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Blaming the Victim

“Everything happens for a reason.” It’s one of the most common rote responses we have when we hear of someone else’s tragedy.

I’ve been on the receiving end of this comment more times than I care to count…and I hate it. Seriously, I’d love to see it eradicated from the English language.

When people tell me that there’s a reason I got cancer, it implies that there’s a reason why they didn’t. When they tell me that there’s a reason I lost my baby, the unspoken message is—well, you know.

Those words, strung together in an overture of sympathy, provide comfort only to the person speaking them. They represent a very convenient and human reaction to tragedy—seeking meaning in a way that enables us to distance ourselves from the possibility that such a thing could happen to us.

Interestingly, I’ve never heard this phrase uttered by a parent who’s buried a child, or a widow who lost her beloved spouse. I’ve never heard someone with a life-threatening medical condition suggest that the illness happened for a reason.

They know what I know—that sickness and accidents and death do not discriminate. Debilitating, unfortunate, and tragic events can happen to anyone—without a hint of warning, without a whiff of provocation. And, yes, without a single good reason.

On paper, I had an exceedingly low risk for breast cancer. Yet I developed it. My initial treatment was textbook perfect, with a 99.9% cure rate. Guess who was in the 0.1%?

I was a model of gestational wellness throughout my first pregnancy, and my daughter was born with a heart defect. I was equally cautious and careful with my second, but it wasn’t enough to save my baby from death.

There is no reason convincing enough to explain events such as these. And telling individuals in the throes of sorrow or suffering that there is a reason that their woeful circumstances have chosen to visit them is akin to blaming the victim.

That’s not to say that there isn’t, perhaps, a divine purpose at work behind the scenes of our lives, or that those who struggle won’t eventually find or create some sense of purpose out of loss.

But that purpose is theirs to discover, theirs to cultivate, and theirs alone to name.

Incompatible with Life: A story of hope
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