The Professional Victim
- Thread starter CDNBear
- Start date
I think that would be a very fair statement. Mindsets are contagious. Even when we think we're above them, we often just don't see it in ourselves. It kind of flows along with the psychological phenomena of the 'perception of personal risk bias' (if I'm recalling the term properly). We often view others much more critically than we're ever willing to view ourselves. If presented with a list of behaviors someone else has performed, we will see much more risk in it than we would see in that same set of behaviors in ourselves.
Well I was just thinking of myself and what happened to me with a particular "friend". I spent hours with her Karrie. Listening and listening, and listening. All my other friends kept saying things like....."wow, you're so patient with her, I wouldn't be"..or "how can you spend that much time on the phone with her"? I did it for years. I went through every fricking crisis with her that you can imagine. Cause every damn thing was a crisis for her.
The other thing I did was walk on egg shells with her. Because any type of questioning her about anything was viewed as criticism of her. So I didn't.
That is just not normal. You can't have a friendship and measure every damn word because you might offend. And god knows, you never knew what would offend her from one day to the next.
Then my mum died. She was all concerned and compassionate for about five minutes. Then everything switched back to her latest crisis.
I finally walked away because I had become the victim. I was like her personal freaking therapist. It was always her and I against the world...... except the world was never attacking me, everything was always about her.
I hear ya Sal.
The challenge is two-fold: disassociating ourselves from feeling like the victim once we're embroiled in a situation like this, THEN overcoming the feelings that come with the decision to walk away. The victim will do everything in their power to manipulate our emotions by assigning the role of abuser/bad guy/bully... you name it - whatever trigger they can find to try and lure us back in once we begin to assert our boundaries.
On the bright side, an experience like this can provide some wonderful opportunities to take a good look at ourselves - if we're brave enough - and acknowledge the fact that someone else had the power to provoke such feelings of entrapment, guilt, powerlessness etc within us... and look at why we were such an easy target... for me, again, it has come down to forcing myself to use discernment when extending compassion to others - recognizing my own limitations, and respecting them first, before I can ever expect someone else to do so. I can recognize a soul-sucker a mile away now - and I've learned to provide the appropriate amount of compassion with one foot out the door as I'm doing so.
That doesn't apply to people who genuinely are going to make a conscious choice to move through whatever bad fortune has befallen them... there's plenty of people who need that shoulder and support to get through a tough time... what differentiates them from victims is they'll eventually use that support to help propel them into some sort of recovery and move on with their lives, allowing the friendship to regain it's normal ebb and flow filled with other shared experiences that aren't based solely on a one-sided give/take scenario.
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Yes that was my experience at the time. I was also aware that I was "getting something out of it" as well. Not an easy thing to admit.
I can also be a pleaser as I like harmony, so it was tough to cut the strings.
When I did, she was quick to tell me that when I was down and out and dying of cancer, SHE would not be extending a hand to me.
It seems funny to me now. In the moment I wondered how I had been that stupid for that long....
Funny thing about that. I have found in the years following that soul-suckers tend to recognize a dead end when they see it. I am now a dead end. And selfish in a healthy kind of way. If there's no give and take, I am no longer willing to extend myself the way I was in younger years.
Unless one is a child, I believe that love should be very conditional. The condition being love must be reciprocal and based on mutual respect.
Absolutely. She did not destroy my desire to put myself out there still, but I will do so only for so long and then I am finished.
I have zero tolerance for people who suffer from perpetual victimitis - especially the codependents....oh how I loathe the codependents. I guess that's why the majority of all people think I'm a gynormous bitch. :lol:
You can't help people that don't want help. My advice for you though comes from one of my favorite men, Dr.Leary, "Drugs Are the Religion of the People — The Only Hope is Dope*"
"I am 100 percent in favor of the intelligent use of drugs, and 1,000 percent against the thoughtless use of them, whether caffeine or LSD. And drugs are not central to my life."
"The universe is an intelligence test."
"If you want to change the way people respond to you, change the way you respond to people."
"The drug does not produce the transcendent experience. It merely acts as a chemical key — it opens the mind, frees the nervous system of its ordinary patterns and structures."
"You're only as young as the last time you changed your mind."
"Individual societies begin in harmonious adaptation to the environment and, like individuals, quickly get trapped into nonadaptive, artificial, repetitive sequences."
"Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening, terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities — the political, the religious, the educational authorities — who attempted to comfort us by giving us order, rules, regulations, informing — forming in our minds — their view of reality. To think for yourself you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable open-mindedness, chaotic, confused vulnerability to inform yourself."
"Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition."
*Dope= natural botanical species that are considered illegal by some
"I am 100 percent in favor of the intelligent use of drugs, and 1,000 percent against the thoughtless use of them, whether caffeine or LSD. And drugs are not central to my life."
"The universe is an intelligence test."
"If you want to change the way people respond to you, change the way you respond to people."
"The drug does not produce the transcendent experience. It merely acts as a chemical key — it opens the mind, frees the nervous system of its ordinary patterns and structures."
"You're only as young as the last time you changed your mind."
"Individual societies begin in harmonious adaptation to the environment and, like individuals, quickly get trapped into nonadaptive, artificial, repetitive sequences."
"Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening, terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities — the political, the religious, the educational authorities — who attempted to comfort us by giving us order, rules, regulations, informing — forming in our minds — their view of reality. To think for yourself you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable open-mindedness, chaotic, confused vulnerability to inform yourself."
"Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition."
*Dope= natural botanical species that are considered illegal by some
Does anyone have a sense that we have (or there appears to be..) an increase in the number of self-proclaimed victims since oh say thirty years ago?
Is there any relationship between the idea that "genetics" has exacerbated/caused my problems....
Or... I'm a victim of forces beyond my capacity to either confront or control like...ADD and ADHD and Autism and behaviour disorders that have crippled my family to nealy dysfuctional levels....
Or It's no use fighting city hall...Ottawa.....Washington...... better to simply accept the situation as it is.....
Or I have no control over my life because....A B C etc.......
If we cultivate an attitude that suggests that your genetics, some unidentifiable disease of causality ...which you can't of course do anything about...big government and big business and the technologizing of everything that hits home most succinctly when "automated" calls are recived...when automated "help-lines...etc. replace living breathing human beings.....
We're not responsible for X Y or Z because Dr. Phil and Oprah have told me that deeply seated animosities and unresolved conflicts have shaped my self-awareness....
How much of our sense of "victimhood" have we embraced...?
Is there any relationship between the idea that "genetics" has exacerbated/caused my problems....
Or... I'm a victim of forces beyond my capacity to either confront or control like...ADD and ADHD and Autism and behaviour disorders that have crippled my family to nealy dysfuctional levels....
Or It's no use fighting city hall...Ottawa.....Washington...... better to simply accept the situation as it is.....
Or I have no control over my life because....A B C etc.......
If we cultivate an attitude that suggests that your genetics, some unidentifiable disease of causality ...which you can't of course do anything about...big government and big business and the technologizing of everything that hits home most succinctly when "automated" calls are recived...when automated "help-lines...etc. replace living breathing human beings.....
We're not responsible for X Y or Z because Dr. Phil and Oprah have told me that deeply seated animosities and unresolved conflicts have shaped my self-awareness....
How much of our sense of "victimhood" have we embraced...?
You cite the last three decades I think it's coincidental with the idiot box or mass media in general. The telly more than anything has instructed in the arts of the victim and pandered to that market.
Oh like you mean your life is meaningless unless you own this or that....
Or Just take this FREE offer and send us your Credit Card number and we'll send you happiness in a pill, a diet, an exercise machine, genuine Franklin Mill reproductions, weight-loss regimen, hair loss cure, acne medicine, etc. etc. etc.
After all so the message goes, "You're a victim to something and WE have the cure...SEND US YOUR MONEY and your life will be perfect....
That kind of influence...
Or Just take this FREE offer and send us your Credit Card number and we'll send you happiness in a pill, a diet, an exercise machine, genuine Franklin Mill reproductions, weight-loss regimen, hair loss cure, acne medicine, etc. etc. etc.
After all so the message goes, "You're a victim to something and WE have the cure...SEND US YOUR MONEY and your life will be perfect....
That kind of influence...