The Comforts of Being a Victim

Recently I have been having some very interesting conversations about what it means to feel victimised and act from this perspective until you become convinced you really are a perpetual victim and the whole world is out to get you.

I have thought a lot about what it means being a victim and, more specifically, what payoffs lay hidden in this status that, overtly, nobody wants. I have hardly ever heard anybody boasting about feeling a victim, yet I have seen people, myself included, stubbornly hanging on to this state of victimhood and finding countless explanations on why this is inescapable.

"I have had a hard life", "I still pay the price for my parents' mistakes", "I have bad luck", "I am surrounded by heartless people who disappoint me constantly", "I just know that more misfortune is coming my way - this is my destiny", "Nobody appreciates my efforts - why are they all so ungrateful?", "What else can I do - life is unfair", "I have sacrificed everything for you and here's what I get in return!" - all these are variations around the same theme.

When I asked myself what did I have to gain from being a victim I found answers I really didn't like at first. The very idea that I might be feeding and perpetuating my state of helplessness was disturbing. Yet the truth struck me in the face with a force I couldn't ignore. I finally had to confront the chilling reality that I had much to gain from being a victim.

Victimisation made it easy to feel sorry for myself. I had an excuse for my failures. I could blame others for my dissatisfaction. I always had some explanation for bad decisions, bad relationships, bad feelings - others were to blame - if only they changed, if only they stopped disappointing me, I would be happier. In fact, as I discovered, being a victim was quite pleasant in its own, twisted way - I got rid of the responsibility for my own life.

I also got to be the "empathic" one who felt sorry for others' misfortunes - I found myself saying "poor him", "poor her" - and felt good for being such a kind-hearted person. I never realised that feeling sorry for others' without an added attitude of empowering support did nothing but feed their own sense of victimhood and, instead of helping them overcome their challenges, made them sink even deeper in a well of self-pity.

Unconsciously I cherished the victim in myself. I had a really hard time letting it go. And I discovered I am not alone in this.

One of my closest friends used to be a "professional victim" too. He always complained about clients' lack of common sense, taxi-driver's rudeness, supermarket cashier's apathy, the swimming pool where he'd go three times a week being too crowded. He complained about society as a whole and spoke about being fed up with everybody else's selfishness, impoliteness, lack of responsibility. Then he had an epiphany. It was his own quest for victimhood that made him seize every single opportunity to feel like an underdog. There was some glory in that pain. Some merit in being the only one kind, polite, full of common sense in a mad, twisted world.

Being a victim does bring along its own comforts. It allows you to stay in your comfort zone. It gives you a wonderful excuse for not reaching out to happiness. It also comes along with a strange feeling of "specialness" - you are special when you suffer. Your problems are the biggest ones, your burdens the heaviest. Victimisation makes it hard to see the bright side of things and the bright side of others - so, although unhappy, you do get to be the brightest one around - and that's a huge payoff in itself.

So, next time you start blaming everybody else for whatever is going wrong in your own life, you might want to take a step back and look in the mirror. Like it or not, you might discover you are the sole owner of your life's choices and you are more powerful that you might like to think. You might even be surprised to find that you are wonderful, special, luminous - even when or, better said, especially when you are not playing the victim. You are beautifully imperfect and loveable just as you are, your mistakes are your lessons, your failures are your stepping stones to your better, wiser future self. You might just notice that self-pity ads nothing to your inherent greatness, but it does rob you of loads of opportunities for joy, laughter and pure, unadulterated, happiness.

With love from a recovering victim,

Alis