When other adults came looking for me after school, my teacher would tell them how unpleasant I was, how unworthy, how useless. The other adults listened to the teacher and accepted her words, thus confirming her version in my child’s mind.
Every word, every act, every gesture that I experienced in that moment convinced me day after day that I deserved to be abused.
Then my colleagues learned that they were going to abuse me, that they should pressure me or ignore me, hurt me however they wanted. Their role model, our teacher, was showing them how it was done.
His actions confirmed what he was already beginning to believe. I didn’t deserve anything, no love, no friendship, no respect. I was nothing. I was less than nothing. I was a target.
By the time my parents realized what was happening, I had already become a victim. Subconsciously he believed that he deserved what he received, that he did not deserve anything better. He was not even aware of the belief. Neither did my parents. They only understood that the professor had been rude to me. Then they transferred me to another school.
My first day at the new school was a nightmare. I was so afraid of meeting my new enemies and abusers and so convinced that I deserved them that I tried to shrink into my own body. The reality was to show me a victim again, of course. My new teacher did not insult or harass me, but decided to ridicule me and sat me at her table so that everyone could clearly see how unworthy I was. She took my. My new classmates immediately understood how unimportant it was. And then there was Phil, my new abuser, the kid in my class who took it upon himself to chase me and make fun of me so that the other kids would look at him. He would find the ugliest ways to hurt me while laughing at me and making others find fun in it.
My parents tried to seek help. But no one understood why he was being abused by different people in different places. That just seemed to prove that I was somehow causing the situation, being the only common denominator in all the scenes.
So my first teacher was right, wasn’t she? Life proved him right. I didn’t deserve anything. It was only worth having fun with others by teasing and hurting me. I really was and deserved to be a victim.
The after school school bullies immediately identified the victim in me and used me as a stepping stone on their way to greater heights. Life confirmed my belief every day. I was a victim.
A few years later it was a total disaster. He couldn’t face the school or the children. They terrified me. I had truly and completely victimized myself without even being aware that such a possibility existed. No one in my world understood that either. There was only doubt and confusion. No professional could explain why someone was always willing to abuse me. Some people suspected that I felt abused when no actual abuse had occurred. But he knew what he knew. Life was an abuse; Wherever I looked, wherever I lived, the abuse lived there too, and it had me as its target.
Until one day someone told me that I was a victim. “Victim” what a word. That person explained to me that I had become a victim by believing that interpretation of myself. We reviewed my life story from that perspective and I fully understood how I had come to interpret and see myself as a victim of others. From that first teacher who had all the power to the weakest child who had ever insulted me, I BELIEVED that I deserved to be treated because I WAS A VICTIM! That was my role in life.
Together we reviewed my life and took examples of the abuse I had suffered. That person helped me see that I had become a victim because that is what I believed I was. He also explained that abusers believed that only by trampling on others and using them to rise higher could they be respected and appreciated. Most of them learned that behavior at home and turned it into their own beliefs. They weren’t abusing me to hurt me; They didn’t even see me! They were abusing me because they believed it was the only way they would grow up and be seen by others. He was not a person but a medium.
By understanding my life story from this new perspective, I realized how I had come to believe myself a victim. My first teacher first brought that worldview into my mind. Maintaining power over me, I had believed that she was right. By confirming his point of view, my fledgling belief strengthened and solidified until there was no other possible interpretation in my mind. Everything I saw since then was just the confirmation of my subconscious belief.
Our beliefs are always confirmed by our reality because they act as its filter. My experience thus confirmed the role of my victim in life over and over again. Until that person helped me see that I was NOT a victim, but had decided to believe that I was. It also showed me that I could choose something else for myself. I could reinterpret my past from that new perspective and thus understand that I had not been abused, but that I had been victimized. Every insult, every punch, every comment had been proof of my victim’s role.
That day I decided to change my worldview and interpret my life story from a different perspective. “I am no longer a victim,” I declared. And true to my new belief, the world never attacked me again. Because he was no longer a victim. By believing me a NON-VICTIM, reality had to prove that I was right.
And has. These last few years have given me proof after proof of my role as a non-victim in life. There are still many people who need to step on others to earn respect, but they never choose me as their springboard again. When they look for someone to be their victim, they don’t see me. Because I am no longer a victim. I’m not on their radar. I am not a victim and they do not perceive me as such.
This is the story I wanted to tell you and the way I interpreted it. After all, life is a matter of interpretation. The story you tell me will eventually become my story. All stories can be told from many different perspectives. After all, storytellers choose how to tell them, don’t they?
Enjoy life … EVERYTHING,
