Everyone is Not Out to Get You: Victim Mentalities & Pride

As it turns out, not everyone is out to get me! Or you.

I met with a friend at Wild Boar (I go here often) almost two weeks ago, and I admitted something to her that I had never told anyone else, something God had recently brought to my attention. I told her that I try to make myself the victim as soon as any conflict in a friendship arises -- if there's any chance that the person didn't mean to hurt me and I just misinterpreted it, I would rather my hurt feelings be justified than to admit that I might have been wrong. As a result, I call it quits and push the person away. And I have lost a lot of friendships because of this selfishness of mine. Am I the only one this sick and twisted?

She told me she has thought and acted similarily, that I am definitely not the only one. I was relieved. Doesn't make it any less wrong, just easier to swallow.

It's called the "victim mentality," according to this blog on How to Break Out of a Victim Mentality: 7 Powerful Tips. It's something a lot of us do. Maybe not to the extreme that I've taken it, but to some extent we want to be the victim. We want the hurt that we feel to be justified, and we would rather just be hurt than admit we were wrong, than to try to confront the problem. And we love wallowing in our hurt, seeking attention, throwing pity parties, constanty revisting the past and how people have wronged us and made us who we are today... these are all symptoms of a victim mentality.

Read the blog I mentioned, and for more depth, read this article too, called Breaking Free From a Victim Mentality. It's a tough process to break out of (I have only just begun, and I can tell you it's a hard harbit to break), but recognizing it is the first step, and letting go of your pride and humbling yourself before God and before the people involved is the hardest part. Once you can do those two things, you're just training your mind and your heart to think and feel differently -- and it's a good thing we've got a God bigger than our minds and hearts helping us!

[Love] does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes al things, hopes all things, endures all things. 

--1 Corinthians 13:5-7

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