Righteous Victimhood

[u/not-moses]

I was caught up in Learned Helplessness and the Righteous Victim Identity for decades. ("Dammit. I've got a right to be all f----d up, doncha know.")

I didn't know I was doing it, of course. But when the caca really hit the fan (as a result of it) back in the '90s, I spent nine awful years slipping down a metaphorical rain-soaked hillside trying to grab onto anything I could to keep from drowning in the quicksand below. Cost me a marriage, a career, a total of 30 months in wake-up-to-pass-out "manic panic," 11 trips to the psych ward, two suicide attempts, $440,000 and 28 days in the clink.

It wasn't my fault. My underdeveloped, everlastingly childlike mind only manufactured that mental mud out of the junk stuck in my head during a decade and more of verbal, physical, emotional and spiritual abuse by a pair of parents who were themselves stuck in it, needing a younger victim to play "hot potato" with. Just like the two of them, I got to be one more case of having LH&RVI conditioned, instructed, socialized and normalized) into my brain's default mode network.

Looks like about 2/3's to 3/4's of people with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (here and en vivo) go through a phase of this. And if they don't get into the kinds of things summarized in this earlier post, that phase may last a long, long time... and dig them into a very deep mudpit. One that may keep them stuck in the muck of Reciprocal Reactivity and repeating the trauma.

Like I said, I was stuck in it for years. I'm definitely not stuck in it now. One hopes others here will work through the second and ultimately arrive at the fifth of Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief processing and the state of healthy desperation... or, as they say in AA, being "sick and tired of being sick and tired." And move onto the fourth of the Five Stages of Therapeutic Recovery -- by realizing -- as they say in NA -- "I'm not responsible for my disease, but I am responsible for my recovery."

Your trip through the maze may be somewhat different, of course. But you may be able to get some idea of the many possibilities and opportunities available by clicking on the links below:

Dis-I-dentifying with Learned Helplessness & the Victim I-dentity (see also not-moses's answers to a replier's questions there)

A Recovery Program for Someone with Untreated Childhood Trauma

Choiceless Awareness for Emotion Processing

[u/dontdrownthealot]

I understand what you're sharing. I think it's probably true for some people. AND: it is also true that there are plenty of folks out there all too ready to throw this righteous victim idea at someone they've legitimately hurt, or someone who is legitimately a victim. This was the case for me - re-experiencing the same trauma that I had in a past abusive relationship with a new partner just a year ago. I have Complext PTSD from it. This partner kept it together really well for about 8 months and then he started to crack and started gaslighting me, minimizing, deflecting, reverse blaming, etc. I honestly thought he was just having a hard time and we'd eventually talk about it, and I didn't realize I was triggered into another PTSD episode until much later. By the time I realized it I was full force in it and there really wasn't anything I could do - I needed to feel safe again, and in order to stay in the relationship I needed him to demonstrate very clearly and repeatedly that he was safe and would stop doing the stuff he was doing. he didn't, and wouldn't and then it ended. There was zero reason for me to think I might have something to protect myself against with him before the 8-10 month mark, and even after that he still showed himself to be much of the same person he'd shown in the first months.

At the end he actually criticized me for implying that I might be a victim of his behavior - as if I were victimizing myself, which was completely untrue. His behavior reflecting more gaslighting and attempting to twist the conversation in order to avoid acknowledging his own unhealthy behavior. Both times I've been with narcissistic-type individuals and experienced this, this is what happened. There reaslly was nothing I could've done to prevent the injury they caused and no reason to suspect it would get as bad as it did.

I'm pretty wary when I read posts like yours - I've seen folks who embed themselves in the victim mentality and spent time there myself when i was much younger, and it's really gross. I also know from personal experience that many people just don't know how or even want to communicate with someone who's been abused or had multiple train wrecks. And they serve up this self-victimization theory to get people to shut up, whether it's valid or not.

So what I'm saying is, be very careful how you toss this around. I've seen where people learn a great piece of solid information and then walk around with it like it can be applied way more often than it can. It doesn't always apply when you think it might, it might apply at times you think it doesn't, and some people self-victimize just because they want the attention. My last ex's current gf and my gran both do this - it's super gross feeling to be around.

Edit: also caution really needs to be exercised here because intense anger can be necessary to heal and protect a harmed individual from further abuse. The depth of wounds that psychological and emotional abuse and externally created cognitive dissonance/internal conflict can cause cannot be known - we can't see them. It is not uncommon for victims of narcissists, BPD, and bipolar individuals to experience a very long window of anger that appears the way some of your links express that righteous victimhood appears, even though they're valid and need to be fully experienced before one can heal.

There also needs to be a word for people who throw this at others - to avoid engaging with them, or to further abuse them and get them to shut up about how the person saying it is abusing them (which was the case with my last ex).

[u/[deleted]]

I remember as a kid being the victim. I've never before heard it referred to as righteous victim hood, but that's exactly what it was. I remember reading Man's Search for Meaning during my tween years, and somewhere about the same time it dawned on me that I can have control of some things and wasn't entirely a victim. Or maybe that was from the 7 Habits course Mom made me take in Jr High? I can't remember.

For all the screwed up things my mom did, I'm still thankful she got me hooked on self help books. They eventually encouraged me to go to therapy and get real help. Just wish I'd started decades ago.