Chronic Blame-Absorption as Over-Responsibility Wrong Attractor: The Fault-Collection Architecture, Self-Blame-Compulsion Basin, and the Return to Calibrated Moral Accountability

Chronic blame-absorption (W_CBA) is formalized within the displacement framework as a stable wrong attractor in the space of moral self-attribution: a basin in which the subject compulsively collects responsibility and blame for events, outcomes, and emotional states causally produced by others or by circumstances outside any individual's control. The healthy ground state S^0—here designated calibrated moral accountability—is characterized by proportionate attribution of causal responsibility to self and other, acknowledgment of genuine wrongs committed, and freedom from self-blame that exceeds actual causal contribution.

The accumulated displacement = |B(e) - R(e)|\,de, where B(e) is absorbed blame and R(e) is actual causal responsibility for event e, quantifies the chronic miscalibration at the core of this pattern. Three sustaining mechanisms are identified and analyzed. First, blame-absorption-as-conflict-prevention: taking blame preemptively terminates interpersonal conflict, producing immediate relief that reinforces the absorption loop.

Second, self-blame-as-agency: if the subject caused the harm, they can in principle prevent future harm—self-blame preserves illusory control over otherwise uncontrollable events, making it psychologically preferable to accurate causal attribution. Third, others'-emotions-as-self-responsibility: the subject experiences others' distress not as information about the other's internal state but as evidence of their own failure to prevent that state, collapsing the boundary between empathy and accountability.

A central paradox governs the structure: by absorbing blame for others' actions, the blame-absorber paradoxically removes accountability from those who actually caused harm, enabling its continuation while punishing themselves for events beyond their control—the Accountability Paradox. Developmental roots are traced to parentified children and scapegoat family roles in which blame-absorption was a genuine peace-keeping necessity.

Return paths involve responsibility calibration (matching acknowledgment to actual causal contribution), the differentiation of empathy from accountability, and somatic tracking of blame-absorption triggers. Nine formal propositions and three definitions structure the analysis; the bibliography draws on attachment theory, family systems, shame and guilt research, and trauma studies.