Victim or Victor?

A victim is: a person who has been attacked, injured, robbed, or killed by someone else; a person who is deceived or cheated, as by his or her own emotions or ignorance, by the dishonesty of others, or by some impersonal agency, someone or something that is harmed by an unpleasant event (such as an illness or accident).

We all have been victims, sometimes because of the callousness of others, sometimes by circumstances beyond our control, and sometimes by our own choices. There have been times in my life when I have played the part of victim well. Those times have usually been when I have made choices that did not turn out the way I thought they would and I was powerless to change them (or so I thought, and so I lead others to believe). I was the martyr and I was good at it, a young mom with four kids, working, going to school, financially struggling, and trying to make a rocky marriage work. Of course I didn’t really know I was such a good martyr, I was just trying to keep my head above water. Oh, if only I knew then what I know now.

Several years ago I decided that I would no longer be a victim of myself anymore; one-like the definition above-who is deceived or cheated by her own emotions or ignorance. I was done being deceived and cheated by myself; it was time to get healthy. The first thing I did was to participate in a step study through Celebrate Recovery. I also started meeting with a counselor and reading about how to change my way of thinking that wasn’t working for me. I started feeling better, healthier emotionally.

Then the tempest hit, but here’s the thing, it didn’t take me down. I was prepared. Several things in my life over the past few years have been victimizing, yet I have felt less a victim by them than I had by my own choices earlier in life. How can this be? It is how we respond to circumstances in our lives that label us “victim”.

 We may not always be able to choose the sets of circumstances that come our way, but we ALWAYS have a choice as to how we are going to respond to those sets of circumstances.

Victor: a person who has overcome or defeated an adversary; conqueror. I don’t wear the label of victim any longer; I choose to be a victor instead.