Victim Mentality - Tâm Lý Nạn Nhân
People with a victim mentality feel as though bad things keep happening and the world is against them. You may feel as though everyone else is against you, be that your partner, your coworkers, or even your family or friends. Even though there might be things that you can do to help fix the situation, you don’t take responsibility for anything and feel as though everything is out of your control.
In addition, you might take things personally even when they are not directed at you. You might think thoughts like, “What did I do to deserve this?” You might also feel resentful a lot of the time.
Most likely you went through a bad time in your life or experienced trauma, but you had no coping strategies at the time and developed this negative viewpoint or victim mindset. This led you to believe that life just happens to you and that you have no responsibility for what happens in your life.
Victim Mentality Behaviors
- A tendency to blame other people
- Not taking responsibility for your own life
- Being hypervigilant around other people and reacting to small things in a big way
- Being very aware of when people have bad intentions
- Feeling as though everyone else has it easier than you and so you don't try
- Feelings of relief when you receive sympathy or pity and seeking this out as a result
Causes of a Victim Mentality
- Experiences of past trauma where this mindset was developed as a coping mechanism
- Multiple negative situations where you had no sense of control
- Ongoing emotional pain that makes you feel helpless or trapped so that you give up
- Having someone betray your trust in the past makes you feel like you can’t trust people going forward (especially a parent or partner)
- Secondary gain after the initial period (e.g., making others feel guilty so that you get attention)
How to Stop a Victim Mentality
- Choose to either leave situations or accept them
- Speak out to reclaim your power to change a situation
- Read self-help books like Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now”
- Forgive yourself or others who have harmed you (do not accept but rather forgive) to reduce hostility and trauma responses
- Find help from a therapist who can help you process past trauma
- Develop your emotional intelligence
- Take responsibility for what you can control in a life situation and how you react
- Take control over who you spend time with
- Engage in self-care to treat yourself compassionately and with kindness
- Engage in self-love and seeing yourself as a worthwhile person
- Engage in a journaling habit to release bad feelings
- Start to say no to things that don’t align with your values or what you want for your life
- Make yourself a priority and take care of how much energy you expend
- Identify personal goals that you can work towards
- Figure out how to get the same benefits you have been getting with a victim mindset (e.g., self-care)
- Practice gratitude for what you already have in your life
How to Help Someone With a Victim Mentality
- Be empathetic and acknowledge that they have faced painful events in their past
- Don’t label them as a victim as this will just make the situation worse
- Identify specific unhelpful behaviors like shifting blame, complaining, and not taking responsibility
- Allow them to talk and share their feelings
- Don’t apologize if you don’t feel that you are solely to blame for a situation
- Set boundaries and don’t let them invade your personal space
- Offer help to find them solutions but don’t try to protect them from bad outcomes
- Help them to brainstorm goals or ways to change their lives
- Ask a lot of questions to probe and get them thinking (e.g., What are you good at? What have you done well at in the past?)
- Validate their feelings rather than brushing them off
- Encourage them to speak to a therapist if they have trauma that has not been processed from the past
- Prepare for your conversations and don’t allow yourself to get caught up in bad dynamics
- Don’t attack them and be gentle; allow them to grow through your encouragement
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