Victim

So, I have to write a post on this topic. I feel like I am being called to write it… It seems that in society today that there are so many people with the “victim mentality.” This may be controversial to some, but it is not intended to be. It is merely my observation and opinion. When I say, “Victim Mentality” I mean those who never find fault in themselves but are always able to find fault in someone else. I feel like this mentality steals the thunder of those who really are victims in this world. In reality, we are all a victim of something. What makes the difference in life is if we choose to live in that place in our own minds. Some of us have significant reasons to be a victim. Some of  us don’t really have a reason at all, but we were never raised to see our own faults so we innately make it someone else’s fault. Either way, who does this help? Does it help any of us to live blaming others for our hurt? Nope, it only causes us to continually hurt, hate, blame shift, and never live up to what God created us to do. I can say this because I spent a lot of time in early adulthood living in this mentality. Making my parents feel awful for never being the parents that I thought they should be or protecting me the way that I thought they should. Now that I am a mother and a nurse, I see what my parents did for me. They didn’t mean to do it, but it was kinda just the circumstances at the time. They didn’t rescue me from life. They didn’t talk to my teachers for me. They didn’t coddle me or fight my battles for me. They stepped in after I proved that I had exhausted all my resources. But believe me, I had to prove that I had attempted communication through the “chain of command.” (My dad is a retired Lt. Col. for the Army) Everything was about respect and following the chain of command. If you know him today, he is nothing like he was when I was growing up. My kids see a much softer side. I mean seriously, there was no pouting or acting like a baby when it came to my dad. He had no mercy because he knew the world would have no mercy. My brother got sent to military school for an entire summer. I will never forget dropping him off. I realized at that point in time, my dad wasn’t playing around! It hit home people! Coming back to my original point… I know enough about myself to know that I am strong-willed. If I hadn’t had my dad there, challenging me to act right and be better, where would I be? Who would I be? When I got pregnant at 19, he said good luck. He supported me emotionally and he has always been a wonderful grandpa.. but he wanted me to feel the extent of my decisions. My very real, very life altering decisions. I am glad that he did! It has made me better, more mature, and stronger than I ever imagined. As a nurse today, I watch parents coddle and coddle and coddle some more. It is natural. I catch myself doing it and then I have to talk myself out of it… As my children get older, I am reminded more and more of why I need to step back from taking action and be more of a verbal guide for them. Now, I am not saying that parents should not be parents in situations that call for it… don’t twist this into something extreme. I am saying that we need to allow our children to handle their lives, fight some battles, and fail if they need to. It is the only way that they will learn how strong they are as an individual, how to rely on God, and how to cope effectively. My parents didn’t do everything the right way and I don’t do everything the right way. But I am trying to be a good parent and I know God sees my imperfect effort. (He probably laughs a lot too..it makes me smile to think about me making God laugh….#winning) I have a great friend that is so smart..(she’s a social worker and she is excellent at it!) One day she and I were talking. I am telling her how I feel like I work too much and I am not a good mom for all kinds of reasons. She says, “Amanda, do your kids have a better life than you did at their age?” I say, “Heck yes, my parents fought all the time and childhood was hectic.” She said, “then you are doing your job.” I had never thought about it like that. I was so busy being hard on myself and BLAMING life circumstances for having to work so much that I didn’t realize what I was doing right. This is just one example, but reflecting on life I see how many different times I have done this to myself. For me, it had to do with changing my outlook to simply see what was going right and what I was doing right. We don’t need a world full of people blaming each other. We need a world full of generations of people who know how to help themselves, help each other, and pick themselves up and dust themselves off when the situation calls for it. We need to stop being the victims and start being the winners!