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.

Two diseases

I was somewhat surprised to see that my last post was in October. Here it is December already. The last few months have been really hard for me. The move here (in August) and the new job has proved more challenging than I care to admit. (Although here I am, admitting it!) I haven't wanted to publicly put this out there for a few reasons. The main reason is, I didn't know why this change was so hard. I was SO excited for it. I was SO looking forward to the change and to the new job. But when I got here and started work, circumstances turned out to be nothing like what I expected and it felt like I had been sucker-punched by life. At the very least, I felt like Heavenly Father had tricked me somehow. No, more like punished me. I felt that I had made a terrible mistake and I immediately felt trapped in a circumstance I couldn't change.

I've been doing a lot of praying and pondering about that. Why wasn't I happier being here when this situation appeared to have everything I wanted? A great job that I am actually good at. A service-oriented job, where I'm helping people. Independence and taking care of myself. The adventure of exploring a new place and meeting new people. All great things, so why not enough?

I was having some health problems - depression, extreme fatigue, frequent illnesses - usually of the stomach flu variety. I went to a doctor and she helped me see that I am gluten-intolerant. She didn't actually do a "celiac" test, but I seem to have all the symptoms and blood-work of someone with gluten-intolerance and leaky-gut syndrome. Which sounds gross, and in reality is, but at least I had an explanation. It's a strange sort of comfort - being able to name a disease; I suppose it's because humans are built to label or categorize and finally having a name for something means I can wrap my head around it and learn how to deal with it, rather than just go on thinking I'm crazy. (Can't both be true? hehe)

So I've been working on changing my diet and taking some supplements, etc. And it's been helping. I can actually get through the day and maybe do some laundry or dishes when I get home, instead of crashing completely. But still dissatisfied. Even though I have the energy to wake up, I dread it because it means I have to go to work, which is what I really dread. My job has been the single most stressful and confusing factor of my life right now. Ultimately, it's a fantastic job and one I SHOULD be loving, but I'm not. I SHOULD be feeling a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction when a patient tells me how much they appreciate how I'm helping them, but I don't. It makes me feel like a cold, calloused, hardened person and I just don't think that's me. (I guess I'm grateful to be aware of the incongruity, because it means I know myself and I know that how I've been at this job is not who I really am.) I understand it, but it's jarring.

I have, as recently as today, come to understand that I have another disease, much worse than gluten-intolerance and leaky-gut syndrome - self-pity.

Self-pity. What a curse! It sprouted in my infancy and, like a weed, has invaded every part of my life. Sending out tendrils that subtly wrap around and choke positive thoughts or emotions. It's many thorns make it difficult to hold on to, to rip it out of the ground of my beliefs. But it's greatest asset is it's camouflage. It has blended in and remained hidden within my thoughts my whole life. Making me afraid. Making me doubt myself. Making me depressed, and so on. It was this massive change in my life that finally revealed it to me. As if I were trying to completely renovate my "mental garden," only to find this insidious weed has been growing maliciously everywhere. It is the root of all my disordered or faulty thinking.

Now the big question is, what do I do about it? It is ironic that even in the middle of praying for the help to let it go, I began to feel sorry for myself. I actually began to feel sorry for myself at the prospect of letting that same self-pity go!! Lame!! It's like it has a built in defense system that won't allow it to be removed. Some kind of twisted fail-safe or something. Which only makes me realize how pervasive it has become and makes the task of removing it all the more daunting. Difficult, but not impossible.

One question I have is, how will I fill the hole it will leave behind? It has been with me my whole life; hurting me, yes, but still comfortable for its familiarity. How do I just let that go? I know I have to, though. The damage it has done feels irreparable, however and I don't know what to replace it with. Extensive internet research (yeah, five minutes on Google again...), tells me that I'm not alone. There is a lot of advice on how to get rid of self-pity and I plan on trying just about anything. But what saddens me the most - and I don't quite know how to say this - is why didn't the gospel help me overcome this sooner? Don't I believe I have access to the true gospel of Jesus Christ? And doesn't that gospel inherently proclaim that the worth of souls is great in the sight of God? Why didn't the truth of the gospel help me more?  I am not doubting the gospel, or the church, or its veracity. It IS true. I know it. I just don't know why it didn't help me sooner.

I guess the answer lies in the initial problem - self-pity. Self-pity makes me feel worthless and undeserving. I'm sure that what I needed from the gospel has been there the whole time, but I wouldn't let it in; I couldn't accept it when it differed so much from what I already believed about myself. I suppose I reconciled my beliefs by thinking that salvation and hope is there for all mankind - just not for me. I had faith in the Savior, but not in myself. The irony is, if I truly believe that the Savior, who is all powerful, can save anyone, then I have to believe He can save even me. Conversely, If I don't have faith in me, then I don't have faith in Him. Essentially, I'm telling Him, "You're power may be great, but it's not great enough to save me. I'm too far gone. Not even your infinite offering can cover me because I'm too fallen and lost. Sure, you can save everyone else, but that's because no one is as far gone as I am. I am too much of a worthless sinner, so I'm out of your reach." Clearly, that is self-pity talking. I don't want to live outside of His reach anymore. I know that I never really was, but I couldn't let myself feel it; now I want to. I want to get rid of self-pity so that I can live authentically. I want to enjoy my life, even if there are parts of it I don't enjoy. Self-pity says, "if you don't already have it, you don't deserve it." That is why I pine after better circumstances. That is why I have the classic, "when I have _____, then I'll be happy" syndrome. That's why I believe only the right external circumstances make life enjoyable and why I'll never have them - because if I deserved them, I would have them already.

It helps to type this all out. Only now, as I re-read what I've written, am I really able to appreciate how twisted this line of "reasoning" is. And it isn't reason at all, it's just f***ing stupid!! (Sorry) Self-pity is the reason I get depressed. It's the reason I feel powerless. It's the reason I have poor self-esteem. It's the reason I can't enjoy life, because I won't let myself enjoy life. Same for my job. It's the reason I turn to food for comfort. Maybe the gluten-intolerance I've experienced is just my body's way of saying, "hey dude, this really isn't the answer..." I'm at that weird stage where I've identified what's wrong and I want to change it, like, now! But that isn't going to happen. This has been with me for so long that I'm going to need a lot of time to let this go and this is the hardest stage for me to be in. It means I have to accept something is a part of me that I don't want. It means I have to be okay with something I'm not okay with, but there's no short-cut; there's no way around it. I have to wake up tomorrow and put my guard up. I have to combat every thought and feeling that would drag me back into self-pity. It is hard, but I also know that I don't have to do it alone. I know I won't be alone. I know that the Savior knows exactly how I feel. He felt it before I did, and He felt it so completely, that He knows exactly how to help me. I hope I learn how to do it well enough that, someday, maybe I can help someone else know how to get out of it too.

Don't feel obligated to read this post... it's long... and maybe just needed to be written, more than read...

I can't believe the year is half over (or half-full, depending on how you look at life?)!! So, yeah, half-over...

I'm kind of cynical these days and, I'll be honest, maybe a little bit depressed. My expectation for where I'd be right now is SO different from where I am.  And I mean "where" in both a literal and abstract sense. I did not expect to be single and living with my mom at the age of 35. I did not expect to be needing gas and food money at this point in my life. It's all the more difficult for having been independent for so long. Not that I'm not grateful, because I am. I wouldn't be surviving right now with out her help and I know she likes to be able to help. But there's something about being a guy that makes me feel less of a man for having to be so dependent. It's humbling and, frankly, I don't like it. I probably need it though... :)

Also, I never saw myself as being unemployed, overweight and single at this "where" in my life either. In my mind I saw myself as being much more successful regarding employment, weight loss/improved health, certainly married with a kid or two, etc. But it hasn't happened. I guess what's hard is that I only have myself to blame. If it didn't happen, it's because I didn't make it happen. I obviously made the choices that did NOT lead to the outcome I expected or wanted. Right now I'm trying to NOT beat myself up for that, but honestly... self-pity is soooo easy and comes soooo naturally to me!! I'm sure that's the bulk of my problem right there...

I wish I could live inside the mind of a really healthy person and see what it's like. What's it like to always make the right choices? What's it like to be positive all the time and be able to put a positive spin on things, even when challenges occur? I've never been the motivational-Tony Robbins-lets-go-out-and-crush-the-world kind of guy. I admire people like that. People who set their mind to something and are successful at it no matter the cost. That's not me - I'm much more passive.

Being unemployed, I've had a lot of time to think about this. What I've uncovered is a deep-seated "core" belief that it's wrong to feel good about myself. I have no idea where or when this started. I have no idea what event or events lead to this being the case, but it's very clear to me now that this belief has underscored much of my belief system as a whole and how I approach life. Essentially, I approach life as if I'm undeserving and not good enough (i.e., I don't "measure up"). It's at the heart of why I'm afraid of everything - I'm afraid that I won't be equal to whatever task is before me and even if I do achieve some measure of success, I'm afraid I don't deserve it.

Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, you know what would be really cool? Getting inside the mind of a really healthy person and then putting that person back into my life and see how they handle things. From the moment they wake up in my life to the moment they go to bed, what different choices would they make and why? Of course it's just a thought experiment, typical of someone who tends to over-think everything, and not really anything that can bring resolution.

I'm not sure what my self-effacing beliefs buy me. Maybe it's a sense of false-humility. You know, the idea that "I'm humble because I hate myself?" Which is NOT what humility is, and I know that now, but maybe when I was a little kid I didn't know that...

Much more likely is the sense that self-loathing is somehow penance. It's possible that it grew out of a desire to "pay for my sins." It's the idea that I deserve to be punished because I did something wrong. Quite frankly, I did a lot of things wrong and felt that I deserved to be punished and that somehow God's punishment wouldn't be enough. I had to multiply His punishment by punishing myself. I suppose some people turn to physical means of punishment, but I turned to emotional means of punishment. Phrases with hurtful labels like "I'm so stupid, I'm so ugly/fat, I'm such a moron, I'm such an idiot," etc. ran through my mind so frequently that, eventually, the feelings that accompanied those thoughts just never went away. Feeling bad about myself became normal, status quo, just... who I am.

I think it's at the heart of why I feel I have to be perfect. Being perfect is the only way to make up for all the terrible things I did when I was younger. I could NOT allow myself to mess up or make a mistake. I held myself to a higher standard because anything less meant I wasn't good enough. And isn't that the expected standard? Aren't we commanded by the Savior himself to be perfect? So that was my justification for why I was right to expect perfection and condemn (within myself) anything that wasn't. And - bonus! - because I'm human and mess-up constantly, I had plenty of opportunity to berate myself and see my faults and flaws as PROOF that I was worthless. I was supposed to be perfect, but couldn't be and because I couldn't, I was worthless. The fault was always mine. It was always there, that feeling that there was just something wrong within me. That I, or my entire being, was somehow wrong.

Hence my love of hating myself. Depression? You betcha! Suicidal thoughts? Check! Actually, I don't think anyone knows that about me, or at least, they didn't until just now. A couple of times in Junior High, High School and later years, I was pretty close to suicide. Really close, actually. Ironically, I never went through with it because I knew I would mess that up too!

You know what I just realized? Self-pity gives you an odd sense of power over other people. It allows you to make other people around you helpless. Because the problem is within me, no one else can fix it and on some level I know this. So I tell people how horrible my life is because it gives me their pity, which is a twisted form of attention, but it also justifies my depression/self-loathing. And because there's nothing anyone can do to change that, it reinforces itself - it perpetuates itself. It's just another way of feeling good about feeling bad about myself. (This is kind of a major breakthrough for me!!)

The realization is half the battle. Now that I know this I want to be able to wake up tomorrow totally different, but I know that these negative beliefs are very well ingrained. The neural pathways that underlie these connections are hard-wired at this point. But I do know that the mind is capable of changing those pathways, but that it takes time and constant, conscientious, reinforcement. I suddenly feel like I'm not up to the task. See? I'm already battling myself on these things.

This is going to take some doing. I can see that. But it is possible. I've been so busy punishing myself that I've hardly had time to acknowledge that I have a Father in Heaven who loves me and truly wants to help me. I haven't allowed the Savior to help me either, because I felt like I had to do everything on my own. It is also a self-inflicted punishment to deny the Savior's atoning sacrifice to work in my life. To refuse His grace. I need help knowing how to do that now. I need help knowing how to accept myself as a fallible human being, full of faults and flaws and knowing that I can't be perfect here, in this life, and that that's okay. Because for so long, it hasn't been.

I think I see now why I'm not "where" I wanted to be. I've been my own worst enemy. Granted, there is an adversary, pushing me to hate myself, but he never forced my hand. The poor choices I made were my own. And my thought patterns and beliefs have been working against me my entire life. I'm starting to feel like it's a miracle that I've achieved anything. That I'm even still here.

I have too many thoughts and emotions running through my mind and heart right now and all I can think is, how do I end this on a positive note?!? I realize now that what started as an update, was really something I've been needing to acknowledge for myself for awhile now. I was about to delete all of this and put it in another journal, but I've decided not to. It might be inappropriate for me to have put such personal things out there. But perhaps they had power over me precisely because I was afraid of acknowledging them. I so often retreat within myself, rather than reaching out and asking for help. This is my way of saying, "I'm not afraid anymore." And, if I'm right, I'm probably not alone in my "faulty" beliefs and if there's anyone out there who can be helped by knowing you're not alone, then it's worth it.

I have known and been loved by so many wonderful people in my lifetime. To those of you who fit that category, I'm so sorry that I was too broken to really appreciate you. I pray that from now on I can really let you in and feel like I'm worth it.