Hi Everyone,
As I have been reading through some threads I found myself reflecting back to this article on Victim Anger which was very helpful for me in healing the wound from N fakesaint as well as the underlining wounds of my childhood that surfaced from her abuse.
Such as what it was like as a child to be rendered voiceless through silent shame and aggression, which was triggered by the covert aggression of Nfakesaint, as well as the need to speak out about how unfair the treatment was which was a parallel to my mom's abuse. The feelings I had as a child of hatred for my mom as well as that huge disappointing feeling that it was not fair have come up and out and are still coming. Nfake saint retraumatized me in a similar way as she covertly raped my heart and then rendered me silent with the smear campaign.
This article helped me to see that I had a deep layer of this victim anger stuff from a childhood of voicelessness and emotional neglect. The victim anger led me to self-destruct in many ways throughout my life in a silent unconscious fight for justice; if I could not get them then I would get me...it is and was really all about seeking relief, or satisfaction, in order to cope with the overwhelming pain and sense of helplessness of emotional abuse as a child.
My healing came when I made the conscious decision to no longer seek satisfaction; a giving up of self-hatred, a giving up of hurting me to get back at them; a giving up of self-justice and rather trusting God to render His justice in His time.
I hope this helps others here. It took me a while to digest this article but I kept at it; reading and reading until if finally sunk in and the tears came out.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VICTIM ANGER by,
Raymond Lloyd Richmond, Ph.D.
According to the principles of geometry, an infinite
number of lines can be drawn through a single point,
To define any one particular line, however, two points
are needed.
The same sort of principle applies to psychology. The
experience of one trauma, for example, does not tell
you much about your unconscious, because any
explanation is as good as any other, If you are raped
once, or if you get in a car crash, no one has a right
to point at you and say, "You did this wrong," or "You
did that wrong." It's simply impossible to deduce
anything psychological from one event.
But if the trauma is repeated, then you have two
points to define a line that can be tracked back into
the past and projected into the future. This is the
time to sit up and take notice, because if you don't,
there will likely be a third time, And there may be
others again, until you start to look at your life and
ask yourself what is going on.
This concept of psychological repetition, however, has
nothing to do with naturally recurring cycles. If your
neighbor wakes you up early every morning when he
goes to work, for example, you might feel angry, but
this isn't victim anger.
Repetition refers to an unconscious process by which
you essentially lead yourself into trouble over and
over.
For some dark, unknown reason, you so despise yourself
that you continually put yourself at physical or
psychological risk, And the failure to accept that
this unconscious process has you trapped in its
clutches leads to victim anger.
As trauma after trauma batters you, you will begin to
say, "Why me? This isn't fair!" You will blame anyone
who gets in your way. You will feel like an innocent
victim being persecuted by the world, You might even
become a psychological "terrorist" whose unconscious
objective is to undermine the structure of any
authority perceived to be unjust and uncaring. But
because you can't look at your responsibility in what
is happening, you will develop a victim mentality,
believing that every painful event in your life is
"their" fault, and you will have fallen into victim
anger.
A careful distinction must be made here in
regard
to "naturally" repeated child abuse and repetition.
When a child is abused, it cannot be claimed that
the child has any responsibility for the abuse.
Violence is always the responsibility of the
perpetrator, and, when violence is repeated, the
perpetrator is at fault.This repeated abuse is
therefore not a result of the child's unconscious
desires.
But there is a psychodynamic process called
identification with the Aggressor in which the abused
child, in trying to make sense of something
essentially senseless, comes to believe that the abuse
must somehow be justified, and the child will
therefore unconsciously seek to befriend, and even
imitate, the abuser. With this dynamic in place, blame
and anger toward the abuser becomes turned
toward the self, thus beginning the repetition of an
unconscious, self-inflicted abuse.
In fact, scientific research has shown that adults
who were sexually abused as children tend to have
a high risk for sexual assault (e.g., rape) as adults.
Moreover, the research shows that adult sexual assault
victims who were also abused as children tend to have
even lower levels of mental health functioning than
those persons who were sexually abused as children but
not revictimized as adults.
So what's going on here? Well, the
psychological
process of developing an unconscious sense of victim
anger is largely a matter of misdirected blame:
Here's how it works in common-sense language:
1. As a result of abuse, the child experiences
painful fear and hatred of the abuser(s).
2. But because the child feels essentially
powerless to stop the abuse or to convince
anyone to help, the child begins to perceive
the whole world as "unfair."
3. The child blames the world for being un-
fair, and, at the same time, begins to blame
himself or herself for not being "good
enough" to put up a successful fight against
the world.
4. The child learns that blaming the world
does not provide any immediate gratifica-
tion, and that punishing the world is not an
easy task, but that blaming the self-and
punishing the self-can provide immediate
and controlled satisfaction.
5, Because this self-destructive behavior is
unconsciously directed against the world,
however, and not against the self, the child
cannot realize, let alone accept consciously,
that he or she is now causing most of his or
her own pain.
6, Therefore, the child grows into an adult
who harbors an aching bitterness against
the world for its unpunished abuses, and,
at the same time, at every disappointment
he or she will find some convenient, secret
means of self-sabotage-and will then feel
justified in saying, "Look what they did to
me! It's not fair!"
And what strange satisfaction maintains all this
self-destruction? Well, it's the satisfaction of
unconsciously hoping to show the world how wrong it
is. Like Hamlet holding a mirror up to his mother,
hoping that she will see in herself the responsibility
she played in the death of the king, the person
trapped in victim anger will hold
up his own destruction as "evidence" that, he hopes,
will condemn the world.
Thus you might hear someone saying, "So what if I get
cancer from smoking? Maybe it will serve them right.
Then they will see how much I had to suffer," And so
this unfortunate life will end, just like Hamlet,
cluttered with death and destruction.
Unlike a martyr, though, who lays down his or her life
out of pure love, this self-destruction has its deep
motivation in bitterness, hatred, and an obstinate
rejection of forgiveness.
When confronted by the victim anger of repetition,
therefore, your only hope is first to resolve the
repetition that traps you, You can't forgive"others if
the real problem is yourself: How can you accept the
ugly part of human nature if you can't see it in
yourself and if you can't accept your personal
responsibility for constantly placing yourself at
risk? If you don't recognize the repetition,
all the kings horses and all the king's men-and
all the anger management classes in the world-won't
save you from your own unconscious efforts to destroy
yourself as you remain locked in the dark identity of
being a victim.
