Victim Mentality
“Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.” — Nora Ephron
This was to be the topic of my last post but that ended up turning into a post all on it’s own. What I wanted to write about is mothers who are in abusive relationships. Again, I am no expert, just a woman who has realized the effects childhood abuse had on me and witnessed, as an adult, women who are in abusive relationships and how that affects their children.
As has been well documented here, I am extremely interested in psychology and am back in college pursuing a degree in psychology myself (I will probably be around 87 when I actually get there). I am constantly studying and researching anything and everything having to do with the way we humans behave and why.
If you get into therapy, you will get at least one diagnosis. Even if you don’t, you may recognize patterns of destructive behaviors on your own. This diagnosis or recognition can be helpful. Knowing that diagnosis is not necessarily a good thing. Why? Because it can result in a perpetual victim mentality.
For example, I have been diagnosed with seasonal allergies. I have several different options for dealing with that diagnosis. I can take an over the counter allergy medication every day to avoid all symptoms and complications (sinus infections, etc.). I can sign up for desensitization shots in which I am injected with all of my allergens every week for the next five years. I can ignore it completely and suffer during spring and fall. It’s all up to me. Because I did the 5 years of shots as a child and they wore off in my early 30’s, I really don’t feel like dealing with the weekly hassle and expense for the next 5 years, knowing it probably won’t last forever anyway. I choose the over the counter allergy medication and very rarely have into any symptoms. Problem solved.
The same is true for many psychological diagnoses and even just emotional problems that have not been diagnosed. For example, I have been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. Sounds ominous, possibly even crazy, right? No. It basically means I worry too much, am high strung and am frequently on high alert for trouble.
Armed with this diagnosis, I could do nothing and just deal with the symptoms. I could choose to work on getting to the root of why I have developed anxiety while taking anti-anxiety medication. I could choose to not deal with getting to the bottom of it and just stay on anti-anxiety medication for the rest of my life. I chose working on it.
Let’s look at what would happen if I chose to do nothing and just accept the fact that I am an anxious person and “stricken” with this “disease”. I would not sleep well. I would be irritable. I would have a difficult time concentrating. All of that would result in other health issues, problems within every relationship I have, and problems functioning at work. In fact, problems functioning at all. It would mean complete chaos for me and anyone who chose to stick around me. My kids would suffer when I was irritable. Our finances would suffer when I performed poorly at work. My whole life would be a mess. I would focus primarily on whatever was worrying me and everything else would fall by the wayside.
That, in a nutshell, is the problem I see with accepting a psychological problem or diagnosis and doing nothing to work through it, especially in the context of mothers who allow their children to be abused. It would be much easier for me to just say, well, I’m a victim of this disorder and you all just have to deal with the consequences. Sorry. Or, I can take responsibility for working it out, getting better and finding ways of managing it, for myself and my family.
I am not a victim. I have allergies and I take measures to control them. I am anxious and I take steps toward controlling it and eliminating it. This is the difference between simply accepting a victim role and taking personal responsibility for my life. I believe this applies to any problem. We either give up, blame our problems on someone else or some disorder or we fight for better health and a better life. It’s our decision, the professionals can only help inform and guide us. What we choose to do with that is entirely up to us.
Thanks for stopping by!
Interesting related post about: Playing The Victim by Dr. George Simon.
Another interesting related post:
“This excuse that “I would be lost without him, which is why I couldn’t do anything about it when he abused my child” is complete nonsense — especially today, at a time when therapeutic and financial resources are made available to anyone. It makes my blood boil. The children suffer from the mother’s betrayal almost as much as from the abuse itself. Our criminal laws pay insufficient attention to the moral culpability of mothers.”
I like this. In everything, we really do have a choice, and sometimes the awareness of how that might be affecting others is enough to motivate us to make the choice that is right for us.
As an aside, you might be interested in checking out Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) which is tapping gently on acupuncture points. (Has also been classified as ‘Energy Psychology.’) A natural, easy-to-learn method that can be self-administered which has been successful in ameliorating or even completely eliminating both allergy symptoms, and anxiety reactions (as well as trauma and physical pain and everything in between.) Check out http://www.emofree.com where you can view videos, read articles, and download the manual for free.
Thanks Cora. I’ll have to check out that link too.
“You can’t complain about something unless you are willing to change it” … words from the grandmother who loved me. This post made other chords quiver.
I lived in the country once, in a home surrounded by ‘cow’ pasture. The smell was sweet to me, adverse to others. And that’s all I have to say about that.
I wouldn’t be a big fan of the smell of manure, but the solution would be to move away from it. It’s pointless to complain without making change. Your grandmother was wise.
i’ve never really understood the desire to be a victim. i know it gets attention. i know it is a way to avoid accepting responsibility. but what a horrible, caged way to live. one of the reasons i was hesitant to get therapy was because i was afraid that something about that process would turn me into a victim. of course i know that is silly now but it really was a fear i had.
why would you go to a table, not eat and then blame someone else for the fact that you are starving? i just don’t get it.
What a great analogy! I don’t get it either. The whole idea is to figure out what is causing you problems so that you can work on them. It seems to me that some people stop as soon as they hear what is causing their problems and then blame their problems on whatever that cause is. It must seem easier to just stay a victim than to truly deal with their own issues. It really pisses me off when chronic victims ignore the abuse being inflicted on their kids.
I couldn’t stand to be a victim. Maybe because I am such a high-strung type of person, the added pressure of being someone’s favorite punching bag (literally or figuratively) would probably drive me over the edge. I could never stand feeling angry or stressed and did anything I could to either think up a solution or get out of the situation. That’s why I love my Lexapro.
I’m with you Les. I’m too high strung to be a victim or allow my kids to be. I wanted to kick a 12 year old’s ass for bullying my son. Imagine if an adult hurt him!
Cyndi
You are right, we are thinking in the same arena today. Yes, the analogy of going to the table and not eating is a great illustration of how twisted we are in the way we approach personal accountability and responsibility. We create our thoughts, no one else, we can choose to change how we process experiences in our life. Excellent post!
I have a feeling Dr. Freud is spinning in his grave today, ha!
Thanks so much Mark. Ha! I would be honored to have anything to do with Dr. Freud spinning!
i agree with the thought of “fixing the problem” and “stepping up to the plate”. i am one of those people who looks for a solution (even if it takes me eons according to another’s schedule to get there). and i can understand the anger and frustration that comes across in your post based on your own childhood experiences. i can also vaguely kind of believe that there are actually people who like playing the victim because it gets them attention — however, i also believe that those people are actually rarely those who have been truly “victimized”, i think most of them may be just chronic complainers (my husband comes to mind
according to him, everything that goes wrong is someone else’s fault) or seriously mentally ill.
what about the victims, the survivors, of the concentration camps of the Holocaust? none of them got therapy. all of them were victims. few of them lived and the ones that did lived shadow lives traumatized by their experiences. i have had friends who were raised by parents who survived this, and their childhoods were marked by the constant repetition of horrific stories. i am sure they did not mean to hurt their children, but they did not know — they wanted to warn them. and yet, today, a lot of such upbringing would be considered abusive.
i personally find your judgment to be quite harsh — and i am not, i promise you, once of those women you criticize. despite my husband’s issues, my kids are successful, confident, well-adjusted and caring grown-ups in the making. hence my amazing ambivalence.
not everyone can seek therapy. some cannot afford it, don’t have access, don’t believe in it, aren’t allowed to. my mother wanted to, and my father would not allow her — he gave her a meager allowance for household needs, and he could not justify that expense. she believed she had no options, and tried to make the best out of a bad situation. few women in abusive relationships are “allowed” to seek therapy — would you if someone was beating the sh*t out of you every time you tried to talk to someone on the outside? a broken arm here, a choking there, isolation (which you have posted on), the list goes on. the fear of being harmed or killed if you leave, a threat to take the children away if you leave…. if you are talking about mothers who are not abused but their kids are? then i get your point. but if you are talking about mothers who are also abused by their partner, i don’t think they can act on their situation in the same way as you believe you would.
it leaves a person really, really effed up, not thinking rationally. i try really, really hard not to judge others — i find most of the time, people judge themselves (especially women) harder than anyone else. and, IMHO, unless you have walked in (in this case) another woman’s shoes, you truly cannot know.
just my point of view.
I too have tried really really hard not to judge others. I have come to the conclusion that I have very strong opinions on mothers who allow their children to be abused and do nothing about it, whether or not the women themselves are also being abused. I consider them to be no better than the abusers themselves. These strong opinions may recede as I continue my own process of unraveling the effects abuse has had on me, but for now, this is my opinion. Your judgement of my opinion as quite harsh is your opinion.
I have no idea what Holocaust survivors have to do with this post and if it wasn’t made clear in my post, that’s my fault, but I am speaking of people who have the means with which to seek professional help, who have a support system, a place to go, and who recognize that their children are being abused and still do nothing. I am speaking of women who are aware and who even may have a diagnosis but still refuse to do anything, preferring instead to use their diagnosis as an excuse, defending their position to the detriment of their own kids. It’s self-indulgent and I just can’t stomach it.
You know better than anyone who I have foremost in my mind when I write about this topic because I shared with you the details of a situation with a friend. I am well aware of the effects of abuse and how irrational thinking takes over as I myself lived in that state for the better part of my life, and am still working on the process of undoing all the damage.
We can agree to disagree on this topic or we can argue about it endlessly. We have very different opinions on this and that’s ok. Friends don’t always have to agree on everything.
i agree
and i do know who is in your mind, and how distressing that situation is to you, and how protective you feel. i appreciate your clearly defining the type of woman you are talking about. and i without a doubt agree that no child should ever be allowed to be mistreated, and would venture to say that we all have a responsibility to act to protect our children — even someone else’s.
there is a domestic violence situation across the street from me — i have called the police three times in the past couple of years. i don’t know if it makes it worse or not. it escalated when their daughter was born — the first time i called, she was an infant. i called youth and family services too — they told me that if the police felt something was amiss they would summon social services. i don’t think they ever did — the mother is terrified to do anything. i don’t blame her — i can hear him hundreds of feet away. i do what i can, but she is not a friend, and as far as i can tell, has none herself. i don’t want to get too close to the situation because i live right there — and so do my kids. i know what you are talking about — but i see it differently, i think. but i feel sick inside whenever i see that beautiful little girl.
i do sincerely apologize for my edginess — i think this topic hit a hot button on my end, and perhaps vice-versa. but i do still think it is impossible to see from the outside in — and that applies to any situation.
“That, in a nutshell, is the problem I see with accepting a psychological problem or diagnosis and doing nothing to work through it, especially in the context of mothers who allow their children to be abused.”
Clearly, not talking to Holocaust survivors. I am shocked that the parallel was even attempted. Wow.
i was referring to “victims” and picked an extreme example. i have a problem with the re-victimizing of victims — our court system does it to victims of rape, the police and therapists do it to victims of domestic violence, i have seen our guidance system in the high school do it to kids who are “troubled”. it simply seemed to me that broad lines were being drawn — this was my own reaction and my reaction is my reaction — and i am not a person who sees the world in black and white. all shades of gray… not everyone will be self-aware or a candidate for therapy, in fact that is probably the exception not the rule that people are self-aware.
there are scores of people walking around diagnosed with mental health issues and not doing anything about it, by choice, by limitation, or because they are mentally-ill. i could argue that they should do something about it, instead of succumbing to it. but i won’t make that argument, because i don’t feel i can. i actually would argue for social responsibility, rather than telling each individual to get with the program, especially if they lacked the inner and outer resources to do so. the strong should help the not-so-strong, communities depend on it.
i am just expressing my own opinion…. no offense intended.
I understand what you are talking about but Cyndi had made it clear in her original post who she was directing this post to.
I also don’t always see things in black in white but I will also never compare survivors of the worst thing ever in history to survivors of domestic abuse. They do not compare. Yes, some similarities might be made, but they are few and in the big picture miniscule.
From your position stated in the last two posts on here, it seems to me you want to defend the women that stay out of fear with their abuser and the abuser of their children. If I am understanding your position right, while I get the fear thing and don’t doubt how scary the situation is to them I feel one point is not being understood. Who is helping that woman’s children? She is their only advocate. It is her responsibility. We can wish and hope all we want for the village to save her children for her but that is the exception not the rule.
This is an excellent point. One of my biggest frustrations regarding child abuse is my own helplessness. DCFS won’t do anything unless there are visual signs of physical abuse. Verbal and emotional abuse…they won’t even investigate. I found out they won’t even investigate allegations of sexual abuse if the suspect did not have access to the child at night!
There is so little that can be done, as an outsider. The mother however, well, that’s her job. That’s what she signed up for when she decided to have children….to protect them, and she’s the only one with any real power to do so.
You and I have both attempted to get involved as part of the village. Remember, when you called and the police said, “well, she can always call 911.”?
i have my point of view, is all. the father, where is he? he has a responsibility, they are his children too. the other family members — aunts, uncles, grandparents, siblings? where are they?
i am jewish. the Holocaust was horrific. yes, it was an atrocity beyond imagining, yet perpetrated by humans. the unthinkable, treating other human beings as animals. it is not the only horror of all time. and yet, for decades, many jews on the outside pointed their fingers at those who were in those countries, and said “why did you do nothing to stop this?” many non-jews pointed their fingers at the jews in those countries, and said “why should we have helped you? you did not even help yourselves?”
women in abusive situations are being treated like animals. one out of three relationships. animals. humbly, i cannot point a finger.
my opinion, my point of view. we are not all the same. and we cannot predict how we would behave in a situation where we have no experience in the same shoes. i understand where cyndi is coming from. but unless i have lived in someone’s circumstances, i cannot point a finger and say “why did you not do [blank]?” i may be filled with sorrow and helplessness and frustration that it is not different. if i were cyndi, perhaps (and i cannot know because i have not lived her truths) i would be filled with anger and sorrow. and i may wish that i can do more than i can in fact do.
but i will always feel that i cannot KNOW without having lived it. and so i give the benefit of the doubt.
In the scenario presented in my post the father is the abuser! Of course they are his children too and he is a disgusting excuse for a human being. Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents and siblings may not be aware of the abuse. None of mine were. Women in abusive relationships are not in Hitler’s concentration camps. They are free to go anytime they like. While I understand that they feel as if they aren’t free, that feeling is irrational. Children of abuse are not free. They are solely dependent on their parents. Also, in the scenario presented in my post, I am talking about women who are using what they have learned about the effects of the abuse inflicted on themselves as an excuse to remain in the relationship, playing the victim, and sacrificing their kids.
Whoa! LMAO! There is nothing left to say, good luck Lynette.
i understood your post, cyndi. i still remain of my own opinion that you cannot know what other women are thinking and feeling. what seems like an irrational excuse to you may in fact be perceived as a life-threatening situation to someone else, may indeed feel like a prison, may in fact BE like a prison, with threats of murder and worse if the woman tries to leave. the stats on fatalities when women in abusive situations try to leave are scary as anything. and when children are being abused, most often the mother is too.
i think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one
you know, i did not mean to minimize the responsibility a mother has for her children’s well-being. i think i was misunderstood. i realize there are other sides to these stories, and a lot of anger behind it. of course i believe a mother is responsibility for her children’s well-being, and i am sad and sickened for those families where for whatever reason she is unable or unaware of how to get help.
blaming does no one any good. judgment. assumptions.
compassion is what is needed. attempts at understanding, from one side to the other, all angles.
and as far as the LMAO, try spending 15 years in my effing shoes. i would never LMAO at what has been shared by you and cyndi in this discussion. i tried to give a different perspective, because i HAVE a different perspective.
i stayed in the early years so that i would be there for my kids 365/24/7, and they would never have to be alone for extended periods of time with their dad. they were insulated from him and protected from him and are happy and well-adjusted kids. i wrapped myself around them like the warmest loving blanket, and i would do it all over again.
now so many years have gone by and it is so complicated. i have put really the open raw honest truth about my life on my blog, and even then the deepest hurts cannot be put into words and exposed to the world.
LMAO.
WTF.
Lynette-
I applaud your efforts at being the victim of the post titled “Victim Mentality”. Well done.
Stephanie´s last blog ..Green Reading
Let us never be silent. Let us challenge each other with the utmost of compassion … no one can no the absolute truth in any given situation. There is a beautiful process unfolding for everyone here. I am humbled and fascinated as a witness reveling in my own experiences. There are no ONE WAY signs, human lives are at stake here … let us not forget.
Let us agree not to make a problem out of our differences. Let us listen with our hearts and trust in the process we will be bettered through these winds. Through these difficult passages in life. Not on our own.
oh labels, how i loathe thee. i’ve been labeled my whole life by others, but stopped labeling myself a few years ago. it’s actually very freeing.
I hear ya. I’ve been labeled my whole life by others and even by myself. Dumping them is freeing! Well…I do still like, “bitch”.