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Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans
How did you feel when they said that?
I don't think I'd like to hear someone say that to me. On the other hand, when you're repeatedly finding yourself in the same situation, maybe it's time to think about your contribution to the situation.
Often a really good T can help you come to your own conclusions just by giving you time to hear yourself. They could for example say something like:
"does it seem to you like there might be some similarities between your experience with Bob and your experience with Jane?
"Huh, what do you make of that?"
"What would it feel like to you if you expressed your anger/left the room/broke off contact at that point?"
IMHO it is much more satisfying and powerful to figure it out myself than to be told what T sees even if it takes (much) longer. By the time I've come to my own conclusion I feel more able to change. When someone tells me I have to change I feel a bit frozen and uncertain of my ability to do so.
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Thank you for your advice and I am thinking the very same that I find myself in the same situations- relationships with abusive people. So, I must take responsibility for my contribution to these unhealthy relationships.
It is not nice to have someone point this out to me but on the other hand by pointing it out I can change something and make thing better and have a better quality of life. I didnt relaise I was a codependant but I am very much so and am working on becoming more involved in my own life and not others.
Thank you again for your post, it gave me some clarity
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1914sierra
I've never had this description used to describe the actual abuse I went through (and I wonder if you are misunderstanding that). When I've been described as taking on the victim's role, it has been in the context of current life, not past abuse.
I am no longer the child who was truly victimized and powerless. I have the power, cognitive ability, and choice now as to how I react to current events in my life. I have options (if I choose to take them) and skills (if I choose to use them) to get me through the difficult times I encounter as an adult that I simply didn't have as a child.
If I choose not to recognize my options and skills and abilities now, then yes, I may very well be choosing (however unconsciously) to take on the victim's role. I'm not a powerless child anymore. That's not to say utilizing my adult abilities and options is easy. It's not. Growing up having been truly victimized has a way of stunting our growth for dealing with conflict and turmoil, but we don't have to stay at that childhood level forever. T's work to help us see that we do, indeed, have those abilities and options that we've sort of grown blind to over the years, probably out of sheer fear, again engrained in us during our abuse.
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Perhaps you are right Chris, maybe i did misunderstand the way it was used, I have been known to this before. i am getting to the stage now where I realise I have choices and can change my situation. I never thought about that before entering therapy, I was always so caught up in trying to please others. Thank you for your response, it is very empowering
Quote:
Originally Posted by Perna
I think of victim "role" as being a kind of acceptance that bad things happened to me. This person did this, that and the other horrible thing to me and I couldn't do anything about it, etc. but one leaves out the anger that goes with having things done to one's self that one does not like; being "forced".
Force requires resistance; yes, often lack of resistance is necessary so one can live to fight another day, but it's never necessary in talking to a T, saying you now do X because Y happened to you; Y definitely has an influence but cannot force your current response if you are an adult. The battered woman can leave (and usually eventually does or dies/gets seriously hurt) but does not; there are always choices and no one else can say what is good or bad or right or wrong but "helpless" when telling one's story is a victim "role".
I think T's want to hear, "The bassturd held me at knife point so I couldn't do anything" not, "He told me not to and I didn't want to make him angry so there wasn't anything I could do."
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I think that lately t is forcing me into hearing things that I should be working out on my own or maybe I am not even capable of working things out on my own just yet and need to hear these things.
I wish I wasn't a victim but truth is i have always been a victim of abuse, sexual, physical and emotional and some part of me lets this happen and that makes me feel sick to my stomach. My first t told me that and I hated her because I thought she was trying to hurt me, ( I was putting myself into the victim role again).