I guess I'll start by saying I've never tried to think of myself as a victim when it comes the things I have to live with. One of the first things I had to come to terms with starting out was I don't get to blame other people for how it's gone. It wasn't my parents, or my ex-wife, or my education, or the country I live in, or the system I am anchored to.
If I am a victim of anything, it's my own lack of self-control, understanding and judgment which has put me where I'm at. I knew that when I was a teenager and still do now. Does that mean they are without responsibility for their own actions and choices? No. But I can't place the entirety of the "blame" squarely on them any more than I can put it squarely on my own shoulders.
In this instance, there truly is enough to go around.
That also doesn't mean there's not been times where I've been frustrated and applied that blame irresponsibly and portrayed myself as indeed a victim. I would like to think that with the human propensity of not owning up to our faults or errors in assessing personal responsibility, it's not a problem exclusive to me either. Like it or not, we've all played the victim card at one point or another, and it's part of our growing up, I guess, to learn how not to do so.
Be that as it may, I thought for the last few months I was doing okay and not letting myself get bogged down in those familiar patterns. Then I went back and did some research on the concept of victim stance. It's not something new to me as when I first started going through therapy as a teenager, the doctors I worked with drilled it into my head in the first few months. How it was explained to me, in basic terms, was not assessing blame unnecessarily to those around me and owning up to the mistakes I've made in totality.
I suppose because I was so determined to not play myself off as a victim going forward, at some point I took it to the extreme and blamed myself for literally everything that I've gone through. It was no one else's fault but mine and that is because, try as I might, I'm not as good a person as I want to be. That was my mindset for the better part of a decade. And while I thought I was being responsible and not avoiding my culpability, there's also a kicker I wasn't aware of.
You're still acting like a victim if you keep beating yourself up over it.
In doing my research, I came across this list, and I just about stopped cold. I've been telling myself for over a year now that I'm doing what a survivor does. That I'm still not a victim and that I'm moving in the right direction.
And yet, I've been doing just about everything in the left column, and not nearly enough of what's in the right. I've become more reclusive, been overwhelmed, scared and confused by my feelings and thoughts, embarrassed and timid in talking with people (which I seldom do anymore). My temper is still an issue, my self-esteem and self-confidence are still at major subterranean levels and I have a fresh scar on my arm which isn't even a year-old.
I may tell myself that I'm surviving, but I'm not actually doing it. And how do I know? That's why this blog is a good thing, because I can go right down the list of examples which fit each of those dubious criteria. It's not conjecture if there's evidence to support it.
Now does that mean I've done nothing on the other side of the equation? No. I do talk to people and listen to what they have to say. I ask questions and have been making an effort to take care of myself. I just haven't done those things in quantities high enough to cancel out the other side yet.
The thing about long journeys is that there inevitably comes a point where you have to make sure you're still going in the right direction. In this age of GPS-assisted travel, it's admittedly easier, but even when I'm on a drive to somewhere new, I check it to make sure I don't end up getting lost.
Time to do so again and get back to where I need to be.
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