[Apollia]

Originally Posted by Ecce Homo

Hmm. I see what you’re saying. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with me Apollia.

You're welcome, thank you too!

In my experience, I can’t be a victim unless I decide to interpret events in my life's story that way. In fact, now that I look back on my life, I’ve never been a victim, even though I grew up in a household that others might consider as “abusive”. For instance, my father hit me.

I'm sorry that happened.

Ok. That, for me, would be a fact of my past. Now, in the golden olden days, I interpreted that fact to also "be" abuse and I unwittingly took on the feelings of righteous indignation and moral outrage, not to mention years of depression that I thought I was supposed to feel having been a “victim” of “abuse”.

I haven't experienced physical abuse but I definitely know what it's like to be consumed with moral outrage over undeserved bad treatment.

I was filled with fury when I was a teenager, but I toned it down when I got older and realized I was provoking some of the treatment I objected to myself by retaliating with harsh words, etc.

I still feel that I was justified to an extent and don't really blame myself for my anger, but I learned to adapt to my circumstances and be more compromising and somewhat more forgiving of the other people's perspectives and actions, which itself made my life more pleasant.

I would likely be a much more harsh and uncompromising person now if not for those experiences. Though, alternatively, I could have become a very embittered, negative, even hateful person. And in fact, I was that way for a while.

But now, I've either repressed my feelings quite a bit, or, as I prefer to believe, I've really risen above my formerly consuming negativity to an extent.

Not that I now spinelessly bend over backwards when treated poorly - I still have what I consider a healthy capacity for outrage, and tend to agree with the Frederick Douglass quote "The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose."

(DISCLAIMER: By no longer thinking of myself as a victim of abuse, I am not condoning, or labeling the action of hitting children, as morally good, nor would I recommend it as a parenting strategy. That’s not my point, just in case anyone reading this thinks that. It seems to be the conclusion a lot of people jump to when you move away from using words like “victim” and “abuse” to describe an experience, as in, “I must be condoning child abuse if I don’t label my fathers actions as abusive nor feel the requisite moral outrage.” That would most definitely not be true. The fact is, I would NEVER condone acts that can be considered as unkind and unloving.)

Ditto, I wouldn't wish my bad experiences on anyone either, no matter how much they taught me.

Having thought of myself as a victim in the past, I understand that we are all doing the best we can with the information we have. I for one would not use the word “victim” to put someone else down. That’s certainly not how I intended my post, although I can see how others might read it that way. In a very real sense, that first paragraph I typed describing what victims might believe was actually me typing about my former beliefs. Those are the things I believed once upon a time and I suffered for years as a result. But I don’t put myself down for believing those things. I understand that I was doing the best I knew how to do for myself. Like I said before, when we know better, we do better. In the meantime, we’re all doing what we can to be happy.

Yes, I agree. You seem like a really sweet, kind person, who has gained a lot of wisdom and made lots of lemonade out of the lemons life handed you.

Thanks again for your replies.

Best wishes,
Apollia