victim recovery | David M Masters

Forgiveness is the Key

You are the result of a lifetime of abuse and victimization from the sound of your first cry for life until today, you have survived and endured judgment, false accusations, injustice, betrayal, abuse, and trauma. It’s a wonder you’ve made it this far at all.

You are a bundle of emotional wounds and garbage you’ve collected over the course of your life, which explains a lot about who you are and how you respond to the world around you. After all, nobody knows better than you, that you’re the only person you can count on to look after you. This is your primary objective.

You surround yourself with emotional tripwires and landmines to protect yourself and you try to keep all those emotional wounds hidden and suppressed, which is the highest level of self-abuse. All that unresolved trauma compromises your immune system, promotes premature aging, makes you more prone to sickness and disease. If that weren’t enough, is also keeping you separated from all the best things in life.

The fortress you’ve built to protect yourself is nearly impenetrable. You might applaud yourself for doing such a good job of protecting yourself. From inside your fortress you feel safe but if you could see from a higher perspective, you could see you have sentenced yourself to a life in prison of your own making.

Forgiveness is the Key

Forgiveness is the key to unlock every level of containment you’ve subjected yourself to.

There’s no denying the multitude of transgressions you’ve endured. The wounds run so very deep. Your pain, fear, and the repressed anger from the grudges you maintain are weapons of those who hurt you in the first place. They continue to hurt and abuse you every moment that you harbor unforgiveness.

The first thought which you might consider would be to ask the question, “Why would I forgive someone for doing that to me?” and you might rather see them punished for what they did, but contemplating retribution is another way the victimizer continues to have power over his or her victim.

Not only are you a victim of your abuser but you subject yourself to continued self-abuse by second-guessing yourself, and feeling guilty, wondering how you could have let someone do that to you? Setting up emotional blockades and numbing your own emotions so that you can’t be hurt like that again.

Playing the part of the victim does offer you emotional support from others who might feel sorry for you, which helps to ease the pain, but it also cements your position in being continually victimized by your abuser.

Forgiveness Can Set You Free

Forgiveness starts with you. You must forgive yourself first. You are not responsible for any of the emotional pain you’ve endured. You never deserved to be disrespected, mistreated, or abused. You were innocent. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or maybe you suffered the abuse because you were strong enough to take it, like a shock absorber, sparing someone else who could not have survived the abuse.

You cannot control what other people do. You are only in control of your own life and forgiving yourself, absolving yourself from any sense of wrongdoing or deservedness is implicit.

Forgive Them

You are not required to face or confront your aggressor(s), all you need to do is to realize that these people were only doing the best they could with what they had at the time. Just as you were only doing the best you could with what you had at that time.

You might even offer up a little empathy, that had you lived that person’s life, you might have committed the same atrocities.

Forgive them. Forgiving them is not about them at all, it’s more about you forgiving them so that you can go on with your life without them continually exerting additional abuse to you over time.

Your forgiveness is complete, when you can look back at the episode without pain, guilt, or anger, and can truly hope that he or she finds his or her own way to claim a better life for themselves in love, without having to strike out at others anymore.

You can learn the lessons from your past without having to carry around all that emotional baggage. No need to seclude yourself deep within your fortress.

You can be free, and forgiveness is the key.

Shield of Fear

When you take a look at the things which are holding you back from all the best things in life, you are likely to discover they are things associated with your past. Your shadow-self clings to the negative things which you have endured in your past and uses them as a shield of fear to protect you from falling victim to a similar scenario again.

Your body and your mind think the shield of fear is an effective method of protecting you from suffering, and on the surface, it seems perfectly reasonable, and so it is. Then, there is your highest self, who intuitively knows what is best for you.

Your highest self sees what’s really going on. Clinging to all this negativity is actually blocking you from the strength that comes from freedom from all the things that might be holding you back and enjoying all the best things this life has to offer.

The things from your past which you use as a protective shield from potential harm also shield you from other possibilities which are presenting themselves for you to grow and expand.

Thankfully, God will keep presenting opportunities which trigger the connection to these early hidden wounds, as opportunities to dig down, find the elemental anchor, and deal with the issue, enabling you to be free from the previous incident (anchor) so you can grow, expand, and be open to all the new possibilities which are longing to be enjoyed by you.

When you feel a negative emotional upheaval, this may be your shadow-self hard at work trying to protect you from suffering pain, as you may have previously experienced some traumatic incident from your past. Once you identify the root cause of the emotional surge, you have the opportunity to address the issue just as if you were on fire, you can stop, drop and roll.

Just realizing the anchoring issue can give you some initial relief. If you are able to bring up the anchoring incident and find the learning, wisdom, and/or gift embedded in the incident (for there always is, if you can allow yourself to seek and find the hidden message) you can,

Stop, Drop and Roll

Stop allowing this incident from the past to block you from all the positive potentialities which are ready to reveal themselves to you.

Drop this issue (these issues), not allowing people, demons, wounds, or memories from the past which haunt and control you like a hot rock. You are no longer the victim of your past, so you can,

Roll out the red carpet and start living the life you’ve always wanted, and which has been waiting for you all this time. You are really on a roll, now, and into your most amazing future where your best life is waiting for you.

You are able to grow and expand unencumbered by the shadows of your past.

Is it a one-time, one-size-fits-all cure-all? No. It is an ongoing process because once you’ve uncovered your first anchor(s), you have now become aware of them, and they will present more opportunities for you to eliminate other elements of your shadow-self as they are brought to your attention.

This is challenging and exciting work to embark upon as you consider tackling the deep inner work which is the key to your enlightened expansion, allowing you to be truly free indeed from the shackles which band many of our brothers and sisters who share the human condition.

Celebrate your freedom from the shadows of your past, as you live a better life, your best life and make the world a better place.

Shock Absorbers

Victims of abuse are the superheroes who have come to this planet to experience and absorb the impact of abuse for the benefit of the world at large. Your experience exposes, educates and changes the world, and you are the conduit of the transformative change.

I am so grateful for the victims of the most abhorrent abuses in our modern society. While I would never wish any of the atrocities which have been suffered by these individuals, they have often (if not always and unbeknownst to them) pledged their service to the greater good, and their participation in this special calling is nothing less than heroic.

Sometimes, the act of submitting yourself to suffer abuse on the behalf of others is conscious, like in a hostage situation and the captor(s) are going to torture or kill one of the hostages, and you volunteer to be the first victim. How courageous is that? To sacrifice yourself for the sake of sparing the others. Even if you end up paying the price of your benevolent act of service requires paying the ultimate sacrifice and you give your life for the benefit of others.

In that hostage scenario, you absorbed the shock which faced the entire world in that moment. It was the worst of circumstances which involved and affected the whole world, not just you and the other hostages. It is also a tragic event for the captors, negotiators, law enforcement, reporters, witnesses, healthcare and mental health professionals. Not to mention friends and relatives of active and passive participants, and anyone else who may become aware of the abusive event.

An abusive event ripples through the local community and the world at large.

What about silent victims of abuse?

Placing yourself in harm’s way to absorb any abuse that might otherwise visit someone less equipped to take the abuse is also heroic, even if it takes place in secret and no one ever knows that you’re taking the abuse spared anyone else from having to suffer.

Until the world shifts from barbarianism to enlightenment there will be abuse and someone will have to suffer. And there are those who being a sufferer of abuse is a part of their journey. They actually decided or knew before they were born, that their journey would include this suffering to help make a difference, to change the world, and play an integral part in stopping the patterns of abuse our society turns a blind eye to or tolerates.

Sometimes, someone who has suffered abuse becomes a key component in exposing, reducing, or eliminating that particular type of abuse, while others take it upon themselves to reach out in support of other victims.

Often, a victim of abuse cannot imagine that anyone else could have suffered a similar type of abuse, so a survivor of abuse can be priceless in the rehabilitation process of any abuse victim.

Then, there are others who insist on silently hiding the abuse(s) they’ve suffered never letting anyone know and doing their very best to deal with it without saying a word to anyone or doing anything about it.

I would never advise anyone to subject themselves to abuse. If you have been a victim of abuse, you should see to the cessation of the abuse as soon and effectively as possible.

If you are one of those who has decided to take the abuse and remain in silence, you must do whatever you need to do any way you need to do it. There is no judgment for you here. You are a blessed shock absorber, any way you decide to do it, and you are a blessing.

We feel bad, because we want to help you. We don’t want to see you suffering, like this. Some of us are empathetic and can feel some of the feelings that you are going through or know how we would feel if what you were going through was happening to us, and we would do anything we could to help you.

There are others who know your pain. They have walked in your shoes. They have remained in silence while they were being abused, and they did find a way out. They are here, too, hoping you will reach out to someone. We are all here to support your choice, whether you choose to reach out or not.

No one is doing it wrong.

After all, we’re all doing the best we can with what we have.

May the shock absorbers of the world be blessed for all that you do and endure.

You are loved, the shock absorbers of the world, today.

Do Others Control You?

When you get upset at someone else, about what they have done, or some injustice you’ve suffered due to people, events or circumstances beyond your control, you actually bequeath to another (whomever you feel the offender is, whether it be another person, organization, government, system or even God) complete control over you.

While it feels as though someone or something outside of yourself has insinuated circumstances which has in effect victimized you in some way, as might be the case in terms of the loss of a job or a loved one, or the diagnosis of a severe illness, it is up to you whether you allow yourself to become a victim, or not.

If you feel bad, allow your feelings to be hurt by someone or something outside yourself, for every moment you allow your thought processes to be distracted by someone or something else due to your emotional state, you are forfeiting control.

Who You Blame is In Control

The object of your mind’s focus (whoever or whatever they are) is indeed in control of you and your emotional state. If you are blaming a circumstance, person, place or thing for things going badly or some injustice which you have suffered, then you are a willing victim to the object of your attention.

Is that what you want?

If someone has wronged you, do you really want that person to continue to further victimize and have control over your life?

In terms of psychopaths, narcissists and those along the Anti-Social Personality Disorder spectrum, they revel in the idea that they are honored by being remembered by you and are constantly in your thoughts. They feed off your negative attention and it empowers them to conduct more discontent in the world, as they continue to further enjoy the fruits of their efforts to drag you down and you continue to sink into depths of despair.

Your discomfort, loss, sadness and depression is their continued reward. They arrogantly acknowledge complete control. They assert their win and your loss as they enjoy every minute of it.

How to Stop Giving Away Control

The key to taking back control of your life is to stop blaming someone or something from causing your current negative emotional state.

If you want control of your life, you need to assert control and the only way to do that is to accept full responsibility for things being as they are.

Stop Blaming

Take Full Responsibility

You must find a way to stop blaming and start taking full responsibility.

A common method of taking responsibility is to accept the fact that your life is a journey, a path you travel which will have many experiences, some good, some bad, all to experience a full range of emotional states and allowing you to gain knowledge and grow as a result of the myriad of experiences you have along the way.

I, on the other hand, enjoy taking it a step further, imagining myself in a far-off place high above the world where we live out our life’s journey. In this place, I selected my parents, the time and place of my birth, the circumstances surrounding my journey as well as the challenges and obstacles that I would face to maximize my experiences throughout the course of m life.

I imagine myself as if I were off-camera (so to speak) hooked up to advanced equipment, enjoying having all the experiences that I have while hooked up to this equipment.

From this perspective, I am much more likely to not take things personally. It’s as though all my life experiences are part of a film I am watching, though I am able to experience all the sensations of my character in this medium.

If this is too far out of a concept for you to wrap your head around, no problem; you need not go that far out in space.

Just find other ways to stop blaming and accept full responsibility for your life. Find ways to release the emotional pain by any ways or means possible and retain the learning from all life events.

Want to be a Victim?

You’ve been victimized. There’s no doubt that you have suffered at the hands of another. You have been hurt and the fallout was devastating. Clearly you are the victim.

Once you’ve been victimized, you find your place within the Victim’s Spectrum.

On the left side of the spectrum is the full-on victim and on the right side of the spectrum is the fully-free victim.

In my work with victims I can find the victim at any place along the victim’s spectrum. Ideally, I would like to see all victims make their way to being fully-free but it is a process and some victims progress very far along the spectrum and some stay at the point they entered the spectrum.

There are advantages to being a full-on victim. You can easily gain the interest of anyone who is sorry you were victimized, but thankful they were not the victim in your story. You can garner their undivided attention while you tell your story and they pay close attention in the hopes that by doing so, they may be able to avoid falling victim to a similar circumstance.

People who love and care about you will offer their support, encouragement and empathetic concern as they try to comfort you while in the throes of pain and anguish and their support does help to decrease the pain from being victimized.

The full-on end of the spectrum is based in fear; fear of being further victimized and the fear can be debilitating, preventing you from being able to make any positive movement along the spectrum and may overflow into other areas of your life. Left unattended the full-in victim may be completely consumed by the fear, in the most catastrophic of circumstances may be catatonic.

Also, as the full-on victim, there is little responsibility on the part of the victim. Reduced to its simplest terms, the victim is right or good and the victimizer is wrong or bad (possibly even evil). Even though being a victim is embarrassing, and represents loss, shame and suffering, the affirmation of the victim’s goodness or rightness has some redeeming value and may be seen as comforting to the victim.

There is no condemnation for being the full-on victim and just as in dealing with grief (as in the loss of a loved one), only the sufferer can determine when is the right time to make any movement toward healthy healing and freedom.

In terms of spiritual enlightenment, the more advanced life traveler will more quickly firmly position him or herself at fully-free.

What does the fully-free victim look like?

1. Decides not to be a victim

You may not be able to reverse your victimization, but you can choose to not act or feel like one. Be aware that this is a process and its different for everyone.

2. Take full responsibility

That means you stop blaming someone or something else for your victimization. In taking full responsibility, you assume that you caused the events that led to your victimization and the actual victimization to happen.

3. Retain the Learning

Review the process of the victimization. What did you do to make yourself vulnerable? What could you have done better to protect yourself. When reviewing, try not to do so from a viewpoint of fear or anger, instead attempt to look through the eyes of tolerance and love. The learning is the purpose behind the victimization.

4. Be Thankful

Adopt an attitude of gracious thankfulness for the entire affair. You have survived and earned your master’s degree in how not to be victimized, like this, again. You have paid dearly for the training and experience, and you are thankful for the opportunity.

Speaking of opportunity, I have realized in my life, any time something goes tragically wrong, there is something better coming… I start looking around for something amazing that is on its way as soon as possible.

5. Forgive and Let Go

This means to forgive yourself for the part you played in attracting or allowing the victimization to happen. Also forgive all other participants in the victimization, remember you are thankful for their participation in your learning process.

Letting go means holding no grudges and not feeling bad. If you are able to authentically and honestly forgive and accept all the good that has arisen from this tragedy, you can let it go. That means: No complaining, only recalling the treasure hidden within the process and celebration of your survival.

6. Accept Your Calling

Your experience may have great value to others. This may have been the purpose behind the whole affair. You have been through it, you survived and are better for it. You now can offer understanding, empathetic compassion, hope and assistance to others who may be involved in a similar situation.

This is likely why you were chosen to have this experience, to help others. I know that was the blessing in my experience with a psychopath. It opened my eyes to something I didn’t believe existed prior to surviving the experience, as well as any other less than desirable (or tragic) experiences I have survived along the way.

7. Accept the Process

Realize that moving along the victim’s spectrum is a process. As you are in search of recovery, your progress may vary, but it does get better the longer you work on the process.

Remember, you are not a bad person, neither are any of the other players. Love yourself, love others and keep moving toward love and in doing so you will be the recipient of increased peace and harmony.