You're nobody's victim

“Don’t be a victim.” You’ve probably heard this, before.

Victim stuff–yes, with a capital “V”–is very tricky. It’s tricky because it’s hard to acknowledge. No one wants to admit it when they’re acting like a Victim, the agent of their own suffering.

And then…enter reality. Everyone, at some point, acts like a Victim. We feel sorry for ourselves, have a list of things that “they” did “to” us, or we insist that we are helpless when in fact, we have options.

So if you’ve ever felt like you had a tough time letting go of anger with your mom, ex-spouse or partner, a crappy boss, a friendship that is no longer? Chances are that somewhere, you’re buying into a Victim mentality. Seeing that clearly is a huge gateway to forgiveness, releasing the past, and changing your life.

Whose House Are You Living In?

I held on to anger towards my mother for years. The story is not a tale of sordid abuse at her hands.

I was angry because when I was a kid, she’d been so angry, and that had had an effect on me.

Over the course of therapy and a ton of self-help, I tried my hardest to just see that whatever mistakes she’d made, she was just like me: a human being, having a human experience. Nonetheless, the fact that I grew up experiencing periods of shame, rage, or blame overshadowed the good things that had happened, and I framed my personal Story about who I was from that place of “I’m the kid with the screwed up childhood.”

I had a whole identity system that stemmed from it (which I didn’t realize).

As much as I resented my past, my Victim Story, in its simplest form, this: She messed me up. This was the tale I told myself and others.

But here’s the thing: my Victim Story wasn’t true.

For one thing, I wasn’t living in her house, anymore. I lived in my house, now. Who was in charge of my life? Me.

For another thing, defining myself as a victim of her behavior for the rest of my life wasn’t very empowering. Why was I so insistent on defining my life that way, even all these years later when I was the one in charge of my here-and-now? What was I getting out of that definition?

When I investigated those questions, I kept arriving at this:

I got to be the Victim. I got to be the one who was wronged, and therefore deserved empathy. I also got to be the one who didn’t have to take any responsibility for who I was in my relationship with her, right now. If my life was a mess, I didn’t have to take responsibility for that, either—because she messed me up.

Victim Blaming

This is a challenging topic to write about, because without a doubt there are people around the internet who will take just this little one blog post, and assume that I’m essentially gaslit by my mother and now engaging in self-victim blaming.

Speaking of not being a victim? No one needs to worry. I’m not “gas lit” by my mother. And, I’m not blaming the victim—myself, or implying that you in your own life are somehow to blame when other people’s behaviors have had an impact on you.

Victim blaming is when someone does something harmful that they don’t want to take accountability for, and essentially tells you that you’re the problem and need to get over it and just let go.

What I’ve chosen to do in my own life was not “get over it” but rather, to go into it.

I went into the pain.

I went into the anger.

I went into the sadness.

I went into the grief.

I did this over, and over, and over again. I cried, screamed, talked, raged, talked more, analyzed, cried more, talked more…and on and on.

—> What I’m saying is that there is a certain point where I realized that I had processed through a lot of feelings, talked about a lot of feelings, analyzed a lot of experiences, and come to certain conclusions about my childhood…and to keep doing that (over and over and over and over) but without changing my Story about what had happened, was leaving me in Victim-mode.

The two critical differences are that a.) I didn’t just “try to get over it” and bypass the very real feelings I felt, and b.) I eventually shifted my Story about what had happened.

When people cause harm, intentionally or not, the wounds are very real. I never pretended otherwise. I’m not suggesting that you pretend that what happened to you, didn’t happen that way or that it didn’t hurt.

I’m saying that for me, there came a point where I didn’t find it powerful to define myself by the mistakes of the woman who raised me, anymore. There came a point when it was time to choose something different.

Limiting Stories

Deep breath: This is not about just flipping some cognitive switch.

It’s about getting–really getting–that just because you experienced XYZ in the past, you don’t have to define yourself by those past experiences. Just because you’ve had ABC experiences, doesn’t mean that that’s how life will always be. Just because you’ve had 123 times where you tried to change a pattern and couldn’t, doesn’t mean you’re incapable of changing a pattern and therefore will always be a Victim to it.

I’m not saying ignore the behavior of your oppressors. I’m saying don’t define yourself by the behavior of your oppressors. That’s when you become your own hero.

It’s about getting–really getting–that you do in fact have choices. Not always easy choices, not always as many choices as someone else, not always the choices that you wish you had. But somewhere, if you are committed to looking hard enough, you’ll find that you do have choices, the most powerful of which are to choose how you set your intentions, the choice of where you put your attention, and the choice of whether you’ll be reactionary or responsive.

That’s a piece of making any meaningful strides towards life change.

I choose who I am.
I decide how I live.
Experiences and people don’t define me.
I do.

You decide who you are–you say who you will be in this life.

Not your past, or the crappy circumstances, or the people.

You can acknowledge the pain of those experiences, without letting them define you.

That’s how you truly become nobody’s victim, not even your own.

You’re a strong, courageous survivor. That makes all the difference.