the shadow of victimhood

It's been reinforced to me recently that most people are victims at some point in their life. They are victims of hate, of violence, and of betrayal. It is a rare thing to get through this life unscathed. I'm pretty sure everyone has had hurtful words directed at them, has been let down by the people they love or trust. When we are victims we feel hurt, alone, afraid. It often rocks us to the core, making us question who we are, how we behave, and what on Earth happened. It's natural to feel anger and fear, to be very wary about who we trust or love from now on, and to build up defences around ourselves to try and prevent this kind of pain again.

And then you have two choices. To move on as a stronger and more empowered person, or to remain a victim, wrapped in the familiar blanket of fear and anger. It seems like a logical choice, I mean, who wouldn't want to get on with their life, but of course it's not as easy as that. Partly because it's not clear that you are choosing one of these two options, it kind of just happens naturally. Your subconscious chooses which is most suitable or beneficial for it, without you really knowing why you're feeling the way you feel.

But if you don't, at some point, choose to move on with your life then you are stuck with those walls that you built to keep people out so they can't hurt you again (even though we all know they still can anyway). You're stuck pushing people away, blaming others for your issues, and living with fear every day. Fear of being hurt or betrayed again. And fear is a funny thing, because it can manifest in other emotions and behaviours such as jealousy, anger, escape and avoidance, anxiety, distrust and hyper-vigilance.

Of course dealing with what happened and moving on doesn't mean you'll no longer feel fear or those other associated emotions and behaviours. But it does mean that they will stop defining who you are, how you behave and how you think. We're all familiar with the pop-psychology talk of letting go, moving on, and of concepts of baggage and trauma. Pick your favourite lexicon, it all boils down to confronting your demons and choosing how you react to them. I feel strongly that you can't give yourself fully to any relationship, be it family, friend or sexual partner, if you are still stuck in the mode of victimhood. Because you're still trying to protect yourself, you're still holding back. And you can't participate fully in life if you're holding yourself back.

Everyone deals with being a victim in a different way, not only because of what happened but the kind of person they are. Bear with me while I use a medical analogy. Emotional wounds are always deep, they hurt, and they can take a long time to heal. But we can choose to let the wounds fester and stay open and painful, leaving us eventually with deep and potentially disfiguring scars, or we can be proactive and choose to attend to the wound, work on it and let it heal over time. There will always be a scar there, a reminder of what happened, but it won't get in the way of a bigger and brighter future.

In my own experience, it has taken me a very long time to get over being a victim of some very deep wounds. But I made a decision to move on with my life, and not let the shadow of what happened keep me an eternal victim. I could have easily remained angry, fearful, resentful, generalising my feelings to others, shutting people out. But then I would have missed out on so much in life including rewarding friendships and a wonderful relationship with the person I love most in the world. I still bear the scars, they still cause me a bit of pain every now and then, but over time I have slowly confronted my demons and let them go.

We are all, to varying degrees, victims at some point in our lives. We all deal with it differently, but living without the shadow of victimhood is the best way to live.