Giving up victimhood

Like every psychotherapist, I have seen many people who were abused physically or sexually (or both) as children. The consequences of abuse vary widely. Some people seem to be able to get past it, to refuse to allow their abuse to define who they are. Others stay defined by their abuse much of their lives, cherishing their anger in the hope that the Universe (or their parents) will change eventually.

A patient of mine many years ago, now dead, had been grievously physically and sexually abused by her father with her mother's passive consent. She had been hospitalized six times before the age of 14 with injuries and broken bones, inflicted by her father. The hospital notes reflected the awareness of various medical personnel of the likelihood of abuse, but this occurred before laws were passed that made reports of such abuse mandatory, and the staff members were afraid of lawsuits. So they abandoned "Betty" to her parents. The sexual abuse was equally dramatic, occurring from age 6 to 16, when after yet another failed suicide attempt she left home.

Her rage was extreme, and by any standards "justified". At one point she disfigured herself, feeling that she should look on the outside as she felt on the inside. After several years of therapy, she had improved somewhat, but the Victim rage she felt prevented her from moving on. Once, when I urged her to consider giving up her rage, she said something like "If I were to be able to recover from what happened to me, I can hear people (and my father) saying, 'See, it wasn't all that bad, she's done OK'. And I can't bear the thought that my suffering would be treated as a casual injury". In effect (as I told her) she had decided to live as a perpetual monument to the evils of child abuse, a living reproach to her parents.

I understood her feeling, but I felt that she had spent enough time as a monument and that perhaps someone else could do it. I also suggested she take more assertive action to help abused children, but she wasn't willing to consider this option.