There were any number of people who wanted me to take responsibility for things that weren’t my doing, such as the influences that I have had. What I have done instead is look at the influences that I’ve had, understand them, and then make better choices coming from that understanding.
Responsibility presupposes knowledge. If you don’t know what you are dealing with, then you can’t deal with it in an informed way. I am not responsible either for the Communist influence that I had in the Soviet Union or for the Christian influence that I had when I attended a Episcopalian school in America. What I am responsible for is understanding both influences and seeing how they can be dealt with in an informed way.
Seeing one’s influences is not being irresponsible. It is in fact the definition of responsibility. You understand what influenced you, and then you know what of it to accept and what to discard. And it is this approach that should be practiced by therapists.
When people don’t understand such things, they are likely to become judgmental. In many cases, if you don’t understand why someone is the way he is, you are likely to see him as a monster. There were people on the Internet who were horrible to me; but as I went to the bother of understanding them I realized that they were not such bad people. They came from an understandable place. Their behavior was wrong, but they were not monsters.
I have been demonized myself, and it is not something I wish on anyone. What I’ve had to do is explain to people where I was coming from, and then they were more likely to react with compassion. I recommend for other people to understand their influences and to consciously decide which ones to accept and which ones to discard.
This, then, becomes the true definition of responsibility.