There are two major ways to become a victim. One is to be the victim of outside factors, such as another’s actions (whether intended or unintended) or events that are beyond our control. The other is to become a victim of our own choices.
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When you feel the emotional pain associated with being a victim, it can be very isolating. It can be hard to imagine that anyone else has any sense of what it’s like to be emotionally suffering in this way.
Sadly, the community of those suffering from being a victim is enormous.
Please understand that in no way are we suggesting that you compare your level of pain to that of others. It’s simply important to recognize that you are not alone.
What kind of situations can cause someone to become a victim?
There are many actions that happen that leave victims behind in their wake:​​​
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Victims of muggings, robberies and physical assault.
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Verbal, physical, and/or sexual abuse in their home environment at the hands of members of their friends and family.
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There are those who become the victims of another, simply by not receiving emotional support from someone who is normally expected to provide it. They continually find themselves seeking validation from someone who cannot, or will not, provide it for any number of possible reasons.
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Sexual victimization in the workplace
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Serious injury/illness
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Natural disasters are a huge creator of victims.
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Terrorism
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And certainly, there are those who are the victims of the losses of everyday life. It might be due to a death, divorce, estrangement, for example. The emotional pain that these people feel, that is often ignored or discounted by others, can leave them feeling like a victim.​​
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A person can also become a victim of their own choices.
The Victim Mentality – What It Is and Why Do We Use It?
Have you had a difficult life? Have you been through adverse or traumatic experiences and feel like the cards are always stacked against you? Do you constantly feel as though you have no control over situations or that other people are out to get you? Or do you feel as though bad things keep happening to you no matter what you do?
You might be trapped in the victim mentality.
When we have a victim mentality, we see the world in a very black and white sense of "good versus bad". We believe we are powerless to do anything in the face of all this ‘badness’. That events in our life just happen TO us, rather than the idea that we are choosing or contributing to it in any way. This means you potentially blame your challenges in life on others, and you might also blame many things on circumstances which you see as always biased towards you.
Being a Victim vs Self Pity vs Victim Mentality
Let us be clear, traumatic and bad things can happen to you, and you are a victim through no fault of your own. In such cases you have every right to feel that things were out of your control, because they were, and any thought that it’s somehow your fault and you are responsible is dysfunctional thinking. It’s also perfectly normal to feel sorry for yourself every once in a while. Or feel powerless in the face of certain challenges, life events and relationships.
This is self-pity and it is a fairly normal human reaction to stressful situations
A victim mentality, on the other hand, means you identify with your "self-image" of a victim and become reliant on that self-pity. The trauma didn’t just happen to you, it actually becomes who you are. You don’t move on from the trauma but you hold onto it, making it a focused part of your story that you tell again and again. And you become stuck, comfortably uncomfortable, in this mindset.
Are you a victim or a survivor?
At its core, victim mentality is a dysfunctional coping mechanism. Most likely you went through a bad time in your life or experienced trauma, but you had no coping strategies at the time and developed this negative viewpoint. This led you to develop beliefs that things just "happen" to you and that you have no responsibility for, or control over said things.
Often it can begin from childhood trauma - and as a child we really were helpless. Feeling sorry for ourselves was our only way to self soothe. But here we are now, powerful adults with a whole range of other options available to us. We can make different choices, we can walk away from things, and we do have control over the relationships, mindset, and overall life we are creating for ourself.
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But the victim mentality blinds us to this. We still play that helpless child. We are paralysed, unable to take responsibility and make decisions that would move us forward. Deep down we might even believe we deserve the suffering, that having people feel sorry for us is the only way to get the attention we so desperately crave.
A survivor mentality is aware that they are still choosing how they are affected by what happened/or is happening to them, and embraces their power to take charge and change.
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Whether we see ourselves as a victim or a survivor, this self-image has a direct bearing on how our life will progress.
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As a victim we become self-focused, we go inward and allow the suffering to grow. We blame others for how we feel and believe people are trying to intentionally hurt us. A victim, even years later, is still powerless. Being trapped in a victim mentality has dire consequences that must be out grown to move forward.
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Victims feel helpless, and although we can never change the trauma, or the bad things that have happened to us, survivors have reclaimed the power back from the "bad things" and have regained control over their own lives.
Through survivorship we take responsibility for our own future and our feelings and consciously decide that we are no longer a victim.
Choosing to be a survivor is choosing to heal.
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How will this workshop support victims in their transformation to a survivor?
Victim mentality is a learned behaviour, so you can indeed ‘unlearn’ it. It is, however, a process which takes time and can be quite intense, especially if it is connected to childhood trauma like abuse or neglect. And dealing with victimisation means you must then face the anger, sadness, shame and fear that playing the victim protects and hides you from.
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Whether you have been a victim of someone else's actions, or you recognise that you may be a victim of your own choices, a 3-hour workshop is not going to get you exactly where you need to be, but it can certainly be a good starting point to facing your victim mentality.
We will create a safe, non-judgemental space for you to recognise and explore why you act like a victim, and offer tools to kick start and support that healing process.
This workshop will help you learn to start challenging your perspective on yourself, others, and the world, and find new, and healthier ways of seeing and behaving.
“We cannot have a world where everyone is a victim. “I’m this way because my mother made me this way. I’m this way because my husband made me this way.” Yes, we are indeed formed by traumas that happen to us. But then you must take charge, you must take over, you are responsible.”
Camille Paglia