Just thinking out loud. I’m not a psychologist, just someone exploring a topic I have come across multiple times in life and work.

Why is it that the abused so often become abusers, and those who have been bullied, go out and bully others?

Whilst I am certainly not a researcher in the field this is not theoretical, I have lived it from both sides. Bullied but sometimes also bully. Abused but also abuser! Not as a lifestyle, but certainly in some occasions. Almost certainly you have been both as well – it’s more a matter of “how much“ than “yes/no”. There is no judgement in this, we are broken people living in a broken world, and we all have that in common.

The Victim Mindset

Sometimes when I am hurt by others, especially repeatedly over time by a particular person or group, it can be tempting to think of myself as innocent and powerless and those who cause the hurt as misusing their power over me.

The problem when I live in a victim mindset is that I am so busy thinking about surviving, subverting or striving against the power of those who hurt me…that I fail to recognise the power I still have over myself those around me. It may be small, of course. But I still have some power over which thoughts to dwell on, which words to say and whether to show care to other people around me.

Thinking of myself as a powerless victim means worrying too much about (re)gaining power and control, and thinking too little of my responsibility to care about and use my power to benefit to those around me.

Both for myself and the people closest to me, this is a very dangerous self-deception.

Why perception of our own power is important

“With great power comes great responsibility” Yeah we know that one – thanks Spider-Man 🙂

We realise that people in power have the capacity to hurt (or benefit) others and the responsibility to care about how they affect less powerful people. But if we think of ourselves as powerless victims, we assume the power to hurt or build up always belongs to other people and not to ourselves.

An everyday example of not noticing our power to affect other people, even without a victim mindset: Which of us has ever teased a friend/parent/teenage daughter/sibling in what we think is a harmless way about some aspect of their life, and maybe even laughed when they eventually ‘lose their rag’ about such a tiny thing? “Aawww I was only joking ha ha. I love you really!”

But sometimes we don’t realise till many years later what a profound impact it had on them and how much it hurt. Thankfully this isn’t every single time (sometimes we tease people about things that they genuinely find funny as well), but I have seen, experienced and done it enough times to know that we humans often underestimate our own power to affect those around us.

So others are not entirely trustworthy with power but neither am I entirely trustworthy with any power that we have. How much worse if I, focusing on how I am a victim, forget that I even have this power at all?

“You may think yourself in general to be a nice guy,

But I’m telling you now, that right there is a lie,

Even the nicest of guys has some nasty within ‘em,

You don’t have to be backlit to be the villain.

Whether it be greed, lust, or just plain vindictiveness,

There’s a level of malevolence inside of all of us.”

‘Waiting For The Beat To Kick In’, a song by Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip

I think this is the core of why so many of us humans often move from victim to abuser without even noticing what we are doing. Since we easily define ourselves as victims of powerful others, we keep worrying about gaining power and control, but if we actually do gain more power and control to affect those around us (by change of circumstance or struggle or by the kindness of others), our ‘powerless victim’ mindset hasn’t changed and we don’t notice that our self-protective power-grabbing is starting to turn us into a self-centred tyrant! Perhaps this is why abusers often claim they are the one who is the real victim! They really do think that is true, and that is actually what drives them to be so self-centred, controlling and harsh.

(Of course, there are some people who know they are abusers and enjoy cruelty, but from what I can tell the more common situation is we who have previously received abuse becoming current abusers.)

A person who does have power to affect people around them but thinks they still need to seize power (and forgets their responsibility to those people) is a very dangerous person to everyone around them, and to themselves actually.

So how can we avoid a victim mindset?

Whether you believe the Bible is ‘from God’ or not, we can still read it as a collection of ancient wisdom. It’s very interesting to note that Biblical documents consistently represent the Son of God as someone who takes a completely opposite view of power to the one we ‘victims’ often take, and teaches his followers to do the same. Paul summarises it nicely:

“You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross. Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Paul’s letter to the Philippians‬ ‭2:5-11‬ ‭NLT‬‬
https://www.bible.com/116/php.2.5-11.nlt

Notice that the person who is willing to use their power and even give up power in pursuit of benefiting those around them, is depicted as the only person who is worthy to receive ultimate power forever.

““You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

Jesus, recorded by Matthew‬ ‭5:43-48‬ ‭NLT‬‬
https://www.bible.com/116/mat.5.43-48.nlt

Even when I am in the middle of being abused I have at least a teensy bit of power – over which thoughts I dwell on, over how I respond, over how much care I continue to have for the other people in my life.

eg yes the boss is bullying me but I am still responsible to avoid being irritable with my family, because I recognise that my words and actions affect them regardless of how I’m feeling.

I may well need to break free of an abuser’s power and control to protect myself, others, and yes even the abuser since their behaviour pushes them along their own road to destruction. But…

I cannot allow the mistreatment I receive to pull all my focus onto self-preservation, or to forget that I also have the capacity to affect others for good or for bad. I need to practise recognising the power I do have and my responsibility to care for others, even while being mistreated.

That’s not easy. But it’s essential otherwise I run the risk of abusing the people closest to me in ways that I fail to notice until it’s too late.