Somebody, through carelessness, let me down in a minor way last week and I immediately got a high from the feeling of victimhood, that people will always screw me over, poor ol me, people just trample all over me… It’s scary how powerful and intoxicating that victimhood emotion was for me. It’s shaped my life. I paused for a couple of minutes and allowed the person to rectify his mistake and I ended up without any victimization, but with a great deal of humility by realizing how much I enjoyed feeling victimized and hopeless. It’s an addiction. I started thinking back across my life how often I’ve climbed up on the cross to suffer for the sins of the world. When somebody does me wrong, I get the victimhood rush, and I am terribly reluctant to lose it, even if it means immense suffering and inconvenience. Throughout my life, I have often not allowed people to make up to me the inadvertent ways they’ve let me down. I’ve been too proud and too sure of my victimhood. It’s hard to let go of these childhood patterns.
I guess in early childhood, I got a sense of power from taking on the victim role. It was a way I could get back at those who were more powerful than me.
