Tired of being stuck in a cycle of victimhood?
(There is a difference between being a victim and victimhood. )
The victimhood or victim mentality can create a powerful sense of stagnation in personal and professional lives as well as has a negative impact on our relationships with ourselves and the world.
As a practitioner working with chronic stress-related symptoms such as anxiety, burnout, and an inability to cultivate meaningful connections with loved ones I have found that clients report stopping using victim behavior and letting go of the tendency to blame others for their experiences. This is often an added benefit that clients experience following sessions.
Consequences on your mental health and energy levels if you use victim mentality.
The victim mentality can have significant effects on your energy levels and mental health.
This mentality can take away your power on a daily basis and drains your energy. Additionally, it forces you to misplace energy by focusing towards misguided targets instead of processing your emotions in a healthy way. This often leads to wasted time and energy, as you default into a victim mentality instead of tackling your pain or stress in a productive way. We end up spending a significant amount of energy thinking and worrying about other people, their morals, and how it affects us.
Your energy is drained!
Consider the following scenario:
You begin each day with 20 points of energy as a baseline.
Now, imagine that for each instance you default into a victim mentality throughout the day, you lose one point. This unproductive pattern of behavior and thinking can ultimately result in a significant energy deficit.
Whenever you resort to blaming others, feeling intentionaly or unintentionally hurt, feeling sorry for yourself, or trying to elicit pity from others, feeling like a martyr you are perpetuating a victim mentality or victim complex. This state of mind can leave you feeling stuck and drained of energy. It helps distract you from what really matters in your life and what changes you need to make in order to heal, achieve your goals, and build your reality.
The more we use a victimhood mindset and repeat those behaviors, the more it becomes a personality trait. When you behave out of the belief that people are out to hurt you and you have to protect yourself.
Who is at risk of adapting a victim mentality?
The victimhood mindset is often the result of personal experiences of being a victim. For instance, surviving a toxic or abusive home as a child can leave a lasting impact on your behavior and beliefs. You may develop a personality trait that leads you to believe that people are out to hurt you and that you must protect yourself at all times. This can create expectations of a world that is unjust and full of people who have low morals and negative intentions.
How can we overcome the victim complex?
It is important to differentiate between having a victim mentality and actually being a victim. This realization marks a good starting point for a mind shift.
Many of my clients have learned to normalize abuse and learned to excuse it due to growing up in a toxic environment. However, continuing to excuse abuse is a form of neglect towards oneself and the parts of us that were victimized. Refusing to acknowledge that injustice was done against us can lead to the adoption of a victim mentality.
As adults, we have the power to reconcile with and take care of and help heal those parts of us that were victimized. These parts are often ignored and judged by us.
We learned to ignore and judge these parts through our painful experiences.
If your caregiver was neglectful or didn't validate your feelings, you were often anxious about how they reacted to you and what to expect from them. Rejection and anxiety in relationships may have become a norm and now you expect rejection from the world. But at the same time, you might be seeking validation from others. When you do not receive this validation, it can trigger feelings of victimization.
I've had personal experience with the victim mentality and have also helped clients overcome it. I know it can be tough to confront the emotional neglect and abuse we experienced in the past, but here's the thing: by ignoring it or making excuses for it, we're only giving away our power on a daily basis.
Wouldn't it feel amazing to take that power back and use it to explore new opportunities and build stronger relationships with ourselves and those we love?
I am here to support you to move forward if you decide to reach out.
It's important to remember that our traumas and attachment styles don't define us – they are things we've learned from our past experiences.
The good news is that it's possible to grow and thrive beyond our victimhood. You can always take that first step towards healing.
