(ThySistas.com) In this life on thing is certain…we all experience pain. The depths of pain may vary for each person, but that menace is ever present. At some point, many of us will fall victim to some degree of sorrow that is beyond our control. It is very important to understand that the space called victim, like anger, is not one that is meant to last a lifetime. The longer one stays in that space the more damage they incur…the more damage incurred the greater chance one risks of hurting others. Many can acknowledge, whether they act on it or not, that harboring hatred or anger is dangerous. It is understood that forgiveness is necessary more so for the party that has been hurt. With this being said, it seems difficult for us to apply the same principle to victimization. Being a victim is more than just the experience that one had to endure…it is a mentality that can spawn selfishness if one is not careful.
It should be established that there is a difference between being a victim, and playing the victim. If a person is a victim, they have been harmed or injured. However, playing the victim is a perpetual state,
that could be stemmed from being a victim, whereby a person refuses to take personal responsibility for their life, manipulates others through guilt, justifies hurting/abusing others, and seeks attention in a negative way. Excuses are often given as to why a person deals in playing the victim, and it often goes back to their pain. A part of taking part of your own life as an adult is having an active part in your healing processes regardless of what caused them. When we shun accountability, it leads to us not taking responsibility of the areas of our life that are subpar, but not a result of said pain. Everything becomes one huge mess that we expect others in our life to fix.
Part of playing the victim is assuming others must give you what they worked hard for. When one looks at the life of family and friends it’s easy to believe they were given what they have because life favors them, but shuns you. Living a victim mentality causes you to give up the idea of reciprocity so others need to hear you, understand you, call you, contribute to your life what you won’t work for, and they need to do so with no expectation of you. Basically, the argument is my life is hard, and laden with pain…more pain than you. My life is harder than yours…regardless of what you’ve been through.
Playing the victim is ultimately selfish, and it deprives the user of every feeling the gratification that comes from having earned what they have. Make no mistake, we all need help along our life journey; no one gets to a successful place alone. However, receiving help and making wise decisions with that help is different from the entitled mentality that is born of playing the victim. There are indeed different degrees of pain and suffering, but you should never assume that others have experienced nothing or less.
Some of the people we disregard due to playing the victim have also had hard lives, but used that as the motivation to become something greater than their circumstance. We never want to alienate people that love us, and care because we’ve began to manipulate them with the victim card. Why create victims that are such because we’ve hurt them due to our pain? It’s time to confront the “victim card” because it doesn’t aid anything positive, nor heal pain. This card weakens a person, people, community and movement. It’s far time to regain one’s control and life through acknowledging pain and suffering without allowing it to control and corrupt us.
Staff Writer; Christian Starr
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