The Meaning Of The Victim Mentality

A victim mentality? What does that mean? Blame. Complain. Make excuses.

Being victim means that you blame mistakes, challenges, and setbacks in your life on life, others, things, and anything else but yourself. You make excuses when things go wrong, and you complain how unfair it all is. Another way to say it is lack of personal responsibility.

You might not be able to prove that they have negatively impacted you, but you just know it. If it’s not a person you are blaming, it’s a circumstance. It’s always unfair, you are always being unfairly treated. Self-pity is often at the heart of the victim mentality; victims expect little good in life. These beliefs prevent the victim from ever truly engaging in life or overcoming any of its many challenges and obstacles.

Life is unfair, but it’s unfair a lot of the time for a lot of the people. It isn’t just you. There are bad things that happen in life. It could be that you’re a victim of a sexual assault, a home invasion, or some other crime. When this happens to you, you have a right to feel aggrieved. You are right to believe it was out of your control because it was, this has happened to you without your consent. It’s not your fault and any suggestion otherwise is false.

It’s normal to feel sorry for yourself sometimes. It’s normal to feel powerless when faced with a challenge or the change when faced with divorce, bereavement, or otherwise.

But the victim mentality is a chronic condition.

At the heart of a victim mentality is an avoidance of personal responsibility. You paint yourself into a corner of inaction by convincing yourself that you do not possess the power to take control of your life to make things happen.

On the other hand, a healthy person recognizes that many of the events occurring in life are down to the choices that they make. Which means that they can change their life by making different and better choices. When misfortune occurs, it’s not about deserving or undeserving.

The Victim Mentality And Resilience

For someone with a victim mentality, it’s difficult if not impossible to bounce back from setbacks, adversity, and life challenges. It’s difficult to see life as anything other than just happening to you. It always feels like things are happening to you. You’re the victim, no one else has it as bad as you.

The victim mentality is a combination of seeing life as beyond your control, negative, or being convinced you require sympathy because you deserve better.

Having a victim mentality is a serious road block to resilience. Without personal responsibility you will never take the necessary actions or have the proper mindset to overcome adversity. So, when some setback or challenge occurs, instead of taking action (because you believe you have power) you sit stagnant in excuses and blame.

Resilient people always look to themselves in times of trouble. They go inside and search for solutions that they can then use to bounce back. They take personal responsibility for what happened to them and what will happen to them. They rarely focus on the external world, and they have complete confidence in their ability to overcome and problem solve.

Personal Responsibility

List of all things you are responsible for (just to name a few)

• Your feelings
• Your actions and behavior
• Your choices
• Your decisions
• What you do and how you react when adversity hits
• How you handle problems
• How you seek solutions to problems
• How you let others treat you
• How you live your life
• How you react to others
• How you do your job
• How you treat yourself
• How you treat others
• Your life

Be clear about one thing: You are 100% responsible for all of the above. Until you adapt that mindset, you will always be a victim and you will get into trouble in all facets of your life.

Why Do I Choose To Be The Victim?

Believe it or not, there are benefits to the victim mentality.

• There’s no need to take responsibility for your actions or behavior.
• You get to complain and get attention for it.
• People feel sorry for you and pay you extra attention.
• People don’t criticize you because they don’t want to upset you.
• People are compelled to help you because they feel sorry for you.
• You don’t get bored because you’re so busy making drama.
• You don’t have to feel angry because you’re too busy feeling sad.
• You have stories to share about the things that have happened to you and that makes you seem like a more interesting person.
  When you read the statements above, you can see why a lot of people embrace the victim mentality.
  The victim mentality makes you feel valued, it makes you feel empowered, it gets you attention.

The Power of The Victim Mentality

Are you surprised by how much power playing the victim buys you? It’s particularly surprising considering that at the core of the victim mentality is the belief that you hold no power. That’s what people with the victim mentality tell themselves.

Yet, by convincing others that they should feel sorry for you, you have manipulated them into meeting your wants and needs. It might be in small ways, like people going out of their way to shop for you.

Or, it could be more insidious, like people treating you with kid-gloves because of your poor me act. It means constantly escaping responsibility for your actions.

An Example of Victimhood

An excellent example of the victim mentality is codependent relationships. In one corner, there is a caregiving partner and in the other is an alcoholic. You might immediately assume the alcoholic is the victim. This may be true. In reality, the caregiving partner can also paint themselves as a victim because they are forced to deal with this terrible behavior.

They sacrifice their wants and needs to cater to the wants and needs of their alcoholic partner. It sounds sacrificial, but the reality is they leverage guilt to control the alcoholic. Of course, this an extreme case, but it shows how easy it is to fall into victimhood.

Another darker victim role is how abusers steal power and play the victim. A partner who constantly tears their partner down and then fixates on a moment when that partner snapped back.

That moment becomes central to their victimhood – the partner attacked them. The abuser convinces the partner that they deserved the attack and they wouldn’t have had to react in such a way if they weren’t putting up with the partner’s stupid behavior.

The abuser isn’t the victim here, but they convince the actual victim they are by painting a picture of poor me, all to defend their behavior.

Victim Mentality Is A Learned Behavior

Do you feel like you’re the kind of person who is prone to playing the victim? Why do you think that is? It’s a learned behavior, just like the majority of behavioral patterns we get stuck with it. There’s a good chance you can trace it right back to your childhood.

Perhaps you picked it up as a habit because the adults around you did the same. When a parent feels as though the world is out to get them and they constantly complain that they’ve been wronged by the world, it’s easy to see why you would take this on as a mentality.

You may have been in a codependent relationship with a parent. You may have been their caregiver, responsible for leading the charge when it comes to their care or happiness.

In these kinds of situations, children can fall into the victim mentality and convince themselves that love is earned and that if you are unwell people will look after you. This can result in a victim mentality as an adult.

Perhaps you learned the victim mentality because it helped you survive a difficult childhood. Children require love and attention. If this isn’t offered freely by parents, then children find a way to get it. It could be that they received love and attention when they were unwell, weak, or when bad things did happen.

That’s just a few examples of where the victim mentality may have started within you. Part of overcoming your victim mentality is finding the root of the problem and solving the issue.

How To Make Changes

As stated above, the victim mentality is learned, therefore you can unlearn it. It is a process so understand that it will take time and though it may feel intense as times, you can overcome it. You didn’t consciously choose this, but you still have to deal with it. Let’s focus on overcoming it together, whether it’s you that is fighting the victim mentality or a loved one.

Identify Action

You can’t overcome the victim mentality unless you take ownership. The only way to do that is to identify ways you can act in order to improve your circumstances. Instead of making fun of the lovey-dovey couples on social media or complaining about a lack of love in your life, start taking positive steps to change your situation! You can’t make progress without first taking action.

Take Responsibility

Start owning up to your bad behavior and mistakes. If you’re in a bad situation, you have to own up to your part in it. Acknowledging your guilt or culpability isn’t a sign of weakness – it’s strength. If you didn’t get a promotion, you have to look at the cold, hard facts and not blame coworkers or family life.

It’s up to you to make your way. Pay attention to how you speak about your problems, whether it’s to yourself or to others. Which brings us to the next point!

Change the Narrative

We tell ourselves stories. The problem is that within the victim mentality we are guilty of telling ourselves false stories.

For example…

• My boss is a jerk that is why I got fired.
• My alarm clock is a piece of crap, so I am always late.
• “These” things always happen to me, life is out to get me.
• Life is too hard.
• I can’t do this job right because they expect too much of me.
• It’s all his/her fault that I am unhappy, he/she has been treating me like crap for years.
• People can’t be trusted, they always let you down.
• If the government would get their act together, I could get ahead in life.
• No one understands how hard I have it in life.
• What’s the point of trying, something is always in the way.
• My parents mistreated me, of course my life will always suck.
• How can I get ahead when life is out to get me.
• I have the worst luck, nothing good ever happens for me.

You can change the story. You have the power to take control of your story.

If you find yourself blaming someone for your situation, challenges, or problems, then change the narrative. Bring it back to yourself.

• What is your part in it?
• How did you contribute to the situation?
• What are you doing or not doing to cause this?
• What can you do to make changes so your life is what you want it to be?
• Why are you staying in a relationships where you are unhappy?

Change the narrative back to you. Change the narrative to personal responsibility…

Help Others

Instead of dwelling on your struggles and hardships, go into your community, and help others. That perspective can help you work through your issues. While your struggles are real and the pain you may be experiencing is valid, it pays to see the suffering of others.

It helps you realize that your situation is only temporary and that while things aren’t great, they could be worse.

More importantly, by helping others you are doing a good thing for your community. Wouldn’t you want others to offer you the same support if you were in a similar position?

Learn To Say No

If you want to overcome your victim mentality, then you have to take control of your life. For example, don’t let resentment keep you down because you are overworked. Sit down with your coworkers or boss and explain why you are saying no to certain requests.

The same goes for your personal life, don’t feel as though you have to say yes to everything. More importantly, don’t say yes to things just so you can complain about it later.

Be Kind

You play a role in the challenges in your life. However, that doesn’t mean that you should beat yourself up when you take responsibility. That’s simply an extension of the victim mentality you have created for yourself.

Forgiveness has a powerful role to play in erasing the victim mentality and building your resilience. When you learn to forgive yourself, you are putting yourself in a stronger position to thrive. When you blame the world, you aren’t resolving the pain you are feeling. You aren’t taking positive action.

Identify and Accept

Identify and accept all the things that you have control over and take personal responsibility for them.

• Your feelings
• Your actions and behavior
• Your choices
• Your decisions
• What you do and how you react when adversity hits
• How you handle problems
• How you seek solutions to problems
• How you live your life
• How you react to others
• How you do your job
• How you treat yourself
• How you treat others
• Your life

Conclusion

Ultimately, the victim mentality isn’t a permanent situation you have to live with. If you have recognized that you are guilty of making yourself the victim, you aren’t stuck in it. You can overcome this behavior if you are willing to do the work and keep at it.