“He could not, or would not, see our way of life.” (Page 16, Big Book)
[In the following extract, I am using ‘victim’ to denote a mental attitude towards the fact of having suffered something, not the status of having been at the receiving end of another’s behaviour.]
When I was a victim, everything was someone else’s fault. People might actually have been rotten, but:
(1) I actively sought out such people and situations—unconsciously.
(2) I actively chose to remain with such people and in such situations.
(3) I actively contributed to such relationships and situations with my own defects.
(4) Other people’s responses to me were in part their defences against my defects.
(5) My perception of even quite bad situations was distorted and exaggerated.
I was aware of none of this.
Resolution, of course, requires recognising one’s responsibility, firstly for the perceptions, secondly for the choices, and thirdly for the contributions.
Now, the existential position I was holding was:
(1) I am innocent.
(2) They are guilty.
(3) To suggest I have any responsibility is to invert the truth and attack me.
(4) To suggest I have responsibility is to deny the other person’s responsibility.
In any situation, neither person is entirely good or entirely bad; neither person is entirely innocent or entirely guilty when it comes to contribution; but what is often balanced is the willingness of each to persist in the interaction, the relationship, or the situation. Guilt and responsibility are also not zero-sum: one person’s responsibility does not reduce the other’s.
The victim position is entirely sealed from the inside, and it breaks only from the inside, when the person decides they have had enough.
Any attempt to weaken or attack this position, to wake the person up, will fail. Even those who want to wake up from the nightmare experience considerable obstruction from the ego, which fights the process tooth and claw. What is more, anyone attempting to help the victim will be perceived by the victim as part of the perpetrator structure. There’s no way round this.
In AA and Al-Anon, this is the position I was in, and I would openly attack anyone who challenged it.
Today, when I’m in my right mind, I let sleeping dogs lie. When someone responds defensively or aggressively to an investigation of the individual’s contribution towards a negative situation, I’ve gone too far: I’ve tried to wake up the sleeping dog.