Module 3
Re-Considering Self-Blame: Pie Charts
Self-blame and taking on responsibility, is an experience some young people talk about during grief.
Not everyone feels responsible for a loss. Please skip this if it doesn’t apply.
For example, Jamie had thoughts like ‘It is my fault that my parents got divorced’. Riley had thoughts of ‘I should have warned Charlie earlier to prevent the bike accident from happening’.
It is important to try and gain a new perspective on these kinds of thoughts and re-evaluate them. This is because thoughts are not facts. Thoughts may or may not be true. Often our feelings tell us that thoughts are facts, but that is not true.
A way we can get a new perspective when we are taking on too much responsibility is to do a pie-chart.
A pie-chart can help you re-consider self-blame.
First, do a pie-chart of what your usual thinking says about your responsibility regarding the loss. For Riley and Jamie, their pie-charts looked like this:
To challenge responsibility for what happened, Jamie and Riley asked themselves these questions:
1. Aside from you, what are all the possible contributing factors to the situation?
They made a list of everything and everyone they could think of.
They thought about what a friend would say to them if they mentioned they felt responsible for the situation.
They also thought about what they would tell a friend who said they felt responsible for the loss.
2. Thinking about all of the factors you’ve listed, how much does each contribute to the situation?
They added all the factors to a new pie-chart and attributed a portion to each factor. Their new pie-charts looked like this:
Re-considering responsibility and taking a step back from this kind of thinking to reduce responsibility can help you to feel better.
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