T says that I don't recognize myself as a victim

[Logan]

I saw my T today after a little break because he went on vacation.

We began discussing some general stuff and half way into the appointment, he stops me as and brings up something kinda strange.

He says that I have trouble viewing myself as a Victim!
He said that I have such a fierce resistance to being seen as a victim, that I won't even admit it to myself emotionally and that this is important that I allow myself to feel this. He said that by acknowledging and allowing myself to feel this way would not be a weakness but rather a testament of strength that I was able to survive such horrendous multiple ordeals at a young age. That by emotionally making this acknowledgment I will finally forgive myself internally and relinquish the pent up self blame that, he says, I am still clinging to!!!

What do you guys think? Is what he saying making sense?

I thought that I was well past all of this so it came as a surprise to hear this.

I know that I Loathe being seen and seeing myself as a victim, but, I didn't think that was hindering me from truly acknowledging it.

He says that I harbor a tremendous amount of misguided self blame and self hatred, and by doing this I would free myself of it and be giving myself a reprieve of sorts.

To me, this logic seems like I am going backwards if I did that. I mean I have already told him absolutely everything (that I remember), and I have shed more tears in the process than I care to recall.
I am very unsure of what to do and even if I was to attempt, how the hell would I go about it?
Am I supposed to chant to myself that "it wasn't my fault because I was a poor little victim?"

Even if what he says has merit, I have know idea how to change the way I view myself and things now? It feels like it is too ingrained in who I am and its just too late to change this attitude that I feels is partly responsible for the stuff in my past from happening at all!!

Has anybody felt the same way?


Oh BTW, I am very sorry for burdening you guys with my own sh*t and for complaining constantly. I really don't ever want to do that!!

Thankyou for any help in advance.

Sincerely,
Logan

 

[KMCINVA]

Logan

I think our denial puts us in a place of denying the abuse, thus if no abuse no victim. I learned I needed to accept I was a victim, a victim is defined as a person injured, harmed or killed as a result of a crime, accident or other event. I was a victim it was a crime on a child.

I also came to terms by not accepting I was a victim played into my thinking I was responsible for what happened in the Church cellar. I began to realize it all went circular. Once I could accept I was a victim, thus not responsible for what happened, I could begin to shed the guilt and shame. I could move into being a survivor of what was done. However, I needed more work and support to move to being a thriver.

In time I accepted I was a victim and then somewhere along the way I was not a victim but a survivor. Today I am seeing myself more in the thriver mode.

I am not sure if this is where your therapist is going--but this is how I have to think of my process and evolution.

I am glad you are raising these issues because we all are or have faced them as we tried to heal.

Kevin

 

[ForeverFighting]

I feel your frustration, Logan. And I hope this *is* the place to be laying out our burdens, because I do it all the time. We try to help others, and we also get feedback on our own stuff. It’s why we’re here. I don’t think it’s complaining--it’s trying to make sense of this interminable process.

I kind of felt like you. I’ve been doing this work for... 20 years? And I’ve been here for a long time. I thought I’d written and talked about every detail and I was past all of this. I was talking to my wife just last night about how it seemed like I had about 10 years of *not* having this so much, and now here it all is again! Then we started talking about the "good years"--if I had to do public speaking at work, I’d be totally down flat for 3 days. Stuff like that. I trembled so much, I started to worry I had Parkinson’s or something. I was having anxiety like crazy, and finally I went back to therapy.

I’m finding that even though I talked through the details years ago and cried my brains out, there were these huge pieces of the puzzle that I was still missing. And wow, they were the biggies, the ones now making me see the entire picture. It wasn’t an act by one horrible man--it was my entire world over which I had no control. Literally every person I knew was toxic. The truth of my life is now just sinking in, even though I thought I had worked so hard on all of this before.

I’m not trying to make your post about me, really. And I don’t know where you are in this healing process. Your therapist may be totally off base. I’m just saying that if your therapist had said that to me 3 months ago, he would have been totally correct. And as you can see from my emotional roller coster of posts, I’m not even close to having this all worked out. Which feels all the more bazaar, because I thought I already did.

Either way, you are a valuable member here. You’ve certainly done enough for others here that you can unload your burdens and we’ll try to help. It’s the least we can do.

Take care, Logan.

Michael

 

[devon46]

Logan you describe my life exactly ,everybody tells me it was abuse ,inside i don't understand that .maybe i do know it was abuse .convincing the kid inside that it was is another story. i didn't know it was abuse till someone told me.it was just my life to that point. thanks for starting this topic

 

[sorryson]

I guess we all were victims. I was a victim of the priest teacher, I never know which trusted figure to call him, as well as one of my Mama and her family. I do not think Mama and her family knew they were victimizing us when they made Mama leave us and Dad. And the put Dad down when he was fighting his own abuse. We caused more abuse and made him a victim of us. It seems to keep going and going. I think families teach the children to do what they learned. All I know there were so many victims in my life and I now know I was a victim. Until Dad died I never realized I was a victim or was he one as well. Mama was even a victim of her family most of her life. She only now admits it because she did not see it. She thought is how families treat each other.

My abuse I was blinded by. I tried to hide and run. I finally said one day I was a victim and I am getting better. I still fall back. It is hard. My doctor said to me I needed to admit I was a victim if I wanted to begin to put the abuse behind me. Logan I see so much of me in what you wrote. It scares me. I think I have a long way to go. So many ways I was a victim and facing them all is hard. I am doing it very slowly but doing it.

I do not want to always think of myself as a victim. I want to be a survivor. I will one day, and maybe I am getting there and do not know it.

Paul

 

[Logan]

Thank you all very much for replying to this very difficult topic.

I Find it difficult because just the word "Victim," can have and hold many different meanings and complications from those meanings! One such complication that I think I have Identified is that to admit that one is or even was a Victim at any stage of their life can be perceived in direct contradiction with ones Gender Identity, aka. being male!!!!

If I admit that somehow I was a sexual victim by other males, I don't know why it feels this way, but I feel like less of a man and that hurts me to my core!

Another facet of this is that the later sexual abuse i faced was overt and therefore clearly a violation, however, the early parts of it from ages 6 1/2-10 1/2, were either very subtle or I simple went along with them because I did not even think of what they/we were doing was wrong--back then my neighbor gave me lots of much needed and valued attention that i enjoyed and felt that my small participation was a small price to pay for his validation. Besides, my alternative was to be beat up chronically at home, so naturally I chose to be in those situations because I felt valued, not abused!
I don't know that I can in good conscious say that I was a victim of sexually abuse at that time---yes I do realize now that him touching me for his gratification was wrong, but it didn't seem to bother me that much.

I would like to continue discussing this further and I will, but I just realized the time and I have to get up early in the mourning.

Thank you for allowing me to discuss this difficult topic.

Sincerely,
Logan

 

[WG]

Logan - Yes, its a difficult topic. I do see myself as having been a victim - because as it was explained above, the individual has had something done to them that was a violation of some sort and they had no control over the situation. My T also has gone there with me. However, I do see myself now as a survivor. No longer a victim.
Unlike some of you in here, not everyone in my kid world was toxic. There were some adults who were kind and giving and caring - I just didn't get to see them as often as I would have liked.
I, too, have thought I had cried and hurt enough over what was done to me - and there's still more. However, I believe that as we move further along into our healing, we do become more and more of a survivor. Time goes on, we go on, days come and go and life moves forward - and we can learn to move on with it. The Younger Me didn't do that - and I needed to return to him and get to know him (like in Victims No More by Mike Lew - there's a part where we go back to him and learn about him), but now I am and it helps me to heal and move forward and not stay so stuck. I get stuck sometimes, but its easier now to speak to it and work through it.

 

[unhappycamper]

Logan (& other guys):

I don't have a problem with saying I was a "victim." All that means is that I was on the receiving end of a couple of crimes against the person. IMHO (and IMHX), "victim" is just a(n) historical fact, not a character trait. I think it's a mistake to give the word any more power than that.

Just sayin'. Peace, all!

John C.

 

[Nothing Man]

Hi Logan. It is indeed a difficult question and I am glad you are talking about it. The more we talk and process this information the less frightening it becomes.

Please remember that nobody is allowing you to speak your mind here on these boards -- you a a person worthy of being here among your brothers who have also walked the trail you are following.

Yes, in a sense we are all victims in that, as unhappycamper said, we were on the receiving end of crimes. I agree with him that it is a historical fact and not a personal flaw. But it is also important that we understand how we see ourselves. Not seeing ourselves as a victim is empowering because it implies we were not at fault for the assaults done to us. We have survived the worst the perps could throw at us and we are strong for it, even while we may feel weak.

You certainly do not have to regard yourself as a victim. We are all entitled to define ourselves through our own lens of experience. You are a strong man who is working so hard to overcome so much. You should be proud of yourself.

Your friend, Mike