Responsibility and Consequence

Blame is an interesting thing... Blame, excuses, cop-out... they all mean pretty much the same thing. Ducking responsibility. How so many blame their parents for who they are now. Sure, things parents do impact you; it can be hard to overcome patterns you may have learned from them growing up. It's tough to forgive them for different events from the past. But, where does it start to become a person's own responsibility? When you haven't lived with your parents for 10 years, is it possible that the perceived failures of life could be due to a person's own conscious choices and attitudes? I think so. I've termed these life excuses as crutches we lean on. ADD, depression, illness, parents, environment, money. There's a reason Charles Manson's helpers are in prison, though. They handed their choice to him in the beginning and they have to pay for that initial decision and where it led them. Charlie made them do it - yet, his dad was gone all his life and his mom was a hooker. So, it's their fault. But, then whose fault do their decisions belong to? ... Hm. Must be God's fault then, cause he's where this world started. Yet no one forced these events to happen. Other blames can fall on drugs and society. However, I've always felt if there is something you really don't want to do you won't do it, whether you're high or drunk or whatever. And if you can't control yourself enough under the influence of those substances, you accept that consequence when you pick up the shot glass, the needle, whatever.
My Johnny is so awesome this way. He doesn't blame things he's done on his family or the city he lived in. According to him, he "swims in his own pool of stupid." Ah, Johnny and his awesome analogies. Well, I'm shedding the need to blame, as well. Who cares whose fault it is? Let's just fix the problem. I've done my share of pushing my actions onto my parents or the culture I grew up with or society. But, at the end of the day, I'm this way because I choose to be. Because I don't have the courage to stand up and change it. It's like when someone is overweight, but they don't like to go running or any kind of exercise. There are only two options there, work it off or stay fat. No one can do the work for you. You can get a trainer at the gym to help, but the work always lands on the shoulders of the individual. The first time I had to swallow this icky medicine was when I was suffering from panic attacks. Once I accepted that I was allowing it to happen and I was not a victim, but I was in fact the instigator of these attacks. I was the accomplice to my own sorrow.
The anxiety isn't acting on me - I have allowed it; I am the anxiety. I admit that I need help changing myself though, thus the different lines of aid I am navigating through. Just needed to release the blames and let y'all know that I am indeed aware that I am my own illness. And I'm cracking off the shells of myself that are this way and getting down to the wisp inside that is me in all truth and innocence. The me before. The little girl inside with the cats. ;)