This is post 28 in the Living Fully Alive blog Series. Please consider reading the posts in the order they were published for the best learning experience.
Victim mentality is a vastly misunderstood term. A lot of people do not know what the difference is between being victimized and having a victim mentality. This post will define this term more clearly and help give greater understanding of how it works and how to recognize victim mentality in our lives.
There is a quote that you have probably heard in one version or another. I couldn’t find a conclusive source as to who to credit it to, but here it is.
Your wound is probably not your fault, but your healing is your responsibility.
That is how it works. I’ve always said, other people make the mess, and now I have to clean it up. It doesn’t seem fair, but at the end of the day, if I don’t clean it up it bothers no one but me.
People with a victim mindset are the ‘Eeyores’ of the world. A lot of the time, people with chronic illnesses (understandably) have a victim mentality. That is not to say they all do, but it is common. Most people don’t like victims. They are the ones we feel like giving a shove in the right direction. We also don’t want to be identified ourselves as a person with a victim mindset. People with victim thinking are typically identified as the ones who whine about anything.
In general, they will be the people who never seem to make any progress. They may even give the impression of working to get out of their situation, but they never make any progress. It may also be people who keep having repeat trauma happening and find themselves stuck in depression.
Are there any areas in my life where I have been working hard and am not making any progress? I am stunned to find out that yes, in fact, I have been struggling with eating issues for decades and still have not found breakthrough. I would say I have learned some things and I’m healthier, but quite honestly, I don’t consider myself having made much progress. How this connects to victim thinking will be interesting to dive into.
Please be warned, in this session you are not going to get much help dealing with the mentality of a victim. You are however, going to get awareness and begin to check your own life for this. Even though the tools for dealing with the victim mentality will be focused on in the next lesson, you do have some tools already from the previous posts on validation, forgiveness and self-awareness. You can apply those until the lesson on taking ownership comes out.
Abi stated that if you master self-compassion, loving yourself and learn how to deal with the victim mindset, you have the tools and skills to get free of whatever you are stuck in.
Justin mentioned that the number one reason there is no breakthrough for someone is because of the victim mentality. That actually makes me feel hopeful. Because I can take the things I learn today, go to areas where I have been feeling stuck and find out how I have been embracing victim thinking. It hasn’t occurred to me that I might be dealing with victim mentality because of how proactively I have searched for answers. However, considering this in areas where I have been trying one thing after another, might just help me figure out what I have been thinking and change things by changing my thinking.
I think it is important to state that a lot of us start out as genuine victims. Something is done to us we had no power over. I’m sure we can all think of places in our lives where we have been feeling victimized. However, if we embrace the lie that this victimization is bigger than us, that we are powerless to move on from here, then what was a victimizing event can threaten to morph into victim mentality.
Hard things happen to everyone. I actually find it helpful sometimes to study people who have overcome worse than I have, because it shows me I can move forward too.
A synonym for victim mentality is powerlessness. Powerlessness says, “I don’t feel powerful. The outside world dictates my circumstances. Everything works out for everyone else. Everything outside of me is destroying or threatening to destroy my life or life quality.” People who think like this embrace a mentality that says, “If I just reach this achievement then I’ll be ok. In general, the ‘if’ is dependent on someone or something outside of us. We need something we don’t have control over in order to be ok on the inside. Consequently, people try to control everything and everyone around themselves to reach that, or they give up. That basically describes the codependent and the victim mentality.
Another way victim mentality operates is seeing everything as being bigger than them, everything is too big for them; they are not able to break things down into smaller pieces and are simply overwhelmed. People with victim mentality may also feel like they have no other choice. That they are stuck because they are forced to this one thing. They see no other options. They will often say the phrase, “That’s just the way it is”.
I would like to insert here that this is not just a mentality some of us embrace because we have no tools. Feeling powerless is exactly what the enemy wants us to feel. I think it is important to acknowledge that there is a spiritual warfare aspect connected to this. I believe the enemy assaults us with this lie, even as we have a natural tendency to also think this way. Although I don’t know if that can be backed up by studies. But it appears to me that fighting victim mentality is a double whammy, because we are dealing with our own coping mechanisms and are also being assaulted by the enemy with a steady stream of these lies fed to our minds, and if we are not self-aware we will not catch it. Of course we need to take responsibility, but maybe an element of shame can be removed right off the bat, because we can give ourselves grace, knowing that the enemy is against us in this also making it look like he’s not at work at all.
Having a choice was so important to God that he was willing to put two trees in the garden even though he knew, choosing to do so also meant he was going to have to clean up our mess by sending his son later. If having a choice was so important to God, then we should never allow the lie to drive us to despair that says, “I have no choice”. It then makes sense to consider that any time we accept we have no choice, we are essentially giving up our free will instead of looking for where the other choices are. When we say we have no choice, we are actually choosing what we think we have no choice over. I believe there are always at least two choices.
It is important to embrace the truth that we all have the power and the ability to learn and grow in any area of our lives that we want to. We can learn to manage our emotions, we are not hostages to them. We can learn to see things differently. We can learn to cope in healthy ways.
Some of us have grown up being taught a broken perspective of God that says our broken lives are God’s divine plan for our lives, and we just accept the brokenness as our cross to bear. But if that were true, if there were a predetermined way God has set up, then we would be robots and we would not need choices. God does not want robots. God wants to be in relationship with us as we go on the journey of navigating life and learning how to make healthy choices.
You may be wondering where this victim mentality comes from.
Here are a few suggestions. Firstly, we may have learned them from our parents or other close relatives. I have had a relative who has always looked like they were helpless to their chronic pain and the lousy childhood they have had. Growing up, so many wrong things got excused simply because that person was labeled as sick. I rebelled with my whole being against such a statement, because deep down I felt everybody should be held responsible for their choices in life, and how they choose to deal with life. After having read extensively about Dr. Leaf’s work and her position on mental illnesses, I am convinced more than ever that it is based in wrong thinking and isn’t actually an illness that nothing can be done about.
You may have learned victim thinking by watching someone in your life just accept that they did not have what it takes to make money and just embrace poverty. Or you may have seen someone model to you that you have to put up with abusive work situations because if you quit you will never find another job.
Wounds are another place victim mentality comes from. Especially wounds in childhood. As children we are powerless in so many ways. Every child experiences powerlessness. Stuff happens to children that they really can’t do anything about in the situation. I’m thinking of the child who has emotionally unavailable parents, they don’t listen, don’t pay attention. The child learns that there wasn’t anything he/she could do to get their attention even though he/she may have tried to earn it with performance. As a result he/she gives up.
In those situations, as a grown up looking back, it is helpful to ask, “What choices did I have?” More will be covered in this regard in the next lesson. I find it helpful to read stories of concentration camp victims. It is amazing how much they did not have power over, but they held on to something. In Corrie Ten Boom’s case, they decided to continue sharing and being kind and loving instead of embracing the “everyone for themselves” mentality, and as a result their barracks was the most pleasant one, and people were led to know God this way.
Science calls the victim mindset is learned helplessness. Watch the video of a study done with dogs to show what they found out. And can I just say, I want to cuddle and spoil every last one of those poor dogs!
Human experiments were conducted also.
Group 1 was in a white room that had crazy noise in it. There were buttons, and if the right ones were pushed, the noise turned off.
Group 2 had the same room conditions, but the button did not turn off the noise.
After the groups had been conditioned in their respective rooms, they were put in two new rooms. In these rooms, it was actually easier to turn off the noise than in the previous ones. And both rooms had working buttons this time. Group 1 simply figured out what was needed to turn the noise off and turned it off. Group 2 did not even try. They simply endured the noise, accepting there was nothing they could do to turn it off. They exhibited learned helplessness. It is suggested that it is human nature to lean towards this kind of behavior. This is why I think the enemy sends circumstances relentlessly to break the people so they stop fighting. I assume he knows about this concept and uses it to his advantage. Know your enemy!
When people keep hitting barriers, they end up developing a defeatist attitude. I have seen this at work plenty of times.
I can’t help asking, “What places in my life have circumstances relentlessly thwarted me to the point I decided I’m going to stop trying? The enemy is relentless. I must be more persistent. What have I not tried yet? Who can I ask to help me overcome? What else can be done?
Here is a small example from a recent moment, where I realized I was operating in victim mentality. Somebody in my life is not using time wisely, and on more than one occasion their lack of wise use of time has ended up affecting me and costing me. I have noticed increased frustration and feeling of anger because I feel there is nothing I can do. ‘Helplessness alert’. I had planned on doing an errand on the way to taking said person to a place they needed to go for an important meeting. We were late. I was annoyed because now I would not be able to do my errand. Then I realized, wait a minute. I have more choices. It is not my job to make up for that person’s poor use of time. I had explained the plan clearly, and it was their choices that made us late not mine. I realized I had a rule about being places on time, and keeping that rule made me feel helpless to the time management issue because I did not want to be late. As I realized this, I communicated what I had just realized. I said, “It’s not my job to bear the consequences of this misuse of time. You can bear it. So I’m going to still do my errand, and we may end up being late, but it will be your consequence.” I felt so much calmer after working this through in my head and choosing to look for more options. I love this self-awareness stuff!
Before the next part to this post, feel free to explore areas in your own life where you have felt stuck, where you think you may have been operating with victim thinking, where you realize you may have given up, where you felt there was only one choice.
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