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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 10 of 10. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Racer on September 11, 2005, at 22:08:02
This all came up for me over reading some posts of mine from way back when I first started posting. (Did a search to see when that was for the Social board question...)
I have been having a very, very hard time with really understanding what happened to me last year. If anyone here remembers, I had a nightmare with an agency that was supposedly providing treatment for me after a suicide attempt, during a period when I was uninsured. During the course of treatment there, I went from being depressed and feeling pretty hopeless and worn out, to being depressed, agoraphobic, anxious, anorexic (no one there noticed, even when I asked for help), hopeless, etc. In other words, I got a whole lot sicker while receiving what they considered more than adequate treatment. In fact, their only response to my pleas for actual help were to tell me it was all my fault, that I had Borderline Personality Disorder, that I needed to stop being unwilling to do anything to help myself, that I needed to learn to get along with other people, and generally to blame me for not getting better with all their great help. (Mind you, my complaints included sexual harrassment by a case manager -- and they were utterly unwilling to assign me a new case manager. Seems that would have "sent the wrong message" to me...)
Anyway, a couple of times someone has pointed out that it isn't surprising that I was hurt and got worse with what happened to me there. And part of me knows just that. If it had happened to anyone else, I would have been outraged.
But since it happened to me, I have a huge turmoil of conflicted feelings about it -- mostly they boil down to "I shouldn't be hurt" and "it's my fault, since other bad things have happened to me." My therapist mentioned the other day, after I told her about what happened when someone sexually assaulted me on the street on the way to a therapy appointment when I was 13 and the therapist scolded me for being late and told me that the guy couldn't have assaulted me at all since I was too young for anyone to do that (you can bet I couldn't have brought up the molestation at home with her, right?), that I had been abused by a therapist before this latest go round. My reaction was total denial -- vehement denial.
Last night I finally realized what it was. Fourty-nevermind years of trying to figure out why I was like this about being hurt and I finally get it after reading posts on an Internet bulletin board. Huh...
I'm afraid that what I've been accused of before is true -- that I'm being a Professional Victim, that I'm actually bringing on all these bad things, and that what I'm doing is refusing to accept responsibility for what I've caused. I'm afraid that I "shouldn't" have been hurt by any of these things, that I'm only whining because it's teh easy way out and that's what I do instead of working a little harder to improve things in my life. I'm afraid that all the things that blasted agency accused me of are true, that they didn't do anything wrong and it really was all me.
Now, I know that I was taught to feel that way, that people in my life told me those things about myself over and over and over again, and I grew up believing all of them. (I remember crying so hard, hiding behind the loveseat, because my mother told me how selfish I was. If you have children, what do you think? I think six year olds are not yet able to be particularly thoughtful of others...) I grew up believing down to my core that I was a selfish, terrible person. Even now, I still have a big part who believes that I'm only pretending not to be the most horribly selfish, egocentric person on earth.
What I'm wondering, though, is if anyone knows what really sets admitting that one has been abused apart from being that Professional Victim? Is there anything I can hold onto to help me accept that I'm really not at fault for all this?
Thanks.
Posted by muffled on September 11, 2005, at 22:44:34
In reply to Admitting someone hurt you versus whining?, posted by Racer on September 11, 2005, at 22:08:02
I guess if you WANTED to be molested then your a professional victim. If not, then your not. I reckon I can whine and be full of pity for myself with the best of them. I hate to sound like a whiner, even if its justified I feel I'm being an idiot about it. I think for me, I need to want badly enough, to get off this roller coaster, even if it hurts even more. Even if I have to let myself whine a little, or even truly feel sorry for myself ,instead of blaming myself for everything. With the help of God and my T. I'm going to try. Thats my latest THEORY to myself anyways. I tend to be full of sh*t at the best of times. I bet you'll get some good answers from some of the guys here.
Sure as hell isn't easy though is it?
Don't spend too much time in your head!
Take care.:)
Posted by terrics on September 11, 2005, at 23:23:58
In reply to Admitting someone hurt you versus whining?, posted by Racer on September 11, 2005, at 22:08:02
Hi Racer, I doubt you are to blame or maybe just a little. The answer comes within you. There are definitely poor therapy treatments. Try DBT. It is ruthless, but perhaps there is truth too it. They teach us survival skills to try to teach us not to do things that harm ourselves. It is an unbelievably slow process, but you have to stick ot out quite awhile before you realize that somthing id changing. I am also diagnosed as borderline, the most condemned dx. there is
Feel better because most of what you wrote did not sound like you're at fault and if you are. it is only a tiny bit your fault. terrics
Posted by crazy teresa on September 12, 2005, at 0:10:50
In reply to Admitting someone hurt you versus whining?, posted by Racer on September 11, 2005, at 22:08:02
I am completely outraged by what happened to you! You did absolutely NOTHING to bring any of that on yourself!
I see a professional victim more like an enabler: You make up excuses for the behavior and continue to tolerate it instead of taking a firm stand against it. As a child you had NO WAY of fighting against it. As an adult you spoke out against it, only the bastards wouldn't listen. That is not your fault.
I was not here last year when this was going on, but if you have not reported this to the authorities, I wish you would consider doing so. Maybe then no one else will have to endure the same treatment by these 'professionals'.
Posted by alexandra_k on September 12, 2005, at 0:14:12
In reply to Admitting someone hurt you versus whining?, posted by Racer on September 11, 2005, at 22:08:02
well... a lot of that hits home for me as well.
and thats a question that i struggle with too...
i think...
that a 'professional victim' is someone who has a repeated pattern of lashing out at people who they believe have victimised them.
it is hard because some people have been repeatedly victimised.
i think...
that a 'professional victim' is someone who blames other people for problems without acknowledging their role (without owning their own responses)
it is hard because some people have been repeatedly victimised.but there has to be something to it or people wouldn't say it...
i think...
that 'professional victim' is one of those judgemental terms that clinicians use when they are hacked off at the person. because the person is in pain and they can't really do anything about it. so they lash out at the person by calling them names incl. 'professional victim'.but then i guess a 'professional victim' would place the blame back on them...
:-(
Posted by daisym on September 12, 2005, at 0:52:16
In reply to Admitting someone hurt you versus whining?, posted by Racer on September 11, 2005, at 22:08:02
I was here last year and I remember how thos people dragged you down. They were the worst kind of "helpers" -- blaming the sick person for catching the germ. We've grown enough to have "no fault" divorce but we still can't treat mental illness as an illness and not as a choice. I could go on and on.
BUT -- two things to consider. I do what you do, I try to own my part of things and I try to look at it from all sides and I try to understand why people hurt me. I minimize my own hurt because I'm sure that no one else would feel this bad, or this hurt. I actually asked my therapist in all seriousness, if what happened to me as a child was "bad" -- bad enough for therapy. He didn't pull any punches when he answered yes. He said I want to avoid the victim label so badly I was trying to convince him I was at fault but victim is not a bad word. Being a victim means someone hurt you. And it is very well known for "victims" to be abused more than once. Why? Because they come to expect it and their pain makes them vulnerable again and again. Don't you think we are all trying to repeat situations until we get it right? Doing the "if only" dance -- if only I say it the right way, I will be believed and get help. If only I present myself in a professional way, I will be believed and get help. And on and on.
What I would ask you to hang on to is the second thing I want you to consider. If any of the things that happened to you happened to a friend, or a sister, or a child you know, what would you think? My therapist often asks me to think of the children I work with and imagine them enticing a grown man to have sex with them. I get outraged...and he makes his point. If a 13 year old child had an appointment with you, and came rushing in from this experience, what would you have done? I doubt strongly that you would have chastised her for being late.
I know that you already said you can be outraged for someone else. Please try to overlay this on your experiences, one at a time, as if you were thinking about someone else. I really do know how hard this is. Really.
Posted by fairywings on September 12, 2005, at 7:39:20
In reply to Admitting someone hurt you versus whining?, posted by Racer on September 11, 2005, at 22:08:02
Hi Racer,
i'm so sorry all of this has happened to you. your mom didn't do you any favors by emotionally abusing you and making you feel worthless. some parents are so full of their self that they think the world revolves around them, they can't even take care of the feelings of an innocent child.
then, at a very early age, you fell into the hands of people who were supposed to be helping you, who accused you of being at fault for something you had no fault in. you have to know that when you are assaulted it isn't your fault. and then to be in situations where you were trying to put your life together and were taken advantage of again.
this is all so tragic, it's no wonder you feel so helpless, anxious, and like you can't trust anyone anymore. Who could eat? Who could want to make friends when the next person might be the only who takes advantage or acuses you? you have every right to feel so hurt, but i think if you can get with the right T you can hope for something better. there's someone out there who can help, someone who will care, and won't take advantage, just make sure you take the time to find the right one. and not it's not fair, you are not to blame, please know that you're not.
fw
Posted by Tamar on September 12, 2005, at 17:54:14
In reply to Admitting someone hurt you versus whining?, posted by Racer on September 11, 2005, at 22:08:02
Hi Racer,
I wasn’t here last year… what you describe sounds truly appalling. I’m outraged.
I think the word ‘victim’ is used in quite different ways, which confuses the issue. People might talk about a rape victim as someone who has clearly been victimised. But when people talk about a victim mentality or a professional victim, I think they mean something else. I think they mean that people blame others for things that are (supposedly) their own responsibility, or for which they could reasonably take some responsibility.
Unfortunately, I think people who haven’t experienced successive abuses find it difficult to imagine or understand, and tend to react in a way that shows they don’t believe it. It seems that people are prepared to believe that *one* awful thing might have happened, and that the thing wasn’t your fault. But then when it emerges that similar things have happened on several occasions, people start to think you’re either making it up or that you’ve done something to deserve it or encourage it or somehow make it happen. People suggest that having low self-esteem may be part of the cause, with the subtext that it’s your responsibility to improve your self-esteem, which might perhaps save *you* from being a victim again but doesn’t address the question of how to stop people assaulting women. As long as the focus is on what the victims might be doing ‘wrong’, the abusers are absolved of their wrongdoing. It seems to me that the term ‘professional victim’ is effectively about a failure to believe that numerous bad things can happen to one person.Having been subjected to several sexual assaults in my life, I get angry when people don’t believe it happened, or when they assume I did something to invite it. But for a long time I wondered what I was doing wrong to cause all these people to assault me. Now I’ve come to believe that if people assaulted me, they were the ones in the wrong. I didn’t ask for it. Not once.
When I started therapy I told my therapist that I didn’t know how people could call themselves survivors of abuse or rape. The idea simply didn’t make sense to me. I said I was a victim because we live in a world where sexual assault is permitted (by social attitudes, low conviction rates, certain kinds of pornography etc.). But I think now I’m closer to calling myself a survivor. And I think the only way to move from victim to survivor was to begin to accept that in fact there wasn’t anything I could have done about it; that people really did bad things to me. At first, I found that harder than believing it was all my fault. For me the change was partly a question of being believed and partly a question of being allowed to be angry.
I don’t think it is possible for someone who has been repeatedly sexually harassed and assaulted to be a ‘professional victim’ about it. To be honest, I don’t think the term ‘professional victim’ is terribly helpful. As far as I can tell, it’s most often used by people who think we should pull up our socks and stop complaining about the difficulties of being women/disabled/poor/non-white/whatever.
(Here endeth the rant on sexual politics.)
And no, I don’t believe a six year-old can be ‘selfish’. My eldest child will be six in a couple of weeks. She likes things her way, but that’s completely normal for her age. The other thing is that kids that age are usually trying very hard to be good and at the same time they take comments about their behaviour very seriously. It seems to be almost an existential thing for them; if I told my daughter she was selfish she would believe she had a serious and possibly irreparable character flaw. If you were told that kind of thing regularly, I can see how you might have come to believe it.
(((((Racer)))))
I hope you can come to realise it wasn’t all your fault; that you really did experience some very bad things and that you are allowed to be angry about them.
Tamar
Posted by Poet on September 12, 2005, at 19:13:41
In reply to Admitting someone hurt you versus whining?, posted by Racer on September 11, 2005, at 22:08:02
Hi Racer,
I remember how tough it was for you last year. I also remember thinking that it sure didn't seem like you asked for it in anyway. It still doesn't.
I struggle with accepting that I am not responsible for many bad things that have happened to me, including being abused. My T has tried so patiently to get me to stop blaming myself and allow that I didn't ask for these things to happen to me. She says she'd like to hear me say that I am not to blame for ___________.
Maybe the difference between admitting abuse and being a professional victim is understanding and accepting what you are and aren't truly to be blamed for? I obviously haven't been able to do that, but my T would say it's progress that I don't blame myself for everything single bad thing.
Progressing at my usual snail pace- Poet
Posted by antigua on September 13, 2005, at 7:35:25
In reply to Admitting someone hurt you versus whining?, posted by Racer on September 11, 2005, at 22:08:02
I remember how hard it was for you last year and I'm sorry you're still carrying the hurt. They had no right to treat you that way at all.
I may not believe in people being "professional victims" but I sure know that I keep repeating certain patterns that bring me into situations where I am completely retraumatized. Yes, these people/organizations, etc. treat me very badly and it IS their fault, but I keep picking to be involved in those situations (unconsciously, usually). My Pdoc says while it's painful, it's very normal to do this. I keep trying for a different outcome and I'm devastated everytime it doesn't turn out differently. Instead, I'm a victim all over again. Eventually (??) I will come to terms with this.
I feel much better knowing that the issue is more complicated than me being a professional victim. Don't get me wrong--I still whine plenty.
Just my 2 cents,
antigua
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