I noticed my friend Kolby had responded:

When someone approaches you and immediately claims to be a victim, a victim of something you just did, it is often an attempt at some level to manipulate and control you, to guilt or shame you into obeying their orders now.

Forcing a sense of obligation onto someone … is violent, domination, pushy.

Even if it’s unconsciously done, a habit, a lifestyle, a deliberate tactic, helpless desperation, or a practice that gets results really well over time.

If someone makes a career of being a weak, helpless victim every chance they get, primarily to harvest and live off the sympathy of others, or as a source of influence and power over others … this pushes people around, and that’s violent.

Calmly requesting help as a responsible adult, without exerting pressure … is peaceful and collaborative.

To take responsibility and take charge, stop engaging in childish blame games and simply work with whatever you have, doing the best you can. When taking charge of ones own actions, one would never pose as a “victim”, no matter what happens.

The whole “victim” label and story becomes irrelevant and useless when someone is eagerly surviving and creating regardless of the weather.

Jenny Delaine:

I like everything you have said. And, there is nothing wrong with having been a victim of something; some kind of trauma where one is targeted. Victim, has been coined by certain terms when we talk about unwanted behaviors. However, the very root of this word, makes it a term not to be played with. I think Katie should have added to this one.

I responded:

Good points Colby and Jenny – you mirror my thoughts exactly. I have often thought Katie could have added more to avoid misinterpretation, but I decided to sit with this one and see if there is truth in it.

I once considered myself a victim of rape when I was very young. It took years to get to this point but I don’t see myself as a victim anymore. It’s a terrible thing that happened to me, but it’s over. Every day I chose to see myself as a victim was an act of violence towards myself. It was as if it’s happening over and over again, because by allowing it define me, I am holding onto it and reliving it every day.

That victim energy encircles a person and draws more, similar offenders towards them, because it’s such a good match. “Here is this lesson I am learning and I can’t let it go. Can someone agree with me please and show me its real? I need to keep believing I’m a victim”, and the offender comes in, “I noticed you right away because we have a matching lesson we’re learning. I am willing to play the role of the horrible person who will teach you the lesson you are asking for, and prove you aren’t imagining that you’re a victim, so that I can have proof of the terrible things I believe about myself too.” I dont know if I’m explaining it very well, but on another level, a soul level, I think we might agree to play certain roles that will manifest the world we want to believe in for each other. Ever since I let go of the idea that I was a victim of sexual violence (a few times over), nobody like that has come anywhere near me since then. I am learning other lessons now…

What has been your experience on the journey of victim or perpetrator, and where are you at now?

Ever since the first cuckoo clock I ever read about in a book as a child, I have been obsessed with perfectly hand crafted timepieces and the traditional art of clockmaking. And for as long as I have loved clocks I have desired one particular timepiece into existence that showed the position and rotation of our plants around our star. Every few years I’d search online to see if it had come into existence yet, and then today, by sheer luck I finally stumbled onto it without even searching!

The Midnight Planétarium watch By Van Cleef & Arpels not only tells time, but follows the orbit of our solar system’s planets. The Midnight Planétarium which showcased at SIHH2014, follows the celestial orbits of six planets, each represented by a gemstone, orbiting a rose gold sun. It is a feat of design: just as in reality, Mercury makes a full rotation in 3 months, and Saturn in 29.5 years. I am utterly dazzled by its beauty and exquisite craftsmanship!

It’s a good thing I can’t afford to have this timepiece because I would covet it more than the dream of creating my own home some day and would become crazy with obsession over this possession. I don’t know why this is, it just is. I want it so badly…

Behold!

The dial is made of aventurine and the planets of semiprecious stones.
Price: about $245,000

via Twitter

I know it’s not really related but it got me to thinking…

Do Psychopaths have a hidden suffering?

I often notice, with the surprising amount of sociopaths and psychopaths I’ve encountered in this short life, that they actually struggle with the inability to feel. They are willing to go to great lengths to feel something, even though nothing works, no matter how extreme their method progression runs. They are so intrigued by how much the rest of us feel and suffer that they often try to play with us and hurt us and watch us, like we are puppets… to try to imagine it, perhaps?

They feel superior to the rest of us (one of the known indicators, which I think is partly due to also having above average intelligence) and at the same time I think they wonder what they are missing out on… what makes us so special that we get to experience such extremes of joy and sadness and they don’t. They didn’t even get to have a choice! You might catch them every so often looking at you with this odd wonderment, wishing they could relate to your extreme joy or suffering, and then a second later the look of superiority comes back. I have a suspicion they feel shut out from the world of feeling anything or giving a shit about anything. I guess this in itself is a form of suffering that can never be cured. They will do anything to be a part of the extremes of suffering and joy, even if they only get to be the puppetmaster. Even becoming actors, or writers, about scenarios and things they know will convince others into feeling things, and convince others into believing they are feeling the things they speak of. Bear in mind that the majority of sociopaths and psychopaths are way too smart to end up in jail, weaving their way in and out of our lives in the most ordinary ways sometimes, yet leaving some of the most extraordinary moments to mind.

If you struggle with constant struggle, consider yourself lucky. You get to FEEL EVERYTHING, and you don’t even have to try. It’s just given to you. Your life is truly felt, experienced… LIVED. YAY! This is not something to be pitied or looked down upon, ever. EVER.

And now for something that brings us all together in the same boat:

“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That’s the message he is sending.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh