
Putting Victimhood Behind You - DoreenMichele
https://genevievefiles.blogspot.com/2019/09/putting-victimhood-behind-you.html
======
charliesharding
Great article. I wonder if different people respond to this kind of a message
differently though..

I firmly believe in taking personal responsibility for my behaviors and my
actions - however I think that is because I'm inherently wired to avoid
responsibility and try to find the easy way out. Because of this, the only
conscious way for me to effect positive change in my life is to strive for
taking responsibility and ditching thoughts of victimhood.

On the other hand, I've known people who seem to be hardwired for
responsibility so much that it is overwhelming for them and causes all kinds
of anxiety (control issues).

For these people, would it be beneficial to use that conscious effort on
relinquishing control and adopting more of a "victim" mindset?

~~~
jonfw
For self responsibility to work, you obviously can only accept responsibility
for things under your control. If you are taking responsibility for things
outside of your control, I think the more appropriate solution is to learn
some humility, rather than to adopt a "victim" mindset.

~~~
ljm
If you look at Karpman’s Drama Triangle, you’ll wonder just how many people
fall into the ‘rescuer’ corner, and further than that, how you might get the
saviour complex from it.

Just as you say, the response there isn’t to switch to the victim or even the
persecutor. The response is to break out of it.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle)

------
algaeontoast
I think a lot of the rhetoric in this article could also be applied to people
who struggled in school early on due to an unknown mental health diagnosis,
essentially internalizing that they’re either too stupid or lazy to succeed.

As someone who had great parents, but parents who denied mental health as an
issue or excessively large tonsils as a trigger for sleep apnea and behavioral
issues a lot in this article resonates. Especially given my experience finally
seeking professional help after college and realizing that a lot of why I’d
been struggling was because of ADHD likely caused by sleep apnea caused by my
tonsils.

Seeing this drastic change in mood and my mental ability was life changing,
but to this day sometimes I still catch myself re-itorating the words of my HS
guidance counselor telling me I didn’t have the grades to study at an elite
college or to be an engineer.

~~~
jigglesniggle
This is kind of dangerous. The article is basically saying you should not
demand more of society. I had problems in school and everyone brushed me off
-- am I not right to be angry? Am I not right to demand I get the same
consideration that others got? What do I need to do to do it, get back into
school, and get the same free money?

~~~
corodra
Well, let's put it this way. Being a Polish-Jew in a rural, and very southern
high school in Florida, one where I was considered a minority because there
were no other minorities, wasn't all roses. Then when it came to being a white
male applying for scholarships. More than half of those scholarship books
pretty much told me that I need not apply. My post high school education is
quite lacking because of it.

It took me a while in my 20s to realize how much of a benefit all of that was.
And to quit being angry. Compared to all my peers from high school, I have a
pretty damn good amount of resiliency. There's already a few known suicides in
my graduating class, post-graduating. Plenty of drug addiction. Only a few
folks really escaped like I did. But even them, when I touched based with
them, it's all doom and gloom. In my early 20s, I faced an eviction, plenty of
debt, debt collectors and lots of other problems that, well, never crushed me.
Honestly, a lot of problems I shrugged off and found solutions. I think the
worst thing that's ever affected me was my cats dying a few months ago. That,
honestly, was the worst thing that happened to me, even though I was homeless
for a while, couldn't find work, scrapped to pay for food. I could do all that
again if I have to. Losing a pet... that hurts.

But that brings me to the next, and I think biggest benefit from all those
problems from school. I have a "sixth sense" on people's intentions. Just a
gut reaction that's been correct every time. You have no idea how beneficial
this has been since I went into business for myself.

It also means, I have zero tolerance for assholes and incompetence. The time I
save from wasting time on assholes, I spend on my real friends. I value my
real friends and have tight relationships with them. Something my generation
really doesn't have. Now, I am abrasive to people the moment I realize someone
is underhanded, a user, asshole, etc. Even if they're mostly strangers and
it's only been 5 minutes since I met them. But my friends are fully aware that
I'm loyal, without end, to them. And thus far, every time I ignored that gut
feeling on someone being bad, it always bit me in the ass. If I listened, I
would find out from someone else a few months later on what bullet I just
dodged.

At the end, the world truly owes you nothing. Having a rough life is actually
a blessing. It builds resilience and teaches you to greater appreciate the
good and not focus on the toxic. Without experiencing hate, you can't truly
love.

Plus, you can't blame the entire world population over what a group of
teenagers did. The older you get, the more you realize all teens, all over the
world, are an equal amount of stupid.

~~~
jigglesniggle
That's ridiculous. Your life would be better without those hardships. You
don't know that forgoing those hardships would leave you with other, more
difficult hardships; and in any case, if you went without the hardships that
limited your access to school you'd be making more money and could deal with
your new problems with money.

You've been brainwashed and deluded into accepting mediocrity.

~~~
corodra
I co-own a security firm with a friend and this past year we've been getting
infrastructure projects. I hire people with college degrees and most of them
have crippling student debt. Debt I dont have.

You got a lot of resentment in you and you need to stop thinking there are
guarantees in life for someone. There isn't. The idea that theres a path made
of velvet and lined with roses that offers you everything in the world is the
brainwashed concept.

A person's character is built and forged through how they approach and deal
with hardships. You can define yourself by being knocked down and staying down
or defined by getting back up. I say this in hopes that someone reading this
who's in a shit situation, like me about a decade ago, doesn't give up hope on
themselves. A silly expensive piece of paper doesn't grant access for shit
anymore. Except for crippling debt. It gives you access to crippling debt.

------
6gvONxR4sf7o
It's a real shame how difficult politeness and sorta-kinda-deference can be to
decouple. I'm super confrontation avoidant. It's a problem I work on, but I
want to be kind and respectful and liked, so I'll go along with a lot. Being
kind and respectful and liked and saying a solid no is really hard. Even
sacrificing those to say a solid no is hard. Weird how difficult it is
personally to reprogram. Props to the OP for growing.

~~~
vorpalhex
If people don't like you when you politely refuse them, they don't actually
like you, they like for what they get from you.

A great test of friendship is to refuse someone for a simple thing, politely.
A good friend will dismiss the matter and move on with no hurt feelings or
issue.

~~~
6gvONxR4sf7o
Agreed, and yet that knowledge doesn't make it that much easier.

For example, if it's a project at work where we're trying to agree on
direction, consensus must be built. Saying "no I disagree with that decision"
(or that interpretation of an analysis or whatever) is quite difficult. When
performance review time comes around, I get the feedback that I should speak
up more since people value my opinion. And when I do speak up, it's well
received, and we always have polite constructive discussions and everyone's
happier for it, even when it ends up with "agree to disagree."

It's kinda the ideal scenario and yet it still takes such a huge emotional
toll.

~~~
vorpalhex
I've noticed amongst some of my friends with similar issues that they see
disagreeing as being a kind of harm. That to make someone uncomfortable or
upset is as bad as kicking them in the shin or yelling at them.

You can't feed a child nothing but candy. Candy is delicious and great, I love
candy, but it's just sugar. To merely agree with someone all the same is to
both undervalue their agency (what makes them human, their ability to engage
critically and freely with new information) and over-value the norm. In other
words, to agree with someone all the time is to give them nothing but sugar
candy.

That's not license to yell or be a jerk. Please don't go around trodding on
people and calling them sheeple. But do disagree with people because it both
helps you and betters them. To engage with opinions we don't have, to consume
information we don't like is the intellectual equivalent of eating your
vegetables.

------
vivekd
I think what she is saying is true, unfortunately the article is a bit
shallow. I went into this article looking for examples of behaviours that mark
people for victimization and strategies for changing those behaviours. I
didn't find any, and despite searching I have yet to find a good guide to this
anywhere.

There seems to be a vauge grey line between being properly assertive and being
selfish or being a jerk. Finding the proper assertive behavior is especially a
challenge for people who grew up in abusive circumstances and don't know
proper boundaries.

~~~
l_t
What follows is my personal opinion. (Disclaimer, I'm a guy and I've not been
abused, but I have had to deal with troublesome people and as a confrontation-
avoidant person I've worked out some strategies for dealing with that. These
strategies are more oriented towards avoiding panhandlers than avoiding
abusers, but perhaps they can be useful.)

First, the interesting thing about "being selfish" and "being assertive" is
that they actually overlap. If someone tells you that you're being selfish
like it's a bad thing, that person is probably trying to manipulate you. They
want you to stop being selfish so _they_ can be selfish. This is literally how
they try to get their way.

Another way to think about it is that "assertiveness" comes into play when
there is a conflict of interest. You want X, the other party wants Y. In this
situation there's no way to satisfy both X and Y. At this point you can fight
for what you think is right, or you can fold. The other people want you to
fold, and if they're abusive, they're going to try and insult you or make you
feel stupid until you do.

Which brings me to some concrete recommendations for being "assertive:"

1\. When walking, look like you have somewhere important to go. You're not
meandering casually, you're walking with purpose. You're in charge. People are
much less likely to approach you if it looks like you're going to turn them
down immediately.

2\. In conversation, use the "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame
on me" approach. Operate in good faith until you feel that good faith is being
abused, then retract it. Don't be angry, but don't let it happen again.
"Forgive, but don't forget."

3\. Don't apologize for things you didn't do. If you are afraid and feel like
you _have to_ apologize, then do it verbally but don't _believe_ it. Tell
yourself that you're lying to this person about being sorry. You're not sorry.
You're tricking them because they refuse to accept the truth.

4\. Think about the reasons people say what they do. Words coming out of a
mouth are like symptoms of the mental state of the person. Don't just take
them at face value but ask yourself: "Why are they saying this?"

5\. If possible, find people you trust who can be a sounding board. Especially
if you think your own "assertiveness compass" is whack. Err on the rude side.
Then literally describe your encounters to the trusted party afterwards and
ask whether you were rude, so you can refine your social barometer.

6\. Protect yourself! You're a living organism and _you_ should be your number
one priority. Nobody else has the right to make your decisions for you.

Hopefully that's helpful to someone. But like I said, I'm coming at it from a
bit of a different angle, so I welcome any feedback / questions.

~~~
corodra
I agree a lot with you. But something about the definition of assertiveness
you gave...

I think it's better to approach it as a means of making sure you are taking
care of yourself, so you have the ability to take care of others.

Like, let's put it in terms of being forced to work late. Why should you do
it? For the same reason you work that job anyways. To provide for yourself
and/or for your family. Either you are spending time on your family(or
yourself) or you're making sure they(or just you) have a roof/food/etc. Thus,
if you have to work late, you don't do it for free. You already miss out on
family/me time. Thus, you get financially compensated. When you go with that
mindset, the conversation naturally functions differently. This is how I
negotiate contracts too. I don't discount. I never do. I always get something
of equal value in return. If you just willy nilly throw out 10% of your quote,
obviously you lack personal value. Whether it's money now, money later or
bartering, I hold to my value. I dont think anyone should throw out personal
value for the needs of others without truly good reason.

------
elil17
It’s obvious that this article is immensely helpful for anyone as an
individual, but it also address the larger problem. My understanding, from my
own life and what I’ve read, is that almost all abusers were themselves
abused. Preventing someone from being serially abused, even if it doesn’t deal
with abusers immediately, leads to a reduction of abusive people in the
future.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I'm the author of the piece.

That's exactly why I blog about the things I do. People who have really had
something terrible happen need a way out and it's typically very problematic
for others to reach out to try to help them.

It's problematic because helping someone can set up a situation where they
expect you to keep helping and others may agree that you "owe" them. Giving
once can become a trap where they keep making demands and you don't know how
to extract yourself, so best to just _not help._

And if you help people based on their sob story, then they don't learn to be
productive members of society. Instead, they learn to be con artists who
extract money based on pity because, hey, that works and they need to eat.

It's maddening for me because I've tried to figure out how to earn my way and
there seems to be no way to get taken seriously for that. There seems to be no
way to convince people I merit an adequate earned income. I'm viewed as a
"charity case," which isn't a nice thing to say about someone.

But, yes, we need to find ways to help people actually escape such, if only
because the alternative is the Prison-Industrial Complex and other very broken
models that do not constitute a healthy society.

~~~
throwanem
I don't know if I'd agree that it's best to just _not help_. I've been in
situations like the one you describe, especially with regard to monetary help,
and found that it isn't really all that hard to disengage if that becomes
necessary. I start that process with what some might call a "come to Jesus"
talk, where I explain that I can't just keep giving money away to what looks
like no good end, and lay out what I need to see - concrete steps toward
leaving an abuser, getting treatment for substance issues, whatever - before
I'll be willing to consider doing so again. Where I can, I offer resources
that might help, even if that's just best guesses - which is all too often the
case, our society mostly sucks at helping anyone who really needs it - but I
offer whatever I can. After that, I just say no or don't respond, unless I see
what I said I needed to.

I mean, yeah, it sucks to have to do, but you're not wrong that some people
will just bleed you dry if you let them. Some won't, though, and in my opinion
they're worth taking the risk, because sometimes all someone needs really is
just a hand up to where they can start climbing out of a hole on their own.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Let me respectfully suggest that you are an exception.

I've had a lot of serious problems in life. I've always sought to resolve them
with an eye towards being able to stand on my own two feet.

The vast majority of people who have helped me, especially in a big way over
some period of time, didn't really want me to ever succeed in standing on my
own two feet. Most of them wanted to be needed and aimed for remaining my
crutch. They were actively angry if I tried to actually stand on my own.

I've ended a lot of relationships based on their inability to see me as
anything but a _charity case_ and their open hostility at my desire to
actually become a functional human being. Such people want to help, but only
so much. If you want to grow beyond their vision of what you are capable of,
there may be hell to pay. They may actively be vengeful and seek to _keep you
in your place._

~~~
throwanem
Sure. I've been on the wrong end of people like that, and it's not a good
place to be. But that's a separate question, I think - that of whether or not
to _accept_ help, vs. whether or not to _offer_ it.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I'm having a dreadful day and I think we are probably talking past each other.
I will just note that I never suggested that _it 's best to never help._ I
used a lot of provisional language, like _can_ and _may_.

Suffice it to say this is a thorny problem with many potential pitfalls from
both sides and I blog in hopes of providing a path forward that involves fewer
pitfalls because reading my blog doesn't create a one-on-one personal
relationship, which is where either giving help or receiving it can turn into
trouble you didn't anticipate.

I only wish I was better at monetizing my writing. That's a hard row to hoe
these days and it means I'm still writing for a pittance, which still leaves
me wondering at times if I'm still a fool and a chump, benefiting other people
and getting far too little in return.

------
dundercoder
This reminds me of this good article as well. Confusing kindness with being
polite/nice.

[https://www.outsideonline.com/2241096/how-teach-girls-
they-d...](https://www.outsideonline.com/2241096/how-teach-girls-they-dont-
have-be-nice)

------
dlphn___xyz
i hate seeing these things on HN...its another side effect of our manic PC
culture

~~~
AnimalMuppet
In the list of articles, each entry is really concise. It's really easy to
just ignore the ones you aren't interested in.

