George B. Thomas breaks down the difference between being a victim of circumstances and adopting a victim mentality. He explores how mindset shapes recovery and growth, and when to seek professional help for healing.
In this case, stop what you're doing right now and listen with purpose. Because the first thing I want to address is the difference between being a victim and having a victim mentality. We're not even talking victim versus victor here. We're literally just breaking it down to victim versus victim mentality because there's a big difference and we have to address the elephant in the room. A victim refers to experiencing specific harmful events such as a crime, abuse, discrimination, where one is wronged or mistreated. Liz, we've all been there. We've had these moments, like, and we know we've been a victim. Like, we just. We feel it, we understand it. Being a victim is an external reality based on actual events that happen, not a chosen mentality or attitude that we grab a hold of and carry along for our journey. Typically, being a victim is seen as a temporary state. I'm going to state that again. Temporary state with many individuals actively working towards healing and overcoming actively working towards healing and overcoming the impact of their victimization. With that said, though, Liz, if you have been a victim, I have to pause and be like, I'm sorry. Like, I've been there, done that. I think, Liz, I even have a T shirt in the back of my closet about the things that have happened in my life from the point of like, wow, I just got victimized. And like, holy crap, what just happened. But again, if I go back to that thing, temporary and actively working towards healing and overcoming. Okay, I know how the listeners feel. I know that we've all had these moments. If you're able to work through them by yourself, good. If you need to find professional help, like, to get past that victimization, then I hope you do that. That's my hope for you. By the way. If you have been a victim and you cannot make it that it is a temporary state, if you are drudging it along with you along the way, then get professional help. That would be my. My hope for you. The key that I want to pull out of this fact is being a victim, though, is that temporary state. So what if you get stuck? That's who we're talking to. What if you get stuck and you start to develop this victim mentality and it branches out from the one thing to many things in your life, a victim mentality. What we have to understand when we're talking about here is having a victim mentality is a psychological state where one consistently sees themselves as a victim over and over, all the time, sees themselves as a victim, regardless of the actual situation. Right. The first thing, we're talking about actual moment in time. Second thing, we're talking about maybe not really, but you think it is. It involves an internalized belief system that extends beyond specific victimizing events, marked by feelings of powerlessness, blame towards external factors or others for the misfortunes that we're facing, and a sense of being trapped in victimhood. If you're trying to live a life beyond your default, you can't have a sense of being trapped in anything.
