I want to talk about the specific moment when you realize you have been deferring to someone who was never worth deferring to.
The moment lands, often years after the pattern began. You are looking back at your marriage, your father, your pastor, your boss, your teacher, your ex, your friend. And you can see, suddenly and clearly, what you could not see when you were in it. This person was not the wise, worthy authority you treated them as. They were not what you thought. You gave them your voice, your decisions, your compliance, your trust — and they were not the kind of person that deserved.
You feel something specific in that moment. Grief for the years of self-erasure. Anger at them. Anger at yourself. Shame for having been fooled. Sadness for the person you did not get to be while you were making yourself smaller in their presence.
I want to share what I see in this work.
This moment of clarity — however painful — is a specific gift. It is the beginning of getting your voice back. But the shame that often comes with it, if it takes over, can prevent the actual healing. The work is to hold accountability for the pattern of deferring without collapsing into blame for having been human.
You are not stupid for not seeing them clearly earlier. You are not weak. You are not defective. There are specific reasons the pattern developed. Understanding those reasons is part of what lets the pattern release without becoming the next thing you use against yourself.
Why You Deferred in the First Place
The pattern of deferring to someone who did not deserve deference always has origins. See if any apply.
You were raised in an authoritarian environment. You learned to give authority to whoever occupied the role. You did not develop the muscle of assessing whether specific authorities earned trust.
You were young when the relationship formed. People we meet young often get given more weight than they earn. The younger self assumed what the older self would have checked.
You needed what they seemed to offer. Security. Belonging. Belief in something. You gave them power in exchange for what you needed.
They presented well. Charisma. Confidence. The specific traits that make some people compelling. You mistook the surface for the substance.
You had unhealed wounds that made them appealing. They matched a template your nervous system knew. You attached without seeing.
Your community affirmed them. Everyone around you treated them as worthy. You went along. Individual dissent from group consensus is hard.
You were formed to give people the benefit of the doubt indefinitely. Christian formation especially can teach this. You extended grace past the point where accurate assessment would have served you.
Whatever the specific origin, the pattern was not a moral failing. It was a survival adaptation or a normal human development that got misapplied to a specific person.
The Difference Between Accountability and Blame
The specific work at this moment is distinguishing accountability from blame.
Accountability looks like: I see the pattern I was in. I see how I made myself small in their presence. I see that I gave them authority they had not earned. I take responsibility for the parts of the pattern that were mine — the outsourcing of my judgment, the self-erasure, the giving away of my voice.
Blame looks like: I am stupid. I should have known. I am the problem. It is my fault this happened. I was foolish.
Accountability produces growth. It says: this was my pattern, I can see it now, I can change it going forward.
Blame produces paralysis. It says: I am the kind of person who does this, I cannot trust myself, I should have been better.
The difference is subtle but critical. Accountability includes compassion for the self who was in the pattern. Blame attacks that self.
If your recognition of the deferring pattern has slipped into blame, you have not completed the healing. You have moved the abuse inside — you are now doing to yourself what they used to do.
What Real Accountability Looks Like
Real accountability for having deferred to the wrong person has specific components.
One: name the pattern without minimizing. I gave this person authority they had not earned. I made myself smaller in their presence than I actually was. I outsourced decisions that were mine to make.
Two: identify the specific ways it showed up. Which decisions did you defer to them? Which parts of yourself did you edit around them? Which truths did you not speak?
Three: understand where the pattern came from without using that as excuse. The origins explain but do not exempt. You are still responsible for changing the pattern going forward.
Four: forgive the self who was in the pattern. She was doing the best she could with what she knew. She was not defective. She was human, using the tools she had.
Five: commit to the specific changes going forward. Not just this one relationship. The pattern itself. The muscle of assessing people before giving them authority.
Six: get the support to hold this new orientation. A therapist. A trusted friend. Community that sees you clearly. The pattern will try to reassert itself. Support helps it not to.
What This Looks Like in Practice
A specific example, adapted from common patterns I see.
A woman looks back at her marriage. She sees clearly that she deferred to her ex-husband about almost everything — financial decisions, parenting decisions, spiritual decisions, decisions about her own career. She treated him as the wise one. He was not the wise one. He was, in fact, quite limited in his wisdom, and often driven by his own unresolved wounds.
The recognition is painful. She feels grief for years of self-erasure. Anger at herself for having done it. Shame.
The work is to hold accountability without blame.
Accountability: I see that I made myself smaller than I was. I see that I did not consult my own knowing. I see that I gave him authority he had not earned. This was my pattern.
Not blame: I was not stupid. I was raised in a family where women deferred to men. I met him when I was young and vulnerable. I needed what I thought he offered. I could not see what I could not see. The self who was in that pattern was not defective. She was human, in a specific setting, doing what she knew.
Going forward: I will not defer this way again. To anyone. I will assess before giving authority. I will consult my own compass first. I will notice the pull to make myself smaller and choose differently. This is the muscle I am building.
What Emerges From This Work
The person who has done this work substantially describes recognizable qualities.
Their voice comes back. The muscle they let atrophy starts to work again.
Their discernment sharpens. They can assess people before deferring, rather than defaulting to defer.
Their relationships change. Some end. Some transform. The pattern of self-erasure stops running the show.
They stop being available for that specific kind of manipulation. Charismatic figures who need followers lose their appeal.
They can look back at what happened without either minimizing or catastrophizing. Both truths hold: this was real, and I am not defined by it.
Their spiritual life deepens. God stops being filtered through the authority figure who used to mediate. They can meet Him directly.
They can eventually have compassion for who they were in the pattern. Not as pity but as respect for the self who survived a situation she did not have the tools to see clearly at the time.
What This Is Not
This is not saying you had no responsibility. You did have some. The point is to hold it appropriately, not to erase it and not to inflate it.
This is not saying the other person is not responsible for who they were. They are. Your accountability for your pattern does not excuse theirs.
This is not fast. This kind of clarity often unfolds over months. Every step of the recognition matters.
This is not solo work. Please get support. A trauma-informed therapist can help you hold accountability without slipping into blame.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know if I am doing accountability or blame? Accountability produces movement — you can see what to change going forward. Blame produces paralysis — you feel stuck in what you did.
What if I keep repeating the pattern with new people? The pattern often takes multiple recognitions to unwind. Each round of clarity sharpens the discernment. Get therapy if it keeps repeating.
Can I forgive myself while still holding what I did? Yes. Forgiveness includes accurate accountability. It is not erasure.
A Gentle Invitation
If something here met you and you’d like to talk it through, I offer a free 15-minute consultation. No pressure to begin anything — just a quiet conversation to see if this is the kind of support that fits.
Book a free 15-minute consultation.
Can’t find a time that works, or want to reach Tracey directly? Send a message or email truehealthcounselling@gmail.com.
You don’t have to do this alone.
Therapy in Toronto and online
I’m Tracey Nguyen, RN, MN, a registered nurse and psychotherapist in Toronto (Ontario licence #12492206), practising since 2015. If this article speaks to you, I offer narcissistic abuse recovery in person in Toronto and online across Ontario, Canada and internationally.
Book a free 15-minute consultation →
Can’t find a time that works, or want to reach Tracey directly? Send a message or email truehealthcounselling@gmail.com.
