The Generational Trauma: Victimhood Mentality

Living in a digital era, I find it hard not to check what my friends post on social media. Along with that, you can also distinguish what's the general populations' take on social issues, politics, and how is everything evolving together. As I keep track of that, I have detected an ongoing trend between my generation: the victimhood mentality.

Victimhood is an ongoing feeling that the self is a victim, and those people believe that one’s life is entirely under the control of forces outside oneself, such as fate, luck, or the cruelty of other people. As a result, victimization becomes a central part of the individual’s identity. When the mind believes it is a victim, it becomes a reality. Therefore, those people are creating the situation from which they suffer.

Why am I focusing on this issue precisely? Seeing the circumstances, and especially the political ones, that my country Lebanon is going through in 2021, I have realized that the political, economic, and social issues, are the result of the mindset of the Lebanese people, and especially my generation, the Millennials. We have been blaming our government, and sometimes our parents and previous generations, for the hardships we are going through. However, this generation is the only one to blame.

For the past 30 years, a bandit of greedy and selfish politicians has been ruling us and has regressed our nation exponentially! By always considering ourselves as victims, we allowed those politicians to take advantage of our unconscious and hardwired attitudes that those same politicians instilled in our minds. Consequently, people end up having an external locus of control, where they only have others to blame for their situation. On the other side, politicians use that to create hate and fuel one party against the other, creating chaos and segregation between one population.

Hence, what do we end up seeking? We end up seeking the basic needs of a human being, such as food, shelter, and most importantly, justice! We revolt against the ruling system and ask for justice, and justice becomes our end goal. In this process, we lose our ability to create drastic change. Why? Because when we aspire to create change, justice becomes the result of our actions instead of the goal. Therefore, having justice as our goal will divert our focus towards one part of the change instead of the whole. Thus, running in a circular loop forever!

I am not criticizing or condemning my generation's actions, I am trying to help them see that what they want to achieve happens differently. When we stop living the victimhood mentality, we become proactive rather than reactive. And remember that action is always faster than reaction. We stop allowing other people to control our actions or thoughts. When we become proactive, we start thinking long-term instead of short-term and we base our actions toward the future state we aspire to achieve. Thus, how do we do that?

First, by refusing to consider ourselves as victims, oppressors will not have fertile soil to plant their seeds. Think of it as someone is trying to plant a tree in the concrete. They will not find a place where that tree can grow its roots. Same thing when it comes to our minds. By refusing to be a victim, we are stating that we are not playing this game anymore and we are not asking for what we want. Rather, we will take what we want through compounding actions!

When we are not a victim, we see every problem as an opportunity instead of something that is holding us down. But to see the opportunity, we must be willing to drop the tools that no longer serve us. Some of those tools are rioting in the streets and blaming each other for the current circumstances. When we constantly seek recognition of our victimhood, the act tends to shatter our assumptions about the world as a just and moral place. However, this is not true.

If socialization processes can instill in individuals a victimhood mindset, then surely the very same processes can instill in people a personal growth mindset. What if we all learned that our traumas do not have to define us? That it is possible to have experienced trauma and for victimhood to not form the core of our identity? That it is even possible to grow from trauma and use the experiences to instilling hope and possibility in others who were in a similar situation? What if we all learned that it is possible to have healthy pride for an in-group without having out-group hate? That if you expect kindness from others, it pays to be kind yourself. That no one is entitled to anything, but we are all responsible for creating our future?

My generation, the Millennials, was born at the end of the civil war, hence, we were able to see the shift that happened and to detect what went wrong. Moreover, we should not forget that tough times produce strong leaders. Among us, are many great leaders who have risen from hardships but are not finding the right environment to flourish in. That is because that environment does not exist. It is on us to create such an environment where we can flourish as individuals and add to the collective society.

As Millennials, we have been asking for that environment for years and not realizing that we are responsible for bringing it to existence. We create that environment once we recognize that we cannot change the world. Nevertheless, by focusing on becoming better and changing ourselves, the world around us will change and adapt to the reality we create.

This would be quite the paradigm shift. With a clear lens, we would be able to see that not everyone that has a different opinion or belief is evil, and not everyone that has the same ideology is a saint. We are all humans with the same underlying needs to belong, be heard, and be appreciated.

Seeing reality as clearly as possible is an essential step to making long-lasting change, and I believe one crucial step along that path is to shed the perpetual victimhood mindset for something more productive. And what is more constructive than building a positive relationship with the other in the quest for achieving a guiding coalition to initiate that change?

Effective communication is the building block for change. Therefore, do not be victims of outside circumstances. Be agents of change, and let that change resurrect from the inside first!