Emerging Conservative

I was doing some on-line surfing and started to look at articles concerning people with a “victim mentality”. I have come across several people in my life with this learned behavior and it never goes well. They usually have a small band of friends who will die for each other no matter what reality is and will never hold each other accountable. Everyone else in life can be a good friend for years but sooner or later, when something goes wrong, you are the scapegoat and things get ugly fast. So many people get hurt and relationships are never the same.

The good news is, as stated above, this is a learned behavior. It tends to be a defense mechanism and if you can identify that you have it, it is changeable. It could be a simple as making a choice to not to do it anymore but often it needs a little help from a counselor or a professional to work it through.

Either way, you don’t have to live with a “victim’s mentality” and the negative and painful effects it brings into your life.

I thought the following from self growth was interesting and thought I’d share it here if it’s of interest to you….

What is victim mentality?
A victim mentality is one where you blame everyone else for what happens in your world. (Another definition not as commonly used is one that says a person thinks the future only holds bad things for them.) If you do not get the promotion it is because Mr. Johnson was out to get you. Not because he found you playing on the Internet every day. Your best friend called and said she could not have dinner with you. She is always doing that to you; not showing. You’ll show her. You won’t invite her when you go out again! Instead of remembering she has just started school and you did call her at the last minute. Victim mentality.

Recently I spoke with someone who no longer lives with a victim mentality. She has gone on with her life and is free from some of the extra baggage that come with being a victim. We discussed forgiving our abusers and how in that process you also need to forgive yourself. With that came loosing the victim mentality.

When she was living under the victim mentality she found herself angrier. She found herself swirling in a sea of resentment towards her abuser. She stayed locked in that cycle and never seemed to move forward. If she got sick, she became angry at him. If the kids messed up, she became angry at him. He was no longer in the picture, but it was all his fault. It was not hers; he made things this way… Life is easier when you can play the blame game. The blame game makes it easy for your life not to move forward or for you to grow.

The day came when she tired of the mentality. She wasn’t a victim anymore and the time had come for her to move beyond the victim mentality. I asked her how she stopped the self destructive cycle. The first thing she did is something many abuse victims may have a hard time doing. She forgave her abuser. She did not say that she forgave him for breaking her ribs, she acknowledged that he had a problem and that he needed to get help. Wishing him ill will kept him in her mind more then he should have been. By acknowledging that he had hurt her, that he did have a problem, she was able to feel some relief. There was more though. As important as forgiving him was, she needed to forgive herself too. She needed to forgive herself for exposing the kids to the abuse. She needed to forgive herself for not reporting him to the police all the times he had hurt her. She needed to forgive herself for being afraid. She needed to forgive herself for not having walked away all the times she could have. She needed to forgive herself..

She did all those things so she could mentally move forward. Forgiving herself allowed her to get past some of the more intense things she had experienced. The physical bruises had all gone away. The emotional had stayed. It had clung to her and kept the victim mentality alive.

Next week we will go into Part 2 Two on victim mentality. We will talk about moving into a non victim mentality. Something to think on until then:

The average child receives 432 negative comments per day versus 32 positive ones.
The average child in America receives only 12.5 minutes per day in communications with their parents/caretakers. Of that time 8.5 minutes are spent correcting, criticizing or arguing, leaving a whopping 4 minutes per day for the instruction of values, morals, ethics, attitude and self esteem. You were once this child. You also lived a life of abuse, so where do you stand?

The follow up of this articule by this author can be found here.