My mother: I've learned to just listen and sort of tune her out.

People at work: Much the same. Find something to do. Walk away.

People on DS: Put on "Ignore". Someone that annoys the crap out of me, might connect to someone else. And I'm FAR from always right about people online.

When my daughter was 11: Didn't buy into it. Told her that she still had to get done whatever I'd asked her to do anyway, and that probably the most important part of the task was learning that "things always come up". Two years later...she gets it. (Actually she pretty much got it at the time...was just seeing if she could push the limits. Nothing wrong with that...she just didn't get away with it with me.)

Friends in Real Life: Ah....my friend June (many years ago). I swear if there was a bad situation to be found...she'd find it. If there was a guy to avoid at the bar...she'd find him (and often go home and sleep with him.)........I'd say I used "Tolerant Compassion". She eventually....... grew up. Became a great mother. And pretty much didn't have much sympathy for what she used to be. But basically, I had boundaries that I...ME...wouldn't cross. She could ask, but I'd never give more than I felt comfortable with.

Lol...did you read my journal entry? I guess I wasn't the only one feeling the victim vibe on the forums I am on.

I usually start with compassion and some advice. If they get stubborn, I lay out what I feel is the truth--stuff happens in life and you can choose to take action and change it or you can sit there and be miserable.

And if you choose to take action, I'd be happy to support and advise. And if you choose to stay miserable, well, it's not healthy for me to be around miserable people, so I'm going to go now, and you call me when you are done acting helpless.

I admittedly draw a hard line when it comes to this subject, but I feel strongly about it.

Patti- Thank you so much! Wonderful advice and I have definitely taken some of that. :) I love the story about your daughter and I can relate to the story about your friend June. I had a friend like that at one point in my life as well, like they thrived on drama and nothing was going right in their life unless it was going wrong.

Miss Scales-I had not read your journal entry, but did this morning! Synchronicities!!! LOL! No you were not the only one getting the victim vibe. :P I like the way you handle people with the victim mentality. I know it is definitely draining for me energetically, so drawing a hard line is very important. :)

Agree with them, then ignore them.

The best thing to do if you're triggered by a post is put the post is to ignore it and if you want to the person on ignore... We can't fight on this site so it solves a lot of problems for sure... big hug....xo

I struggle with dealing with people like this too, in real life and on DS.

I'm by nature someone who is direct and almost too.pragmatic, and assume people, when they are expressing an issue or problem, they want to fix it. So I often come from a place of telling them how to fix it, or what I'd do to fix it. I get that's not always the right approach, that sometimes people just want to vent or be heard. But then with some people, you realize after a few interactions with them that they actually aren't just venting or interested in solving anything. They just think they have the market on suffering and hardship and that you possibly could never understand because your life is so easy.

I think there a two diferent kinds of people who do this. I think for some people, it's habit. It reminds me of this lyric in this Alajandro Escovedo song called Chelsea Hotel '78, where he references poets on their bar stools who grow addicted to the pain. I think peole are just used to being the sad one, the no one gets it one. I think those kinds of victims have no awareness how ensconced they are in their victimhood.

I think the second kind of person is the more darker kind, because the victimhood is a ploy, a manipulation, for whatever reason. I think it's often used to get people to rally aroumd thrm to do their bidding, to get attention, to create a them against me thing. That behavior I have no use for. I've run across that on DS in different groups and it makes me nuts because it's not so much that I want to go after the person, but that I want to tell others who seem to fall under their spell, WAKE UP, DUMMIES. But, I just figure eventually people get it and if they don't, that's their problem. I know what's what and that's all that matters.

Wow just wow rmb, you certainly hit the old nail on the head!!!! :)

@Rmb, agreed. Some of the most spectacular DS fights I've seen were on the old Hep C board, when people were sick and then taking interferon (If you don't know what it is...it's like having the flu for 9 straight months...day in day out, every single day.)

There are just some issues that no "advice" will make go away.

Another example, Depression.
Sapolsky, from Stanford
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOAgplgTxfc

Flame baiting can cause and does cause a lot of problems on sites and it can be done for sure using the victim stance

I've seen it several times as well... You summed it up really well rmb in your last paragraph

At the same time there really serious disorders that have people with different thought processes... Borderline personality disorder for instance has very black and white thinking ... People don't see the greys and if they can't afford really intensive therapy it tends not to change ... So on a support site there may be reasons other then baiting members

I think both can happen

Flaming though can cause a whole lotta caca

http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/flamebait

It's a good reminder about the affects of medication and having an illness. There have been some doozy arguments on the Ulcerative Colitis/Crohn's Disease board too, not in a while but in the past. There's the depression that comes with the disease, feeling so sick for so long and then the meds, and all of it changes you, changes how you perceive things, changes how you process things. That is the nature of chronic illness. I try to remember that when someone is acting out. But some days, all bets are off where I think, nope, you're not pulling this crap today, not on my watch! Of course, they do, and I just have to get off the forum for a while. I mean in the end, all I can control is how I react.

The flamebait thing, I have never heard that term. Fascinating! So many issues have to do with not having visual and verbal cues from each other.

I agree with first rmb's post. Really, rmb I feel like you took that right out of my head, especially the first paragraph.

I have high hopes that most people fall under rmb's first definition...that they are literally unaware of their patterns of victimhood...and along the same vein, some people are so scared of the alternative that they would rather stay in pain...

I truly believe that people are capable of changing their lives, no matter how deep in darkness they are. I think/hope most people really do want real change, but they aren't ready/willing to take responsibility for their part in enabling their depression/anxiety.

Granted, some people aren't in a place to hear that they need to take responsibility, whether that's because of their emotional state, medical issues, medications or whatever...but I almost always take the chance. What's the worse that could happen? They don't take my advice and continue being the way they are.

In that case, I know to let it go and keep my distance.

When it comes to this site for example DS has the Rules of the Road under "help' at the bottom of the page and they're set out in order for all members to have a sense of safety here .. I think this is a good idea especially on a support site.. It sort of sets out a template for us to follow

http://www.dailystrength.org/help/rules-of-the-road

In life in general I do appreciate healthy boundaries for sure KS and Scales... There are things that I just don't want to deal with so I hear you... Hugs....xo

Taking responsibility for ones own actions is part of the process, it just takes some people longer to come out from under the shrapenal and dust to be able to have the strength to take themselves to that level.

You are right, many may stay in the "victim" phase as you call it and no matter what anyone else says, all the support they receive, they continue to cry out for help and lean on others. Ask the same questions, appear to not take heed to others experience or advice, and continue to row against the tide they KNOW is there and they are in. Maybe more like an eddy (white water term). Either way, they continue to paddle in circles while others are throwing them a rope.

Many take advice, want so bad to follow it, but in the end, it is their own self getting in the way.

How many of us have learned that lesson? multiple times until we finally got it?

So some times, you have to say things over and over and over again. Its called repetitive re-enforcement (my term nothing scientifically labeled that I know of). But sometimes you have to say it 1000 and one times, continue caring about others and giving support for as long as they need it. Of course, if years and years go by and someone still can't learn from their mistakes or whatnot, then the level of support you give to them and the words you throw their way would most certainly change. They may even need to get professional help to save them from themselves. But thats not the case in most situations, even on this website.

You don't want to be an enabler but at the same time, you don't want to be that final stick that was put on that camels back for them either by calling them out in a negative manner when they are not really ready to handle that kind of "tough love". Im all for calling people out, Im some times too brash, but I mean no harm. So even I have to learn that the level of tough love I give has to be of a nature where they will receive it and not where it will have a negative impact. What may have worked for me, or someone else, will not work for everyone. Some times, just not saying anything is the most appropriate behavior in a situation.

People come along at their own pace, stubborn, my bad, strong people take longer. You though have a choice in how and for how long you support them. People on a website like this, you have no real connection to, so its easier to call them on their shit and even quicker for someone to get to a point of frustration when what they write, 50 times some times, to one member, doesnt appear to be sinking in for them. Especially when there are multiple members telling them the same thing.

So listen, all you can do is write and show your support when you feel so inclined to. What those who you give that advice do with it is on them. They know they want to do whats right for them it just tales longer for them to get there. Or maybe they dont. But you and everyone else showed you cared and gave them experience and advice. They will see it. Just in their time frame not anyone elses.

I'm not sure victim is the right word. I think acting like a martyr is more a sort of manipulation. If someone who has been truly wronged by another (bullying, infidelity) or is facing extreme circumstances they have no control over (war, sickness, death), I do think they are a victim. But unfortunately the word "victim" has been given a horrible connotation. Using perceived suffering repeatedly to get what you want from others is manipulation. So the person "acting like a victim" in your case could be really just a manipulator. Anyways, there needs to be a new word for real victims. Some people have started thinking about one.

http://bullyonline.org/index.php/bullying/15-am-i-being-bullied