dealing with self-victimization/victim pathology

[tantric]

This is new to me, but if you're read any of my stuff, you know I don't accept victim status in anything. I'm responsible for my life, every bit of it, all the bad things I've done, they are mine. Even with a gun to my head, I have a choice, and what I do in that situation is still my fault - I could have chosen to die. OTOH, your life is your responsibility. You're an adult. Society, the devil, drugs, your biochemistry, none of that can make you do anything. It's all on you - the other option is being a child or an invalid. I flat don't understand how to relate to self-victimization, the nasty kind as in "there's a monster in a cage in my head, if you let it loose, you're responsible for what it does." Huh? You get to do crazy, hateful shit to me, then blame me for it?

anyone at all familiar with this?

 

[Pretty_Diamonds]

Victim = Survivor.

 

[Mel22]

I deal with people that constantly make excuses for their poor behaviour by walking away from them.

 

[tantric]

is victim pathology a thing? what i'd call a 'professional victim'? i read about how therapy doesn't cure people, it creates a victim pathology that requires indefinite care. i believe that, always have, but is it widely accepted?

Do you attribute control of your successes and failures to yourself or to some fated force outside of your purview? Whether it is your weight, your emotions, your spouse, your children, your paycheck--if you continually find yourself feeling angry, resentful or upset by the events in your life, reflect on who you blame for life’s ups and downs. How a person internalizes a particular point of view about control speaks volumes about their ability to live with a sense of wellbeing and contentment.

To reiterate the underlying dynamics of this problem, I explained that many people adopt the victim role, albeit unintentionally, because they are afraid of their anger, deny its existence in themselves, project it onto other people, and anticipate aggression or harm from them. With this expectation and a high sensitivity to anger in others, they may even distort other people’s facial expressions, imagining that they have malicious intentions. The anger that they would have experienced in response to frustration or stress is transformed into fear and distrust of others and into feelings of being hurt or wounded.

People who become mired down in feeling victimized tend to view events in their lives as happening to them and feel ineffective and overwhelmed. They also operate on the basic assumption that the world should be fair, which is a child’s way of thinking. They tend to project the circumstances of their early childhood, where they were indeed helpless, onto present-day situations and relationships, and fail to recognize that, as adults, they have far more power than they had as children.

either my would be bf is going through this, or somehow i'm an abusive predator without my conscious knowledge. don't get me wrong, i can be abusive, but i know when i'm doing it. i *know* i can be a monster, but he's never seen any of that and hopefully never will, so when i'm going in with good intentions which are read as hate and malice....this seems be what's going on. i'm a scientist - this is how i understand my life, i look it up on PubMed.