I've been thinking about this thread all day -- Deli, you always do raise the most thought-provoking questions!

I agree that having that victim mindset does not imply that one isn't competent at taking care of oneself. I've also always taken care of myself, but, yes, I have come to realize that I do, in a sense, think of myself as a victim.

The problem is, I actually am a victim, I did undergo people abusing me. That's just reality.

I think that the difficulty here is distinguishing between (and I'm just inventing terminology here) "being a victim" and "having a victim mindset."

"Being a victim" is often just an unfortunate fact.

"Have a victim mindset" is generalizing that experience to other aspects of one's life. I mean thinking that the world in general is going to take advantage of <me>, or hurt <me> or thinking that someone <I> am less capable or more wounded or more something, as a kind of general constraint, which will always exist, and which always will differentiate <me> from the more normal folks in the world.

So, it's kind of like "being a victim" is a fact, which can be dealt with in a variety of ways, and "having a victim mindset" is a story that <I> tell myself around that fact.

And the story can always be changed.

So does that make any sense to anyone? I'm really just thinking out loud here, but this is actually a question I've been mulling over recently.

-Far