No One Has the Power to Make You a Victim

“Yes, he had the power to abuse me, but he doesn’t have the power

to make me a victim.”

Craig Nakken, Finding Your Moral Compass

Everyone has been abused someway, somehow. But there’s a difference between being abused and being a victim. If someone had the power to abuse us, we were certainly victimized. But we didn’t become victims unless we chose to do so. People who become victims choose to lay down before others and become their doormats. In other words, when I choose to give away my personal power, I choose to become a victim of others, of life or of the world.

Anytime we have been abused, we find healing in grieving and we find freedom in forgiveness. By grieving our loss and by choosing to forgive the person who has abused us, we regain our self-respect, our dignity and our lives. We are then able to move forward as people better prepared to face the harsh realities of life. Throughout this process, our ability to heal, forgive and move forward have been made possible by the fact that we chose to maintain our personal power. We did so by refusing to be victims.

Unfortunately, not everyone chooses to retain their personal power and dignity. Instead of making this positive, life-affirming choice, they choose to give-away there personal power to those who have abused them. In their minds, the abuser is all-powerful and they themselves are completely powerless. They see themselves like puppets and their perpetrators like puppet masters. They think that there power has been taken away from them and that they are helpless when in fact the opposite is true. They have freely given away their power and they are equally as free to take it back.

You don’t have to be anyone’s victim. If a parent, older sibling, teacher, friend, boss or spouse abused you, you may have been powerless to stop the abuse, but you were never so powerless as to become their victim. Becoming the victim is a mental choice we make. It’s a state of mind, and we can get out of that state of mind. We can choose to take back our power by grieving our loses, and praying for the ability to finally set ourselves free from our perpetrators by forgiving them.

So remember, people may have the power to abuse you, but they never have the power to make you a victim. Only you have that power. Don’t misuse it!