Exiting victimhood

This has been an ongoing topic for me on my alchemic journey, and I imagine it is for a lot of other people as well. When we go through and alchemize our experiences into something new, a different perspective, we realize that we may have been caught in a cycle of victimhood. Especially those of us with privilege. My partner Alex is Latina and has a different skin tone than me. I understand deeply that I have inherent privilege that she does not. It has been a difficult road unravelling these layers. They’re thick, opaque, and nearly attached with superglue.

Due to vertical morality, our society is structured with this seamless idea that authority is righteous, powerful, and unquestionable. It’s where we derive the patriarchy, racism, classism, ableism, and heterosexism. This version of morality is what gives power to certain groups of people; primarily, the wealthy, straight, and white men, which is due majorly in part by colonialism.

Although most understand what the top of the power structure looks like, especially because the top are the same people continuing to fight for its’ survival, people do not know how deeply it affects them. I am white and it has taken me a long time to work through victimhood, because privilege is such a fundamental aspect within our identities that we can hardly see it. When you’re privileged and the only sense you feel is entitlement, if at any point you don’t receive what’s expected with that entitlement, you feel victimized. This is why many people fight so hard to maintain the imbalances of power, because as they lose privilege, it feels as though something is being taken from them. When you live with entitlement, the only movement is away from that entitlement and towards victimhood.

On the other hand, people who are oppressed already have an understanding of victimhood, it’s already an aspect of being oppressed; so, the only thing to do is stand up and fight back for what’s yours. There is no “feeling like a victim,” because you were walked into it from birth, and have already identified with it. This movement is towards entitlement and it feels like justice. This isn’t to say that oppressed people must remain victims - do not hold onto that identity - but it is important to acknowledge that it’s inherent within oppression. And unless we can come together to fight inequality, many people will continue to suffer from oppression.

This is why so many people don’t understand why those in power are so blind to the injustices. The entitled perceive the oppressed people’s actions as acts against their privilege. They do everything they can to remain entitled and in power, because it feels good. It feels like their inherent right to happiness, and everyone else is the problem. “They just need to work harder,” the rich will preach to the poor, because they’ll make it your fault before they ever take any accountability. It’s difficult to see that the gap is so wide, because they have so much privilege. And when privilege equates to power, and they view those without privilege as powerless, they’ll do everything in their arsenal to maintain the imbalance. Because what they don’t want, is to face their greatest fear: powerlessness.

Many things are derived from power: security and safety, freedom, comfort, prosperity. It stands to reason that those in power wouldn’t want to relinquish it. But the thing is, when those people encounter a little hiccup, their entire lives are in shambles. They have no connection to community without the influence of power - another reason they grasp it so firmly. Deep down, they know they’re nothing without it.

I sit here confronting my own entitlement as I face the many struggles with my own expectations. I have lived in a reality that wasn’t conducive and was secluding and suffocating for my wife. She began to feel isolated and taken advantage of as though I didn’t share the family’s burdens. And for a long time, I felt miffed. I helped pay bills, did the dishes and laundry, as well as took care of the dog. I didn’t understand and took it personally as though I was being attacked. But that feeling of victimization was an attack on my entitlement. I had been entitled to some carefree living. Sure I helped out around the house, but my wife was primarily the one taking initiative on the household tasks.

We’d had multiple conversations about it. I couldn’t understand why it kept coming up. Each time I tried to do more and more, and soon started to feel taken advantage of. Was my wife trying to manipulate me? Why wasn’t she acknowledging the efforts I was already putting in? To be fair, she would. She’d acknowledge that I’d began to help out more without being asked, but she still felt overburdened.

What I also learned is that sometimes it’s important to just listen. As I sat there once again having the same discussion, my intuition was telling me to just listen. I wanted to get defensive and speak up for myself, but that’s not what Spirit was telling me. I just had to listen. Because it wasn’t about standing up for myself and fighting the victimhood, but instead I needed to listen to her without taking offense and just understand her. I realized that every time we’ve had this conversation I would react to what she was saying and rush to self-defense. I wasn’t trying to listen. I was fighting the victimhood that my entitlement led me to feel.

I’ve realized that it’s difficult to understand whether I’m experiencing victimhood or am truly being taken advantage of. However, in reference to my relationship that I’ve spent the last nine years cultivating and working on with my wife, I can guarantee that she’s too loving and kind to take an action like that against me. When it comes to strangers, I still have some learning to do, but the biggest step in exiting my victimhood is by noticing it, and weighing my actions against my values, because we can’t control what other people do. We can only control how we react to it. And when we let go of the victimhood, we can take steps towards true inherent power that’s unshakeable.