To think some people never heal because being the victim gives them identity?

[TraumaAsPersonality]

If healing means losing the story, some cling to the wound.

Yep I know someone who is always the victim, loves the victims and everything about victim stories etc…it’s fucking tiring. Impossible to have an actual good conversation with them!

Of course. And that’s where I think all these pods, therapist, counsellors, etc make it worse. We all have to get past trauma, grief etc in life. The best way is to work out some positives means to help that.

And, yes, I have walked the walks.

I mean I’m disabled and friends of mine have had legs amputated etc.

not sure how you expect that to grow back?

Yes. I’d never have believed it until I got to know my MIL. Victimhood was her fuel to get by in life.

What has this got to do with anything? Surely you are not suggesting that all amputees have made victim hood their identity? Absolute shame on you if you are?

How did you infer that @TraumaAsPersonality is implying that?!

Xposted with you and glad to see not only me confused!

I don’t mean “healing” as in physical conditions magically vanishing. I mean more psychologically/emotionally - some people seem to become so identified with their suffering that moving beyond it almost feels like losing part of themselves.

I have a lot of time for people who are victims. I feel if they have made it their personality then that means they’ve had to work on accepting huge trauma and I try to make time if they need to talk. I know I have my own boundaries so I just don’t allow it to drain my own energy.

What I don’t like is ‘victims’ who are anything but that. Narcissist mother im looking at you ! The person who tells all fake stories and just wants sympathy when it’s not real. That’s something i have no time for.

I know someone who is always the victim because it gives them power over others and allows them to manipulate the behaviour of others.

I hope that is a rare thing though.

I agree that everyone has their issues over their lifetimes. I suffer from depression and PTSD due to very severe trauma. I have the habit of runinating and dwelling. But for me, personally, therapy made it worse. It stuck me in a cycle of talking and talking and dwelling. I'm now trying a 'shit happens, move omn' approach and certainly, speaking personally, that has been a better course.

Not ‘loving being a victim’ as such but I think some people live in a trauma and don’t realise that moving on actually means a degree of distraction, and trying to put it to one side sometimes. That fixating on the trauma 24:7 won’t actually help you move past or ‘process’ it, it will just make it worse.

I follow a lady on Insta who tragically lost a baby to stillbirth several years ago. Her page has become a ‘grief’ page, and she posts multiple times a day about her loss. She has other children and their life is a series of rituals regarding their late sibling - every birthday, Christmas, Easter, anniversary, family day out they do an activity to mark her passing and ‘include’ her. It’s very intense and she posted recently about one of her children becoming very distressed about their sibling’s passing, crying, refusing to eat, generally riddled with anxiety about death and losing her. She doesn’t seem to have made the connection that the constant reminders and cycle of remembrance might not be helping him. Somebody did gently suggest this but she became quite angry.

It’s so difficult as the trauma is often very sensitive and encouraging people to move on can look heartless even if meant sincerely and with their best interests at heart. I also blame online internet huns cheering them on when they’re in a vulnerable place.

I think trauma is really complex and everyone responds differently, I think it’s really hard to judge. Do people really heal or do they just learn to cope and live with it in different ways, some better than others.

It’s their safe space, their comfort zone.

We all lean towards the behaviour we have practiced most. We tend to repeat patterns. To do otherwise takes a lot- LOT- of work. And it needs opportunity and example. I see some of my family members copying the behaviour of people they don’t like and find annoying. It becomes a competition as to whose needs can dominate, rather than learning to be flexible and accommodate each other’s needs.

She literally said that if healing meant losing the story some people cling to the wound.

i was in an accident. I’m physically disabled as a result.

i don’t cling to my (extremely literal) wound which needed two operations and a metal plate.

she didn’t specify mental wounds she just said wounds.

i’ve got wounds (physical ones).

so do lots of people I know (I’m disabled and I go to a lot of disability social groups).

nobody I know likes their (physical) wounds.

i couldn’t look at my foot for a couple of years because I couldn’t stand what it looked like.

That must have been dreadful for her but she can’t make her kids live her grief over and over. Sad

So It’s might fault that I haven’t heeled from the many years of childhood sexual abuse I experienced and from then sexual abuse from my ex husband?

It's really complex.

As a person, it can also change you. There is no going back to the person I was before. That isn't me wanting to be the 'victim', it's just my reality.

I understand what you mean I suffered from PTSD and I found I had a huge amount of empathy for people who had a really difficult history because I knew how shit it was.

However over time I noticed some people stayed completely stuck in their experiences and refused to make any of the internal changes that their own situation required to actually heal. They just used their past experience to get their needs met in pretty unhealthy ways. While I still feel sorry for people like thad I still avoid those types like the plague nowadays. Inevitably they are very draining.

It’s terrible. I had to unfollow as watching her kids constantly being filmed/photographed engaging in these rituals was very uncomfortable. It’s so difficult as her loss must be agony and that’s made it far too sensitive for anyone to say anything, because suggesting fewer remembrances or that maybe her kids need to start to move past it now would seem like suggesting she forgets about it. Which of course it wouldn’t be.

No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m talking about something more specific psychologically - where suffering/victimhood becomes someone’s entire identity framework long-term, to the point that moving beyond it can almost feel threatening because they no longer know who they are outside the wound.
That’s very different from saying trauma, abuse or disability should just magically disappear or that recovery is linear/easy.

I do get what you mean, and yes I suffered a lot of childhood abuse and other traumas. A long list I won’t go into here. But you have to live alongside the trauma, not in it. Distraction, work, having fun, giving myself permission to enjoy myself, have all been very good for me. And facing the hard fact that other people are generally very kind when I talk about it (close friends and family I mean) but they don’t want to hear about it all the time.

I have a relative like this. I stopped trying to help / being sympathetic when I realised that they are genuinely happier as a victim.

Edit to add: this person also LOVES tales of others’ downfall and victimhood. No one is allowed to be happy and successful, and if they are, it’s only a matter of time before it all goes to shit and they’re miserable. Apparently.

Excellent post and really good advice.

So it’s my fault that I live with trauma from my rape every day? And it’s annoying to other people? Well, frankly, fuck them.

Yes I know someone like that who is an expert at maneuvering herself into the victim role every single time, even when blatantly being very abusive. She really believes it herself though to the point of delusion.

On the other hand I think some people are or have been genuine victims of something or someone and when there is never any justice or even real acknowledgement or chance to speak about it and be heard it can be very hard to move on, completely understandably. So I think sometimes it can be unhelpful to say people are holding onto victimhood as an identity. Context is everything I guess.