I figure I would start using this blog for some of the positive thoughts I've been having lately. I'm hoping that someone who need to hear this stuff may happen upon it.
Today, my thoughts have wandered to "victim mentality". This seems to be an increasing theme in this day and age. There are more and more "victims" out there...and many of them don't even have a clue what really being a "victim" is, because they are claiming wrongs that many of the rest of us just shake off as a bad day, or "really...you are going to go there just because you don't like me"!
As some of you reading this may know, I have had some bad seasons in my life. My first husband was an alcoholic and a drug user while we were married, and he tended to be verbally and physically abusive. I still remember him finding bruises on my arms from where he grabbed me too hard after he had sobered up, and him telling me with tears in his eyes how sorry he was, and that he would never put hands on me again. Of course, later that evening or the next day, he would drink again, and again there would be another yelling fit which would at times result in him grabbing me hard and slamming my back against a wall or forcing me out of his way (if I was pleading with him to not try to leave the house in that state, because he was in no condition to drive).
My second marriage had the outward appearance of being all unicorns and roses. At first, it even felt like that! However, as time went on, it became more and more clear I was married to someone with NPD (narcissistic personality disorder). He was slowly breaking me down...so slow, that I didn't even realize it until I was at the bottom. Unlike physical abuse, this kind of abuse is really subtle. He used to "touch" me, even when I said I wasn't in the mood, and would say things like, "You should be happy that I still find you attractive." Like saying it that way was supposed to make me feel lucky! "I thought we had a rule that you weren't allowed to wear underwear to bed unless it was that time?" Even in the most joking tone, this kind of statement is NOT okay!! People with NPD treat you as their property. Then, there was also the trying to make me doubt myself or make me feel like the crazy one. When we got into arguments, he would always say that I was the one to always blow things out of proportion, and then when I would be to the point of tears and blaming myself...saying things like "I always get it wrong"...well, then he would say I was trying to be the martyr! That is how they work...they make you take the blame, but then when you do, they turn it around on you some more. THIS is how they make you feel like you are the crazy one!
Here is the thing. After my second divorce, it is like I went through an instant transformation! I guess it wasn't so instant, because in reality I had already started to fight back against my second husband. I knew he was carrying on a relationship with another woman, and part of me really didn't care! I know it sounds crazy, but she was drawing his negative attention away from me, and this allowed me to figure out who I really was, while at the same time setting myself so that I could financially survive the divorce. I am happier now than I have been at any other point in my life!!!
People ask me how I could have come out of all of that so positive. It's simple! I made the choice to be a SURVIVOR instead of a VICTIM! You see, a survivor still acknowledges that these things happened to them, but instead of letting it keep them down and wallowing in it all, they put those things in the past. They may revisit them, but mainly to help others through similar situations...to let them know, "You are not alone, and you WILL come out of this okay in the end!" See, you only become a victim if you allow yourself to. You don't have to be a victim...you can choose to be a survivor. But it is too easy to be a victim. I see it all the time..."This happened to me when I was a child, and because of that...." I don't care how bad that something was, you can still choose to come out of the situation a survivor! You don't have to define yourself by your bad circumstances, you can choose to BUILD yourself from them! Did you come out of an abusive relationship? Do you know if you come out a victim, chances are higher that you will just find yourself in another abusive relationship, like I did the first time around? However, if you come out a survivor, you learn from that bad relationship! You go back and evaluate and see the warning signs you should have picked up on the first time around, and by making yourself aware of those, you set yourself up to not let yourself fall into the same trap again.
Another good example. People who have been sexually assaulted. One comes out of it one of two ways. In one case, you have the woman who holes herself up in her apartment afraid to go anywhere because she fears another attack. This thinking only eats away at her until she feels nothing but depression and uncontrolled anxiety. In another case, you have the woman who tells herself "never again" and enrolls in self-defense and martial arts classes, who builds her physical strength, who continues to live her life, but now has the skills and strength to beat the "next" guy down while she screams at him, "Not today, motherfucker!!!" The first was a victim, the second was a survivor!
So, what are you going to choose to be?!