Victim Or Survivor?

Have you ever noticed that children live up or down to the way they are made to feel?
If a child is praised, they will try even harder to excel.  If they only receive degrading
comments, put-downs and condemnation, then they will quit trying, give up and finally
believe that they are failures doomed never to succeed in life.  A life can change direction
by the presence of just one person who believes in them.

It's the same with domestic violence victims.  A victim mentality keeps you under the
control of the abuse.  It refuses to allow you to see the potential that your life could
achieve if you were free of the abuser and his constant degrading comments, put-downs,
the emotional and physical domination, and condemnation of everything that you want
for yourself and your children.  The victim mentality keeps you in a place of utter defeat. 
You lack the energy to even tell yourself that you are surrounded by lies...you believe him. 
And with that belief comes his utter domination over you.

So how does one go from the mentality of victim defeat to survivor victory?  You have
to reaffirm in your heart that you matter, that you are important.  Your wants, dreams,
values and thoughts are real, they are of value and you have every right to have them!
This is not easy, nor does it come quickly, especially if you've been in a domestic abuse
situation for any length of time.  You have been slowly brainwashed over time so that
he can control you. 

For me it was hard to muster the courage to even try to protect myself.  In the warped
universe that a domestic violence victim inhabits, we don't even like ourselves.  We
have come to believe the lies that we constantly hear about ourselves.  My constant battle
with myself was, "Why would I expend energy to help someone that I honestly hate?"
...(that being myself!)  Finding help presented the same problem..."Who would help
someone like me...I'm not worth it!" 

We even start to believe after a while that God will not even help us!  What a lie straight
from Satan this is!  God did not create us to be broken, controlled and dominated.  He
wants us to be free to soar to the limits of our possibilities in His love and freedom!

I was given a piece of paper at counseling one day, and was instructed to list what my
dreams were.  To my astonishment, I couldn't come up with any!  My counselor explained
to me that I still had dreams and aspirations, but that they had been buried under the
cloak of worthlessness that was surrounding my heart and soul.  Over the course of a
few weeks I was able to peal back that damaging worthlessness and uncover the dreams
that had once energized me.  As I rediscovered myself, I was able to change the label on
my soul from "victim" to "survivor!"

The moment you take back control, you throw the victim mentality aside and you step
into the roll of a SURVIVOR!  There is a tremendous sense of power and confidence that
comes along with this word "survivor."  I always envision a huge "S" on the front of my
shirt, like that of Superman!  We have the power back, we are no longer listening to the
lies that come from hell through his lips.  I AM A SURVIVER!