If you make others feel sorry for you, you’re probably not going to read this. It’s not about why everybody in life is treating you so badly and why you deserve lots of compensatory damages to make you feel better. You are already the first chair violin master in your very own “Poor Me Symphony.” On the other hand, IF you refuse to play “the victim violin” because you don’t want people to feel sorry for you, even when you have boatloads of reasons to feel that way, then what I have to say will lighten up a resentment load you might be carrying today.
THE VICTIM VIOLIN
I am betting that you know someone who plays “the victim violin” or the “victim fiddle,” someone who makes others dance to their tune. You know the feeling of being with that person…you have flashbacks…you feel the “poor me complainer” plopping their depression on your doorstep for YOU to solve. And you know what it feels like to dance on eggshells…walk on broken glass…duck when you hear the latest “If you just do what I told you to do, THEN I would be happy…but since you fail to comply to my wishes I have to pay you back in punishing ways to get your attention.” Whew! Victims who are into psychodrama and melodrama have a breathless way to make you their victim, and they do so in persecutory ways that are passive-aggressive or get-even schemes that involve flying underneath the social radar.
THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE DARK TUNNEL IS A TRAIN COMING TO RUN YOU DOWN?
Many nice people are martyrs who have been taught by organized religions that suffering is noble. In their way of thinking, to be a good martyr on the road to sainthood is to suffer nobly. I would say “suffer gladly,” but victims will hear none of it. Bottom line: Victims erroneously believe that there’s nothing they can do to better their lives…including carrying the flashlight of a positive attitude during dark or stormy passages on the hero’s journey. Just don’t lie about it: If you don’t want to be happy, then don’t act like something will make you happy when in reality you won’t allow anything to. When you feel “hooked and sorry” for victims (and that includes you)…a victim will run right over you and moan about how bad you messed up their train wheels with your entrails.
IS YOUR LIFE AWFUL OR AWE-FILLED?
Anyone worth knowing feels dispirited and depressed now and then. We just don’t make a lifestyle out of it! Here’s how victims can push your buttons and make you feel you owe them your time, attention, money, servant indenture:
1. VICTIMS are experts at making you feel responsible for solving problems they aren’t able to solve.
Trickster: A victim won’t solve problems to feel happy because that removes the victim label from their collar.
2. VICTIMS make you feel like you don’t matter…that whatever you do isn’t quite good enough.
Trickster: A victim has many people working for him or her…upbeat communicators trying hard and humping to please the old grumpy unhappy one.
3. VICTIMS make you feel like you are the cause of their unhappiness.
Trickster: Never forget that a victim’s attitude and personal choices are the cause of their unhappiness…not YOU.
4. VICTIMS are complainers and whiners who salute “Misery loves company…and I’m some of the best company around!”
Trickster: A victim smiles sweetly to your face, but then stabs you or your company in the back while saying, “BUT I didn’t want to do it…I didn’t mean to do it…they didn’t leave me any other choice…SO it’s their fault for the trouble I’ve seen.”
5. VICTIMS push the pedagogy that you must show how much you care by excessively worrying about how well they’re faring and doing in life.
Trickster: A victim rarely thinks they are cared for enough…and they always feel begrudgingly owed for the lack and loss of positive appreciations and “good luck.”
6. VICTIMS convince you through “hammering away at you” that you have serious character flaws and personal faults.
Trickster: What a victim badgers you about, like money or dishonesty, is truer of the victim than of you.
7. VICTIMS are emotional blackmailers who convince you that when you feel good you are making the victim feel bad or even much worse.
Trickster: Well, if you do hold all of the emotional cards…I’m sure you would wave your wand over them to make the victim feel happy for a change, wouldn’t you?!
8. VICTIMS pout and use clout if you feel healthy anger toward them for any reason under the sun.
Trickster: Why shouldn’t you feel mad at a victim who blames you for their loss of vibrancy, achievement, passion, optimism, extra money, life and sex drive?
9. VICTIMS will hand you a manure sandwich and tell you it’s a bologna sandwich, which is pure baloney.
Trickster: When you get sick from eating the manure sandwich the “supposed victim” hands you…the victim will be mad that you are upchucking when you ought to be ever-available to meet his or her needs NOW.
10. VICTIMS make you feel like you have to have their permission to do what you need for feeling good.
Trickster: A victim will make you first feel responsible for their life and emotional welfare…yet you only have one life to live and you’ve got your hands full as it is!
11. VICTIMS will sweet talk you with crocodile tears to force you to expend all of your resources on them.
Trickster: You can spend all your energy, time, effort, emotion, money, savings, retirement earnings, secret slush fund, Aunt Harriet’s inheritance and STILL the victim will prevail with a “What about ME?!”
12. VICTIMS will make you take sides with the supposed “persecutors” who are making them feel bad.
Trickster: Think about it: The “bad boss” or “bad spouse” or “bad brother/sister” or “bad mother/father” etc. are used as foils in the psychodrama…and probably feel the same way about you. Namely, that you are the victim’s true persecutor! Anyone up for an extended family or team-at-work fight?
13. VICTIMS will blow up or shout or nag and pout when you don’t bow to their gospel of, “Why does this always have to happen to me?!”
Trickster: That’s the point…the victim doesn’t have to push others away with their depressing attitude that is as closed tight as a mason jar.
THE OLD DUCK-AND-WEAVE…EMPATHIZER VS. INSTIGATOR COMMUNICATORS AS VICTIMS?
People who are victims, which are all of us when we wish to be, can either be Empathizer-type (E-type) communicators or Instigator-type (I-type) communicators. E-types can break your heart and make you feel heavy with grief. In contrast, I-types can make your head spin until you feel like you are going crazy with worry. Either way, being a victim is a role that is played out…often for a lifetime of creating exactly what a “depressed person” says they don’t want. Being married to someone who’s chronically, constantly low-level depressed…is akin to dancing on eggshells. The old duck-and-weave….where’s the next complaint, big issue, whine, bitch, onslaught, unhappiness, paybacks are hell, problem that won’t go away, back-stabbing, gossip, war of words, unfair accusations, guilt bombs going to come from? Whew…aren’t you GLAD you are done with that part of your life?
IS YOUR MOOD A VICTIM OF THE VICTIM’S DEDICATION TO BEING UNHAPPY NO MATTER THE BLESSINGS OF THEIR LIFE?
Sensitive Empathizer communicators pick up the bad mood of others like head lice. You become the victim…when your mood BECOMES a victim of the negatalking victimizer. Refuse to allow your mind to swirl and twirl in confusion when from experience you’ve learned over-and-over again that NOTHING works to make the victim happy. The victim doesn’t want to be happy! If the victim gets happy…all the sympathy and special favors GET GONE.
LET’S TALK: DO WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU
Dr. Dennis O’Grady is a professional keynote speaker and professional coach psychologist from Dayton, Ohio, who is the author of the newly released communication system called “Talk to Me: Communication Moves to Get Along With Anyone.” Dennis all-too-well knows that you may feel like you’re in a hole but you can climb out. You may see yourself being lost in an emotional swamp filled up with ugly alligators but you can find your way out. And that you may feel like you’re going to go crazy but you will find solutions to the insurmountable problems you face…if you strive to “be a victor instead of victim of your life.” Mission Possible: Make your mood matter to you today…that’s all you have some control over. So let’s talk…when you do what’s good for you … you will be happy and good company to be around!