Thinking further about my automatic thoughts of "Why is someone doing this to me?" and trying to figure out how that thought has served me, I come to another core belief.
When I am being "done to," I am the victim, and it feels good to be a victim, even when it hurts and destroys my serenity. I think this started in early childhood in a home that was pervaded with a sincere devotion to Judeo-Christian values. Biblical teaching is riddled with the concept that being victimized and persecuted for your beliefs is inevitable, and means that you are doing the right thing. The message is that if you believe correctly in the right God, and act accordingly, the world and its evil will conspire against you.
While the converse is not expressly stated, it follows naturally to us: if we are persecuted, then we must be right and good. The more victimized we are, the more essentially good we must be. I must have internalized this idea very young. I still clearly remember a dream I had when I was about seven years old in which I was burned suttee-style for the sake of my beliefs.
Feeling like a victim also allows me to abandon responsibility for my own needs, and to be hurt and angry when they are not met. If I am supposed to be a victim, I need to create situations in which I expect other people to take care of me, but make sure they won't be able to do so successfully. In essence, it means that I try to set up the people I love to fail me in some way. Then I feel justified in my belief that no one really loves me, and trusting others means I will get hurt.
This behavior is so ingrained and familiar that I constantly discover it in myself. Last night, as my husband and I were planning to go hiking this morning, I knew that we didn't really have time to do it before I would need to take my daughter to her art class. I automatically thought that I should not remind my husband about the class, so that we would end up being late and it would confirm my belief that I can't trust anyone. After all, this class happens every Saturday, and he should remember it as well as I do.
Fortunately, this time I caught myself thinking in this sick way, and reminded him about the class, giving him the opportunity to confirm a different idea instead: he cares about my needs. What a revelation!
Just for today, I will not be a victim.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
It's good to be the victim struggling against adversity! There's lots of this around in today's society here in the good ol' US of A. Our modern talk-show-class-action-lawsuit culture seems like a gigantic glorification of victimization. "It's good to be a victim," we broadcast, "Because you gain riches and influence, and you receive the sympathy of many."
It is my personal struggle to defend the right to criticize, chastise, and attack other people's ideas/beliefs/opinions as a just, noble, and worthy cause. In other words, something like: "Critics are the true victims" which is delightfully paradoxical.
I actually bought a book some time ago called "Can't we make moral judgments?" by Mary Midgley (whoever that is?) which I bought because it sounded like it would be along those lines. You're gonna make me actually read it now.
Post a Comment