All hurts need healing. However, a victim mentality is not a helpful solution for a wounded heart. Having a victim mentality means your healing has come to a stand-still and you’re operating as if you’re powerless when you’re not. Even though your pain is valid, a victim mentality can negatively and even destructively impact how you respond to your circumstances, your performance, and your relationships.

Signs of a Victim Mentality

• You’re regularly jealous of the lives others seem to have.
• You believe your day-to-day activities are much harder than everyone else’s.
• You’re deeply disappointed that things haven’t turned out better for you.
• Your closest relationships revolve around sharing sob stories more than encouraging.
• You feel like you can’t get a break or become unstuck.
• You’ve abandoned dreams that can be connected to a hurtful incident.
• You don’t plan well, struggle to take steps to reach goals, or you quickly lose momentum along the way.
• You have a tendency to be very critical of others; or yourself.
• It’s very difficult for you to accept compliments or receive from others.
• You believe God is distant and disinterested.
• You work overtime to earn acceptance and approval.
• You feel defensive in many situations and have a need to self-protect.
• You tend to miss cues for how others are feeling.
• Not being in control leads to high anxiety for you.
• There is some sort of unhealthy dependency in your life, such as food, alcohol, rules, routine, certain people, etc.
• Compulsion rather than freedom guides your decision-making.
• You use the past to explain everything about your present.
• In your heart, you doubt you’ve been validated enough for what you went through.
• In addition to other matters on the list, you struggle with depression.

Replace a Victim Mentality with a Healed Mentality

• Consider a formal recovery process with a mentor or counselor.
• If applicable, be honest with yourself and communicate to trusted loved ones that while you’ve gotten some validation for past hurt – you’re still in a place where you require more layers of validation before you can be ready for true breakthrough.
• Be serious about relying on the Lord to refresh you, rather than turning to temporary pleasures to fill your deepest needs. Spend more time thinking of absorbing His holiness than remembering past wounds.
• Look for the benefits in past mistakes and consider writing them down so you will not forget what you’ve gained.
• Intentionally develop a few close, trusted relationships that encourage you towards a healed mentality, rather than leave you feeling reminded of your hurt. Examine other relationships to see how you can be healthier in them.
• Look for the good in situations and in people. Ask God to help you see others with His eyes. Pray for Him to shape your heart to look more like His.
• Learn how to form realistic goals and stick to daily/weekly plans to help you find new levels of success.
• Where possible, make a plan to catch yourself before current situations trigger feelings of past hurts and trauma. Then prepare for how you will cope. Notice the current level of anxiety you are experiencing and how you can address it better.
• Pray with a friend on a regular basis to help your prayers be outward-focused. Or maybe join a small group in order to help you with forgiveness, staying accountable to true healing, and remembering your need for a Savior.
• Identify and prioritize the development of your unique purpose. Interact with God like you would a friend as He helps you walk that calling out.

David and Paul could empathize with you. David cried out to God to deal with those who had hurt him, and declared his trust was in Him (Ps. 55:23). The Lord stood with Paul, strengthened and delivered him in the way that kept him from taking on a victim mentality, and enabled him to continue doing the work of the heavenly kingdom (2 Tim. 4:14-18).

The same Lord who Transformed the Minds of David and Paul, can Transform Your Mind.