Three Stages Of Development Of The Victim Syndrome And The Point Of No Return

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

A small fragment of an article from the chapter on Victim Syndrome from the book "Notes of a Practicing Psychologist".

For 12 years of work with psychosomatic and anxiety syndrome, I have accumulated a sufficient amount of material, a small part of which I will publish in this article. It will be useful, first of all, for those who interpret this deformation of the Personality as "just a desire to groan", and who thinks that one can get out of the state of the Sacrifice by reading a clever book or repeating the slogan, as it were, motivating for new achievements: "Go. Take action. Set goals. Wipe your snot. Pull yourself together, rag. " If everything were so simple, there would not be more and more of those who abandon life in the present, plunging into the "chewing gum" of past and long-irrelevant obsessions.

The article does not claim to be an absolute and only true vision of this personal deformation. These are just my, absolutely subjective, professional long-term observations, research, and practical experience, which is quite successful with people who are at the first stage of the development of this syndrome.

This article is only for those who:

Living for a long time with a toxic partner / parents, a psychological despot, a codependent being, he could not stand the pressure from outside and, without realizing it, "hid" behind his Sacrifice - like a little Child who begins to cry and experience fear when he does not know how cope with external pressure from a stronger person or circumstance. The child, on the other hand, does not bear responsibility for his life, but acts on an emotional level, behind which the voice of the rational is not heard.

And also, about those who have:

Life has long turned into Groundhog Day, and the lack of brightness of life, activities that give pleasure, new emotions, acquaintances, travel, performances or exhibitions - all that is called a positive novelty stimulus - has long been gone, because "I have no time to study such nonsense "," no time ", etc. Ok.

Do not want to supply positive variety to your brain yourself, i.e. to experience positive stress - eustress, the negative side of the Personality will come to the rescue - "Shadow" - Anxiety, the appearance of which, the Human does not pay attention to for a long time.

Because the brain, which is very greedy for interesting and new things, cannot live in an emotional "emptiness", it needs emotions, which means changes in the biochemistry of blood and brain activity. If there are no new positive emotions that the Man himself supplies, and they are only caused by new stimuli, Anxiety will "help" him by daily supplying memories of past, long-forgotten grievances, situations, stories, thereby, gradually, day by day, changing perception of the world from a positive experience of eustress - to negative distress.

Gradually, the past becomes more important and emotionally saturated, the future begins to worry, the present is ignored. Over time, not only facial expressions begin to change - the usual facial expression - "Suffering face-mask", and posture and intonation in speech also change. The brain does not care what sign it is supplied with strong emotions - positive or negative - the main thing is that it feels the physiological activity of all body systems.

So, step one:

Sudden awareness that I am a victim (insight) and I absolutely do not like it:

• Seeking help is a true motivation;
• There is still no pronounced manipulation of one's condition and drug addiction emotional dependence;
• Switching from "sticky" thoughts is still possible on your own;
• There are guidelines for the future, but the avoidance of the moment of living in the present moment is manifested more and more often. And this is a pronounced neurotic symptom, a signal that says that the transition to another stage, which intensifies the Victim's symptoms, is already very close.
• The Victim's symptomatology appears sporadically - it is important to trace the reasons that trigger it. At this stage, the person himself copes well with this on his own, since the Victim Syndrome in this case is still at the initial stage of development, which means that the person still retains responsibility for his life.

At this stage, it is possible to return to a state of life without a Sacrifice. In my practice, the true motivation for working on this syndrome is up to 80 percent, but only with those who ask for help who are in contact with their Inner Adult, which means they can be responsible for their lives.

Stage two: all the symptoms of the Sacrifice Syndrome increase. Orientation towards the future becomes more and more "vague", more and more often a person is immersed in negative memories of the past or the current situation in which he is emotionally "stuck". The whole life begins to shorten and revolve only around this sacrificial story, for example, codependent relationships, marriage with an alcoholic-drug addict-gambler, living with a psychological despot, a disease that has long been defeated (there are many examples of oncology survivors who survived clinical death).

Attempts to correct the situation are becoming more rare, since the ability to consciously analyze the situation, and with it, to bear responsibility for it, is paralyzed. Signs of secondary gain and manipulation are becoming increasingly apparent. The person begins to change outwardly: a "sufferer's mask" appears on his face more and more often, and there are pitying notes in his voice.

Stage three is the point of no return.

The structure of the Inner Adult is destroyed, the negative side of the Inner Child is active, requiring infinite attention and any "bonuses", including love and attention, through hysterics, suffering, pronounced psychosomatics.

Secondary benefits, manipulations, avoidance of the present, shifting responsibility to another in any situation are manifested very clearly:

• I lit a cigarette because I spoke to you;
• I got this job because you once told me it was a good place, but it turned out to be wrong.
• If you hadn't gone to your psychologist, you wouldn't have told me this now.
• This is because of your article (account, live broadcast) my wife left me and so on …

The main thing in life is to avoid responsibility and skillfully shift it onto anyone else. Perhaps the emergence of lies as a factor that enhances the secondary benefit. Remember the children who do not want to admit what they have done or, conversely, if they did not fulfill their promise, someone is always to blame, and non-existent factors are unconsciously added to the reliability of the situation.

The hypochondriac syndrome is becoming more pronounced.

Along with its appearance, the social environment gradually begins to change: instead of friends and social acquaintances, preference is given to doctors and nurses - after all, they care, understand, listen to complaints, unlike the rest, callous people and other incompetent specialists. In addition, they can be summoned to their homes, at any time of the day or night in the person of the ambulance workers.

Active social communication is perfectly satisfied in the queue to the next doctor, in the registry, in the pharmacy, in the forums about diseases. The main information is all medical sites. And the more a person learns about new diseases, the more psychosomatics and manipulation of the environment in the role of the "Imaginary Patient" begins to intensify.

Based on the volume of the medical record and the analyzes passed, it was long ago possible to write and defend a thesis on the topic: "How I ran away from my own life" - but this requires willpower, an Inner Adult, that is, my own personality structure, and desire live here, now, at this time.

The second variant of the point of no return is the choice of increasingly cold, cruel psychological despots and those dependent on alcohol, "chemistry" and other partners.

In the second variant of the development of the victim syndrome - endless tears and complaints in a circle, the purpose of which is: to complain, to complain, getting attention, "care", sympathy from the environment. Psychosomatics manifests itself episodically - the main thing is the "Sacrificial Monologue of the Sufferer", the purpose of which is energy and attention, no matter what the other.

In this case, constructive suggestions are completely useless; it is better to leave them for those who really need them.

The same symptoms appear in those whom their parents disliked, those who have been "looking for a job" for 10 years, and those who work "for a penny" with a terrible boss, but do nothing to change the situation, because they are to blame in this others.

This is the point of no return. The victim won. Deformation of the personality in this case is irreversible, or has a short-term surface effect, the purpose of which is to "tie" the specialist to himself and not let him out of control.

What to do with such a client? Each specialist chooses for himself

1. Let him manipulate a specialist as well. They do it masterfully. But then say goodbye to the quiet life. Such clients will "flood" their "pity" all your life outside of work. Their Inner Child does not want to be rejected and requires endless attention from the chosen Significant Adult, actively controlling his life.

2. To redirect him to neurologists, to the clinic of neuroses, psychotherapists to recommend antidepressants - all these are excellent opportunities and ways to maintain the vital activity of the organism and the conditional stability of the psyche of the destroyed Personality. The man has chosen his own style of a comfortable life for him, is it worth it to convince him of this, especially since he still will not hear.