Attitudes towards Victim Mentality

[Parththakkar12]

I see mainstream society make a moral case against victim-mentality. Typical attitudes include 'pathetic, weakling, irresponsible, whiny little bitch-babies, dangerous'. Why is that? What collective shadows is society running away from by having these attitudes towards it?

Edited December 30, 2019 by Parththakkar12

[Nahm]

@Parththakkar12

Two opposing and very touchy perspectives. Opposite ends of the full circle.

One identified as a victim, is deeply needing love, (or deeply believing they need love), and has yet to satisfy their basic human emotional needs / lower chakras, and is still identifying as the body. No one can “solve” this for another. One must choose healing in the face of fear, until there is less identifying, and more expansion, empowerment, intelligence & understanding. The uber-grey area, is that some people also utilize the victim identification to manipulate others into enabling them. When someone realizes this, they’re likely to be upset initially, then inevitably liberated. Even more grey, someone might or might not be conscious of their victim role, and or the manipulation role. The wild thing about a belief, is one thinks it’s true. 

Then there is one who believes they have overcome these roles, but resonates and therefore has not fully healed themselves, so they project their feeling onto another (“pathetic, weakling” etc). This reinforces the victim mentality belief, as now one believes another person is making them feel bad. Both roads lead to the bluff being called out. The realization that feelings are not relative to perception, but to the Truth within every one of us. 

 

 

 

[crab12]

I can see 2 reasons which are understandable to me.

1) Victim perceives that external forces are running his life 100% and he has 0% control over the direction of his life. Therefore victim doesn't see himself responsible for his own life, because how can you be responsible over something you have no control over? So whenever a problem arises for the victim, he will not try to fix it himself. Because he didn't do anything, he has 0% control, it's not he's fault! Victim demands other people fix his problems, because they are responsible for it, as the victim perceives external forces are 100% running his life.

Isn't it annoying having other people blame you for their problems and demand you fix it for them?

2) Victim believes life is a giant lottery and she was dealt a bad hand (bad genetics, bad parents, bad country etc etc). She believes it's impossible for her to create something better nor is it possible for other people. So she sees that successful people just got lucky, they didn't earn their success, it was all just handed to them. The victim sees this is unfair, and demands the successful person give part of his wealth to him so they are equal, this is only fair in the victims eyes.

Imagine working hard your entire life and then having a mob of ungrateful assholes demand you hand over your wealth and suggest that you didn't work for any of it but that you stole it from them. And that it's only fair that you give your stuff away.

[LordFall]

The judgement is definitely too harsh and doesn't help. We are all victims at some point or another in our lives and we all need empathy and compassion. 

I think the aversion to victim mentality is because it's a mentality that fundamentally disempowers you and modern society despises weakness. When you're complaining about being a victim you're saying that the world is against you and you're powerless to change your situation.

Capitalism is based on the belief that all is fair and you can pull yourself by the bootstrap and if you're not doing well its your fault and you're a fuck up. Why do you think people hate addicts and poor people and ridicule things like mental illness? It fundamentally goes against our whole culture. 

[Bill W]

I actually found it quite empowering when I realised I was often stuck in victim mentality. It can help you realise that the world doesn't revolve around you, the world doesn't owe you a favour and that you are not that important at the end of the day. Painful, but necessary things to realise. Bringing up the question of victim mentality and encouraging the sufferer to consider that, is not necessarily the opposite or even contradicting of compassion and empathy. 

The exception to this is if your human rights have been clearly breached. I wouldn't sit down with a rape victim or the victim of any crime really and even remotely suggest victim mentality is at play.

Human rights been clearly breached? Most likely you are actually a real victim

Human rights not been breached? Just consider you might be exaggerating your role as a victim, that's all. 

 

[crab12]

@Bill W I agree with the distinction between a victim and victim-mentality.

If a person becomes victimized (assault theft etc) he/she can still take direct action and society is more than willing to help (police).

If the victimized person has victim-mentality he/she is unlikely to take proactive action, usually they just suffer in silence and do not reach out for help. And a minority of them will make vague passive-aggressive twitter posts how it's all of society's fault or how it's the fault of one demographic, earning a bad rep for victim-mentality.

I empathize with victim-mentality too. They have valid and real problems but believe there is nothing they can do about it, it's futile, it's utterly pointless. They are flooded with frustration and apathy and it's incredibly difficult to take action from such a place. Often they don't reach out and their problems stay unacknowledged.

[remember]

it’s easier to shame the victim than the perpetrator (especially because the perpetrator is sometimes our acceptance) for making us aware of our shadow. that’s a very simple rule but sadly enough a subconscious mechanism we can become aware of. there is even a phenomenon where perpetrators make themselves a victim of being shamed through not helping a victim by the victim.

Edited January 13, 2020 by remember

[crab12]

@Maximus Can you bring a few real world examples? I don't understand what you mean

[Preety_India]

 

Lordfall has given some excellent perspectives here. 

 

I'm more on the same line of thinking. 

This is a very deep issue and has multiple sides to it that need to be considered. One side is genuine whereas the other sides are not always what you think they are. So you will need to take into account a lot of factors while looking at the whole victim society relationship. 

So i will try to break it down slowly one by one and this is going to be long so bear with me. 

First of all. 

1...Society hates victims. This is a fact! 

Ask anyone. There is a terrible lack in generosity and compassion. People do not like to be compassionate to others. Compassion is a wonderful virtue yet it somehow goes against the grain of humanity. If you asked someone for money most likely they are going to say no because most people think of their survival first. Since we are continously  competing with each other for resources it's difficult to expect people to be compassionate to each other. They are going to be selfish for their own survival, not saying that is is justified or morally sound, but as humans they will do what their animal nature will guide them to do especially in a competitive environment. 

There are people who are compassionate and selfless. But very few. 

2.. Society is Capitalistic and Narcissistic 

Our society especially modern society is very much drenched in capitalism.  Which means everything is based on factors like market, demand, supply, loss, gain, utility, ability etc. Move to any city and you will experience this. Life gets tighter and tougher. Living gets harder.. Earning gets harder. In such a society, like lordfall said, you are expected to create your own success or be ready to be called a loser. You have to make your own building and livelihood. People marvel and praise those who achieve success in such a society. They want you to pull yourself by the bootstrap and stop complaining and resolve your issues and find success. Then they are proud of you. Because this is their basic expectation. They want you to make a good example out of yourself and prove yourself. They want you to show what you can do. It's competitive. So if you can't do it, they won't bother to look at you or befriend you. They have the winner mentality and they also want you to have the winner mentality. And if you don't have that then they want to drop you from their life. This is a capitalist mentality and not an Empathetic mentality. 

Notice how an empath and a capitalist talk 

If you are an employee, you can have either an Empathetic boss/leader or a capitalist boss/leader. 

 Now if you fail at your work, you'll see a difference in how each one of them will respond to you 

A capitalist boss will say to you 

"you are no good for me. You will cause me a loss. You are not good for by business. I need to rethink about you. You're being fired!!" 

An Empathetic boss will say 

"yes it happens. No problem. I can give you another chance. I want you to do well. I'll help you out. We are like family. If you have any difficulty, we will see what we can do. Nothing to worry. You'll do better with time. No stress." 

Sadly we live in a capitalist society and therefore most people look at a victim as a liability. They think a victim is a problem rather than thinking that the victim has a problem. 

So if you are a victim a capitalist society will look at you and say. 

"you don't have a problem. But you are the problem."

Such a society will hate you and want to get rid of you. You/victim is a liability in their eyes. 

 

The problem of narcissism. 

Narcissistic people place value on people based on their social status. This is how they are. So if a person is a victim and suffering a narcissist is most likely going to shun the victim or show hatred and contempt to victims. 

Modern society is full of capitalists and narcissists. 

3... False victimhood. Now there are both true victims and false victims. True victims are those who have really suffered either physically or mentally but they have actually suffered. They will show signs of degradation or damage and suffering. They can be victims of crime, abuse, neglect, coercion, bullying, torment, violence, injustice and or disability or disaster. False victims are those who use victimhood as a way to get what they want and they exploit the victim status and they are not victims. Example of a false victim is let's say there are disaster or accident victims getting benefit from the government. A manipulative cunning person sees this as an opportunity and then declares himself as a victim even when he is not and uses this status to claim the benefit from the government. Because of this behavior true victims do not get the benefit or nobody wants to believe that they are victims and they are also looked at with suspicion. 

True victims suffer as a result of false victims making claims to help themselves.

 

4...Victim mentality. This is different than being a real victim. Some people are not victims yet they falsely perceive themselves as victims. They always believe that they cannot be strong. They think they are weak. They are always very negative about everything. They always want to show pity to others and themselves. They expect pity. They live on pity. They live in pity. This is victim mentality. These are not necessarily exploitative people, they could be doing this because of PTSD, or they have an inherent personality disorder because of which they harbor this mentality. 

When is victim mentality dangerous? 

Let's say you live across the street from a neighbor who constantly whines about every little thing 

You are constantly on your guard and you have to be very careful not to offend her in any way. 

Now let's say she had a minor argument with you over a mattress that you threw out in the dumpster and she is making a big deal out of it. You have a dog and it's a good dog yet she constantly keeps complaining about how your dog is biting her kids even when it's not. Now you tell her that nothing is going to change and this angers her and she decides to call the police. When the police comes she tells false made up stories about you and the dog and want you to be locked up. When you try to justify yourself she cries rape and tells the police that you tried to hurt her physically. The police wants to arrest you. She even goes as far as inflicting injuries on her body to make her story believable. This is a classic example of a person living in victim mentality and how this can be downright dangerous to another person's life.

One of the reasons why society hates people who are victims is because they fear that these people could either be false victims or people with victim mentality syndrome. 

Victim mentality is a distinct part of many personality disorders in the DSM lV. Many people with borderline personality disorder exhibit victim mentality as a characteristic manifestation of the disorder.

An easy way of detecting this behavior and separate a genuine victim from a person with victim mentality is to wait till they respond. If a person exaggerates and pretends that you did something wrong to them even when you didn't do anything to them, you are likely dealing with a person with victim mentality. 

 

5...Victim hood and victim mentality. 

These are two different things. Victimhood is a state of being a victim. Victims are justifiably entitled to their Victimhood. 

Whereas victim mentality is a behavior displayed where a person perceives a particular situation as victimizing even when he was not being targeted. 

An example of this is sjw behavior.. 

An sjw can take anything and play victim. 

For example if a person is wearing a pink hat on the university campus an sjw can say something like "don't wear that hat because it is hurtful to my sentiments since I consider pink as my sacred color", in this example the person wearing the hat had no intention to hurt the sjw yet he had to pretend like he was hurt or targeted. 

People with victim mentality are not real sufferers of bullying but perceiving themselves as sufferers of bullying. That's very different from actual bullying. 

 

Victim mentality in a real victim 

Sometimes real victims suffer deeper forms of PTSD for years. This type of stress causes them to get locked in victim mentality mode. Now they can't be blamed. This is not an inherent personality disorder but an acquired or learned behavior that comes from years of abuse and inability to understand or cope. 

Such people can continue seeing themselves as victims long after the trauma or abuse has ended. 

They can mimic the behavior of false victims because they have lived as victims for a very long time and therefore gotten used to it. 

They cannot shake themselves out of it.. They begin to see themselves as victims in almost every situation and thus can exhibit paranoid behavior over time. 

It's an extension of their ptsd. 

This is observed in a subset of real victims. 

 

 

6...The usage and the meaning of the word weak in the English language. 

The word weak is a very sensitive word with multiple meanings and connotations. It depends on how it is used. It's meaning will vary with context. 

Weak can have 2 distinctly separate meanings. 

Weak = emotionally/physically weak, incapable 

Weak = ill, a temporary loss of physical stamina due to cold or illness 

Weak = coward, unwilling, irresponsible, pathetic, loser. 

The first two are recognized as genuine forms of debility and weakness. 

The last is a presumed weakness. Which means the person is insecure and irresponsible and does not show the bravery needed to get something done. 

 

When is a person pathetic 

When a person runs away from responsibility and blames others as an escape mechanism, such a person is being pathetic. 

An example of this is as follows. 

A drug addict unemployed husband is living with his wife and kids. The wife is exhausted doing all the tasks. 

The husband is watching TV and smoking his drugs. He just sits all day and does nothing. 

The kid falls sick. Now the wife is exhausted and unable to take the kid to the doctor so she tells the husband to do it. 

The husband makes a bunch of excuses and finally decides to take the kid to the doctor. However he doesn't find his wallet or car keys and blames it on the wife. He forgets to make an appointment with the doctor and blames that on his wife too. 

This is an example of a weak insecure guy who instead of owning his responsibility in the marriage, tries to blame everything on the wife because he doesn't want to feel guilty. 

Such men(or women) don't want to take responsibility and actually solve an issue. Rather they go in circles during an argument and only find ways to blame the partner rather than solve the problem. 

This is an example of a person who is weak and uses his weakness as a way of deflecting blame. Such people ruin relationships and life goals. That's why they are called pathetic and losers. Because you can't get anything done with them. Arguing with them leads nowhere because they never accept their duties, roles, responsibilities and find ways to blame as an escape route. 

In short they are not victims but losers 

 

7..Whiny behavior 

This is a part of the victim mentality complex. One has to be extremely careful while pointing this out. Not everyone is whiny. The word is thrown around very casually. Often times a real victim is called a whiner. Like it happened in my journal and someone called me whiny. A victim is not always a whiner. 

 

When can you say a person is a whiner. 

When they repeatedly talk about a problem even when it's over and done with long ago. Whiny behavior comes 

Do not confuse whining with therapy 

There is a thin line between whining and therapeutic use of expressing trouble. 

When a person is going through a hard time and using expression as a coping mechanism, be careful not to call them a whiner. Because it's personal therapy for them. They are not pissing and moaning. They are venting out their frustration. This not only helps with cooing with the problem and the release of blocked emotions but also with dealing with the situation and finding a way out of it. The first step in solving a problem is recognizing the problem and therefore venting out can be an effective way of understanding and recognizing the problem. 

So calling a person who is actually trying to cope, a whiner is nothing but being a judgemental asshole. 

So what is actual whining 

 

Real whining is when a person is just finding ways to create unnecessary stress. 

For example they are given the best conditions the best food or services and they still find a way to complain and nitpick about something. That's being a whiny bitch. Nothing ever is enough for them. Nothing satisfies them. There is always something that is not good enough for them. Not a day goes by without whining about irrelevant things. 

 

Whining for attention seeking 

Such people are drama queens. They are always on social media making posts on how they are suffering in life in order to seek attention. They don't solve a problem because they don't have a problem. They go around making posts after posts about an issue which they constantly bring up for seeking attention. They have a sympathy or attention seeking disorder. These are whining drama queens. This arises from the fact that society shows empathy or sympathy to victims and people who are suffering. This encourages whiners to go on whining in a bid to receive some amount of favor and attention from people. They feel better when people give them the attention they need and they will go to any lengths to get it.. 

True victims want support as well and therefore it's very difficult to separate a whiner from a true victim. 

One difference is that a true victim can elaborate details of an abuse situation or anything that victimized them. 

Whereas a whiner is usually happy and bouyant and is caught lying about their abuse or bad situation. 

 

the problem of reinforcement, and sympathy. 

Society has the tendency to show empathy and support to victims. However this serves as positive reinforcement for attention seeking victim playing people. They take it as positive encouragement to continue with their victim mentality to seek attention and a false sense of comfort. They love the title of being called victim and they talk about it and bank on it for the rest of their lives. It becomes a way of living. A toxic way of living. 

 

8...Judgemental behavior. 

Victim blaming and victim shaming 

This is an absolute nightmare. This happens when ignorant or unempathetic people blame a victim for their situation or shame them. Make them feel guilty or wrong for being a victim. Make them feel like it was their fault. 

If a parent blames a child for their illness or disabilities then that's a classic case of victim blaming and shaming.. 

 

Narcissistic abuse of victims. 

When you are a true victim and when you are trying to get support for your cause or benefit but your friend or spouse is judging or shaming you for being a victim by blaming you or calling you a whiner or showing contempt for your victimhood instead of offering support it's because they are being emotionally abusive, a characteristic behavior observed in narcissistic abusive relationships. They feel insecure and do not want to be there for you. They don't want to spend their energy in supporting you so they find a way to blame you because they don't want to help you, to escape the fear and guilt of not helping you and to still look good, they find ways to blame you for your victimhood so that they are freed from their responsibility of helping you. This is narcissistic abuse and shaming of a victim.

 

 

9...Victimization 

Victimization is a process of isolating a person and treating them unfairly in comparison to others to make them feel bad about themselves. 

The person who is victimizing is doing this discrimination on purpose to drive home the message that "you're hated or you're the only one who deserves to be treated this way. You are unwanted or unwelcome." this is a distinct form of emotional abuse called victimization. 

It results in discrimination and unfair treatment resulting into the person feeling like a victim of systematic oppression and injustice. 

Edited January 15, 2020 by Preety_India

[crab12]

@Maximus Ah okay I understand what you are saying. They were just kids and got molested by these fucking monsters, they didn't deserve this nor had any control over this. And now the police are covering for the perps while stonewalling the victims. This is a massive problem, it hasn't gotten any better, it's probably worse today than in 1980's. I would not raise a family in UK, I would move country.

I'll try to explain how I understand victim mentality, to me these are completely different things. ~6 years ago I had an injury, I could no longer dance, lift weights, play team sports, run, or even walk properly. Dancing and lifting weights were very important to me at the time. The doctors told me these types of injuries do not heal and there's nothing they can do. At that young age, I thought my life was over, there's nothing I can do about it, it was an accident, it wasn't even my fault, and now I'm going to be crippled for the rest of my life. I was in a state of complete passivity, just played video games and coped with unhealthy behaviors. I was already depressed at the time and the accident made things much much worse. To me, this represents victim mentality, the belief that there is nothing I can do, that my life is ruined, it's over, and the apathy and passivity it produces. Now I can see that instead of lifting weights I can do calisthenics, instead of dancing I can draw. This injury doesn't stop me from living a good life, like at all, all the limitations have some kind of a workaround. And finally, if there really are no options left, I can choose to face death with dignity, like Socrates did. I don't need anything to live a good life other than do the thing that I want to do the most, and that option is always available. The Path or The Way is always there.

I understand that being raped as a child is much worse than anything I have ever experienced. But I can see that even that doesn't have to stop you from living. The Steemit article you shared, the author is standing up and trying to expose the perpetrators even though he is getting stonewalled by the police, he can expose the whole thing to the public.

[Farnaby]

8 minutes ago, crab12 said:

@Maximus Ah okay I understand what you are saying. They were just kids and got molested by these fucking monsters, they didn't deserve this nor had any control over this. And now the police are covering for the perps while stonewalling the victims. This is a massive problem, it hasn't gotten any better, it's probably worse today than in 1980's. I would not raise a family in UK, I would move country.

I'll try to explain how I understand victim mentality, to me these are completely different things. ~6 years ago I had an injury, I could no longer dance, lift weights, play team sports, run, or even walk properly. Dancing and lifting weights were very important to me at the time. The doctors told me these types of injuries do not heal and there's nothing they can do. At that young age, I thought my life was over, there's nothing I can do about it, it was an accident, it wasn't even my fault, and now I'm going to be crippled for the rest of my life. I was in a state of complete passivity, just played video games and coped with unhealthy behaviors. I was already depressed at the time and the accident made things much much worse. To me, this represents victim mentality, the belief that there is nothing I can do, that my life is ruined, it's over, and the apathy and passivity it produces. Now I can see that instead of lifting weights I can do calisthenics, instead of dancing I can draw. This injury doesn't stop me from living a good life, like at all, all the limitations have some kind of a workaround. And finally, if there really are no options left, I can choose to face death with dignity, like Socrates did. I don't need anything to live a good life other than do the thing that I want to do the most, and that option is always available. The Path or The Way is always there.

I understand that being raped as a child is much worse than anything I have ever experienced. But I can see that even that doesn't have to stop you from living. The Steemit article you shared, the author is standing up and trying to expose the perpetrators even though he is getting stonewalled by the police, he can expose the whole thing to the public.

I see it that way too.

You had every right to be sad, angry, scared when that accident happened to you. As you yourself noticed, there comes a time where you have to decide whether you're going to stay stuck in that state (which would become a victim mentality) or if you can still choose things in life that can bring you joy, peace, etc. But before we can do that, we usually need to give ourselves permission to feel our emotions and express them. That's not victim mentality IMO, just the normal grief process from your life before the accident. 

I think you can actually energetically feel when someone's playing victim compared to authentic emotions. When someone plays victim, it feels manipulative and there is usually some sort of incoherence between non verbal and verbal messages, black or white thinking, passive-aggressiveness, etc. Of course these people have probably been a real victim sometime in their life and there usually is authentic grief underneath the surface, but instead of sitting with these emotions, they seem to get attached to that state because it helps them get attention from other people and avoid responsibility (among other benefits).