A Shattered Life: Victor Vs. VictimНамуна

Types of Victimization: Addicted to Pain

We victims, unfortunately, can become addicted to our pain. You may ask, who would want that? But, we don’t plan to become addicted to pain. It’s sometimes a consequence that comes from the streaks that are part of the shattering. 

Often the pains and hurts (even totally justifiable pains) can go without care for so long they become our friends. The old wounds are comfortable. They are unchanging, and most humans (sheepishly raising my hand here) would rather know what to expect rather than imagining the unknown that may come with the process of healing our old comfortable wounds. Getting better can even be more painful for a time, and it can produce unexpected results. Even if some of our circumstances have changed for the better, we can still tend to crave that “poor me“ drive.

I realized that some of my distress was giving me an energy for life that drove me to strive. Some of that striving looked good, often leading me to success, but as I worked through healing I noticed that some of the striving was just that. Striving…for no end…for nothing meaningful or lasting. Striving to fill a gap the pain left that I should have filled with Godly healing. As I was working through rehabilitating from my old familiar aches and pains, the healing literally left a sense of void. 

Do you recognize this in yourself? Do you find yourself using victim mentality in your brain as a kind of drug? For me, instead of acknowledging my pain, I would ferociously work out, or madly clean my house. I would throw myself into a volunteer project, or angrily control my kids. When I felt down and unmotivated I would dwell on the injustice of my wounds and then I would be fired up again to keep striving to appear productive. You may be like I was: afraid, whether consciously or subconsciously, that I wouldn’t know how to keep going or know what would give me a drive in life without that fuel of pain. I was in a survival cycle for so long that I forgot there was a way to live an abundant life.

If we’ve lived in this survival mode long enough it’s like we don’t even know how to act as a free victor. Deep ruts of victim mentality run rampant through our brain like those streaks of broken glass, warping clear purpose and vision. Often we even try to operate our life a different way, but the attempts just move us back again into those same negative ditches. Therefore, we live defeated like an addict. We are defined by defeat—a victim— addicted to victim mentality.

There is only one thing we should be addicted to. Only one thing we should use as fuel for energy and a “keep fighting” mentality in life. It goes back to the number one commandment in the Bible. GOD. You shall love the Lord your God with ALL your heart, ALL your mind, ALL your strength. Anything else will keep us living defeated, no matter how successful we might look on the outside. We need to grow our relationship with Him until we crave it so deeply we aren’t ok with going moments without Him. To get to know Him so intimately those other sources of fuel will feel as fake and processed as they really are. God is your Source. Your Strength. Your Fuel. Your Engine. HE is all. He was all. He will be all. 

Until I actually learned what it meant to really BELIEVE He was my source, and how to intentionally depend on Him as my very breath, I was never able to conquer my addiction to victim mentality. If we don’t learn and grow in a true relationship with Him, we will only know how to live in the old ruts in our minds. The enemy will win.

Look at your list of pain from Day 1. Think through some of those hurts you still battle and ask God to reveal to you any areas you are holding onto the pain because you’re used to it, comfortable with it, or depending on it for energy. Ask God to give you the steps to turning that addiction into an addiction for Him. Pray and brainstorm how it may look in your life to put your eyes on Him, rather than your pain.