Seriously, What’s Wrong With Being a Victim?

We have to ask ourselves who benefits from this narrative?

Photo by Heather Ford on Unsplash

It’s so common these days for someone to call another person a victim as an insult. What does this even mean?

First of all, let’s differentiate between what it means to be a victim and to have a victim mentality.

A victim mentality is an acquired personality trait in which a person tends to recognize or consider themselves a victim of the negative actions of others, and to behave as if this were the case in the face of contrary evidence of such circumstances.

I bolded that people with a victim mentality behave like victims in circumstances when they are not — in spite of contrary evidence.

Let’s be clear that a victim mentality is an acquired personality trait — which means the person has probably been victimized before — but that’s not the point of this article.

Some people are actual victims, and that’s okay. A victim is a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action. Another definition is someone who has suffered as a result of someone else’s actions or beliefs, or as a result of unpleasant circumstances.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that people who have been victimized benefit from taking their power…