SassyLady
05-24-2012, 01:45 AM
Intervention time for members of this board:
Victim Mentality | Refuse to Be a Victim’s Enabler
by NANCY on <abbr class="published" title="2011-04-22" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; line-height: 1em; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 1px; border-bottom-style: none; cursor: help; font-style: normal; ">APRIL 22, 2011
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“If it’s never our fault, we can’t take responsibility for it. If we can’t take responsibility for it, we’ll always be its victim.”
– Richard Bach
There are some real victims in life. People who have been the hurt from criminal acts, wars, and forces of nature such as the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan really are victims.Most people who survive these unfortunate circumstances show remarkable resilience and courage and are a source of inspiration and strength for others.
The focus of this article is those people who have a victim mentality. They are the ones who always blame every misfortune on bad luck, other people, fate or some circumstance where they were the helpless victim of circumstances beyond their control. Maybe you know someone like this, or maybe you are that someone.
I have a friend whom I’ve known for about 15 years. Alisha (not her real name) was divorced when I met her and is still a single person. For all these years she has blamed her ex-husband for her children’s misbehavior, her financial difficulties, as well as any and everything else that has gone wrong in her life. Two years ago she quit her job saying, “I just couldn’t put up with those people any more. They were making me sick.” She had not lined up another job to replace the one she left, was not eligible to collect unemployment, and for six months before she found another job, was dependent on her mother to help pay the mortgage on her house. Within two months of taking the new job she was once again complaining about how depressed she was and how much she hated this new job. The people she worked with were incompetent, mean-spirited and she didn’t know how much longer she could continue to work at this place.
When I suggested that she was fortunate to have found another job so soon because many people have been unemployed for years during this time of economic crisis in the country, she never commented. Gratitude (http://www.fuel2drive.com/how-to-be-happy-when-youre-not/) is totally lacking in the victim mentality mindset. Such people are so focused on what they don’t have and what others owe them that they fail to recognize anything positive or good in their lives.
Alisha’s take on life is typical for someone with a victim mentality. Victims do not look inward to determine if they bear any responsibility for what happens to them in life. They are so rivited on looking for someone to blame for their problems and misfortune that they fail to understand that everyone has problems at one time or another in life and each of us must accept personal responsibility for dealing with life’s challenges. The understanding that we grow and learn as we face challenges and overcome them is a totally foreign concept to the victim.
Because they are blameless and bad things keep happening to them, victims live in a bubble of negative feelings; self-pity, helplessness, hopelessness, depression, anxiety, anger and fear color their world. It’s difficult, if not impossible to help someone with a victim mentality because lacking an internal locus of control, they look to an external source to rescue them and give them what they feel they are owed.
Although my friend Alisha is a person with much potential who could, with insight and motivation, be a happy and fulfilled person, I have come to accept the fact that I cannot save her from herself. I allow myself very limited contact with her because the longer I listen to her recount complaints, the more I reinforce and enable her behavior. When I begin to experience my energy draining and my mood becoming heavy and dispirited I know that it is time for me to tell her that I need to leave. We can’t be all things to all people and we can’t change others. Know when it’s time to let go and walk away in love.
http://www.fuel2drive.com/victim-mentality/
Victim Mentality | Refuse to Be a Victim’s Enabler
by NANCY on <abbr class="published" title="2011-04-22" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; line-height: 1em; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 1px; border-bottom-style: none; cursor: help; font-style: normal; ">APRIL 22, 2011
</abbr>
“If it’s never our fault, we can’t take responsibility for it. If we can’t take responsibility for it, we’ll always be its victim.”
– Richard Bach
There are some real victims in life. People who have been the hurt from criminal acts, wars, and forces of nature such as the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan really are victims.Most people who survive these unfortunate circumstances show remarkable resilience and courage and are a source of inspiration and strength for others.
The focus of this article is those people who have a victim mentality. They are the ones who always blame every misfortune on bad luck, other people, fate or some circumstance where they were the helpless victim of circumstances beyond their control. Maybe you know someone like this, or maybe you are that someone.
I have a friend whom I’ve known for about 15 years. Alisha (not her real name) was divorced when I met her and is still a single person. For all these years she has blamed her ex-husband for her children’s misbehavior, her financial difficulties, as well as any and everything else that has gone wrong in her life. Two years ago she quit her job saying, “I just couldn’t put up with those people any more. They were making me sick.” She had not lined up another job to replace the one she left, was not eligible to collect unemployment, and for six months before she found another job, was dependent on her mother to help pay the mortgage on her house. Within two months of taking the new job she was once again complaining about how depressed she was and how much she hated this new job. The people she worked with were incompetent, mean-spirited and she didn’t know how much longer she could continue to work at this place.
When I suggested that she was fortunate to have found another job so soon because many people have been unemployed for years during this time of economic crisis in the country, she never commented. Gratitude (http://www.fuel2drive.com/how-to-be-happy-when-youre-not/) is totally lacking in the victim mentality mindset. Such people are so focused on what they don’t have and what others owe them that they fail to recognize anything positive or good in their lives.
Alisha’s take on life is typical for someone with a victim mentality. Victims do not look inward to determine if they bear any responsibility for what happens to them in life. They are so rivited on looking for someone to blame for their problems and misfortune that they fail to understand that everyone has problems at one time or another in life and each of us must accept personal responsibility for dealing with life’s challenges. The understanding that we grow and learn as we face challenges and overcome them is a totally foreign concept to the victim.
Because they are blameless and bad things keep happening to them, victims live in a bubble of negative feelings; self-pity, helplessness, hopelessness, depression, anxiety, anger and fear color their world. It’s difficult, if not impossible to help someone with a victim mentality because lacking an internal locus of control, they look to an external source to rescue them and give them what they feel they are owed.
Although my friend Alisha is a person with much potential who could, with insight and motivation, be a happy and fulfilled person, I have come to accept the fact that I cannot save her from herself. I allow myself very limited contact with her because the longer I listen to her recount complaints, the more I reinforce and enable her behavior. When I begin to experience my energy draining and my mood becoming heavy and dispirited I know that it is time for me to tell her that I need to leave. We can’t be all things to all people and we can’t change others. Know when it’s time to let go and walk away in love.
http://www.fuel2drive.com/victim-mentality/