Overcoming Victim Mentality
"Why does this always happen to me?"
"Why do people treat me badly?"
Do these thoughts sound familiar? If you find yourself thinking this way, you might have a victim mentality—one of the biggest forms of self-sabotage. In this article I will help you discover whether you have a victim mentality, understand its origins and learn practical strategies to overcome it for a happier, more empowered life.
Do I Have a Victim Mentality?
The first step to overcome a victim mentality, is to recognise you have it. You have a victim mentality if you find yourself:
Constantly asking "Why me?" or "Why do people keep treating me badly?"
Believing everyone and everything is out to get you
Making excuses to avoid responsibility
Ruminating about past experiences where you were victimized
Seeking recognition from others that you are indeed a victim
Feeling generally disempowered in your life
Where Does a Victim Mentality Come From?
We aren't born with a victim mentality—it develops over time, often from early life experiences. Very commonly, a victim mentality can come from being raised by parents who constantly criticise you, leave you with unmet needs or constantly complain about life’s injustices. In addition, a victim mentality can stem from feelings of being unseen or uncared for, leaving us believing that if people were feeling sorry for us, they would finally notice and care for us.
Finally, unfortunately, a victim mentality can come from real victimisation - from actual trauma people can’t move from. It is tragic that people go through traumatic experiences everyday, and it is understandable that some may struggle to move forwards after something terrible happened to them. However, we stilll have to try, because especially after you go though difficult life experiences YOU HAVE THE RIGHT to build an amazing life for yourself.
Why Is a Victim Mindset Damaging?
A victim mentality can be deeply harmful to your wellbeing in several ways:
Energy drain: It negatively impacts your mood, emotions, behaviors, relationships, and health
Reduced sense of agency: You begin to see life as something that happens to you rather than because of your actions, thus leaving to self-sabotage. This could leave you stuck within your life, perpetuating a cycle of unhappiness.
Relationship damage: Being focused on your own suffering reduces your capacity for empathy toward others. In addition, it can be hard for others to be around someone with a victim mentality.
how to overcome victim mentality
The best way to overcome victim mentality is to do what in psychology we call “cognitive refraining” - this basically means changing your thoughts about a particular situation. Therefore, I have three mindset shift you can use to overcome your victim mentality.
Mindset Shift 1: You can Choose to Take Responsibility for Your Life
Sometimes we need to take responsibility not because something is our fault, but because we're the only ones who can change our situation. Research shows that happiness is strongly correlated with what psychologists call our "locus of control", and there are two types of it:
Internal locus of control: Believing you have control over life outcomes through your actions
External locus of control: Believing your destiny depends on factors beyond your control
Research shows that people with an internal locus of control are consistently happier than those with an external focus of control. A good why to develop this mindset, is asking yourself "what" questions instead of "why" questions:
Instead of asking… “Why is this happening to me?” Ask yourself “What is actually happening?”
Instead of asking… “Why am I feeling like this?” Ask yourself “What am I actually feeling?”
Instead of asking… “Why are they doing this to me?” Ask yourself “What can I do to respond better?”
Instead of asking… “Why do bad things happen to me?” Ask yourself “What is another way to look at this situation?”
"Why" questions keep us trapped in the past, while "what" questions help us see the future and our potential.
As Holocaust survivor and psychologist Edith Eger wisely noted: "Victimization comes from the outside world; however, victimhood comes from the inside." While we may all suffer abuse or affliction beyond our control at some point, we need to rememeber that we become victims not because of what happens to us, but because we choose to hold on to our victimhood."
Mindset Shift 2: The World Is Not Out to Get You
When we have a victim mentality, we tend to believe bad things happen because the world is against us. In reality, this is a trick of our brain. Our brain gathers information from past experiences to make predictions about the future. If you grew up in an unstable environment, your brain might tell you that you'll always live in instability—not to hurt you, but to prepare you for perceived threats.
Because of this protection mechanism, we might be led to overgeneralise negative experiences, ignore positive experiences and focus on the negatives of our life. To counter this bias, try focusing on at least three positive things for every negative event in your life. A gratitude practice can be particularly helpful in redirecting your attention to the good things that happen regularly.
Mindset Shift 3. Your Past Won't Change, But You Can
The truth is trauma is real, but healing is possible. Clinical psychologist Edith Shiro distinguishes between merely recovering from trauma and experiencing "post-traumatic growth"—the learning and achievement that can follow adversity.
Post-traumatic growth becomes possible when we overcome the trauma without dismissing or downplaying it or its challenges. In this way, we will be able to acknowledge what happened to us and move forward, becoming the narrators of our story rather than the victims.
Moving forward doesn't mean that what happened doesn't matter—it will always matter. It simply means that your past experiences won't control how you experience life right now. Moving on also doesn't mean accepting blame for what happened to you. Rather, it means taking responsibility and sliding on the driver’s seat of your life and take it from there.
The truth is negative experiences can change your brain. But do you know what also can change your brain? You. You have the power to transform not only your neural pathways but your entire life.
Final Thoughts
Developing a victim mentality is often an understandable response to difficult circumstances, but it ultimately robs us of our most precious resource—our sense of agency. By recognizing when we're falling into victim thinking patterns and applying these mindset shifts, we can reclaim control over our lives and move toward greater happiness and fulfillment.
Remember: you have the right to an amazing life, especially after experiencing hardship. The choice to claim that life begins with letting go of the victim mentality that keeps you trapped.