Victim Mentality is an Insidious Symptom
Every Victim Brings a New Lesson
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Nothing sets my teeth on edge like someone who exhibits a victim mentality. I enter judgement mode without a nanosecond’s thought when someone launches into a diatribe about how co-workers, higher-ups, and everyone else they interact with in their work environment picks on them, holds them back, or otherwise abuses them. It doesn’t matter how many times they change jobs, the story remains the same.
It’s not only their jobs, but anyone who doesn’t give them what they want whenever they want it. Ultimately, this personality type will find someone who believes all their stories, and sympathizes no matter how outrageous and repetitive those stories become. The person becomes, if not an ally, a co-dependent dumping ground for all the woes they invent to support their own inability or lack of motivation to excel.
I realize it’s my own fault when I engage with them, whether I sympathize or judge. I spent a lot of years playing both parts, though without the afore-mentioned supporter. When I was the victim, I suffered alone, in a brooding silence which ultimately made people see me as angry and unapproachable. If others are a mirror into our own psyches, there’s clearly an element of that old victim mentality lurking inside me, waiting to be exhumed and exorcised. Meeting and reacting to someone else with those qualities is clearly a reminder to dig a little deeper, and make a few more incisions to ensure the demons of victim-ness are adequately expunged.
Another Narcissistic Game
Looking back, I can see how I allowed myself to act like a victim to offset the anger I felt but
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couldn’t express; anger at myself for not achieving more, but also anger with my parents for encouraging the belief I wasn’t enough. I didn’t know how to express the anger in the right direction, nor did I know how to change my own perceptions. That took time, experience, and some major internal excavations before I found the answers. My judgemental reaction to those who follow the same path is evidence I still have a lot of work to do.
What I’ve finally learned to do is two-fold. First, I put the perception back on the one playing victim, forcing them to choose, even if their choice is to do nothing. Second, I resist prolonging engagement when their ire over being thwarted spills onto me. I also learned I have to refrain from sympathizing when they, or their supporter launch, once again into a litany of the mistreatment and unfairness they’re suffering at the hands of co-workers and, in fact, the rest of the world.
Sadly, the behavior is somewhat insidious, and reminiscent of narcissistic behavior when it involves someone they’ve managed to lure to their side. It reminds me of the years I actually believed my alcoholic ex’s lies about his ex-wives, co-workers, and bosses which even included my own father for a time. I supported him, and believed his lies far longer than I should have. When I finished my degree and started getting better jobs I ultimately woke up to the dangerous game he was playing with my psyche. Even so, it took me years to start repairing the damage, and begin moving forward again.
Switching from Judge to Observer
As I watch people playing that game with others, I have to tell myself to lock down my judgemental tendencies even tighter, especially when the supporter is someone I care about. I know they wouldn’t thank me for pointing out what’s going on, nor would they believe me any more than I would have taken such information myself when I was in the mental and emotional clutches of, not only my ex, but others before him who recognized my need to please, nurture, and feel valued even if I didn’t. It’s a lesson each of us has to learn on our own, and in our own right timing.
Thus, my intolerance was born from learning to recognize the hidden agenda beneath the victim mentality. I learned the hard way that someone playing the victim can be one of the most self-serving, insidious creatures on the planet, and their prey of choice is Empaths who have not yet figured out all the tricks and ploys a Narcissist will enlist to have someone in their power.
In a weird way, most Empaths need to go through this rite of passage. We have to learn how to recognize the red flags that alert us to another Narcissist trying to suck us dry. The experience is never pleasant, and often brings out our own worst tendencies in the process. That isn’t such a bad thing, though. How else are we going to clear our own mental, emotional, and often physical closet if we don’t bring things out into the open to sort through, and discard what’s no longer needed?
Practicing Patience
My patience is taxed when I encounter another person who’s a victim in their own mind. 
Perhaps therein lies the lesson I’m supposed to learn as patience has never been my strong suit, even if I’ve learned to exercise it more in recent years. I know I have a long way to go to perfect the quality.
One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned in this journey called Life is every experience that upsets or irritates me contains a lesson I need to learn or perfect. As long as things keep bothering me, I know I have more internal work to do. As long as I have more internal work to do, I know my job and purpose are not yet complete, so I appreciate the reminders that I have a long way to go.
I may not always enjoy a leg of my journey, but I’ve learned there’s a reason behind each one. They all become clear if I keep moving forward, even when forward is a series of switchbacks, and even a few setbacks before my path gets smoother for a little while.
Grateful for Opportunities to Learn
My gratitudes today are:
- I’m grateful for the twisty, turny paths my life has taken.
- I’m grateful for the journey, even the unpleasant parts. Every step has taught me something useful.
- I’m grateful for supportive friends and family who have made my journey more pleasant.
- I’m grateful for the roads I’ve yet to travel, and the mysteries and surprises I’ll unfold along the way.
- I’m grateful for abundance; lessons, challenges, setbacks, successes, friendship, love, joy, happiness, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, peace, balance, health, prosperity, and philanthropy.
Namaste
About the Author
Sheri Conaway is a Holistic Ghostwriter, and an advocate for cats and mental 
health. Sheri believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income.
If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her Hire Me page for more information. You can also find her on Facebook Sheri Levenstein-Conaway Author or in her new group, Putting Your Whole Heart Forward
least 7 other things I want to do; none of which are critical. Yet I return to them because having them hanging over my head undone is annoying. I don’t believe I’ll ever reach the end of my personal to do list, if for no other reason than I can’t help adding things to it. These days, there’s very little on it other than my writing and administrative tasks which even need to adhere to a timeline.
Right now, it’s a printer in what was once my office, pre-COVID. I had to buy a new one as I was having compatibility issues with my new computer, but months later, it’s still connected, and even available for printing if I want to walk to the back of the house to pick up the job. Meanwhile, the new one purrs happily on my dining room table where it’s used regularly, though infrequently, and the old one burns a little power, and collects dust.
You make a lot of choices every day. Some are clear as glass, while others, more like a muddy, reed-filled swamp. In any case, you make the best choice you can with the information at hand knowing, in most cases, you can always step back and regroup if new information proves the choice you made could stand some improvement.
process of finding what is. Any inventor or scientist will tell you there were many iterations before they turned an idea into reality. There were lots of mistakes and wrong turns along the way, but each one gave them more information which ultimately led to the solution. Often, you make choices which won’t get you there (not intentionally, of course) so you can see what doesn’t work and figure out why.
If you’ve ever played Mastermind, or any other code breaking game, you might remember using trial and error as well as logic to crack the code. You start with your best guess. You might have one or two colors correct but in the wrong place, or none at all. You try to rule out what didn’t fit, replacing it with other colors until you’re able to narrow down both color and position.
but I’ve learned it isn’t wired for boredom. There’s a fine line between the two. Some folks walk that wire, doing their best to remain in some non-existent middle ground, and frustrating themselves in the process. Others say “to hell with it!” and consistently color outside the lines. You might call them crazy. I call them innovators, and consider them the most courageous souls around. They’re the ones I seek to emulate.
Not all your projects are meant to be perfect. Many are a means to an end. They teach you things you need to know in order to make your passion projects better, and serve no other purpose. They provide information for your data banks so you don’t keep making the same mistakes, and taking the longest road possible to reach your goals.
could be further from the truth. In fact, all the imperfect decisions and side trips you take prove it’s not. The failures are necessary and important in the process of finding the right path. Often, a mindset of “you can’t get there from here” is the best approach as you pick a direction and start walking, or even running. When you hit a wall, or go off the rails, you take what you learned from the experience, and decide whether where you were headed is truly where you want to go.
Whenever I see a butterfly flitting past my window, or following me for a little ways while I’m out walking, I’m filled with a burst of incredible joy. Most of the time, I simply run with it, allowing the joyous creature to lift my spirits, soaring to the treetops along with those colorful wings, needing no reason or purpose for the euphoria.
figure it out, clinging to your old ways like the lifeline they aren’t. Perhaps you become inured to life’s endless series of small traumas at a young age because your family taught you to only allow your strong exterior to show, hiding your fears, feelings, and broken parts behind masks and walls so no one could make the cracks in your foundation any larger.
Like the butterfly, I neither wanted nor needed help while I shed what no longer served me. I did, and still do need support while I learn, grow, and jettison everything I’d stashed away behind the now-dissolved walls. I may have ditched the protections in a few gigantic, and not always self-propelled leaps, but what I’d stashed behind those protections needed to be peeled away carefully, layer by layer. That process would have been impossible without the help of people who could understand, or at least empathize.
willing to take some gigantic leaps of faith, and more, to refuse to let faith and trauma define us. The choices I’ve made, and the transformations I’ve experienced are an option for anyone. Some may have less to shed before emerging, while others like me may have several generations worth. Quantity and depth don’t really matter. The first leap or ten are tough no matter what. It’s all about leaving your comfort zone, and most of us are hard-wired to stay there.
I didn’t make good choices when it came to relationships and marriage. In fact, it got so bad, I removed myself from the pool entirely over 20 years ago, and am trying to figure out how to re-open that door nowadays. As such, I gave my daughters a pretty lousy example of what a healthy relationship should look like. My son-in-law’s parents didn’t do any better. So you’d think neither of them would have a clue what a good relationship looks like, much less, how to create one for themselves.
statistical superhighway. Perhaps I’m seeing an unlikely cross-section, but the marriages I see from my daughter’s generation; OK, mostly her friends, are some of the most strong, resilient, unwavering I’ve seen in decades. I’d even venture to say, they’ve restored my faith in the institution.
That’s not to say my daughter, and likely many of her friends didn’t kiss a few frogs, and suffer a bad relationship or two first. They had the good sense to learn and walk away. It only took me 11 years of marriage, and another 10 years beyond that to realize I was better, and deserved someone who loved me without conditions or expectations. I it took me a little longer to figure out it had to start with me.
approval or blessing any more, though one still asks on occasion. Perhaps watching me struggle, and keep falling down gave them the drive to make better lives for themselves than I made for me while they were growing up. I’m awfully proud of the changes they’ve made in outlook and expectations in spite of the examples I set.
I tried for years to be a strong, self-sufficient island. I learned the hard way there were far too many things I couldn’t do alone, and doing without wasn’t a viable option either. Islands get battered by waves, winds, and storms just like communities, but have fewer resources to not only withstand the abuse, but to rebuild after the more damaging episodes.
I get constant status updates about my physical and mental state via my gut, my head, and my body. The ones best addressed as soon as the reminders arrive are those which involve absorbing other people’s energy and problems. When I fail to acknowledge and act on the first, more subtle reminders, the voices and physical effects become worse until I have no choice. I prefer to avoid having them reach such levels, but occasionally, I get so self-absorbed or otherwise focused I forget what will come from my lack of appropriate attention.
insidiousness are the core of their tool chests. Like a poisonous gas, they seep in beneath the defenses, and often choose Empaths whose compassion and natural willingness to help lend themselves to a Narcissists insatiable need for attention, adoration, and fulfillment.
Eventually, I take a good, hard look in the mirror and admit the person was remarkably skillful, but, as the song goes, I won’t get fooled again. It’s as if they left their mark in my guest book, and once they left, the ink started to simmer and boil. I realize in trusting them, I failed to engage my filters and shields, and have absorbed some of their discordant energy into my own field. Once I’ve finished beating myself up over allowing it in the first place, it’s time to engage my cleanup crew to remove the rotting, toxic carcass and allow my own energy to flow clean and clear once again.
learning. Nonetheless, each new experience; each new game I fall for teaches me how to avoid another kind of trap. In the meantime, I’ve learned to recognize the traps sooner than I used to, and I can tell when there’s a game being played whose rules are unfamiliar to me.
Every so often I wake feeling unusually heavy; inexplicably sad. There’s nothing particularly wrong with my life, though things are far from normal these days. I can’t find a reason for these feelings of sadness; feeling like something isn’t quite right, or is off-balance somehow. I’ve learned it may be nothing, or something that will be explained at some point in the future. The best I can do is keep busy and ride it out.
These inexplicably dark, lonely days bring back, not so much the years I was depressed, miserable, and alone, but the progress I’ve made since then. They also remind me it’s OK to have dark, lonely days. Hard as they may be to understand and accept, they provide a balance for me from all the time and effort I put into staying strong, positive, and inspired.
to love and compassion. In the process, you may even cause those who do care to run out of patience, or get tired of being ignored. Before long, you truly are alone, and though a lot of that is your own fault, you fail to recognize it beyond the belief it’s what you deserve.
I’d like to say it was one company; one job that saw this decline in the image I showed the world, but in truth, it was a long, slow slide into the final pit that led to my choosing to leave the corporate world entirely. In hindsight, it wasn’t a bad thing. The choice was a long time coming, but needed the right set of circumstances to manifest. I had to be confident I no longer needed the approval of anyone but myself to see how many people truly loved me the way I was; co-workers and employers excluded.
Some people feel the need to rant, or to meet every opinion that contradicts theirs with an argument. I’ve decided I need to let them rant or fume, but save my own sanity, and refrain from adding my opinion to their rant; which often means fuel to their fire. It’s taking me a long time to learn I don’t need to push my opinion on others, and especially when we are on opposite sides of an emotionally charged issue. Neither of us is going to change our view by being shouted at, preached at, or browbeaten, so why engage at all?
or worse, scratching my head in confusion. Learning to sit back and wait until I see a more complete picture, or, if it’s important enough to me, doing my own research has kept me out of many battles I wasn’t meant to fight in the first place.
my share of people, and try to see those episodes as lessons rather than adding them to a list of regrets that will only keep me from doing better next time. Of the many things I’ve jettisoned over the years, my own duffel bag full of regrets is the one I’m happiest to be rid of. It’s a heavy load I could never possibly fix or change, so it’s only purpose was to weigh me down, and slow my forward progress; sometimes bringing it to a standstill until I remembered to drop the heavy stuff.
in fact, how much I was responsible for doing exactly that; for my family, for the people I’ve wronged in the past, and for those who will cross my path in the future. I’m even doing it for people I will never connect with in person. In short, I’m changing the ripples I create by my own actions.
I live by a lot of adages and affirmations these days:
Above my computer I had a picture of my daughter Jenni in a Popsicle stick frame, taken when she was in maybe 2nd grade. It’s been there so long, I’d ceased noticing it there until today. A similar one of Heather was moved to the bulletin board long ago. Today, I took the picture of Jenni down and threw it face down in the bottom drawer of my desk. I’m still purging her last act which finally forced me to accept she doesn’t want or need me as a mother, or really, as anything else in her life.
just a reminder that I’d mentally given her permission to seek her maternal support elsewhere since it’s clearly what she wants anyway. I still admit to having given birth to twins, but at this point, I only have one daughter, and the children borne by the one no longer mine…they’re someone else’s grandchildren, not mine.
I won’t lie to you. I feel loss. I feel an emptiness where I once had a sweet, loving child. Maybe there’s even a little anger there, but it won’t live long. It’s soothed over by acceptance. She has a right to choose her own life and the people in it just as I do. Not everyone we choose will choose us. That’s life.
life. I’d no longer have to hear from her or deal with her criticisms. Granted, I had no choice in the matter, or any way to re-open that door. I doubt I would have as I only gained perspective decades later when I could write about it and her without her influence—at least not directly.
I’m not always positive or upbeat. Life kicks me around my fair share. But I’ve learned to keep a positive attitude even through the wildest storms. Unlike what today seems like another lifetime ago, I don’t mask my feelings. I feel them, acknowledge them, love them, then try to let the bad stuff go. The positive affirmations I share here and on social media aren’t meant to cover anything up, but to remind myself where I might currently be is only temporary. As long as I focus on the lesson rather than wallowing in the pain, I know I’ll navigate the current hazards and reach the other side only slightly the worse for wear.
and protected. Some even raised it to deity status, so in my defense, I didn’t know better. But as I got older and interacted with people from other families; other backgrounds, I had plenty of opportunity to learn. It was my choice to remain in the dark hole I mistook for the warmth and comfort of the family womb. In truth, it was only a comfort as long as I followed their rules and lived my life within those confines.
These days, I acknowledge pieces of my past as they come up for review. I know there are feelings I still need to feel before they can be released and forgiven. There’s only one way through that storm, and it’s straight through. Fortunately, it does get easier, and most of the feelings I’m called upon to feel are less painful; less intense than the ones when I first tore down the walls.
constant. I am a writer. It’s what I was meant to be, and what I will ultimately excel at. No matter how many times I’m knocked down, discouraged, or criticized, it remains my singular focus. Even when I go months writing nothing but blog posts and morning pages, I’m still a writer. I’m still writing.
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