Victimhood is far more prevalent a condition and more serious than Covid will ever be. Watch and learn as Greg teaches how victimhood is embedded in all the other defensive behaviors.
Timestamps:
00:00 Victimhood is more prevalent than COVID. It is embedded in all other defensive behaviors. Examples
02:32 Teen abusing her phone privileges, Greg translates her responses to her mother's intervention.
15:10 What to do when words aren't working.
Transcript:
Victimhood is far more prevalent—and more serious—than COVID will ever be. It’s an almost universal response to life that is embedded in all the other defensive behaviors.
Examples of Victimhood
For example:
Anger. Every single person who blows up in anger FIRST felt victimized. They judged that something was done TO THEM, or something wasn’t done FOR THEM. If I feel victimized, the unconscious reasoning is that now I’m justified—because I was treated badly—in attacking the perpetrator of the injustice toward me. Very seductive.
Lying. If I feel victimized, I lie to:
- Blame others or exaggerate their responsibility for my pain.
- Excuse myself for any responsibility, because how can I enjoy wallowing around in victimhood if I am to blame for my own pain?
- Sometimes AVOID being victimized.
Withdrawing or running. I withdraw only because I was wounded—at least in my own mind—or I am about to be.
Victimhood is EVERYWHERE
Other clues that you’re looking at victimhood in your children or yourself include:
- Complaining. Just a manifestation of victimhood.
- Whining
- Justifying
We have to be aware of how prevalent victimhood is, or our children will suck us into their victim stories, and we’ll find that we cannot teach them anything. Victims don’t listen to anything but agreement with their pain.
Translating Victimhood into English
A mother wrote to me about her 15-year-old daughter, who is a skilled victim, and uses that to get out of almost any responsibility. Until recently, Mom has fallen for these tricks.
Recently the daughter, Mikaela, was using her cell phone at times she knew she shouldn’t, and she was hiding that, as well as visiting forbidden social media sites and spewing pretty ugly venom to her friends about her parents.
Her mother found Mikaela’s phone, read the messages, saw the website history, and noted that she was using her phone far more than she had been allowed. She brought all this to Mikaela’s attention. What I’m going to do is to TRANSLATE Victim—it’s a language—into English, so you can see how clever victims are.
Mikaela: You’ve violated my privacy!
English version (the truth): I am the center of the universe, so I get to do anything I want. How DARE you restrict my phone use in the first place, and now you’ve actually held me ACCOUNTABLE for my behavior? Are you kidding me? You expect me to be RESPONSIBLE for my choices?
No victim could possibly admit being a liar, selfish, and irresponsible. If they did that, they couldn’t continue their pampered, selfish life. So instead they turn their crime into a self-righteous attack: YOU violated MY privacy. See how adversarial all victims all. It’s THEIR world, and everybody had better conform, or else!
Mom asked Mikaela to describe what she had done, and what she learned from this experience. But Mikaela—speaking in Victim—fussed, and shook her head, and just increased the snottiness, refusing to answer Mom’s questions.
Translation: Are you just stupid? Have I not explained my being the center of the universe? And now you demand an explanation from ME, the queen? No, I explain nothing. I will just attack you repeatedly until you wake up. (They really believe this, and if we don’t see it, we’re dead. So are they.)
Mom could she that she wasn’t equipped to handle this venom, so she told Mikaela to WRITE OUT the answers to her questions. Later in the day, Mom found what Mikaela had written, lying out on a table. I won’t read it all, just parts that are illuminating to translate.
Mikaela: "Every time I try and explain how I feel, it comes out wrong."
Translation into Truth: "When I try to explain how my selfishness and entitlement are right, I get very confused because my reasoning becomes tortured. I look stupid, even to myself, trying to convince you that wrong is right, that the sun is shining in the middle of the night.
Mikaela: I’m just stressed because of the COVID lockdown.
Translation: Blaming "lockdown" is so tempting and such a lie. Sure, lockdown makes life a bit more inconvenient, but it really only reveals who we really are.
Her: "I feel misunderstood."
Truth: I want to convince you that I have figured life out---and what I need—and if you disagree with me, you are not understanding the truth.
Her: "You've thrown a lot at me"
Truth: I am so resistant to listening and so defiant that you have to repeat everything you say. You've had to teach me a lot of things---and repeat them---because I resist them and don't learn them willingly."
(That's just from the first page)
Your kids might sometimes tell you that they hate your nagging, or that you don’t have to keep repeating yourself. You might say, “Apparently I DO have to repeat myself. If you simply DID what you knew was the right thing, I wouldn’t HAVE to repeat myself. Ever.
I couldn’t resist. I went to the second page. I began to laugh.
Mikaela: "WE need to learn to work as a team."
Truth: You and I are peers. You pay all the bills, make all the hard decisions, take care of me in every way, rescue me when I’m extra stupid, and lots more. I do pretty much nothing except take out the garbage. I don’t know how to live independently AT ALL (using social media isn’t dependence). But we are equals, so you need to shape up and treat me like I DO have some life skills, even though I don’t.
NO. You are not your child’s peer. Your job is to love and teach, and your child’s job is to listen and learn. Independence naturally evolves only AFTER listening and learning. Entitlement is not a skill.
Mikaela: The new rules "have MADE me claustrophobic."
Truth: I am an independent adult, and you have to stop getting in my way and trapping me.
Hysterical. She just doesn't like it that LAWS have consequences. It's not about YOU. It's about the law of happiness. She doesn't acknowledge them, only what she wants.
Mikaela: "I feel trapped."
Truth: I HATE having to live by the laws of the universe. I’m very, very special, so I should be exempt. I should be able to do whatever I want, and then everybody else will clean up my messes and mistakes. Laws are restricting and annoying.
We either live by laws, or we suffer. Laws don’t restrict us. They inform us what works and what doesn’t, and if we live by them, we are MUCH FREER, not restricted.
Try ignoring the law of gravity and see how long you live. Same with the laws of happiness. Keep them—loved, loving, responsible—or die emotionally and spiritually.
Use Consequences when Dealing with Victimhood
Listening to a victim is simultaneously like (1) a comedy routine, because of how tortured and absurdly selfish the reasoning is, and (2) like watching two trains approaching each other on the same track. You can see the crash coming, but you feel helpless to stop it.
To the mother: Mikaela is not learning here. She has proven that:
- She is so entitled that she refuses to learn from you.
- She can’t be trusted to keep the rules, none of them.
- She is in complete denial about her behavior
- She’s headed for quite a disaster in the years to come.
You’ve been teaching her with words for some time now. Time for consequences to teach. Tell her that you’re going to take her phone for a month, and if you find out she has been using other people’s phones—very common—you’ll take the phone for a year.
Not kidding. You’ll be saving her life. It’s that important.
Also inform her that you’re not DISCUSSING this with her. If she gets snotty about the month with no phone, you can easily make it two months, then three, and you can count as high as all the fingers and toes you have.
Parents, pay attention when your kids speak. They’re telling you what planet they’re on with every word and gesture and expression. Once they’re sufficiently settled on the Victim planet, achieving escape velocity and getting off the planet gets increasingly difficult by the day. Keep loving and teaching.
