Victim mentality
Being a victim is being powerless.
I don’t say this as something to be ashamed of, but gaining awareness of.
It means that someone abused their power in ways that violated our boundaries of wellbeing and safety and took something from us. I was going to say that they did it without our consent, but the reality is for some people, they have somewhat consented to a set of circumstances and regretted later because they were not aware of what was being proposed and of their own boundaries.
Somethings happen and are beyond our control, like wars, diseases, rape, accidents, robbery, etc that can make us a victim. All these things are terrible and compassion, understanding, support, help and healing are extremely necessary for people who go through such ordeals.
Then there are other comparably minor situations, where someone wrong us, did something we didn’t expect, conned us, lied, cheated, tricked, exploited, used us, betrayed our trust and many other similar situations that turned us into a victim.
In all of those situations we feel that we lost our power and control over our lives and what was happening to us, we are victims to forces that seem beyond our control and we find ourselves unable to overcome in those moments.
It’s not helpful to deny the amount of confusing and terrifying emotions that one goes through when dealing with traumatic and disturbing events and act as if nothing happened. To deny, fake, repress or bypass the emotional turbulence that such events caused, is not compassionate to anyone under such circumstances.
No one expects a person that just had a transplant or broke a leg to walk out of the hospital like everything is normal the next day, and so our emotional wounds are not something that we just “get over” in a few seconds or even days, they also need time to be processed, cared, hopefully understood and healed and many times a guide or therapist that can help us go through that process.
Though we may have been a victim at a point in time (and who hasn’t ever?) where the problem lies is when we choose to stay a victim, to assume that identity as who we are, not try to heal our pain, become a chronic complainer, remembering and resenting events and people for something that happen in the far past, to use that as a justification to embark in harmful behaviours towards ourselves or others. Where we have the power is in the choice to stay a victim like that or, to choose to go on healing process, to become empowered and learn from the situation whatever was that we did or didn’t do that could prevent it if we were ever to come across it again and maybe take on an identity of someone strong and capable of overcoming obstacles and difficulties and turn their life for the better. This is where we have an option to stop seeing ourselves as a victim of life and others and become a more wise and powerful person.
To (choose to) stay stuck in victim mentality, and do nothing to change ourselves, or the situation we are in, that place us as a victim, in some cases, has its benefits.
We can always appeal to the attention and the compassion and appeasement, coddling from others.
We can justify our weakness and incapacity to do nothing about it, and resign to a unsatisfying life as we believe we are powerless to change it.
We can convince others to make it easier for us, to make us an exception that gets a more favourable treatment, we can get them to sacrifice things to please us, we can guilt them into feeling that they should be doing something for our benefit and not be selfish in doing what is best for them if we don’t like it, we can get them to feel that they have to look after us, do what is best for us and be responsible for our wellbeing and happiness, because we are stuck in this loop of misery .
What we really get from that is that we get to stay powerless, we get to delude ourselves that we have power to control others when we don’t have power to control ourselves, we get to stagnate our personal growth, we get to feel sorry for ourselves for never achieving much in life, we get to feel justified in blaming others for our sad life, we get to feel justified in punishing others that we perceive are attacking us for absurd reasons - from having it better than us and not sacrificing their happiness for our self-imposed capability to find our own happiness, to the ones that try to get us out of our limbo as if they can’t understand our need to stay where we are and how important it is to stay there.
You really have to decide then if you want to stay a victim and why, and take on that banner proudly if that is really where you like to be at, and where you want your life to stay if you really believe you get more benefit in being powerless, weak and damaged for life out of that situation. Or… do something about it, go on a healing journey and change it.
Only you can make that decision… no one is ever going to fill your lungs for you and no one is going to live your life for you.
Anywhere you look you will find inspiring people who had it much, much worse than you and still decided to empower themselves and overcome their twist in destiny with really bad odds.
What you can do to empower yourself out of victimhood:
Go through the process of pain and grieve of all related emotions. Don’t repress, fake, hide, or pretend everything is business as usual when you are struggling.
Find a therapist, that can help you heal and process those emotions.
Train your brain to adopt a more positive perspective, it takes time but the tips below also help
Practise gratitude, make a gratitude list everyday of things you are gratefull for and bring you joy
Learn a meditation practise that can help you silence your mind and be in touch with that silent part of you that is and would “still”… (be) you, even if there were no thoughts.
Practise energising yourself through connecting to Nature or associating yourself with the aspect of a Higher Being and Intelligence that most appeals to you.