The victim identity is the epitome of ineffectiveness in the world. It’s you choosing self-righteous weakness. A defiant attempt to gain free strength from someone or something else. Victimhood renders you a dependent child. By your design, strangers, lovers, and bosses fill the controller role.
There are reasons you might choose to entrench yourself in a victim identity. For starters, you don’t have to try too hard. At the crossroads of accountability, you can show your Victim Pass as a way out of consequences. You can refuse to live up to your potential without it being your fault. You don’t have to learn, change, and grow. You are free to fill your time with self-defeating habits. You convince yourself this is the extent of what life has to offer to support your inner victim story.
When you live as a victim, you punish everyone around you. You numb out your inclinations to take part in your life. You play your favorite song, “What They Did To Me,” on repeat. You are free to live a life of escapist isolation, free of responsibility for your actions and attitudes. You live in the past, where no healing can ever occur.
Choosing a victim identity also means you don’t have to work too hard at relationships. It’s obvious, to you anyway, that everyone else is wrong. You build weak bonds by eliciting the pitying attention of those around you. They must understand they can’t expect you to show up as an adult. You give up a whole, prosperous life to maintain your self-pity.
Some thoughts alert you to the fact that you’re identifying as a victim rather than a creator. You can identify them by their extreme position. The ego likes nothing more than to be unique and separate.
“No one understands or has it as bad as I do in life.”
“Things are harder for me than everyone else.”
“An event in the past cements my future, and I can’t do anything to change that.”
Victimhood is a response to life that distracts you from the past losses you refuse to feel. It’s an attempt to deny your vulnerability. It’s how you get love and attention. It justifies your lack of belief in yourself. By betraying your strength, you decide that you are what the victimizing person or event says you are. Such as not valuable, worthy, lovable, or safe in the world. In this way, you assign the person or event total power to direct your life. It’s allowing five or ten years of your life to steal the remaining 70.
You can grow out of the victim role by assuming absolute responsibility. You determine the content and quality of your life. You exercise your power to choose and make decisions. You refuse to allow the mind and ego to go on endless fear-mongering, self-pitying rants. You create a meaningful future in the present, where you are not a victim, even if you have a victim history. You accept the past and feel the pain so you can stop running. You step into faith so you can create a more bearable and self-compassionate future on your terms.
Song Accompaniment: Andra Day, Rise Up
Artwork: The Art of Seth