Are You Just Being a Victim? Dismantling Victim Mindset.

foreign [Music] so have you ever heard get over it from a family member or stranger online or maybe you've heard from a co-worker or even a therapist who tries to gently play Devil's Advocate and tries to educate you about your family bonds with stuff like you know but she's your mom you know like that kind of stuff this video is probably going to be hard to hear and I'll give my trigger warning now but I want you to have a definitive way to look at and deal with how the community around us gets someone processing

their childhood trauma wrong and they pretty much like to shame you for doing that so this video will focus on a hypothetical case example compiled from what I see is like a culture of essentially abuse denying and the psychology around that and the blaming and the shaming of a Survivor for their own childhood trauma so this video is going to walk you through a common case example here's a common process for in an experience for a hypothetical childhood trauma Survivor and the resistance that they meet in their healing process so this is the case of

J Doe a Case cptsd Case example let's say J Doe doesn't matter the gender of John Doe Jane Doe of this hypothetical case example plays a traditional role of a scapegoat in their toxic family and let's say that there are approximately around 21 years old mom has narcissistic personality disorder dad is a covert codependent there's a golden child sibling there's a Lost Child sibling say a sibling who got into drugs and Jay is one of three children extended family is around but not really involved in this nuclear family they tend to avoid the mother who

was a big deal in the bigger system and it's she is not somebody to be crossed that's what the extended family has learned extended family has its own problems but they've been burnt out by the mother's aggressive drama and the extended family allows the mother to have power like no one really takes her on in childhood for Jay there was constant emotional abuse and drama that they upset their mother by getting a c that they didn't wash the dishes right that there is a constant negative Focus coming from the mother to Jay like if I

had a genogram I'd be spelling that out something about Jay constantly bothered the mother she's probably projecting and often the father would physically hit Jay out of frustration for frustrating the mother think of dad as like a soldier for the narcissistic mother which is like a common presentation in these toxic families Jay is the only one of three that would experience beatings and every family gathering celebration or holiday would be ruined by Jay according to the mother um to which the father and The Golden Child would shame and blame Jay um and The Lost Child

who could kind of sympathize with Jay but acted super neutral towards them and they never really fully supported them there's like a half-safe thing going on there additionally and this is that why the trigger warning is coming in one of the many reasons in Jay's Early Childhood a sexually off family member related to the mother sexually abused Jay Jay was shamed and scapegoated for not wanting to be left alone with this family member doing family during family events after this family family member had lived with them for a period of time and moved out um

they were staying with them for a period of time so since the perpetrator was brought in by the mother Jay was put into the role as the highly selfish child ruining family life and family events and the sexual perpetrator was give an extra care when Jay would have an appropriate terrified reaction to being around that family member if you if you follow me so Jay struggles greatly with triggers around sex and sexuality by High School Jay struggled with passive suicidality identity issues extreme anxiety perfectionism and eating disorder was was high achieving would also have panic

attacks around achieving and spent most of their conscious time Consciousness trying to not upset anybody at home or at school or at the fast food restaurant that they worked in on the weekends so they developed a good strategy though by avoiding home at all costs by being way too active in their perfectionism and achieving and extracurricular things like sports or math club or music or anything to keep them safe and outside of that you know bees hive so now I want to talk about kind of like a pivotal event so things escalated an event when

Jay came home from Thanksgiving one year from college feeling the need to come out to the family as identifying as queer and the mother slapped them across the face in front of everybody and then sobbed uncontrollably locked themselves in the room while the father and The Golden Child ran to the mother's rescue the mother locked herself in a room and provocatively threatened self-harm because of what Jay said which she had a pattern of doing but never went through with that self-harm or suicide ideation herself the mother's reaction wasn't about religion it was about keeping secrets

from her like in a controlling way and ruining again that word ruining the holiday by choosing to come out with that information at that time so the event was seeped in narcissistic-based drama to which both the nuclear family and the extended family is blind to I really want you to take that in this is another societal issue that I see not seeing toxic drama for what it is and we're going to come back to that later in the video so Jay hears how could you do that to Mom it's the message from the family and

verbally abusive text along with I'm so done with you you ruin everything why are you like this grow up and get off Instagram you're not gay oh my God you know so why did Jay try to tell their family when they're clearly not safe well because many childhood trauma survivors have a wounded and a child who has some magical thinking going on and they still live in the hope that their maybe their family will be loving and accepting of them they can't really be that awful right many of us live like that until we kind

of wake up many survivors constantly test the toxic family if they're going to show up for them emotionally and be the parents or the family that they need it's just an inner child thing that that many of us you know kind of engage in until we wake up so moving on in this journey Jay then goes to seek some help Jay is now back at school after that slap incident who is now in a three week long triggered dissociative state they can't sleep they experience panic and intense anxiety and they can't focus on grades which

keeps them safe they're going through both an anxious episode a depressive episode and they go to student services for therapy help to schedule an appointment with a therapist in the session with the therapist the therapist spends most of the time focusing on the mother's feelings and while slapping is never good but advises Jay that the mother was probably in shock about the coming out when Jay agrees with that due to their own intense shame but they also kind of brought up and countered that with how their father who was directed by the mother that just

slapped Jay to drop Jay off at the airport on Thanksgiving day without a ticket without flights until the following day recounting the order that was like you know get Jay out of my sight from the screaming mother in that locked room to work to the father so the therapist encouraged Jay to think of this as an opportunity to have a positive mindset about the whole thing that these are moments of resiliency for all parties involved as a family transitions into a new reality or whatever so what could jay walk away with what positive reframe about

the mother's reaction such as the mother caring so much about family that she felt the need to defend her idea of Jay as an act of love that she has for her um they also had Jay reflect on that no parent is perfect and for them to think about how is a parent supposed to react the mother didn't react great given but implied that no one has going to have a graceful reaction to their child announcing that the therapist even suggested a family meeting and gives Jay a handout on mindfulness exercises that focus on calming

the system through attention and breath work to get through the you know as a tool to get through the kind of Crisis that's going on so Jay leaves compliant and intensely ashamed of himself for their feelings and does not go back to student services for fear of what the therapist now thinks about them and an idea popped into their head that they were they had just wasted a therapy session when another student with bigger real problems could have used that session better so Jay did not recognize the abysmal and abusive shaming service from the therapist

and because they had never experienced therapy before which is another side issue so so Jay kind of moves on and then J still struggling with what happened the emotions aren't getting better the symptoms aren't getting better Jay calls their cousin on their mother's side from their dorm room who is their age and somewhat gets how the family actually is and this cousin the niece of the narcissistic mother was raised in what seems like a healthier family system so like in Prior conversations the cousin can half validate the slap that the drop off at the airport

was airport was bananas but quickly advises them what they learned from their own mother this is Jay's Aunt Jay's month Jay's mother's sister if you got me the advice from Jay's Aunt to this cousin is to just play KJ's mother don't share too much and just see the mother as a wacky wounded Soul who you can't expect much out of it's like half right but it's also pretty damning the cousin gives off you know judgy Vibes that since Jay's mom is wacky Jay should know better and therefore it's wrong to have any big feelings about

the whole thing so you can see yeah that's where I start to wonder about the health of the extended family system with that that logic Jay agrees and feels a flux of Shame well up in them uh that they never should have come out and they caused all this upset for everyone and now the cousin knows what an F up J is now you know and and that's you know what they're now carrying so Jay moves on Jay is still struggling with the symptoms sleep problems anxiety wrestling with the events that happened replaying them replaying

and rereading the text from The Sibling replaying um if it was justified to get hit or not or dropped off the airport struggling with all that which many of us has been there including myself Jay goes online and tries to get some answers from Instagram or Reddit or Tick Tock or wherever to connect with other survivors and is learning about narcissistic abuse from the toxic family system and trying to navigate this huge swash of like conflicting ideas and advice looking for a definitive answer um or help processing that and if you've been there a survivors

we can go down a rabbit hole looking for specific definition from an expert but we'll also talk ourselves out of that too this means that we are we're disconnected from our bodies and really in our heads trying to figure this out we've gone to a cerebral place and as a side note there's a difference in really feeling the Injustice and the upset around the abuse by the mother and feeling that in our body with our emotions compared to being in our heads I'm not judging you I'm just explaining a process for childhood trauma survivors compared

to being in our heads wondering was that really that bad or was I just being a baby around then like from multiple sources or telling me that I'm just overreacting and as an additional side note when a client is in this space I give them feedback that they've lost their Justified right size upset upset goes underground and these toxic families traditionally due to shame and dissociation so Jay has already been programmed to Gaslight themselves around this stuff so coming back to Jay um when they're on social media and they're telling bits of their story or

they're commenting or they're asking questions on other survivor's comments here are some of the responses from strangers on the internet these are hard and keep in mind that these folks who pop into these accounts and Pages focusing on Mental Health when they have zero interest in that and zero interest in abuse recovery to share the following wisdom also notice how some of these have a political spin or a religious spin or a generational like differences in Generations undertones to that stuff so comments such as oh please give me a break toughen up no wonder young

adults these days always crumble at the first hint of adversity and conflict don't listen to him parents you're doing a great job your kids know you love them another comment is a classic oh my god get over it another is [ __ ] this is just woke [ __ ] feacing I wonder if this person's from Boston um freaking no family is perfect and we need to learn how to navigate uncomfortable situations have a voice and set healthy boundaries assuming that's going to work in these family systems except that no one is perfect take what

you like and leave the rest I'm so sick of this victim [ __ ] another person writes your family isn't the problem it's your duty to figure out you you're lucky to have support at all um another is and then you turn 18 you put on your adult clothing you go out and carry your own weight and stop whining about your past suck it up buttercups moving on you can kind of get the gist of ease another is Patrick TN therapy all I'm saying is how in the world did everyone and Aunt Sue become a

victim these trigger words you keep using are just attention seeking and therapy shouldn't be taken seriously on social media and the last one for these nasty ones is um parents are human parents get fatigued parents are sinners parents make mistakes parents say stuff out of frustration at times don't discount all the love the affection the positive words don't discount power of repenting and apologizing to your kids real life will expose you to difficult situations and people got to be able to shake stuff off forgive and get living incidentally there's going to be another video down

the road um on religious abuse because you could see where in some of these where that can definitely tie in here the authors of these comments authors that might be a generous word don't see the irony that they're triggered specifically around interpreting and processing trauma as being manipulative and we're going to come back to that later it's like kind of the root issue going on here with how people view this stuff here are some other comments that are well intentioned but also pretty shaming um at what point do you realize that living life in the

rear view mirror is full of anger and resentment does nothing but Rob you of your health and your happiness and take your interactions with others going forward pretty hard to gain momentum living life in the rear view mirror I am by no means saying we should completely dismiss the things that bother us more so we should just be aware of how being trapped in that sort of mindset will taint your present future why would I let yesterday affect my ability to cultivate success and positive relationships in the future um there's going to be a theme

to these another is I think it's okay to move on and not stay trapped in the trauma but saying this I do not mean a person has to forgive anyone but to be able to detach from the trauma is important to me you notice a theme in these it's just like they're implying that those struggling with abuse are making a choice to be they're choosing to stay stuck in those feelings is the vibe from these and lastly is it's uncomfortable to hear all these nuances as labeled as trauma um some of the most overused labels

these days are depression anxiety narcissist gaslighting abuse Etc everyone needing to have their victim card stamped as a little out of control this isn't to diminish some trauma face to acknowledge people that Thane abuse to gain sympathy or enable their behavior hold on to that one because that's a one of the major Crux of these issues so the shaming but yet kind of well-meaning clients have a boot strappy feeling to them is implying that the abused is easily making a choice to stay stuck and therefore it's just as easy to stop being stuck and focusing

on the past as if survivors are going to be like whoa you're blowing my mind here like I can just make the choice to not focus on my sexual assault and make the choice to not focus yeah I'm just being I'm just being marinating in this stuff which is just dumb thank you so much I know I'm being facetious here but this is really like what it feels like as a side note is that I've never met somebody who magically moved on who didn't have symptoms and problems like they're not the enlightened life-loving juggernauts that

they come across as I've met a lot of people in 12 steps that I'll address later that expressed that they've moved on despite their dysfunctional family but they're terrible at intimacy that they struggle with control in their reactions you know people can convince themselves as anything I'm very positive about the 12-step Community but there's aspects of it that aren't that great um nothing's perfect so I'm not trying to demonize them and many are many are and were really lovely 12-step people but there's some delusion with the best foot forward crowd like we see in those

comments like anything else there's a time and a place for it when it comes to Healing from childhood trauma so there is a theme to all these common comments that we see from others online and I think the focus is on weakness that seems to be the major theme to this victimhood stuff and that abuse survivors are just drawing attention to themselves in a selfish and manipulative way blanket statements about how no family is perfect when survivors like Jay are beginning to process and question they're beginning to reflect and seek help on childhood trauma issues

and symptoms they are already usually struggling with two major factors which are shame and dissociation the victim mindset comments and accusations fuel those two things for abusive virus and they effectively Gaslight them out of the facts of the actual abuse you know the shame that Association creates self-doubt around any of the following for survivors that was what took place actually abusive or was it just normal isn't families are weird right am I being unkind like the well-meaning in people imply in these comments so my being just kind of nasty and resentful who am I to

say what was so wrong about getting slapped or sexually assaulted was I even there I don't know isn't all perception self-focus and subjective it's like being a bad lawyer for ourselves am I telling the truth or am I just drawing attention to myself which seems selfish like that YouTube user I like big butt says um other family members don't seem to hurt as much as I do maybe they have it more together or maybe they've got the answer you know and I'm trying to say that such comments get under the survivor's skin until they get

some real help with making sense about what happened to them so I want to get into now about victim mindset and the positivity Community like the the positive psychology stuff which isn't bad but you'll see what I mean so Jay continues to seek and search about what to do with this family mess they just went through their whole life and they go on Instagram and they learn about all kinds of self-help Concepts and practices there's the codependency stuff there's Al-Anon there's positive psychology there's mindfulness there's radical acceptance and many others which are wonderful therapies and

Jay finds accounts that focus on staying positive and cover ideas such as acceptance and self-love and self-honesty to combat something called victim mindset victim mindset seems to be criminal in these communities what it seems like today so we're very shaming to engage in for example Al-Anon and 12-step groups um coming back to that while being very helpful in many ways and can also they can also half validate abuse survivors and shame a Survivor for feeling the symptoms that they do by doing tools called in like an inventory step work and that it would the inventory

would require Jay to look at their part in the family Story how did they contribute to the family dysfunction and inventory it's about looking at what dysfunction you bring into things you know it's wise it's mature it's also damning and shaming to Childhood trauma survivors who just need to process abuse and wrongdoing it's not the time to be doing that I think I advocate that 12-step programs I advocate for them but like anything else it can be both helpful and problematic like Jay might find themselves with a sponsor who shames them for not accepting the

family dysfunction as it stands and they should rise above it like in a judeo-christian tradition or something like that sponsors like this they don't deny that the situation was abusive because it was but they instruct Jay to be more understanding and to look at Jay's motives such as Jay wanted a good reaction from their family for coming out to them and I hope you just heard a record scratch in that logic there there is nothing dysfunctional about wanting or expecting a family of origin to be supportive that doesn't make one selfish you know 12-step can

sometimes make you feel like the perpetrator when you're not on the other side to that for those who get to AAA and they are incredibly manipulative and narcissistic and struggle with things like Restless restlessness irritability and discontent there needs to be a rigorous kind of look at that kind of stuff but it's not a blanket thing I think for those who aren't struggling with those things actually so it does become problematic when we have magical thinking that the toxic family will be supportive coming back to what Jay wanted but that's a different thing that's like

more of self-protection back to Jay having tried out some Al-Anon meetings and meeting with an Al-Anon sponsor and just felt intense shame they stopped going due to that shame and now there's taking something else Jay finds some information on something called victim mindset that they maybe they see on Instagram or something then they find themselves on a website that lists the following victim mindset symptoms here's a list of them um you blame others for your way of life the way your life is you truly think life is against you you have trouble coping with problems

in your life and feel powerless against them you feel stuck in life and approach things with a negative attitude you feel attacked when someone tries to offer helpful feedback feeling bad for yourself gives you relief and pleasure that's kind of a smart list and you attract people who blame others and complain about their life it's difficult for you to examine yourself and make change changes um Jay is just trying to process the nature of their toxic family system and abuse due to the majorly off behaviors and red flags on behalf of the family if Jay

was a client they might convince themselves that they are living in a victim mindset according to those symptoms because they relate to just maybe a couple of them my experience with clients like Jay and even myself at the time is that they're usually they usually own too much responsibility around the abuse and the trauma so how victim mentality is thrown in around by lay people is highly inaccurate in my mind however Jay's struggling with shame and dissociation and like other childhood traumas are really terrible lawyers for themselves or they're bad at self-advocating for themselves is

anxious about whether they are seeking attention from a therapist or people online or from that cousin and they're confusing seeking help with seeking attention when those two things are night and day more signs that they're in their head is that they need help connecting to the upset with the help from a therapist about what was done to them the type of therapy model that I do like I would be educating Jay that their inner child is just repeating the narrative that their family installed like Jay is once again bad and getting the situation wrong and

just seeking attention and ruining things for others coming back to that Family theme and moving on from the victim mindset Jay now sees more ideas online this time they're drawn to posts and accounts that focus on positivity and JC's content creators that seem to have a full emotionally Rich Life by not being dragged down by negative emotions and it seems like in um like positive intentional living the greatest crime there is to engage again in victim mindset mentality in a little bit of that culture and there it is again look for the positive create loving

affirmations for yourself don't engage with your negative reactions and your thoughts be as consistent as you can in journaling and making your bed and good self-care can result in feeling amazing and I'm not saying that these are bad or wrong they're actually incredible things but on paper they're not the right thing at the right time many of these accounts can be tied into a religious or pseudo-spiritual practice like J Starts Now dating someone in college who also now meditates and seems like a good safe person because they have that Vibe going on but this person

starts to berate Jay for not practicing these ideas enough that they're still sad that when Jay is not feeling good it's because of a b and c and if they would just read the post they sent they wouldn't have been such a Debbie Downer that day and Jay has found someone exactly like their family the person that they are dating will listen to Jay's family story about the family of which they are kind of reluctant to talk about or shy or ashamed to talk about but then it could then that partner quickly lectures them on

how we're all one Consciousness and that Jay doesn't see the humanity in their family um and others and that J is exactly like their family and they'd be liberated if they just understood that and read the read the magical book that explains all that geez right you know and Jay buys into it you know um they decide to not get bogged down by the recent family rupture or the therapist at student services or the cousin um and they start to practice a positivity routine and attend some spiritual Community get-togethers attend some get-togethers and tries to

meditate more since the person that they're dating is constantly on them to meditate they're keeping score Jay will have a series of relationships like this where the dynamic of being in trouble with someone is always there as a familiar struggle Jay feels good for a couple weeks with a positivity thing but experiences some nightmares about Thanksgiving the confrontations with their family about what they what they did or didn't do to their mother sleeping overnight at the airport being publicly shamed in class is a is a nightmare that keeps kind of keep coming up and the

excitement and The Refuge from the teaching of positivity stopped working and now Jay feels that they have failed at what seems like others can easily do so moving on to what would be helpful for Jay if Jay would take another risk and maybe see another therapist who can actually find a trained trauma therapist who is more than trauma informed and understands abuse of family systems and can help Jay unpack the facts that they are having an appropriate struggle and they're justified in the things that they're struggling with and their symptoms so a good therapist would

help them lean into those facts with Jay and canceling out all the outside and the insides victim shaming kind of noise that they're experiencing the only challenging energy that would be coming from the therapist is when they need to redirect Jay when they ask am I just making all this up and focus on the facts and they would help them feel the Justified upset by expressing upset on their behalf I can't believe they did that to you kind of stuff and focusing on the facts here are those facts that since birth that Jay has been

emotionally abused by being the scapegoated child by a mentally ill mother a co-dependent unprotective father and a family system that supports the most abusive person the family orbits around that mother who has a personality disorder to which they are willfully blind to Jay was sexually abused at a young age by a family predator and instead of being protected and having their right size reaction taken as a sign about the family perpetrator they were blamed for their reaction and emotionally abused around their accurate perception that this person wasn't safe and they're not safe this violated Jay's

body and feeling on many levels there's parental betrayal in there and the worst part about it is taking away someone's god-given natural perception Jay was physically abused and betrayed by the father who just behaved as a compliant Soldier for the narcissistic mother Jay's father had the power to protect and instead willingly crossed a boundary for his abusive and Ill toxic spouse more facts Jay lost a natural relationship with their sibling who also abused them and they also show symptoms of being raised in a toxic family the innocence and the connection to family and siblings is

now corrupted by the parental hierarchy so Jay's symptoms of depression and anxiety shame self-harm confusions Association coping with achieving people-pleasing loss of healthy identity perception problems overly apologizing and living in the assumption that they're bad or that they're in trouble are cptsd symptoms and are totally appropriate for what they experience in that family during their development in their family system of origin but get over it you know don't keep looking in the rear view mirror communicate better with your family stop demanding your victim card being stamped parents are sinners but so are you you know

I'm so sick of you weak people who can't handle anything so to recap how Society responds to abusive abuse survivors chances are you've experienced and the same Journey about trying to find answers about what happened to you in your own family system if you identify with childhood trauma it's similar to Jay what they experienced and if I'm telling your story through this video while it feels intense and super intimate it's more common than people recognize my own story is in this along with dozens of my clients and my trainees for those who I'm even those

who I'm close with it might feel that I was at your Thanksgiving table when you had your own version of the slap but I wasn't and many of us have been there so it's that's a thing the case of J in that hypothetical individual was emotionally sexually and physically abused by their family of origin here's how the world responds to Jay the family attacks gaslights and shame so much to the point that J is somewhat of a linchpin that gives the family a purpose and a common enemy I really want you to kind of take

that in there's a purpose the the scapegoat serves a purpose the therapist shame Jay for focusing on the mother's feelings and motives wasn't trauma informed had their own agenda and only offered a toxic positive spin on the abuse and sent Jay on their way expecting them to continue sessions with them the cousin who is half safe Advocates or advises that Jay should have known better and that going there with family therefore shouldn't you shouldn't be struggling with this because you should just have figured it out um dating a partner who replicates the family message that

Jay's feelings are wrong and that they're doing life wrong and they should submit to people who know better um aggressive strangers online self-described experts on how all families are right and how selfish individuals like Jay are just mentally ill attention Seekers who need to get over it and grow up and they're not interested in facts so well-meaning strangers online who advise without explicit instruction keep that point to you to let it go and to move on and don't focus on the past it's just that easy everyone the self-help world that can be rooted in toxic

positivity while looking good on paper results in indirectly telling survivors if they aren't happy they're doing something wrong so um and that can exist in a lot of the the yoga World spiritual world all kinds of Worlds out there um that's where I'm kind of glumping that into um here is what I think at the root issue um with all of those communities and commonalities have in common from family all the way to the self-help toxic positivity crowd ideas is that I think there is an intense aversion to a Survivor processing what happened to them

and I find that the aversion is instantaneous uh like the toxic commenter online or the bad therapist or the cousin or even the toxic positive psych Instagram influencer the message is don't feel that way don't come at me with that I feel like you're wanting sympathy for me and that you'll trap me in that kind of victimhood and I'll have to take care of you and you're going to make me a hostage it's a it's as if that it's a you're behaving in a way that might be contagious and especially from the commenters online you'll

see this marked reaction like it's the Survivor is breaking a social taboo a contract to just be as repressed and as tough as they are to take it on the chin like the rest of us and don't drag others down with them so survivors who want answers and help with feelings like what what Jays say Jay's father who hit them for upsetting their ridiculous Mother where Jay isn't looking for a handout or a pity party most clients even struggle taking in mirroring and empathy and reflection they're not seeking this attention um in fact they even

don't like the attention actually we're usually just in need of having a safe witness and people throwing the don't be a victim stuff around don't get that processing and talking and doing therapy work is the action of getting on and moving on with our lives but they're you're making it into a choice or something like that so in short I see those who accuse survivors as living in the victim mindset as being deeply triggered around emotions themselves for various reasons for their own childhood such as being raised in families that are disgusted by emotions being

raised in families with um like suffer in silence kind of mottos you know being raised in families that celebrate suppression and repression like Grandpa lost his whole family at the age of 20 in a car wreck but went to work the same day and never talked about it again but Grandpa struggles with rage and alcoholism but we ignore that and we just admire that the Grandpa's toughness being raised in families where there was a manipulative attention-seeking member or a family member who was an addict and ruined family or abuse to family by their own self-seeking

being raised in families with this is big low emotional intelligence severe distrust of Outsiders and needing like a clannish homogeny to feel safe and then when you're commenting about feelings online you're a threat so who taught those shaming individuals to have such an aversion to a survivor's feelings the get over it crowd has thanksgivings just like Jay does um but they're they're fine with Grandpa's alcoholic Rage or at least they enable it and dismiss the impact it's water under the bridge and it makes them a superior person somehow so keep asking yourself what is so

threatening to them about you discussing or processing your factual abuse so at the end of the day they can't handle it they can't handle you doing that so some final thoughts I want to come back to that definitive list of victim mindset and to be clear um that it's a definitive Behavior it's actually thing you know individuals like Jay's mother exhibits most if not all of those qualities some mild paranoia about the world being against her engaging in a pity party blaming others for your emotional experience and here is the most prevalent factor in Jay's

mother or victim mindset or even my own mother and it's this is that they are more interested in looking like someone who needs care and sympathy then actually fixing their own problems does anyone out there have a parent like that yet people accuse you of doing it when you're processing your childhood trauma and what does it sound like does it does it sound like to you that Jay has a victim mindset they didn't seek help from that therapist or cousin or people on to get attention they were just seeking answers and asking for help there's

a huge difference in those two things so I've been in private practice since about 2013 and if if say I've seen 500 individual clients um that have come through my practice for getting help with childhood trauma perhaps less than one percent of them just wanted my attention about how what bad it was for them and they weren't really interested in doing any real work with me they just wanted to keep that conversation going and currently according to strangers online or toxic families or parents there's a narrative that there's an epidemic of overly emotional self-diagnosed abuse

survivors who crumble at anything hard it's how Jay or anyone feeling their feelings would be labeled in its total BS are there people out there who just want attention and don't have any intention on changing or healing sure sure that exists but I don't see it in my practice or even online and if they do they're most likely struggling with potentially another mental health problem but that old saying if you're a hammer everything looks like a nail meaning about these commenters so I think we're actually evolving as a species at looking at what happens in

the Human family system but change in progress are super slow and that narrative about how anyone discussing a beautiful abusive parents is living in a victim mindset total BS to be clear to clear up things in my message here is that victim mindset is actually a thing but it's overly prescribed epidemically overly prescribed or attributed to those seeking to process their childhood trauma or abuse positive psychology or mind positive mindset stuff isn't bad at all or toxic at all I think it's great it's helpful but it doesn't heal all or help process childhood trauma it's

the it's just a tool that isn't applicable in that way till much later um there are not bad therapies but they can be bad when administered at the wrong time for the wrong Affliction so positivity is helpful to Rally somebody out of The Human Condition I think but telling a trauma Survivor that they should be positive and forego processing abuse it's like treating cancer with a diabetes medication it's just off so we're most likely not going to educate the general public and being less triggered and being more empathic and these ideas are for your own

healing and reclaiming your own perception of yourself and your process that the abuse was real and it matters and there's nothing wrong with you for speaking your truth or seeking answers um what Jay should be hearing from someone is of course you're struggling of course you're struggling with those symptoms it's appropriate to have those symptoms because look at the nightmare that you just came from you were never safe and you need your day in court with your family emotionally where you can have someone witness and experience a little bit of justice and move on and

experience some grief so I hope that this video was helpful to cut out the noise from the community or your family or an old therapist or strangers online we don't let toxic people tell us who we are anymore or tell us what our experience was and if you like this video feel free to hit some buttons on the screen you can't miss with any of the buttons specifically the like button the Subscribe button and if you're interested in starting to do some work on this stuff I run a healthy Community membership signing up for it

is like right up here the membership involves e-courses live q and A's twice a month and weekly journaling prompts about inner child work and childhood trauma recovery and as always may you be filled with loving kindness may you be well may you be peaceful and at ease and may you be joyous and I will see you next time foreign [Music] [Music]