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Do you know someone who “wallows in self-pity”, or complains about their life/situation without doing anything about it?   They blame everyone else around them, but themselves. They lack any sense of responsibility or accountability over their own actions and overlook how they contribute to situations that they repeatedly complain about. People around them are quick to label them “energy vampires”, and you can only take them in small doses, because being around them is emotionally depleting. They bring you down, no matter how much you love them. The description l gave matches people who have victim mentality.

Victim Mentality

Victim mentality is one of the phrases/concepts that has emerged in this current psychobabble era;  its also a period where people are more open to talking about abuse in relationships. Victim mentality is harmful in any type of relationship-friendship, sibling, collegial, and other interpersonal relationships. It is even more harmful in romantic relationships where the power disparities are likely to get bigger, as a result of this way of functioning. If there is one partner who views themselves as a “victim” in every situation, it subconsciously puts the other partner in the perpetrator role. It then becomes very easy for the victim & their partner to inhabit these roles, and unconsciously enact them. Ironically, people who have victim mentality tend to pair up with “controllers”-people who like to control and dominate others. This means each partner adopt a fixed role & play it well.

Victims in Relationships

Victims are people who tend to be passive in relationships & simply let things happen around them. They allow their partners to get away with abusive behaviours, and let their boundaries pushed, without enforcing them. Victims feel that they can neither  speak up, nor advocate for themselves. So they simply complain, and complain, and complain , about the same situation. Since they view themselves as the victim, it’s safer for them to complain without doing anything about the issue they complain about.  At an unconscious level, this behaviour is a result of fear of abandonment, and lack of trust in themselves as lovable and deserving. Safety is an innate need. Our ancestors lived in batches for safety reasons. Abandonment meant being mauled by wild animals. We all have that inbuilt  and hard wired need for safety, and security, which is part of our evolutionary make up. Victims also lack a definition of themselves; any threat of loosing partners (by speaking up) will trigger extreme anxiety of loss of self and/or psychic disintergration. Therefore, the   dynamic where there is victimhood leaves the victim in this fixed position without making any effort to change things, due to the fear of abandonment. Things going well for long periods of time can also make the victim fearful and insecure. They may unconsciously trigger bad behaviours from their partners, in order to reinforce that victim role, as it gives them a sense of validation. These destructive cycles reinforce that victim role and perpetuates the destructive cycle.

Internal Experience

It’s easy to ignore the distress behind people who have the victim mentality, and simply view them as annoying, weak, irritating, or spineless people.

People who adopt the victim role often have:

• Low self esteem
• Depression
• Low confidence
• Impoverished sense of self
• Anxiety
• Insecurity
• Worriers
• Emotionally fragile

Predisposition

People who adopt the victim mentality are likely to have grown up in environments where they felt vulnerable and unprotected by their care givers. They were made to feel bad for  being themselves, or speaking up for themselves, & often had to tune into their parents’ feelings and emotions. They  were neither nurtured emotionally, nor allowed to develop what Winnicott (1960; 1965) called the True Self.  According to Winnicott (1960; 1965) the mother must be receptive to the baby’s emotions, and respond to them in a way that the baby can be more trusting of their own abilities and develop their True Self. In order for the True Self to develop, the mother has to be able to receive what Winnicott termed the baby’s “gesture”, which gives gives expression to a "spontaneous impulse". The source of this gesture is the True Self.  When the mother is unable to meet these spontaneous gestures, by receiving the baby's omnipotence, the baby complies with the mother's defensiveness, which forms the origins of the False Self.  In order for the True Self to develop, the mother has to be able to  makes sense of the baby's needs by being attune to the baby’s emotional needs, and respond with empathy. There has to be repeated experience of this nature, which the baby has to internalise.  Failure to do that, the baby creates a defensive- False Self - out of compliance, which hides the True Self. When the False Self becomes organised, it acts as a protector of the True Self,  albeit inauthentic, weak and fragile. In contrast, the True Self is playful, creative, and robust.  If the  True Self, was never cultivated, the False Self becomes dominant over the True Self.  In adult life, the False Self means an impoverished  internal world and weak ego.  Since the  False self is inauthentic, one will seek validation in others- victim mentality. The lack of development of the True Self is what is behind feeling “fake”, “wearing a mask”, “an imposter” or feeling detached from oneself, and the world. People who adopt the victim mentality role are likely to have never developed their True self and therefore have an organised False Self, which lacks confidence & agency.

From an attachment perspective, victims are people who are insecurely attached, therefore fearful of abandonment. Most people who have victim mentality have anxious avoidant styles. Following Bowlby (1969) formulation of anxious avoidant attachment style, anxiously attached adults are people who are likely to have had mixed messages from their care givers. They could not depend on them, they had to care for themselves by keeping a distance, in order to feel safe. Anxious avoidant people tend to repeat the same pattern in romantic relationships-they tend to be very clingy and submissive to their partners, which is what lends them into victimhood. Although they may play the victim role, they are sensitive  to rejection. They crave to feel wanted, and needed by their partners, hence the submissiveness & placating themselves- the “martyr”.

People who had a secure attachment with their care givers/ parents, in childhood, are likely to approach adult romantic relationship from a place of confidence, autonomy, and maturity and see themselves as an adult who has agency, not a victim. If one has an insecure avoidant attachment style, they are likely to play out the internalised way of relating by drawing their partners close by being needy, and seeing themselves as victims who need protection. They do so instead of them doing something about the situation.  The clinginess itself & passivity is what perpetuates the cycle. From an attachment perspective, care givers of the anxious avoidant child would have not provided them enough safety and security and they could not rely on the parent to meet their basic needs. The partner of the victim is dealing with unmet needs from the parents.

How to Heal from Victim Mentality

• Remind yourself that you are special & you deserve to speak up for yourself.
• Learn to put your needs first or at least consider your needs in any situation.
• Take risks and change the familiar patterns that you are stuck in for example apologising for things you haven’t done, taking the blame.
• Remember you are not to blame for who you are, however you have the responsibility to change the dynamic
• Seek individual therapy of you think you have victim mentality. Many a time we do not recognise how much of our behaviour is simply a manifestation of our way of relating, from the internal working models laid out in childhood. Not all these patterns are healthy & we have a duty to change them.

References

Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and Loss, Vol. 1: Attachment. Attachment and Loss. New York: Basic Books.

Winnicott; D.W. (1960). Ego Distortions in Terms of True Self and False Self. The Maturational Process and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development. NY

Winnicott, D. W. (1965). “Ego Distortion in Terms of True and False-Self” in The Maturational Process and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development 140. New York: International Universities Press

Image Credit- Anthony Tran- Unsplash