https://medium.com/personal-growth/dealing-with-the-victim-mentality-in-others-a9d6f2270f72
“What makes some people hold onto being a victim and others choose to improve their lives?” – Dr. Laura Schlesinger says that is “Control”.
When you are a perpetual victim of bad child experiences, the past is in control of your present. As a conqueror, the present is controlled by your choices, in spite of the pain and pull of your past. A bad childhood is easy to come by, and you don’t have any control over that. A good life after a bad childhood is not easy to create, but you do have control over that. In a bad childhood you struggle against forces external to yourself. To a make a good life the struggle is against forces internal to yourself.
I come from a divorced family and over the past years I have been stuck in my childhood ugliness. My self-esteem has always been down. I used to get angry faster, was bitter and traumatized, depressed, un happy and unbelievably demanding of others. I always blamed myself and talked to myself in harsh ways and answered in low tone. What a nuisance I had become because of holding onto my past?
I realize that with right set of people around us; we can overcome our bad experiences through mentoring and guidance. We can turn around our past experiences into a good life. We can stop being victims if we work on our lives.
Let’s explore some things we can do stop being victims and improve our lives.
1. Practice Spirituality
Healthy families teach children about being compassionate and loving toward others, by how they treat each other. Children who are not taught this end up with hardened hearts. They become very selfish and end upon alone because they don’t care who they hurt.
Now that you have grown; don’t hang on what your parents didn’t teach you. Instead search for something that is bigger than yourself, seek God, pray and fellowship with others. Decide to become a loving spirit that you wish you had in your own life. This will help you find purpose and value in your life. Here are some spirituality questions to help connect with your life and identity. Am I a good person? What is the meaning of my suffering? What is my connection to the world around me? Do things happen for a reason? How can I live my life in the best way possible?
The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it. ―Henri J.M. Nouwen
2. Look in the mirror
I have always negatively criticized myself and always felt like a victim. Always thought of my imperfections and because I have been in the boat of suffering for ever so long. I did not know how it feels like to appreciate my own beauty. This caused me problems because whenever some people didn’t like my face, I also begun to dislike myself too. How saddening this is.
After reading a book recommended by my boss/mentor – Mr. Samuel Jjuuko, “The 15 invaluable Laws of growth by John Maxell”. I come across “the Law of the Mirror” and after reading this law, I reflected about my low self-esteem and made it a habit looking in the mirror each and every day while saying positive affirmations to myself. There is a very big difference in my life, I started believing in myself, stopped feeling negative and instead become determined, motivated, and focused. I started recognizing my value and begun to add value to myself. I love myself, have become more confident and my scars are healing slowly. Read 5-reasons-why-you-should-look-in-the-mirror-more-often.
“Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you’ll start to see a big difference in your life.” – Yoko Ono
3. Endure pain
A good life is about enduring; real life doesn’t just happen – it takes some work. Personally, I am still battling self-esteem. I am always troubled by the small voices that cross my mind but over the past few months I started doing some work to myself, I trigger my mindset into what I want not what it says.
I am pushing myself to do things I never thought I could do; I am stretching by the help of my boss. It feels uncomfortable waking up early to work on myself but I am holding in there knowing that the prize lies ahead. It takes courage to forge ahead when your emotions tell you things like “Don’t bother, it’s hard, go back to bed, you can’t do it”. You have to use your will, your intellect, your faith that there is more, different and better life out there for you and that to have to function by virtually ignoring the screaming negative signals (voices) from within yourself. Don’t wait for the pain to go away because it will never. Rather challenge it with quality moments, experiences, and relationships. Read 13-ways-to-endure-emotional-pain.
“Your pain is an opportunity for you to learn about yourself.” – Gary Zukov
4. Acceptance
Do you have people you wish were never in you life because of what they do to you? Have you developed hatred and tried to eliminate them from your life? This isn’t the solution. Stop fighting against something that won’t change. Learn to accept the kind of parent/spouse you have, what they can or cant offer. This doesn’t mean that you should embrace what they say or do, or agree with it; simply forgive their words and stop fighting about it.
Personally, I choose not to be a victim to the bad memories that I went through, and I am committed to becoming the best person I can be and accept people the way they are.
“Acceptance is simply love in practice. When you love, you accept, when you lack love, you judge.” ― Abhijit Naskar
5. Letting go
My parents separated when I was 12 years as the eldest daughter with my other 5 siblings. The experiences we went through as children along with disappointments, pain made me develop an emotional wound that has been hard to heal. I have always given attention to bitterness which has always taken away the attention I could give to spending time with my loved ones, learning something new, being creative, feeling joy, and so forth.
Not until my boss talked into my life and shared with me some tips to forgive myself, let go of the past and start focusing on the present. After the meeting, he sent me a message asking me to heal first. This helped me so much and from that day I started feeling much better and I started letting go of whatever bad memory I was holding onto.
I urge you to let go of your bad childhood memories, thoughts and feeling because these are snatching away the joy you need to have a good life. If you don’t let go, you will end up hurting your spouse, children, and other people in your life. The disappointments you get are reasonable but what’s not reasonable is how much of your life is taken up in being sad, hurt, or angry about the stuff you know you do not have control over.
“Time doesn’t heal emotional pain, you need to learn how to let go.” ―
6. Perspective
Two different people who see or experience the same thing will describe it differently depending on their perspective. In the past I used to see things as hard, impossible but I have come to understand through some reading discoveries that we-achieve-what-perceive and therefore instead of focusing on bad experiences I keep counting my blessings each day, I am grateful for the life I have. I have learnt that every bad situation happens for a reason.
How you perceive your world will help take you off your personal victim island and put you in the world with the rest of humankind. Not only can you then see options with respect to giving and participating in that larger world, but you can also see how you are wasting precious life time by continuing to focus over yesterday and not taking advantage of the opportunities you have for happiness now and forever. Life will show up the way you run it. So, I CHOSE to run my life different than what I was taught at home, because Life is about CHOICES!
“The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.” – John C. Maxwell
7. Attitude
I have always chosen to see and respond to events, situations, people, and myself in a positive way. No one in my family from both my parent’s side, went to school beyond S.4 but I refused to be a victim and strived through poverty and made it through university. I remember when I was at university; the situation was tough. We ate cassava flour with silver fish for 3 consecutive years, but my attitude about this situation was always positive. I never let pain, depression or lack destruct me from the prize. I knew that through hard work and toiling with the Lord being on my side I would make it through university. So here am I today, a Civil Engineer impacting the world.
Your attitude is not something that happens to you. You choose your attitude. Your attitude is created by your thoughts, and you choose your thoughts.
“A positive attitude may not solve all our problems but that is the only option we have if we want to get out of problems.” — Subodh Gupta.
8. Reach out
I always reached out to others only to get affection, attention, approval and I would feel deeply hurt each time I couldn’t get what I expected. This was because I felt there was a space for love that had to be filled by my parents.
Thank God, at my work place we have always had open conversations and I started opening up. I told my workmates and colleagues about some of my past experiences. I am surprised by how much belief my work mates see in me. To me this was one of the therapies the has made a big impact in my life. They give me support I need to get better and keep encouraging me.
As a victim, you cant change entirely on our own; which is why teachers, pastors, and mentors are so important in our lives. The truth is that we can’t change what we don’t know and we can do anything if we knew someone believed in us and was there to encourage us. So be willing to let people in to see you, really know you, advise you, support you, and even remind you when you’re off track.
9. Replace bad habits
Growing up experiencing bad childhood, we learn ways of thinking, feeling, reacting and behaving. You become a victim and behave in a certain way because it’s what we had learned and used to.
As a person, I always slipped into self-sabotage, I was always suspicious of the motives of others and assuming the worst from them, I always entered new situations with fear and always assumed the worst will happen to me. But I have come to understand that being stuck in a child hood mode, makes you react to all new experiences as though there was nothing new since child hood.
Let me ask you as question? “Is it your goal to be happy and have a life of peace and some purposeful accomplishment?” If the answer is yes, “How does what you’re doing contribute to that end?” If that habit isn’t contributing to the end goal, then stop it. It doesn’t benefit you abusing your husband, severely beating your children and blaming your parents or other people for your results. If all your past years were wasted then find out how you are going to change the rest of your years.
A change in bad habits leads to a change in life – Jenny Craig
10. Develop new hobbies
Hobies are an opportunity to move your mind away from somber issues into an arena of creativity, constructive activities, positive growth and change, discovery and new knowledge, a sense of competency, exciting challenges new friends—and possibly a whole new perspective on life’s possibilities.
One of most benevolent things I have done for myself is journaling; I spend 20 minutes each day to gather up myself and write about anything I feel or think about. I make conversations with myself by asking myself questions and at the same time answer. The has helped change in ways I cannot even imagine.
No man is really happy or safe without a hobby – William Osler
Conclusion
You can overcome being a victim; you have the power to control your past. You can boast your self-esteem, be happy, take on opportunities and make a positive impact in the world if you decide to work on your childhood problems. Do not allow to become an effect of your bad child hood experience because so many people survived-child-abuse and are now successful. You are not a simple product of your experiences. You are a product of what you make of and do with those experiences. Having been a victim as a child is not voluntary. Continuing to be an adult victim is voluntary.