Victim Mentality – How To Identify, Change, And Deal With It

Introduction

‘Victim mentality’ is an oft-used phrase, but it is also often misunderstood or incorrectly attributed.

A victim mentality is a mindset – a mindset that suppresses and diminishes the happiness, and potential for happiness, of the person possessing it.

Sadly, its effects almost always go beyond that person and negatively affect other people too. For example, those other individuals are often loved ones, or those who truly care about the affected person.

This report may appear to be very blunt at times – it can help you to identify behaviours that indicate that somebody you deal with has a victim mentality, and it can help you to identify behaviours and thought patterns that can suggest that you may be suffering with a victim mentality yourself.

These two circumstances require very different responses, and this report can help you with both. Either way, applying the advice given can increase your happiness and make your life easier.

Identifying A Victim Mentality

It’s easy to play the victim, especially when things don’t go our way.

Sometimes it feels like there is a black cloud following us around, wreaking havoc and causing injustice at every turn, and we just don’t know how to deal with it.

We get angry and upset and need an answer!

Why? Why does this always happen to me?

Believing you’re always the victim is a form of denial.

The reasons are many, but at the centre of it all is the inclination to deny responsibility for a situation or circumstance, so w.e end up projecting it onto others or external events to escape the truth.

The worst part about it is that we believe the lies we tell ourselves and others.

The Victim Mentality

Below are a few of the most common ways to identify a victim mentality.

• Avoidance Of Responsibility – There is always somebody at fault when something happens, and it certainly isn’t you. You might miss a deadline at work, or maybe you were late picking up your child from ballet practice. No matter the situation, there is always somebody or something else to blame.
• Overly Critical Of Others – When we point out flaws, or even our narrow-minded perception of flaws, in others, it is a way to deflect attention that might be placed on us. If you feel the need to persecute others, there’s a grave chance you are making sure people notice that, instead of your own flaws or insecurities.
• Easily Cut People Off – When people play the victim, it’s natural for them to cut out those people who can see through it. Ending a relationship or quitting a job is much easier than admitting we might have something to fix in ourselves. If those people are eliminated, so are the issues. Right?
• Hold Grudges – What better way to prove we are right and somebody else is wrong than by bringing up the past? This behaviour pattern in a victim mentality is powerful. It’s a weapon of choice, and there are plenty of these grievances in the memory arsenal from which to choose.

After all, hasn’t almost everybody done you wrong at some time, in one way or another?

If those sound like things you’ve done or said, you’re probably also very familiar with the benefits of playing the perpetual victim:

• You rarely have to take responsibility for anything.
• You are always the centre of attention in the little world you have created, because you’ve made villains out of everybody else.
• People don’t really criticize you, probably because they don’t want to upset you. It will end up being their fault anyway.
• There’s never a lack of drama in your life, so you are rarely bored.
• You feel relevant and interesting, especially when people are buying your version of the truth about the cruel, cruel world.

Do you see a pattern here?

This is all about power. Or a lack thereof, actually, because the victim feels powerless – powerless over their own life, over circumstances, and over the future.

Externalizing the causes and reasons for your circumstances absolves you of responsibility for having to change, or to move beyond your comfort zone.

Of course, you may recognize some or all of the above signs in other people.

However, it is a common human trait to see our own faults in others and be blind to them in ourselves.

This is especially true if you are suffering from a victim mentality, as it is another way of transferring the problem to another source as a way to avoid having to look within.

Break The Victim Cycle

Having a victim mentality is not uncommon. It often develops as a defence mechanism and could be a result of unfortunate childhood experiences.

These may not necessarily have been abusive, but may have been a response to relationship dynamics, or simply from mimicking primary caregivers.

Regardless of the cause, going through life with the burden of a victim mentality is not a mentally healthy way to live.

Like many coping mechanisms, they exist long beyond the circumstances they evolved with, and limit a person’s potential life experience.

If you want to stop playing the victim, you can break free from this cyclical and learned behaviour pattern by incorporating an alternate set of standards.

First, be honest and authentic with yourself – nobody is listening to your inner voice but you.

Being real and honest with yourself is probably the hardest step, but you can’t move forward if you don’t admit to even yourself that there’s a better way to live this life.

Chances are if you’re still reading this, you recognize that you have a problem, and you’ve already accepted that you want to change.

Here are some key components to breaking the cycle.

Sorry - The Rest Of This Article Is Only For Self Help Nirvana Members

JOIN FREE FOR 7 DAYS

Self Help Nirvana is an online community for everybody whose goal is personal improvement and development. Become a Self Help Nirvana member today and get access to everything here at SelfHelpNirvana.com!

Already a member? Sign in.