Perpetual Victimhood

For the sake of this discussion, I am defining "Perpetual Victimhood" as referring to a mindset or behavior in which an individual or group perpetually perceive themselves as victims, often regardless of actual circumstances.

This spiritual/mental illness involves a habitual pattern of framing experiences through the lenses of suffering, injustice, and/or oppression, sometimes to the point of resisting accountability, growth, or alternative perspectives.

The key characteristics of this are:

• Persistent grievance through continual focus on past or present wrongs.
• Externalization of blame by way of the tendency to blame others for all misfortunes, thus avoiding self-reflection.
• Falsely practicing a stand upon moral high ground, thus believing that victim status confers moral superiority or justification.
• Resistance to resolution, thus avoiding solutions that might end the victim role. This is a favorite path because the identity or perceived benefits (i.e., sympathy, attention, or exemption from criticism) are too valuable and powerful weapons to not bring to bear upon the perceived necessity for victory at all costs...even when the cost is to personal integrity, or lack thereof.
• Overly generalizing by broadly assuming, without proof, malicious intent by way of equivocation of systemic oppression in diverse or unrelated situations.

Spiritual/psychological and social implications:

• Can emerge from cases of real trauma or injustice but becomes maladaptive when the victim allows the injustice to become a core part of identity.
• May limit emotional resilience and hinder personal development toward healing and functionally integrating into a unified culture with all others.
• In group contexts (i.e., politics, culture), it can polarize dialogue and inhibit reconciliation or collaboration since polarization is the modus operandi of a self-made broken spirit.

It's also important to distinguish legitimate victimhood (which can arise from real harm or oppression) from perpetual victimhood as a fixed identity or strategy. Recognizing real injustice and seeking accountability is not the same as adopting victimhood as a permanent view of the world and personal identity.

What are your experiences with the soldiers of perpetual victimhood?

MM

As little as possible.

I won't say anything more because I also try to dwell on it as little as possible. That can become its own victimhood.

You just described the bulk of the political environment of the USA today.

From slave reparations to the entire LGBTQ/Woke-DEI agenda. Even the mass migration of undocumented illegal alien population.

Because there is power over the "normals" by accusing them of enjoying the fruits of their labors...as if the plight of these is the fault of those who have earned their paychecks.

It's been 170 years since there were any slaves in the USA. It's also been legal to be a sexual miscreant for over 40 years now. But since they were once incarcerated and dishonorable discharged from the military....we somehow have to endure them having authority over our children by teaching them every sexual deviance is somehow a positive choice instead of the poor mundane choice of being how God designed them to be.

This is a wicked world. Everyone has been the victim of people behaving wickedly at some point....
You can work hard or wallow in
Do you want to be defined as a victim and perpetually damaged goods or do you want to be defined as rising above and being healthy?
Scars are part of life....they are hard bits that stand out in soft flesh. God restores the hardened heart to one made of flesh once again. You either believe it or you don't. You can sit about wallowing in your hurt for the rest of your life or you can move forward emotionally and stop the cycle of abuse by being kind, generous, righteous and forthright in all your dealings. You get to choose.

People who identify with abuse and being abused WILL ABUSE OTHERS.

This is a clear choice of paths. One leads to more wickedness and one leads to life.

My experience is to not vote Democrat. They treat their constituents as perpetual victims. Gets cloying real fast.

It's like the ocean in Australia, all around us. Sometimes it seems as if groups vie for the "honour" of being most victimised. Many "victims" are simply immigrants who discover that Australia is not their former country. My response to that is simple. Go home.

Also like the ocean, the smart move is to have a boat and stay above the waves. It's of the world which is under the control of the devil. So why should I be surprised at the lies and half truths trotted out by the perpetual victims?

Wow, all this time I thought you were a Yankee! I need to start looking at peoples info. I don't know how I missed that!

No, I'm not even Australian. I've lived here since 1967, but I've never had the operation.

Great post. I know this kind of thing very well. In my case it was the result of past trauma, a kind of PTSD. It's a delusion, an inability to see or accept reality. Thankfully, the Lord healed me and freed me from it. Unfortunately, there are more and more people who suffer from this.

Where I come from, calling somebody a Yankee is fighting words...

up till about 1990 or so.

now, there are so many in the south, it is not a thing anymore....

When I was in the military (navy), some of our sailors tried to start WW3. With Canada. How? Calling Canadians half hearted Yanks. Not me, btw. My last fist fight was in 1968. I lost. I was picked on by a Maori. It was quite dark. I told him to smile so I could see him to hit him. That did not end well.

It is definitely still a thing. We are happy to have them, as long as they are peaceable and don't try to do things in Yankee ways and expect it to go the way it does up in Yankee land.

We have had one whole family who has been knocking around our parts for a few years, trying to set up businesses here and there and run them the way they would run them in the Bronx. Everything from a pizza place to a steakhouse to an ATV race track. It all keeps failing because they are not in the Bronx. But they keep on trying, bless their pea picking little hearts.

Not everyone who has been abused will abuse . Please don't believe that because it's not true . I agree with everything else u said ❤️ but , we have to remember that some people , for whatever reason r just weaker than others and need a lot of support in order to b able to pull themselves together and move forward and we , as Christians , r to help the weak in our society . Physical and psychological trauma r real and many people don't know how to heal without help from others , or better still from God Himself . Not one human ever helped me to deal with my psychopath parents ( yes , both of them , how unlucky can a person get ? 🙄 ) , God saved me , only God saved me from them and myself .