During my morning reading time this past week, I have been working my way through Our Polyvagal World by Stephen and Seth Porges. The book is a wonderful overview of The Polyvagal Theory and how our amazing bodies are constructed in a manner that has helped us endure and even thrive.
One thing our Vagus system isn't adapted to is dealing with being in a state of stress constantly. We are supposed to endure stress then return to homeostasis. The problem with our modern, always in the feed, world is that stressors are being mainlined into our brain 24/7.
And that's not even accounting for how a body who's experienced trauma processes things.
But, this post isn't about the world of safety, trauma, and mental health. This post is about a theme I have been thinking about a lot lately.
Victimization.
No human can get through their existence without experiencing trauma. Just think about the act of being born, it is the definition of trauma, a life or death situation full of pain, highs, lows, and possible deaths of the participants involved.
So yes, trauma is something that everyone has experienced. How we process trauma is unique to us. We all have different thresholds of resilience, and one thing I find incredibly annoying is that a lot of us seem to think people with lower resilience levels are somehow not as tough.
Which brings me to victimization. Bad things have or will happen to you. The hard part in our it's everybody else's fault society is not letting the act that was/is being done to you define your subsequent behavior.
You can't right past wrongs by wronging people in the present.
Threatening another human being because they don't act the way you think they need to because of something that happened to you is happening more and more. And watching people, even so-called experts, justify that behavior on top of it makes me wonder if the trend might be by design. Constant finger pointing never leads to anything but eventual escalation of animosity, side-taking, and the end result of victimization, bloodshed and loss of life.
Calling out bad behavior. Studying past injustices. Teaching actual history outside of a rosy lens. Learning that it's okay to not have an opinion on everything. Refusing to be labeled and divided into boxes that perpetuate division. All of these things are things that those who refuse to be perpetual victims do.
Because at the end of the day, a person who allows themselves to wallow in the victimization pool becomes beholden to the feelings that they felt when the injustice was committed instead of being freed by allowing themselves to feel them and move on with the acts of living. I am not even remotely coming close to the concept of victim blaming here, I am talking more about victimhood perpetuating. You can't sue a tsunami for wiping out your home, but you absolutely can choose to not be defined by the event. And you better believe I am all about holding people accountable for reprehensible actions, and that includes people who use what happens to them to bully and victimize others.
So much of our culture revolves around embracing the siren song of victimization. Blaming others for our state is just a way to guarantee self-stagnation. It's also the path to possible harmful behavior engaging. Each one of us has the potential to do exactly what the world needs and if we are too busy trying to count all the wrongs done to us, we have no room to get to the rights.
Now me, I don't have all the answers. I have both wronged and been wronged by others. But one thing I absolutely refuse to do is view my entire mindset through a lens that is colored by things that happened to me, whether by others or through the randomness of life.
Because the one thing I have control over is how I think about what I feel. And if I don't feel like a victim, then I am not one. It's as simple as that.