Breaking Free from Victim Mentality: How to Discover Choices and Get Freedom

Part 2 of 5: What Victim Mentality Is and How to Overcome It

photo credit: fuu

If you have the mentality of victimhood, you likely got it from being victimized in some way. For me, it was from growing up with the dysfunction of my childhood. It wasn’t something egregious like being kidnapped, it was the continual drip-drip-drip of emotional invalidation and abandonment I experienced. When you internalize victim mentality, it permeates every area of your life and just about every decision you make.

There’s a difference between actually being victimized and internalizing the mindset of victim hood or victim mentality. This is not a value judgment, it’s a description of what happens to us and its effects. Below I’ll share about how to get out of that mentality.

Even if you were egregiously victimized, you don’t necessarily internalize victim mentality. Two notable examples of people who were horribly victimized but didn’t take on victim mentality were Nelson Mandela and Victor Frankl. It didn’t define who they were.

Someone who has victim mentality is stuck in victimhood, it’s like an identity they’ve internalized. I know because I had victim mentality and didn’t realized it until I was in my 50s!! I didn’t appear like or act like the kind of person that you…