Overcoming a Victim Mindset

What follows may not apply to everyone who reads this. However, for those people, I still hope that this gives some insight into the behaviors of friends or loved ones for whom it may apply. As well as gives them some compassion in dealing with a loved one who sees themselves as a victim.

I’ve been thinking about this “Victim Mindset” for awhile now. I haven’t been sure how to write about it because it becomes overwhelming every time I think about it. But I feel compelled to try to get it out there because I think it’s essential to understand if it’s to be overcome.

“I am a victim.”

The power in that statement comes from the fact that it’s true.

I was molested; that is a fact. I was bullied for being fat; that is a fact. These things happened.

But – and this is much more subtle – that statement also carries power because it is an expression of identity. “I AM a victim.” Notice how this is present tense verbiage? Not, “I WAS a victim,” but, “I AM a victim.” That’s a truly powerful statement.

And it’s also wrong.

At least, my mind knows that it’s wrong, but my heart doesn’t know it yet. In my heart, I’m still a victim. Even though those events are far behind me, meaning I am NOT currently a victim of those acts (which I understand logically), I don’t FEEL that way. I still FEEL like I am a victim. When I was victimized, I took on that label of “victim” and it never left.

So if I know, logically, that I’m not a victim, then why has it been so hard for my heart to give up that identity? As it turns out, being a victim has some pretty significant payoffs. (What follows is by no means an exhaustive list, but just some of what I feel have been the most prevalent in my life.)

No Accountability

Because I am a victim, I’m not responsible for all of the things that have happened to me, which should feel like a huge relief. After all, there is a great deal of safety in being able to pass the blame on to someone else and to reside in that sense of your own innocence. However, it also means that neither am I responsible for MY OWN choices or circumstances, because being a victim is all or nothing. Either I’m to blame for everything (including the actions of those who hurt me) or for nothing (including my own choices/action) – and being blamed for “nothing” feels safer.

Ironically, victims may take on blame as a way of demonstrating the nobility of self-sacrifice; it’s just that they usually take on blame for things that are OUTSIDE OF THEIR CONTROL because it preserves that sense of innocence. Safety, as it turns out, is of monumental importance because the brain doesn’t distinguish between physical, mental, or emotional threats. A threat is a threat and all you want in that moment is safety.

The unfortunate side effect of not having any accountability, in my opinion, is self-pity. If you don’t have any accountability and everything that happens is outside of your control then you also feel powerless and it is SO easy to feel sorry for yourself when you feel powerless. It’s as if you’re making a trade: I’ll take on feeling self-pity/powerlessness and give up feeling responsible for my actions if it means I can feel safe. The consequences of thinking this way in regards to the choices we make are innumerable…

Moral High Ground

Have you ever noticed that there are some people who are always right, no matter what? Even when they are totally wrong? And no amount of logic, proof or evidence will ever sway them? They are most likely a victim, because a victim is ALWAYS right. They have to be, to preserve their safety (there’s that word again…). I hate to admit it, but this definitely defines me. I have always needed to be right and I never really understood what drove that need. What I understand now is that being right gave me the ability to say, “if I’m right, then I know I’m okay and if I’m okay, then I’m safe…” This also goes back to why there is so much power in the “I am a victim” statement, because it’s true and it can’t be refuted. No one can tell me that I wasn’t hurt; those things actually happened and no one can tell me they didn’t. So I will ALWAYS be right! 

But it’s not just enough to be right, you also have to make sure that everyone else agrees with you being right – because if you’re wrong then you’re not safe. And if you’re wrong then you’re accountable for your own actions, which you can’t be because you only did those things because you were a victim. If you hadn’t been a victim you wouldn’t have done those things so you’re not responsible. If you’re right, i.e., not responsible, then everyone else is wrong and you have the moral high ground (the “safety” of the moral high ground, I should say). This could also be called “justification” or “pride.”

I truly believe that this is at the heart of so much discord between parent and adult child relationships – the adult child, having been hurt, wanting the parent to accept responsibility for them being hurt, but the parent being defensive because they were also hurt and can’t accept responsibility for their action, meaning they are just as much a victim as their own child. So we have one victim (the adult child) trying to make another victim (the parent) responsible for being hurt and neither is willing to accept the “blame,” because, again, being wrong means not being safe.

If this has been hard to follow, good! It should be hard to follow because it’s not logical. It’s what I call “victim logic” which is a logic based on false beliefs and not really “logic” at all. More to the point, YOU CANNOT REASON WITH A VICTIM!! These people are VERY defensive and constantly on alert for anything or anyone who may try to shift blame on to them – which is tantamount to being killed. I’m not exaggerating. Remember, accepting blame is an emotional threat and the body reacts to that threat as much as being threatened with physical harm or death. If you interact with someone who is easily defensive, that is a red flag that that person doesn’t feel safe, in general, and that they perceive themselves as a victim in some way.

Being Special

This is a tough one. Everyone wants to feel special, which is not a bad thing. There is an inherent need, which begins in infancy, to be validated by our parents/caregivers. This is a very real developmental step that is required in developing a healthy self-concept. In healthy development, that sense of being special is internalized, but for victims, it isn’t. A victim doesn’t just want to feel special – they NEED to feel special and they believe that that can only come from an external source, i.e., other people.

Sometimes, to be special, you have to compare yourself to others. Most often a victim will compare their weaknesses and flaws, in order to gain "special" status. Consider the following: Have you ever met anyone who made you feel like you were in a contest to prove who had the worst life? Or when you express a hardship in your life they respond with, “you think that’s bad, listen to what I had happen to me…” As if enduring hardships was now a contest? The challenges that a victim encounters are the worst problems that anyone could ever face, according to them, of course. Because having greater hardship than everyone else, makes them special.

Oh, and what about those people for whom life is one constant round of inexplicable drama after another? Those are victims. Random bad things happen to them over and over, but pay attention to how they express themselves regarding those circumstances – they will never be at fault. They are just at the mercy of unpredictable, external circumstances. They will always express their hardships as something that has happened TO them and they had no part in causing it to happen. “I don’t know why these things keep happening to me!”; or  “I certainly haven’t cause such-and-such to happen!” And they truly believe that, because in their mind, as I mentioned above, they aren’t ever responsible for blame (i.e., no accountability, innocent, etc.).

This makes a victim feel special. It’s totally twisted, I know, but again “victim logic” doesn’t make sense. People who have constant drama feel special. They feel special because they stand out and or may get attention in the form of sympathy (even when they say they don't want it!). For a victim, sympathy and pity = love. They have to have constant drama in order to gain continued sympathy and for a victim, it’s never enough. It can’t be because sympathy cannot fill the true validation needed, which is ultimately, what they are trying to fill. Sympathy/love = attention and attention = being special.

Another way they feel special is that the rules that apply to everyone else don’t apply to them; because they are “special.” Here’s an example from my own life: other people can eat healthy and exercise and lose weight, but I can’t. It doesn’t work for me. I can eat right and exercise for months and I won’t lose a pound, because I’m different from everyone else (i.e., "special"). I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I think I’ve hired personal trainers in the past, IN ORDER TO PROVE that what works for everyone else wouldn’t work for me. It’s as if I put in all this work at the gym, only to EXPECT it not to work, because then I can go to the trainer and say, “see, I told you it wouldn’t work for me. I was right that I’m different and you can’t help me.” That’s my "moral high ground" and my "always being right" showing their ugly heads – and causing me to remain a victim, because after all – I am a victim, right?

If you know someone who is always the exception to the rule, it probably makes them feel special, which may mean they see themselves as a victim.

I feel like these three payoffs – No Accountability, Moral High Ground, and Feeling Special – pretty much encompass all other payoffs a victim might experience, although there may be others I haven't considered.

The other problem with being a victim, though, is how easily it perpetuates itself and how pervasive it is. Being a victim has affected every single area of my life – which I guess it has to if that’s been my “identity.” My identity is not just how I see myself, but how I see the world and that affects how I interact with the world, i.e., the choices I make. Even though being a victim has a lot of payoffs – the biggest being a sense of safety – I think any person who identifies as a victim will also tell you one thing – that they are miserable. Being a victim has made me miserable throughout my life. I suppose I’m writing this because I’ve just gotten to the point where that misery is no longer worth the “safety” I feel in being a victim. And it is only as I strive to shed that victim identity that I see that my sense of safety was actually a false sense of safety and one that actually inhibits growth and change.

A victim can never progress because they are stuck in an endless loop of being a victim NOW (the present tense “I AM” statement). They remain a victim even though the events that led to them identifying as a victim occurred in the past and are over and done with. So today I am trying to make a shift. I am moving with all the physical, mental and emotional intention I can muster from “I AM a victim,” to “I WAS a victim.” If you’ve made it to the end of this blog post (first of all, thank you for hanging in there!!), I hope you can appreciate how monumental making that shift is. I am opening myself to being accountable for my own actions/choices; I am opening myself to being wrong and also not needing to prove I’m right to anyone; I am opening myself to not being defensive and giving up my “moral high ground”; I am opening myself to the fact that I’m not any more or less special than anyone else; I am opening myself to being hurt and to not feeling safe.

Yet in opening myself up to those terrifying conditions, and they are truly terrifying, I find that I become an “agent,” free to act and not be acted upon. Yes, I WAS a victim, but today I am free.