I used to think the same thing, until I became more familiar with the physical changes trauma creates in the brain and one's ability to "control how one reacts" to situations.

We often recognize certain obvious forms of mental illness or brain disease (like dementia), as dysfunctions of either the brain or the systems which signal the brain. We do not expect people afflicted with those illnesses to be able to exert control over their actions, which is why medicine has attempted to develop interventions to help these individuals.

Similarly, science is discovering how trauma (especially long-term trauma) rewires the brain toward behaviors which can be detrimental. It is no more possible for these VICTIMS, once they are removed from their traumatic situations, to just "take a new outlook" and fix things for themselves, than it is for a dementia patient to do the same.

The practical problem that the view you stated causes, is that we lose sight of the importance of interconnectedness when it comes to addressing these problems as a community and society. It leads to the whole, pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality, which creates disdain for those who don't have the brain function which would allow it.

I'm not trying to criticize you (or /u/WhyDontJewStay). I'm just trying to put into words some of the things I've learned from my experiences (which I may not be the best at, so forgive me.) In fact, I used to espouse the idea that one is responsible for what they do with what happens to them, probably more wholeheartedly than most people.

Let me give you my personal example, to illuminate my thought process a bit more. My Mom died when I was 20, my little sister was 13, and my youngest brother was 10. My father was old fashioned, and I became full caretaker to my siblings. We had a pretty positive upbringing, supported through mild adversity, and were safe and cared for. My attitude when my Mom died was that I was going to make lemons into lemonade! My motto was, it's not what happens to you, it's what you do with what happens to you! I'm glad I had the childhood that allowed me to plant those seeds for myself and my siblings. That is when I first discovered Buddhism. It totally clicked with my desire to make something good out of something difficult.

I see those seeds blossoming in my siblings, some 20 years later. Still, I see other seeds. My sister battles depression. My brother has impulse control problems. I read somewhere about the impact parental loss can have on the brains of children. There's a study about it that I saw recently, but I'm not going to try to look it up right now. Basically it states that childhood trauma can cause altered mental states in adulthood.

Then I met my husband. Through the course of our relationship, I learned that his mother suffers from mental illness (you probably wouldn't know it if you didn't know her well.) She had an alcoholic father, and an absent mother who died young. She and I had a connection regarding the early losses of our mothers (she was 18 when her mother died). Yet she is nothing like me when it comes to attitude about adversity.

I always think of myself as lucky, despite my challenges. She always sees herself as unlucky, no matter what her blessings. I've tried to find the silver linings, she's always followed around by a gray raincloud. I'm meditating and "acting as a student," as you say so well, to learn from my experience. She's shutting down and has a victim mentality, and does everything to avoid dealing with her situation in a way that would give her freedom.

So, the question about karma which has been illuminated by my experience, is, how much control does one as an individual really have? I grew up in an environment in which conditions for less dukkha sewed seeds which brought me here and lead me to continue to practice. My mother-in-law grew up in an environment which sewed the seeds for more dukkha. But we do lose the fruit of those seeds, just because we became adults? It may be possible for some, but not for others.

I think we (myself included) get a little too self-congratulatory for being able to make more useful choices and develop more skillful means. These abilities are fruit of our karma as well. I'm not arguing that karma doesn't exist, or that it doesn't bear both positive and negative fruit. I'm just saying that if your garden is overgrown with weeds from traumatic experiences, it's not entirely within your control that your flowers have trouble taking hold, or that you don't even know how or where to plant them.

So, the great thing, is that those with flourishing gardens can offer compassion to those whose gardens are a mess, and reserve their judgements. This is something spoken of when it comes to karma as well- the idea that we all act unskillfully out of delusion.

I think it's a very minute distinction that I'm making, but I think it's still an important one. Which came first, the ability to react more skillfully, or the skillfulness itself? There's no reason to perpetuate the idea that victims are always able to "take responsibility" for their reactions to the karma planted by their abuse.