Playing The Role of Victim

In my drinking days, I would often play the role of a victim whenever I experienced unwanted or unfortunate circumstances in my life, and I usually blamed others for them. I felt like no one understood what I was going through or had it as bad as I did, and I would dwell in the negative emotions that I actually took comfort in because they gave me an excuse to drink. Poor me was always the theme that included anger and sadness, and as my self-pity grew, my anger would usually turn into a deep seated resentment that inevitability got me drunk.  This feeling of being a victim was also evident in some of the teenagers I worked with. Although not many of them drank, they did use the negative emotions they felt as an excuse to act out and do the things that got them into trouble. There are many reasons why people like playing the victim, but none of them come from healthy emotions. I will say, however, that many of the teenagers I worked with were indeed victims. None of them asked for the  awful childhood they had that often involved bad parenting and an unstable environment, or worse. A few of them had been abandoned as a child, and some of them were sexually or physically abused by a parent or family member. The goal for me was to help them understand why they seemed to like playing the role of victim and why they needed to stop, but sometimes professional help was needed to help with the more deeply rooted causes for their behaviors. Although I never pretended to understand what some of these young men had gone through, I was still able to help at some level because I understood the emotions behind feeling like a victim. I would talk openly about how I felt through my childhood and adolescence and what I did to stop playing the role of victim, and try my best to get them to do the same. Much trust was needed, and I certainly didn’t get every teen to open up and talk to me, but the fact that many of them did gave me a feeling that I could help anyone if they were open and honest with me, and more importantly with themselves. I learned how being honest with ourselves and someone we trust can be of benefit by doing the 4th and 5th Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Doing so helps us to uncover things that can cause both real or perceived emotional pain, and also helps us see what we need to change about ourselves to live a better and happier life. My experience with people in AA also helped me reinforce to my teenagers that it was possible to overcome the awful things they experienced. I would tell them about the stories I heard from people who went through horrible things as a child and teenager, and still became emotionally well despite it. This more than anything else left them with an undeniable conclusion that whether victims or not, it’s possible to change how we feel about ourselves and our lives, and begin to play the role of survivor.  

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 1st, 2010 at 8:09 PM and is filed under My View On Things. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.