To think some people love being victims too much to heal?

[ThatBlueTiger]

They’re not faking their pain but they’ve built their whole identity around it. Healing would mean giving that up and not everyone wants to.

You see my first thought after reading your post was ‘but you don’t know what I’ve gone through’ 🙈 which is exactly the op’s point I guess - but I don’t love being this way and I don’t refuse to do anything to change I just don’t know how to change on my own and I am desperate to.

I think part of the issue is current culture encourages and even rewards ‘victim’ status, so there is incentive to stay within it, and little incentive to get better. Unfortunately, in many families, organisations, and society at large, attention is given to those who are causing problems or creating drama, and those who get on with things or are independent and try and solve their own issues are ignored because it’s generally accepted they will just carry on. This results in the message that if you want attention then you must cause problems or be a victim.

It doesn’t help that psychologists in recent times are also encouraging victim mentality, oppression complexes and the like - keeping people submerged in their trauma instead of being challenged to find their own way out.

No-one knows what anyone has gone through.

But you turn up to work, do your job and get through the day the same as everyone else who may have gone through shit.

Plus, if others are going through stuff they can really do without having someone with victim mentality sucking the energy out of them.

I was agreeing with you being annoyed with myself at what my first thought was, then took the time to take a second thought and have a word with myself.

I don't think its that simple or that calculated

I think people fear change and feel overwhelmed with what's needed to turn things around.

It can feel less scary to stay the way you are because its what you know.

Yes. I can think of several people like this. Constantly needing to have their ‘pain’ acknowledged and have everyone flocking round them giving attention and sympathy, but hostile once anyone suggests practical steps towards recovery. It’s like people thrive on the attention. The worst person I’ve ever known for this WAS diagnosed with EUPD, but there seems to be a degree of narcissism involved, it’s incredibly manipulative behaviour. I can never quite trust anyone who claims to suffer severe depression or anxiety but has never tried medication. I’ve been there, I’d have had an arm amputated if it meant getting better.

Well it doesn’t sound like you’re what the OP is talking about then?

The thing is though, you also don't know what the other person has gone through...
But I do think that describing yourself as victim & over sharing your own experiences can be very tiresome for the people around you.

I think that is true. It definitely isn’t calculated with me. I don’t share with everybody. The other side of it is friends can become used to you being a victim and feeling sorry for you and when you start to get stronger those friendships change which can play havoc with your victim mindset and make it safer to go ‘back down there’
I go to work, I do my thing, I comfort others when it is needed at work, I don’t discuss myself - it is when I come home and my brain goes into overdrive hating myself because I can’t take the advice I offer others. That’s when my victim mindset kicks in.

I agree. And I don’t share with everyone around me. Nobody at work knows anything about my private life. My friends do - but they have equally gone through shit and we hash it out together. It’s the thoughts in my head I want to change.

I see you've met my step MiL 😂 The only divorcee in the world, at least to hear her go on. 40 years on its all got very wearing.

Most posters on mumsnet play victim.

It's complex (of course) but yes I think this exists. I actually made big changes to my life after realising I really enjoyed some quite major surgery and the post surgical recovery. Literally having risky open surgery was worth it because I got to then spend some time with fewer expectations on me. If you don't have the option to make these big changes then I totally get that being unwell is preferable to facing up to life.

Edited to add - I am in a bit of a slump at the moment actually and it's one of my early warning signs to sort myself out a bit. I start hoping I get ill.

@Onlyinthreesput it perfectly.

I think depending on what happened and when, having been abused/traumatised can become quite a defining part of your personality and inform your later responses. There’s a perception nowadays that victimhood has caché or is some sort of moral trump card. Certainly wasn’t that way when I was growing up; pity was a double-sided coin with shame. Who wants to feel pitied?

As an adult, if and when you move on, it can feel like a compounded loss. Because there’s been a life-altering struggle you maybe couldn’t disclose, and if you’ve made poor decisions along the way as a result of ‘the thing’ it can be painful to acknowledge that you fucked up. So it’s perhaps it may feel safer to stay in the headspace of blaming someone else for their earlier wrongdoing than assessing how your response to them has informed your outcomes.

And having been abused, you may not be in a good place to effect change anyway, as much of your early life was about being blamed for things you had not done, or feeling guilty about things you didn’t cause. When you feel everything is your fault, it’s hard to see a way forward.

And sometimes the response to trauma or abuse can be a useful fuel. One example would be perhaps trying to right wrongs through your career choices, trying to create change or aid the mechanics of justice, or creative endeavours - a lot of writers/artists will explore/process childhood trauma.

When you realise you’d be better off psychologically if you try to shut down the furnace, you’re left thinking, well, what now? And who am I now? What was the point of all that? Ironically these are thought-processes you’re probably more prone to, having been a victim of abuse. I know some people who very much lack a sense of self as a result of what happened to them as children. I think it’s definitely more complicated than ‘people love being victims.’ It’s a bit like there’s a part of you that’s trapped in amber.

Mine is long gone, but she was a bit like that - loved having a grievance to nurture - and still go on about 20 years later!

I agree. And I say that as someone who has built their life around healing. It’s not my identity but it is my purpose, to live a life that is full and fulfilling. A life that is gentle and slow. My mother on the other hand loves to be a victim. She goes from crisis to crisis and seems to enjoy it. She looks for reasons to be upset. It’s bizarre.
I am happy and positive and I am a glass half full person. She moans and moans and finds the negative in every situation.

You can make healing your life without it being a negative thing.

You and @Onlyinthreeshave worded it so much better than I have managed in years. Thank you.
Now, how does one get out of it?

this is an interesting topic to discuss.

I think what everyone else has said can all be true.

i think people can get stuck and kid themselves they want to “get better” when they don’t.

I think people can be manically depressed and not really sure how to go about getting better. sometimes people can be depressed and know what to do, but just can’t get started.

I think others feel like they are perpetually dealt bad cards so just of develop a can’t be bothered type response as a coping strategy

I think some people are genuinely quite satisfied with their lot and whilst may like to moan and complain, they wouldn’t actually have it any other way.

whilst it’s 100% true that you never know what someone is going through, you can’t expect other people to react to a situation the same way you would. (Even if you are also going through a tough time)

i also think social media, as with most things, plays a huge part in this new trend. There is this performative victim behaviour, people seem to feel the need to have their behaviours justified by strangers online. I personally don’t understand it, but I see sometimes people I know partake in it, and I do wonder why. It doesn’t seem helpful, to me, to look for validation, outside of your real life support network. I left Facebook years ago, but my husband’s aunt was always posting hospital check in’s, and miserable selfies. It was so draining to see. (One of the reasons I deleted all my social media profiles)

I fell into that trap in the 80s. Being victimised, or a victim of something seemed to be everywhere from daytime TV and upwards.

I was in a terrible state, had been through something horrendous. So my ears pricked up and I leaned in. It was a huge relief at first. Like finally being seen, even if just by myself. But it was trap. The more I leaned in and examined my wounds through that lens the more my locus of control wandered off to the Outer Hebrides (and I was living in Luton, so not exactly conveniently located).

At some point I think it infected me to the point where I was actually perfumed by it. Because predatory types could seemingly sniff me out. Which did little to shake my perception of myself as a victim. My mum was doing much the same thing, just in a different place.

I was 26 before I realised I either grabbed that wandering locus of control and superglued it back inside myself, holding myself ruthlessly accountable for that which was within my control. It took a long time. Many two steps forward, fall flat on face, get up again, backslide, trudge forward a bit sessions. Progress was measured in inches.

But now in my late 50s and my mother in her 80s, I can see how the inches added up and turned in eons away from the piteous state I’d been pushed into, then chose to make my home. But she’s still in the hole. Still digging.

Maybe both of our former selves died in the process of managing the worst parts of life-rain and its aftermath. I don’t feel anything like a phoenix. I could possibly pull of singed budgie on a good day. But I’d give anything for her to have had that, rather than being stuck, sat in the ashes of who she used to be.

I having not really been the victim of anything, I can’t pretend to know how it feels, or how I would behave if I were. I would assume it isn’t as easy to get over trauma as some seem to think it is.

I found that when I became a mother, at first I struggled very badly emotionally but a few years in, I started to see my past through different eyes. I could see things from a child’s perspective and I could see how and why things that happened must have affected me the way they did- the impact they would have had on my self esteem and how I relate to people.
I also accessed medical records from when I was a psychiatric patient in my teens and that helped massively too because suddenly I saw myself for what I was- a vulnerable young person who was desperate for help but didn’t know how to take it instead of what I had thought- a broken person with a defective personality who couldn’t be fixed and probably wasn’t worth fixing anyway. My psychiatrist at the time said that I only knew how to express myself and ask for help in terms of describing clinical symptoms and wanting things like medication.
Ironically considering the OP, it was seeing myself as a victim for the first time and accepting that that really helped me. Not because it gives me a feeling of validation or because having a label helps, but because recognising that rather than just bad luck/ genetics/ some inherent flaw/ my own fault, actually the problems I have in the way I see the world, the way I respond to people are down to the fact that I was emotionally abused by my parents was such an important distinction to realise as it has allowed me to stop blaming myself for things that aren’t my fault but also to recognise the things that are and to change the behaviour by viewing it objectively and not with feelings of blame, shame, guilt or hopelessness.
Victim is such a loaded word for people but is the correct term in some situations in an objective sense. If you’ve been abused, you’re a victim of abuse. Just because someone can’t get beyond that point of realisation doesn’t mean they like being a victim. Thinking you’re a victim when you’re actually not is an entirely different thing.
So sometimes recognising that being a victim is part of your identity can actually be very helpful. It is never someone’s entire identity but sometimes it affects people so badly it becomes a large part.
People have a tendency to think that only people who have been subject to violence are victims of abuse and that’s why it can be so hard for victims of emotional/ psychological abuse to recognise themselves as victims.
I never used to think of myself as a victim but it is honestly the main thing that has enabled me to actually finally move on in my life. I now know that I have to limit contact with my parents because they are so emotionally manipulative. I have gone through the anger at them that I needed to go through. I can see how and why I tend to blame myself, to withdraw from people and how this affects my relationships, and I have managed to improve my relationship with my dh and bond with my dc a lot better as a result.
For a long long time I couldn’t accept help because I was convinced that there was something wrong with me and it was all my fault.
Seeing myself as a victim has stopped me from blaming myself and helped me to move on with my life. It was not seeing myself as a victim that prevented me from getting better, not the other way around.

I think modern language has become quite self-centred too which doesn't help with victim mentality really.

"My truth"
"My journey"
"My lived experience"

All the therapy speak doesn't really lend itself to resilience and 'getting on with it', but for many it's crept into everyday talk.

Example !?

I think there are very few people who love being a victim.

Behaviour that looks from the outside like a determination to be a lifelong underdog comes from a lot of different places. Some common ones I see -

• you grew up needing to avoid invoking the vindictive jealousy of your unstable parents, and it's become second nature to make sure everyone always knows that you're not coping with life. That way people can feel competent and successful in comparison to you, and nobody thinks you're getting ideas above your station. This was how you learned to stay safe in your family of origin, and it continues across your other relationships.

• a lot of your needs (not just emotional needs but some basic survival needs and what we'd call 'additional needs' such as those that arise from developmental differences) were not met growing up, and a part of you wonders whether you just haven't done a good enough job of explaining how bad it makes you feel not to have what you need. You think if people could really understand how much you're struggling, and how hard things are for you, they would want to protect you, rescue you, maybe look after you in the ways you needed looking after as a child - whereas unfortunately it most often has the effect of driving people away pretty quickly for fear of being engulfed by the scale of your need (which may be more than one untrained person can reasonably meet).

• you are not able to internalise other people's care and support (this sometimes happens with complex trauma or with neurodevelopmental differences). So no matter how much compassion and reassurance and practical help you are offered, you can't 'bank' it or durably learn from it - you need it to be provided constantly and continually, and when people tire of this, you feel abandoned. You may not understand that it is possible for most people to hold on to feelings of love and care even after they are expressed, or to start to do things for themselves that others once did for them. You may assume that everyone else is in relationships where they are constantly reassured, encouraged, validated, and where a lot is done for them. Therefore you feel your own relationships are uniquely neglectful.

And last but not least!

• you are systemically disadvantaged - often in multiple ways, by disability, socioeconomic status, racism, sexism, carer status - and you're sick to the back teeth of people saying 'life is what you make it!', and you stop giving a shit about how uncomfortable it makes people when you tell people about your life as it actually is.

This is going to sound awful but I do wonder.

I follow a lady on Insta who lost a baby to stillbirth at full term a few years ago. Very traumatic for her, and I believe everyone should grieve as they see fit, but it has come to define her entire life and more importantly that of her living children.

Her baby has a kind of shrine and candles in the house which are lit every day. Every birthday, Christmas, Easter she has the boys draw their sister a picture or card. Every photo she takes of them, she has one of them hold up a photo of the baby so she can be in the photo with them. She talks to them relentlessly about her and films their discussions and posts them online. She has had clothing and jewellery and tattoos inscribed with her daughter’s name. On her daughter’s birthday, she has a cake commissioned and party and the boys have to attend and blow the candles out.

She posted a few weeks ago to say one of her sons has started having nightmares about his baby sister, and that he’s tearful and suddenly very affected by it. But regardless, the commemorations continue.

I feel bad just saying it, and as I said she’s entitled to grieve however she likes, but I think forcing her children to engage in constant reminders and commemorative events is now damaging their mental health. The problem is the Insta community sort of egg her on, saying how lovely it is that they haven’t forgotten their sister, and how healthy it is to encourage them to talk about her.

Of course, you can’t say anything, but I feel for her boys at this point and wish a close friend or family member would have a gentle word.