It’s easy to get stuck in victim identity mindset. Victim identity mindset focuses on the betrayal, how you were mistreated and how unfair it was. Abusers erode your power over time, make you feel small, confused, passive. Even the strongest of us can have our identities eroded by abusers. Following abuse, it’s easy to stay in the victim identity mindset and inadvertently gives our power to the abuser even after we have left. The victim identity mindset will keep you hurting, stuck and powerless.
By contrast, a healing identity mindset is empowering. When you have a healing identity mindset you take your power back, you focus on your strengths, you focus on your resilience and making your own life what you want it to be. Developing a healing identity mindset protects you from setting up shop in the land of victimhood. You may occasionally revisit the painful feelings, and maybe even be overwhelmed by them sometimes, but you won’t buy a house in that neighborhood. You will instead, feel the feelings and let them pass, preferring to focus on healing and growing.
What is an Identity?
An identity is made up of what we think of ourselves. For example: I am compassionate. I am intelligent. I am thrifty. Identity is also made up of our behaviors. For example: I help others. I can be critical. And, identity includes the social roles we play. For example: I’m a good friend. I’m a parent. I’m a doormat.
We organize our experiences through the lens of our identity. Our identity also acts as a filter. Our brains filter incoming information that confirms our identity and disregards information that doesn’t. This is ok if we have an identity that is accurate and problematic if our identity has been skewed by abuse or other trauma.
Getting Stuck in Victim Identity Mindset
If we get stuck in victim identity, in other words, identifying with the pain and mistreatment we experienced, we’re not going to heal. Plain and simple fact. Not only is it extremely difficult to find the internal resources for healing when we are focused on the perceived damage that was done to us, victim identity does not accurately portray the situation. It leads to self-doubt and questions about who we are as individuals. If we aren’t the narcissist’s victim, who are we?
Monument to the Pain
Taking it further, victim identity can become a monument to the pain we experienced during and following the abuse. Sometimes people with victim mentality may say that they don’t want to feel the pain, but at the same time they aren’t willing to give it up because they feel like if they do, it will let their abuser “win” and everything they experienced as a victim would be invalidated. We don’t want to let the abuser off the hook, so to speak, by moving ourselves forward. This is the lie of victim identity mindset taken to the extreme.
Wanting the Abuser to “Just Get It“
When it comes down to it, what we really want is the abuser to realize how much he hurt us, to say he’s sorry and mean it, to acknowledge the depth of the pain that he caused us. That’s why a lot of us hold on to a victim mindset. It’s completely understandable to want this after you’ve been abused.
Taking a step back, though, and looking at the situation from a slightly different angle, trying to be mindful and observant and as unemotional as possible, we know that people with personality disorders, diagnosed or not, don’t have a lot of insight into their own behaviors and often don’t see that they even have a problem.
So them coming around to apologizing, acknowledging the impact they’ve had on you, well, that’s not likely to happen. They are, as you know, completely self-absorbed. Expecting them to be brave and strong and own up to the magnitude of what they’ve done and how they’ve mistreated you is not realistic. It’s like expecting a toddler or a young child to grasp how their behavior impacted you.
Yes, it’s maddening. And yes, the narcissist or sociopath is psychologically incapable of truly getting it. They just don’t have the psychological fortitude to go there. So you remaining in victim identity mindset, maintaining a monument to your pain and abuse until the abuser acknowledges what they’ve done, well, to be blunt, that’s a waste of your time and your life. And really won’t have any impact on anyone outside of yourself.
The Way Forward: Committing to Healing Identity
When you get a broken arm, the doctor puts a cast on it and you keep it elevated, you baby it, you let it heal. You don’t fight the healing process and keep the broken arm broken to memorialize the pain of it. In the same way, as hard as it might be to give up the victim identity mindset, and commit to the healing identity mindset, which is really another way to say growth mindset, that’s what needs happen in order for your emotional pain to decrease and ultimately for you to feel better.
He Broke Your Relationship; You Are Still You
It’s important to say here now that what your abuser broke was your relationship with him, your marriage, your partnership. He did not break you as an individual. Yes, he may have damaged you, made you question your self-worth, made you think you were less than, ugly, too fat, too thin, stupid, whatever it was he said to you, gaslighted and manipulated you into believing, he didn’t damage you beyond repair. You, yourself, are still you with all your values, talents, quirkiness, flaws, humanity intact. Beat up and bruised, yes, probably. Damaged beyond repair. Definitely not.
Creating a Healing Identity Exercise
I want to do a little exercise with you to help you move forward to create a healing identity. There are five steps to this and I’ve created a pdf that you can download at https://bit.ly/episode21download
Step 1: Inventory
List your strengths. For example: intelligence, compassion, sense of humor, integrity.
Next, list your deeper values. For example honesty, fairness, thankfulness, appreciation of nature.
Below that, list all the evidence you can for your resilience. For example, how you recovered from past setbacks or losses in your life.
Then go back and a reread everything that you’ve just written down about your strengths, deeper values, evidence of resilience. Next, imagine a close friend or family member who listed everything you wrote down but they were hurting, and tended to be critical of themselves and were underestimating their own self-value or self-worth. What would you say to them? Write down exactly what you would say to them.
Step 2: Commitment
Write down how you will use your strengths and deeper values for healing. For instance, you might say that you will look for growth opportunities in life, value the perspectives of your friends alongside your own, seek out ways to bring more beauty into your life.
Step 3: Your Focus Declaration
Write down the following declaration and sign it. “I, (your name), resolve to focus my attention and my behavior on what will help me heal, grow, improve, and create value in my life.”
Step 4: Opportunities for Growth
Write down a list of all of the opportunities for growth that are created by the pain you went through. For example, I will have more compassion for myself and others who are struggling to grow from life’s challenges. I will reconnect with my old dreams to go back to school, get in touch with old friends, start volunteering, and finally learn to play the guitar.
Step 5: Transcendence Promise to Yourself
Write the following statement and sign it. “I will transcend all that I have suffered and come out of this recovery period a better person, focused on a permanent sense of meaning and purpose, according to the spiritual beliefs that resonate with my soul.”
Read the statement out loud to yourself. It should feel empowering. If it doesn’t, circle where you feel your power start to wane. Over the next several podcasts we will work on self-empowerment and you’ll find that when you go back and re-read this declaration, that you really do feel empowered.
TakeAways
- Victim identity mindset focuses on the pain and unfairness of the abuse. It keeps us powerless.
- Healing identity mindset focuses on growth. It is empowering.
- An identity is made up of what we think of ourselves, our behaviors and our social roles.
- An identity organizes our experiences and acts as a filter for our brains.
- Sometimes we build a monument to pain via a victim identity mindset because we want the abuser to acknowledge what he’s done and the depth of the impact he’s had on us; however, he is highly unlikely to ever do this and the only person who remains in pain is us.
- The abuser broke your relationship. He did not damage you beyond repair.
- Download the pdf file with the Create a Healing Identity Exercise at the link in the show notes or at https://bit.ly/episode21download