Chronic Victimism: People Who Complain About Vice

Anyone, in any situation in her life, has had to assume the victim role. Most of the time, this role is assumed based on objective facts that justify that we can feel more vulnerable or helpless.

Victimism as a personality

However, there are people who display chronic victimhood: They are in a permanent state of unfounded complaints and laments. These individuals hide behind a victimizing personality, although some of them adopt this attitude unconsciously. In this way they free themselves from any responsibility in their actions and blame the rest of what happens to them.

Maintaining for a long period of time this type of attitude that we have called "chronic victimhood" is not in itself a pathology classified in the DSM-5, but it could lay the psychological foundations that could end up developing a paranoid personality disorder. This occurs because the person persistently blames others for bad things that happen to them.

Victimism and pessimism go hand in hand

This way of facing the day to day can bring more negative consequences. One of the clearest damages is the

pessimistic view of life that leads to chronic victimhood, since it creates an environment of discomfort and distrust both for the person who always complains as to the people around him, who feel unfairly treated.

In a large number of cases, the person who shows this tendency towards chronic victimhood ends up feeding a series of bad feelings, such as resentment or anger. go to, which can degenerate into a aggressive victimhood. The aggressive victimizer not only blames others and regrets about everything, but can also adopt aggressive attitudes and violence, intolerance and contempt for the physical and moral integrity of people who consider guilty for some reason.

What are the victimizers like?

But, What recurring personality traits and attitudes do these people carry out? We are going to know them through the following points.

1) They systematically distort reality

People with chronic victimhood they sincerely believe that all the blame for what happens to them is someone else's fault; they never take any responsibility for their actions. The underlying problem is that they see reality in a distorted way, with a external locus of control. They tend to think that both good things and bad times depend on causes external to their will.

It is also true that they tend to unconsciously exaggerate the negative, in such a way that they fall into a strong pessimism that prevents them from seeing the positive things in life.

2) The constant lament reinforces them

The victimizing individuals believe that their personal situation is due to the bad acts of others and circumstancesTherefore, they do not feel responsible for anything that happens to them. Consequently, they spend the day mourning, to the point that they find an important reinforcement to their attitude in lament and complaint, assuming their role as victims and trying to attract the attention of their environment.

They are not able to ask for help from anyone, they just lament their bad luck in running into undesirables. This is nothing but a unconscious search for attention and prominence.

3) Your goal is to find culprits

The permanent victim status It is also closely associated with a distrustful attitude. They believe that others are always motivated by spurious interests and act in bad faith against them. For this reason, they inspect every detail or gesture of the people around them to the millimeter. trying to discover some grievance, no matter how small or nonexistent, in order to reinforce itself in its role as victims.

Based on acting like this, they end up reaffirming their personality and are very susceptible to the treatment that others give them, exaggerating any small detail to a pathological limit.

4) No self-criticism

They are not capable of self-criticism about their attitude or their actions. People with chronic victimhood are fully convinced that they are not to blame for anything, with which they do not conceive that nothing in them is reprehensible or improvable. As has already been commented, they hold other people responsible for everything, they are unable to accept any criticism and, Of course, they are far from being able to reflect on their attitude or actions in order to improve in some facet of their lives.

They are intolerant of other people's faults and defects, but they perceive their own mistakes as trivial and, in any case, justifiable.

The Tactics Victimists Use

When there is a person who assumes the role of victim, there must be another who is perceived as guilty. To this end, chronic victimizers employ a series of tactics and strategies to make another person feel guilty.

If we ignore this modus operandi Of the victimizers it is easier for us to fall into their mental frame and to convince us that all the fault is ours.

1. Rhetoric and oratory of the victimizer

It is very common for these types of people try to ridicule and disqualify any argument of your "enemy". However, they do not try to refute the adversary based on better data or arguments, but rather disqualify and try to get the other person to assume the role of "attacker".

How do they do it? Assuming the role of victim in the discussion, so that the adversary remains an authoritarian person, with little empathy and even aggressive. This point is known in the discipline that studies argumentation as “centrist rhetoric”, since which is a tactic that aims to present the enemy as a radical, rather than refute or improve his arguments. In this way, any argument from the opposing side is only a demonstration of aggressiveness and extremism.

If they are cornered by an affirmation or irrefutable data, the victimizer will not answer with arguments or provide other data but will say something like this: "You always attack me, are you telling me I'm lying?" or "I don't like you to impose your point of view".

2. The "withdrawal in time" of the victimizer

Sometimes, the speech of the victimizer is focused on evading responsibility from her to try to avoid having to acknowledge a failure or ask for forgiveness for something she has done wrong. To do this, he will try to get out of the situation as he can. The most common strategy, in addition to disqualifying the argument of your interlocutor (see point 1), consists of wringing out the bundle so as not to recognize that he was wrong in his posture.

How do they do it? Assuming the role of victim and manipulating the situation so that the interaction spirals into confusion. This translates into the victimizer trying to project his mistakes onto the adversary.

For example, if in the thread of a discussion, the opponent provides a verified and reliable data that contradicts the position of the victimizer, the latter will not recognize that he was wrong. Instead, he will try to withdraw using these typical phrases. “This data does not contradict what I was saying. Please, stop confusing us with irrelevant numbers " or "You are blaming me for having given my simple opinion, it makes no sense to continue arguing with someone like that". And, after these words, the normal thing is that he leaves the scene of the events feeling “winner”.

3. Emotional blackmail

The last of the strategies most frequently used by chronic victimizers is the emotional blackmail. When they know well the strengths and weaknesses of their "adversary", they do not hesitate to manipulate their emotions to try to get away with it and show themselves as a victim. People who pretend to be victims have a great capacity to recognize emotions, and they use other people's doubts and weaknesses for their own benefit.

How do they do it? They are able to detect the weak points of their opponent and try to take advantage of the empathy that they can give him. Thus, they forge the situation so that the other assumes the role of executioner and they establish themselves in the position of victims.

This type of attitude can materialize, for example, with that mother who tries to blame her son with phrases like: "With everything I always do for you, and that's how you pay me back." Emotional blackmail is also a typical manipulation strategy in relationships. We explain it thoroughly in this article:

"Emotional blackmail: a way to manipulate your partner's feelings"

How to deal with such a person?

The main thing is that, if you have a chronic victimizer in your close circle, you are able to identify him. Later, you have to try not to get entangled in his manipulation game. It is enough to let him know that his regrets are always the same and that the courage in this life is to try to find solutions. If you are willing to find solutions to your problems, we must give you a hand and point out that we are with them, but we must also make it clear that we are not going to waste time listening to their complaints.

Being pragmatic, you should care about yourself and avoid as much as possible that you get bad vibes. You should not accept that they try to make you feel guilty for their problems. He can only hurt your feelings if you let him have that power over you.