Victims vs. Survivors

I've had a lot of conversations with people on this site about various forms of victimization and how to cope, and I keep running into the same basic misunderstanding about my beliefs. I invoke the concept of personal choice and y'all keep labeling it "victim-blaming". That is not what I'm really about and I know that...but people keep thinking it is and that is frustrating, so I figure maybe some more basic engagement is necessary. I figure it might help if I explain my thinking and where it comes from.

So, I am going to dispense with being concise and use a lot of words. Sorry if this takes a while, but this is a complicated concept.

On being a victim

Look, having someone violate your boundaries is a horrible experience no matter what the situation it occurred in is. I've been victimized, physically, socially and sexually and I can say from personal experience...it is in fact "that bad". The ability of the individual to cope with the event successfully does not make what was done less wrong. Forceful violation of boundaries is a horrible thing to do to a person, no matter what.

On "Justification"

Every human being in our society was raised and trained according to certain values and ethics. That shit can be boiled down to "don't hurt people". People are shown this a lot. We're shown how to have empathy, we're given the tools to effect it and we're shown how to have the will to exert it. So it can be fairly said that someone who chooses to victimize those around them is making a very informed choice.

Let's write ourselves a reality check here; yes, we all have choices to make...but those who have chosen to violate the boundaries of others have been shown a bunch of times that society doesn't want them to do that. Simply put, the bad guys know they are bad. They've been told. They've been shown. So while a victim's choices might be ill-informed (they didn't understand the risk being taken or the consequences thus generated), a victimizer's choices were informed (they knew damn well what they were doing).

Simply put; invocation of personal choice is not an excuse for victimization. It is not a justification of the victimizer's behavior. Society has in fact given the victimizer every chance to understand why their behavior is unacceptable. If they choose that route, they are either too stupid to understand something very basic or they're just too selfish to give a shit. Either way, let them suffer the consequences of their choices. They should suffer them. Their victim certainly has.

On Innocence

When we suffer, we lose a measure of our innocence. That's the root-and-branch reason why being a victim of somebody's bullshit hurts as much as it does. We're shown that bad things can in fact happen to good people. Yeah, we all know that's a possibility, but that potential reality takes on a whole new range of color and texture when it happens to us.

When we suffer indignity, we lose a measure of our idealism. When we're exposed to the unkindness of the world something childlike within us gets stabbed. We bleed. We hurt. We hurt because we've lost something we can never, ever get back.

A victim has been shown a compelling argument that evil exists and it is powerful. When that happens in our lives we're lost and confused. That is not how things are supposed to be, but they are.

The Aftermath

The new-made victim is fragile and vulnerable. They don't really know what to do, who to trust, how to be. Their entire world is now uncertain, because the values they've been raised to respect (and have deeply held) have been called into question. They feel robbed of their dignity and they don't know what to do about it. Everything is up for grabs and that is very much frightening.

(Note: I'm describing what I felt in the moments where I dealt with this situation. If you don't agree with what I'm saying here, I'm not attempting to invalidate you...I'm just espousing what I know. If your experience was different, I respect that.)

There is also a measure of denial that happens here. A person does feel the need to say "no way, that did not happen" because we're raised and trained to believe bad things cannot happen to us if we act right...but they can. This is why sympathy is a part of the coping process. It is a way for others to say "no, really, that did happen to you, I saw it, I recognize it and I'm validating the pain you feel."

That's important. It is a necessary thing for victims to need and want. At the beginning we'll deny we were hurt, and we do need others to let us know what happened to us did happen and it was in fact bad.

Society wants to pretend it is perfect(because it has to if it wants to exist), but it is not. It wants to pretend it has all the answers all of the time, but it doesn't. It will try and shove the individual victim back in the proverbial closet...which is why it is important for victims of society's imperfections to get some validation from those around them. It is a way for them to begin the healing.

On Sympathy

Look...at bottom, sympathy is a drug. When taken properly it is good medicine, a painkiller for the emotional agony a victim feels. It is valuable and necessary...at first.

But there comes a point where a victim needs to stop asking for that. Like any other narcotic, sympathy can become addictive and those who are trying to help someone who has been abused need to know when that is happening.

It is hard to know that however, because when dealing with an addict with a habit towards a socially-acceptable substance the temptation always exists to just give them what they want more of. Doing that is easier than confronting them about their habit, especially with emotional support...because unlike substance abuse emotions don't have discrete values. You can always find more sympathy to give, and because of how society's values work you feel like you should.

Also, there is an entire culture and value metric designed around giving people more emotional support for their pain. This is what is meant by the phrase "the culture of victimhood"; people who would rather sit at the stage of "ow this hurts, I want drugs!" phase of coping rather than moving on to something better.

Making "the Jump"

Being victimized is terrible on a level most people don't understand. That is a fact, and there are plenty of people out there who will try to invalidate your suffering. But, there are also people who will tell you that your pain is something you should keep feeling at the expense of actually doing the work to realize what caused it.

Look...digging into our insecurities with the intent of examining them is hard work, and it is work society wants us not to do. It isn't something we want to do either; we'd rather shove that shit under our emotional carpet and just get back to living.

But when it comes to a truly life-altering experience, we cannot just ignore that it happened. We have to face what occurred and deal with it square. That is the reality. The alternative is a world of constant emotional agony brought on by a situation we have not addressed.

The reason why we don't want to stop emoting and start thinking is simple; when we start thinking about what caused our victimization, we start realizing that we were complicit in it. Our choices in life were part of the reason it happened. That is what makes comprehension scary. It is why so many people don't start the process. They'd rather stay at the "this hurts, salve my pain" stage of coping...because owning their part in the process is a big ugly thing they don't want to do.

But when a victim starts wanting to look at that, they are on the verge of making what I call "the jump". They are ready to move to the next stage of the coping process. At that point, a victim is sick of being sick.

On Guilt

I'm going to reiterate what I said earlier...victimizers make an informed choice. They hurt you, and they in all likelihood did it with all the tools needed to to make a different decision. "With malice aforethought" is the expression most relevant here.

Simply put, you might have done something dumb, but they did something wrong. They knew better, because society told them so a thousand times before they were five and the person who victimized you made the choice to ignore all those lessons. As a victim examines their choices this is a critical, crucial fact to remember.

As Clint Eastwood said in Unforgiven, "'Deserve's got nothing to do with it."

When you dig into what happened, remember to leave guilt out of it. If you have to blame, remember who acted out of intent and who acted out of ignorance. Otherwise, don't play the blame-game.

Examining the Situation

A crucial difference between victim blaming and victim empowerment is letting the individual examine their situation at the speed they choose. The only person who is qualified to examine the victim's situation is the victim. Period, the end. They are the only person with all the facts. They are the only one who knows what they did and why they did it. As such, no one can tell them when it is time to begin the process or what the interpretation is. They'll do it when they are ready to and they're the only ones who will get it "right".

On Choice

When a victim starts wanting to examine why they hurt, they start seeing where their choices led them into a place where they could be hurt. This is normal. It is natural. And it is healthy as long as they avoid the impulse to blame themselves. Again, don't play the blame-game. Just look at the choices you made. Look at the consequences. You made them, whatever they were. You did the things and you got the results.

Choice is not about fault or blame. Fault and blame come from external sources. Choice is just your right. It is a power you have. And if your choices put you where you didn't want to be, then your choices have the power to put you where you do want to be.

Now, I'll say this again because people keep forgetting it...your victimizer was wrong. However, that does not mean that you weren't dumb. They may have made bad choices, but that does not mean you made smart choices. As I've said in other threads, staying safe means staying aware and making the choice best suited to your individual safety and health. If you did not do this, it is not your fault, but making good and healthy choices is a power you possess as an adult individual.

Realizing this fact is the difference between a victim and a survivor.

Learning the Lesson

Hidden inside every unpleasant experience we get in life is a packet of wisdom. Digging for that wisdom is often painful, because we as humans must learn to acknowledge how we were complicit in its creation...but it is there.'This is why if you don't dig for it and you don't find it, you won't feel better. You'll just keep hurting and being dependent upon others for your ego-needs and health. You'll just keep shooting the sympathy-drug into your veins.

And really, this makes sense. We have learned to recognize the lesson in ordinary experiences as children. If you burn yourself on the stove, your mother shows you sympathy and helps heal your wounds...but you in turn acknowledge that the stove is hot and you can get burned by it if you touch it wrongly. It hurt, but you learned. Childhood is full of such experiences, and so is adulthood.

Whatever horrible victimization happpened to you, learn as much as you can from it. The knowledge gained is the only compensation you get for your pain.

Why is this important? Simple. Society wants you to look at your victimization as a weakness, and you should not do it. Rather, look at it as a strength. You've been blooded. You've gone to war, in a sense. You've seen a thing other people haven't, and in the process you've learned things most people don't get to know. You've seen a monster, and now you have the opportunity to take the measure of that monster. You know what it is and what it isn't. If you take the lesson buried in the pain, this is your reward. You can now take that knowledge and use it for your betterment as well as the betterment of others.

A cranky rant

I'm tired of the culture of victimhood, and I am sick of people screaming "victim-blaming, WAA!" every time somebody starts talking about how to help people get past the trauma in their life. Look; trauma and pain aren't good things, but we have to learn how to live when bad shit wanders into our sphere. That is how it is. Some people can, others are still waiting to, and the people who have not yet gotten past their issues are not experts in how to cope. They are still just hurting. They have a right to do that (it is their choice) but they need to stop defining how victims feel and what they should do.

True story; I had to leave my friend-group behind along with my marriage because they were encouraging me to cope poorly with my divorce. No, really. I understood that my marriage was the result of my poor choices, and they were actively encouraging me to see my wife as the source of all my problems. I did not want to see the situation that way, but they did. They were trying to tell me how I should feel, even though I knew them to be wrong - and seeing as how I was the one married to her, I think would know what was what. I wanted to see the situation as a mutual mistake and own my choices because that was the reality. But no, everyone wanted me to blame her and keep hurting - because that made me easier to control.

Fuck that shit, and to hell with the people who promote that attitude. If you are able to square with your problems, don't let professional victims and emotional con-artists hold you back from that. If you want to own your choices and move on with your life, fucking do it. It's the right thing to do. Don't let other people mess with your pain for their emotional validation.

Because they will. And I'm sorry, but those of you who scream "AAA VICTIM BLAMING!!" Every time a person starts talking about legitimate coping skills and choice ownership...well, you're just a bunch of con artists taking advantage of people with problems. You're victims who haven't made the jump. You're addicted to sympathy, and you are holding other people back because you don't know how to cope and all your advice is rooted in that not-knowing. You are hurting people who know what needs to be done but won't because you say not to. I'm tired of it.

Owning your choices and moving on is legitimate...hard, but legitimate. If you aren't ready to do those things that is your choice, but stop telling other people that's wrong. I've met too many people who felt guilty because they did that on their own steam and people like you tried to tell them they "should" still feel like "victims". That is full of it, and so are you.

Let people cope the way that's best for them and stop defining how the victims of trauma "ought" to feel.

In the end

It is okay to be a victim. That happens to the best of us. It is horrible and it hurts and it happens...but don't let other people keep you a victim once you are ready to make the jump from "victim" to "survivor". When you are ready to learn the lessons, learn them and take pride in doing so. Let the wounds turn to scars. When you are ready to do that, you will not be a victim anymore.

You will be a survivor. There is in fact a difference.

I think you made many very good points - in fact, just about everything in your post was well worth saying, and I think you said it well.

I would, however, comment on this:

This is where there really is a genuine possibility of victim-blaming. If the victim didn't make poor choices but got victimised anyway, I don't really see how the choices themselves can teach the victim anything, except that even by making the right choices you can still become a victim.

If there's a situation where it was basically just dumb luck that the person was victimised - where they did everything right but just happened to be where someone was looking for a chance to do something evil - the victim can learn to cope, and can learn some truths about life, but they can't really learn anything about how they should act differently next time.

Now, that was just an amendment I wanted to make to your post. If there really was a wrong decision by the victim that led to the event, of course the victim should try to find out what it was and how to learn from it. I just wanted to say that it's not always the case that a wrong decision on the part of the victim led to the event.

I don't think I've ever seen the phrase "victim-blaming" used in that context. It's almost exclusively applied to situations where people try to prevent wrongdoing by focusing on the behavior of those to whom wrong is done. Not in helping them cope afterward.

Believe me, people who have been victimized typically do plenty of blaming themselves without outside help. It's when they stop blaming themselves, and no longer agonize over what they could have done differently to avoid their situation, that they start to heal.

Also, I've never been able to get a handle on what is meant by "culture of victimhood." I see the phrase often enough, but as best I can figure out, it just refers to acknowledging that some people are victims, through no fault of their own, and they need to recover at their own pace. Quelle horreur!

I think those points were actually covered in the OP, though. Did you read the whole thing?

I saw what the OP means by "culture of victimhood," but I'm doubtful as to how universal it is. As near as I can tell, whenever a victim or someone close to them acknowledges the victimization instead of pretending everything is hunky-dory, people screech "Culture of victimhood!" It's too often an excuse to shut down discussion of what happened and what the victim might need in order to recover. We're all just supposed to bootstrap our way out of trauma, apparently.

Remember, he explains what he means by the culture of victimhood.

I'll be honest, I know that within my family there is a certain member who has cultivated a culture of victim hood around herself rather then moving on and standing up on her own two feet. A culture of victimhood can be formed within a single family, without the larger culture encouraging it. (I do think however, that the larger culture is also helping to encourage it.)

What did I child that is abused by it's parents do wrong? What choices did they make that they could have avoided? None.

What other choice has a woman had who got raped in her own home by a burglar? None.

What other choice should have been made by a customer shot in a robbery in a grocery store? None.

Sometimes bad things happen to people who did everything right.

I think that what he is saying leaves plenty of the room for the realization that "Deserve's got nothing to do with it."

I get that, and there's definitely a point to be made that deliberately wallowing in your pain is no way to overcome it. But again, I find that too often, people play the "culture of victimhood" card in order to brush off genuine victims, ignore their stories, and deny them needed support. The healing process is different for everyone; an outsider can't point fingers and say "You're just wallowing."

In a way, the direction this discussion is taking supports my view on this: that there is an increasingly strong inclination to try to make things binary: all-or-not-at-all; all his fault and none of mine.

Sure there are situations where the fault, the blame, the contribution lies entirely on one side and not at all on the other, Antiteilchen; child abuse is just one such. But the existence of situations where the blame is one-sided doesn't mean that all situations are that way, and to dismiss Drunkie's whole point by waving those one-sided situations at it and saying "but what you say doesn't apply here!" is making a multi-faceted problem into a binary one.

edited 24th Dec '13 8:20:05 AM by Madrugada

If you ask me, as long as you're prioritizing the assignment of blame—no matter where you assign it—you're not helping the victim. Some people benefit from hearing "Don't beat yourself up; you didn't do anything wrong." Others benefit more from hearing "Now you know better and you can keep this from happening again." Sometimes the same person needs both. But in no case should it be the first thing you worry about. "We're not putting that arm in a cast until we figure out exactly what percentage of responsibility for breaking it goes where!" Jeez.

Assessing fault is a part of assessing the damage. It's part and parcel of it. I'm not sure you can assess the damage without assessing fault in cases like this. It's a bit like trying to put a cast on a broken limb when you don't know what limbs are broken.

Karalora, I do continue to get the impression that you didn't read the OP in its entirety.

For instance, the OP said this:

and this:

and this:

If you read the whole OP you'll notice that most of it agrees with you and states the same things that you are saying.

@Madrugada: It wasn't my intention to dismiss his whole point. I agree with the rest of his post. Just that it is not universally applicable to all victims.

Apparently not. :/ In my defense, though...it's gigantic. Big enough to make it hard to have any sort of discussion that wasn't already covered.

edited 24th Dec '13 12:43:39 PM by Karalora

Usually when I write a post as huge as that the point is to cover all of the most obvious responses and questions - to sort of discuss the basics so that we can go a bit deeper into the subject right from the start. This will then include entire paragraphs about particular issues, examples, and amendments to the proposition, again, just to get over the most obvious stuff before the conversation can begin.

I suspect that that's what happened with this OP.

But that's the binary thinking I'm talking about, Anti; He didn't say it is universally applicable. He specifically said that there are times when all the fault does lie on one side. And yet your response read (to me) as though you were dismissing or ignoring all his points because they aren't universal.

edited 24th Dec '13 12:54:21 PM by Madrugada

To be fair, I also got the impression from his post that he was making it seem a bit more general than it is (though I did notice that he said near the beginning that he's mostly talking from his own experience, which as he says isn't more important than anyone else's.) That's what my first post in this thread was about.

My mistake then. The post was so huge I likely forgott it. And admittedly my response was too harsh. I got angry at the statement that every victim could have done something to prevent their misery. A statement that wasn't even there. Sorry.

I agree with Drunk. I think he has worded this better than I could have.

In my life, I was a victim of abuse as a kid. Because of this, it hindered my ability to make good judgements in reading people and recognizing healthy relationships.

This lead me to be involved with my son's father. In hindsight looking back with the help of therapy and genuine friends, I can see the warning signs and patterns of abuse my ex put me through. I can also see it in the two guys I dated briefly after him.

Now. It is not my fault I was abused as a child or that my ex hurt me the way he did. I was 18. He was 23. He was the one lying and cheating, not me. However, I would be the one at fault if I knowingly committed to someone who exhibited the same abusive behaviors as him. I know better now for lack of a better phrasing.

So, while I am not a bad person or accountable for what other people did to me, I am accountable if I allow myself to be in the same position again. This doesn't mean I couldn't be hurt again or be a potential victim again. But I can do what I can to put myself in the best position and environment to try and recognize potential threats. That is my responsibility.

@Gabrael: Thanks for saying that. As I said I've been in similar positions and I know what helped me get through it. Glad to know I wasn't alone.

@Anti: in my OP I talked of the ownership of one's choices involving their situation. If the situation is mostly of the attacker's making (child abuse, home invasion), that would indicate there is less choice for the victim to dissect. Also, I would consider the abuse of a child to be different from the abuse of an adult...for the pragmatic reason that children very much do not get to choose their situation. If the adults in their life make the (informed) choice to do them harm, there is very little the child can do/could have done about it. This is probably why society considers abuse of children to be worse than abuse of an adult.

Though as to your other examples...while yes, those events do occur statistics say that crime is mostly likely to be perpetuated against us by people we know. Simply put, we are more likely to suffer indignity at the hands of someone we have chosen to let into our life rather than a total stranger. This applies to children as well, (from the perspective of knowing, not choice) according to the research I've done.

This is why I say that staying safe means staying aware - aware of our surroundings and the people in them. Also why I say that making informed choices is the best way to avoid being a victim of evil.

Honestly; I get a lot of static every time I've mentioned this, and it is really disturbing to me that people want to fight me on the concept so hard.

edited 26th Dec '13 10:41:27 PM by drunkscriblerian

I would rather people get away from assigning fault. Fault is always, unconditionally at the hands of the abuser. No questions or exceptions. So refrain from being an abuser yourself and there is no fault to be had. This includes abusing yourself, which is where many victims get roadblocked on their path to healing.

Regardless of what I went through, nothing in this world excuses me from any abuse I pass onto others. Just because I was hurt by my son's father doesn't mean I should be hurtful to Aprilla or my son even though I still am trying to break the negative conditioning growing up abused instilled on me.

It is more important to consider it as seizing control over your situation and how you choose to heal. It is about putting the odds in your favor as much as you can.

For me, it was turning in my abuser with the help of the school counselor, putting myself into therapy as soon as I got into college, and avoiding certain environments and demographics to try and lessen the chance of me encountering a predatory person.

Everyone is different and no pain or trauma is the same. So you have to do what you can to adjust your resources to best suit your needs. Some people may need to change their goals or methods completely as they discover how deep the scars go.

Acknowledging that you are a good person with issues isn't fun. But I try to see it as any other health problem. One way is if you know something will trigger a relapse or more pain, avoid it like any other allergen. Inform a strong support group and have them help fence such provocations for you. That is empowering. That is surviving.

Sometimes even people we think to know can turn out to be scumbags with little to no warning signs though. But I agree that victims should be encouraged to help themselves in situations where they can make a difference. Like leaving an abusive partner. It's not their fault to be abused, it's not their fault if they're too scared to leave but it is in their power to leave. Making them realize that is a good thing. Or even pointing out how abusive some relationships are to them. People are good at suppressing and denying such things.