Why do I always struggle with blaming myself?

Blaming yourself is an emotional way to take control of something that has probably gotten out of control or that you could not influence the way you had originally hoped. Because things in life are uncertain, it's impossible to oversee and ensure every single detail goes according to plan - BUT, we really want to! When it all falls apart we feel like we have lost control. We feel like we have failed. We feel like if we had done something different, maybe things could have turned out better. The blame is a way of absorbing that control back in an emotional manner and gives us some relief because we think that if we can change ourselves, if we can improve ourselves, if we can just learn a few more skills, everything in this life will go better. It will go according to plan, it will all work out how we expect it should. Obviously, no matter how well educated, how well trained, how well prepared we are - things are always going to go wrong; life is full of unavoidable pitfalls. We will want to blame ourselves to find some reason, some relief, some detail to hyper focus on in hopes that if we can control it - we can control how the rest of our lives will play out. Self blame can become a dangerous path of negative thinking that creates a self fulfilling cycle and adds to depression. You can feel like everything you do goes wrong, it's always your fault and the more you try to control things, the more they are utter disasters. Cognitive Behavior Therapy addresses how to approach a lot of these blaming cycles and negative thought patterns. There's a number of free worksheets online to look at and access if you are interested in learning more about breaking some of the habits of self blame.