Days, weeks, and months go by, but my son Jason shows no signs of change. He hasn’t moved an inch from his status quo position. Reluctant to make a decision on what he wants to do with his life, he still doesn’t have a job, and his unsightly beard is as long as before. Likewise, his unexplainable demeanor toward me has not improved. Half of my text messages remain unanswered, and he never informs me of anything happening to him. He doesn’t even bother to tell me when he gets on the plane and flies across the country. But where does he even get the money for an airplane ticket without a job? Perhaps he is using his savings, but with no new income, he may run out of them one day. His whole existence is a mystery to me.
I often wonder, what drives Jason’s behavior? What’s keeping him stuck in his ways? There is no progress in his life whatsoever. It seems like he has frozen in time. I am certainly not waiting for tectonic plates to shift and cause an earthquake in his private life, figuratively speaking. In other words, I am not expecting some major event to shake him to the core and prompt a massive upheaval in his lifestyle. I just hope for at least some kind of movement forward. It’s hard to absorb that my son is 27 years old and has no ambition or direction. The twenties are a special time in a young person’s life, and he is wasting them away.
I believe his behaviors, attitudes, and moods reflect the victim mentality syndrome. He thinks the whole planet is against him and applies this consciousness to everything in his life. The other day, he complained that the airline had declined to reimburse him for the missed flight despite the purchased insurance. But it was his fault that he arrived late, plus he had not paid attention to the fact that the insurance did not cover that issue. Among other examples, Jason blames the evil world that his house is impossible to fix. But he knew perfectly well that acquiring a foreclosed property at an auction might lead to such consequences. That is one of the reasons why his house was cheap, and buying it was a gamble. His latest paranoia is that someone wants to take advantage of his property. He shared a video of how some crooks forge fake deeds to sell houses illegally. He constantly looks for what is wrong in his life, believing everyone is there to get him. But living and waiting for something negative to occur won’t bring him anything good.
Moreover, individuals afflicted with the victim complex often hang on to the past to justify bad things happening in the present. Jason refers to himself as someone from a broken family, implying he is a child of divorced parents. But his sister, who has endured similar circumstances, is thriving and not accusing her childhood when something doesn’t go her way. Besides, I never deprived my kids of love and care and did my best to compensate for the missing things in their lives.
It is very sad to watch a person, especially your own child, perceive himself as a perpetual victim. But how do you help individuals with such a view of life? I feel bad for my son because he has such self-limiting beliefs. At the same time, I feel angry because he chose to consider himself a victim. It is absolutely ridiculous that he ascribes his bad luck to the factors within his control. For example, I suggested he not buy flight insurance next time if he does not like its terms and conditions. Moreover, in response to his complaints about the government and the situation in our country, I reminded him that he has the right to vote. That way, he can at least indirectly influence the course of political events related to his life. But he never fulfills this civic duty. He prefers to feel sorry for himself.
Many psychological phenomena have specific names, meaning we can attach a label to anything deviating from the norm. Unfortunately, naming the source of Jason’s stagnant existence doesn’t alter anything. Just because I understand the culprit for the issue, it doesn’t mean I know what to do with my realization. It doesn’t solve Jason’s problem. The stumbling stone is that he does not acknowledge it. He is in denial and has no clue that his “poor me” attitude is what prevents him from getting ahead. As a mere witness to his problem, I understand its depth, and my hands itch to help him take action for change. But he is the one who must change his mindset. My son refuses to understand that he is responsible for the outcomes in his life and that accusing others is counterproductive. Unfortunately, people with the victim mentality don’t see their misfortunes this way. Jason has decided that he is unlucky, so why bother? He doesn’t want to accept that unfavorable circumstances are not his predetermined fate.
The concept of victim mentality isn’t new, nor is it rare. It has crossed my mind that my other family members play this blaming game. I observed it with my mom and sister. And not that long ago, I myself thought that, for no reason, the world was unfair and cruel to me. Luckily, I turned that around, and I wish they could become more open-minded. Every conversation with my relatives revolves around what is wrong in their lives and how others contributed to it. I feel helpless seeing such self-defeating behavior in the people closest to me. Unknowingly, they have become their own worst enemies. It is so discouraging that they don’t believe that they have the power to change their life’s outcomes. This victim complex prevents them from living their best life.
Besides, though maybe unintentionally, individuals with victim consciousness pull people who care deeply about them into their doom and gloom. Of course, I sympathize with my relatives’ troubles. Still, their complaints surpass the level of my tolerance for so much negativity. If I don’t agree with their every word of the so-to-speak injustice they endured, they get upset with me. They even make me feel I somehow played a part in their predicaments. Since people with the victim mindset often seem miserable, they can also make people around them feel the same. The perception of reality that you have it the worst is toxic not only to people who think they were wronged but also to those who constantly listen to their hopeless remarks about an unfair world. That is why my son treats me the way he does. Hurt people indeed hurt other people. People with victim consciousness use it as their shield to evade responsibility and even to act rudely. For example, my son rarely thanks me for anything, can snap at me in his responses, and the list can go on. If he were my boyfriend, I would break up with him in a heartbeat. But he is my child, and I must tolerate his mean behavior.
But what can I do as a mom to help my son overcome the trap of victim complex? How do I convince him to take charge of what is going on in his life? Maybe by my own example? Perhaps whenever something negative happens to me, I should tell him how I coped with it. Or maybe I could share some relevant, adverse incidents from my past and how I handled them. However, I am not sure if he will listen. I wonder what others think of this issue of victim mentality. How do they deal with it?
As the recipient of the toxic effects of my son’s victim syndrome, I can only learn to control my responses to what I see. I must not allow his grievances to affect me with their poison. I must set boundaries and build fences to protect myself from being pulled into the drama of his subjective, pessimistic perceptions of life. Without knowing what else I can do, I can only hope that one day, something or someone will inspire him to look at the world differently.
As I analyze Jason’s behavior, I am trying to understand the reasons for his counterproductive and hopeless beliefs. Is it his past experiences? His possible mental illness? His learned attitude? Or is it his subconscious way of getting out of being responsible for his actions? Or is this victim attitude his permanent comfort zone? People who fear change are afraid of even positive changes because anything unfamiliar scares them. Hence, it must be easier for my son to continue believing that someone is constantly trying to raise hell in his life rather than honestly look at himself and identify his mistakes.
Recently, I listened to an online interview with a licensed clinical psychologist, Cassandra Vieten. She expressed the thought that the main difficulty is to get individuals with victim consciousness out of their negative thinking. Thus, they must change their perspective by “connecting to something larger than themselves.” She said many psychological ailments come from not seeing meaning in life. Something needs to happen that could drastically change negative perceptions. “When you make your awareness bigger, you change how you see everything,” Dr. Vieten adds. But again, what can be that jolt in the life of a person who feels stuck and unfairly treated? According to her, exposure to environments and situations where one can experience something profound can drastically shift the current outlook. The new awareness that there is something more significant than yourself can make your big problems seem minuscule in comparison; thus, you can change your attitude. What she conveys makes much sense, but how can I get my son to be part of those perspective-altering experiences?
I pray every day that my son changes his outlook on life. Whenever I meet him one-on-one, I try to talk to him, illustrating the rationale behind what he considers unjust. But he is so stuck in his beliefs that it is impossible to reason with him. Dear reader, have you ever encountered people in your life with the victim consciousness? How did you deal with them? Did you help them perceive the world differently?
