypse, Brandon talks about survivor guilt and shame after abuse, and why so many survivors still feel responsible after leaving an abusive relationship. Brandon breaks down the shame of thinking, “I should have left sooner,” the identity crisis that can happen when you never imagined abuse would happen to you, and the guilt many parents carry about what their children experienced during the relationship and after it ended. Brandon also talks about why survivors often minimize their own trauma by comparing it to people who “had it worse,” and how guilt can keep you feeling responsible for an abusive ex’s addiction, health crisis, or emotional collapse.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Narcissist Apocalypse, everyone.
0:06.9	I am Brandon Chadwick, and today we will be talking about survivor guilt and shame.
0:13.6	And after abuse, many survivors are expecting relief because they left and they survived.
0:19.5	And they finally saw this relationship clearly.
0:22.9	But instead of only feeling free, there's a lot of different feelings that could go on.
0:28.6	And today we're going to be talking about survivors feeling guilty and for survivors feeling
0:33.6	shame and feeling responsible, confused about everything that had happened.
0:39.1	Really a lot of guilt surrounding what the children experienced and unsure whether this
0:45.3	relationship was bad enough.
0:47.1	I do quote unquote bad enough to count.
0:49.8	So the aftermath here can be complicated for a lot of people because you're carrying shame
0:55.4	for things that you didn't do, things that were not your fault. You might have guilt as well
1:01.1	about things that you could not control. So what we're going to be discussing today are the six
1:08.3	most common forms of survivor guilt and shame after abuse.
1:13.2	But before we get to that, if you want to be a guest on our Survivor Story episodes,
1:16.7	please do go to our website at Narcissistapocalypse.com.
1:20.3	Go to our guest form button.
1:22.2	Press that button, fill up the form, and we will go from there.
1:26.5	Also, we have a support group at our website. So if you need
1:28.6	support, join our support group at Narcissistapocalypse.com. And we also have a newsletter where you get a
1:33.3	free workbook in that newsletter every single week for every new survivor story that comes out.
1:39.4	So that is all at Narcissistapocalypse.com. So we are now going to talk about the six most common
	...

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