THE DEFINITION OF VICTIM

I have heard the definition of victims as "willing to lose everything in order to hang on to their 'triumphant unhappiness.'"  In my mind that cannot be improved upon.

According to me, self-pity, a victim's womb unto tomb hidey-hole, is a human's sincerest emotion. It warms us as no other emotion can. Even love, when we're in the midst of self-pity, can't hold a candle to it...for, in fact, that is what self-pity is, love of our hurt.  We are enchanted with the unfairness of the cause of our hurt, enraptured with the gut-bucket knowledge that nobody, not one soul, can understand how deeply and unfairly we are hurt. There. There's our "triumphant unhappiness."

Getting a clue about that was the basis for my first understanding of the difference between growth through psychiatry and growth through spirituality. In my opinion, psychiatry helps us find the cause (the who or what to blame) and then, in the ultimate good end, how to detach ourselves from the need to blame and to grow from there. Unfortunately and too often, too many find that the validation of our hurt by another is too delicious to let go of. We just sound more educated when we talk about it...and talk about it...and hang onto our "triumphant unhappiness."

Spiritual growth, however, leads us to a healing without scars. Scarcely with a memory of the cause...the who, the what. And I speak specifically from experience here. Someone who went through all that led up to my IRS experience recently said that it wasn't my fault, that I got hosed back then. I was shocked and pretty much just shut the conversation down...that is the last thing I need to let in for it does not apply to me today.

On the other hand, I talked with my sister recently. May I say, upfront and right here, that I have seen more than one shrink about my relationship with my sister. I've pretty much left each shrink believing my hurt to be validated, and that felt gooood. You'll note I said that I've seen more than one shrink about this which means that good feeling was not permanent...was just another Hershey bar so to speak.

My sister and I finished our phone conversation of a few days ago, and I hung up feeling a certain "triumphant unhappiness." To which I laughingly thought, "Here's me, still looking for the comfort of my thorns." I thanked God that I knew just because I don't need them anymore doesn't mean I'm not going to try them on for size...one more once.

And then...AND THEN...I thought, "I forgive." God is so good to me.

Thank you.