There are victims, victimizers, and the Victim-Victimizer game. There should be clear definitions and boundaries concerning victims and victimizers, but too often they are lost in a game that misdirects responsibility of one’s actions and creates a cycle of blame, confusion, and role reversal.

How much energy and time would be preserved if each participant would just cut to the point and be honest about what their actions and feelings are. The abuser would say, “I did this action, yes.” No denial or deflection. The victim would say, “Your action affected me in this way. Please tell me why you did it.” The abuser would then inwardly direct the answer to reveal the reason due to a personal flaw. No excuses, dismissiveness, or deflection toward the other person. The flaw is now uncovered, and healing can commence on both sides.

The problem comes when the victimizer does not take full responsibility for his or her actions. This is easy to do in our world where people are quick to judge at the first impression or confrontation, so we wear masks and put up walls as a survival mechanism to fit into an expected, “comfortable” mould in which being different becomes branded as difficult. These acts of escape can soon cause us to lose ourselves and become unaware of the extent of our actions, regardless of the victim clearly mirroring them.

Stigmas abound outside of the mould for victims and victimizers. People who have been raped, for example, are branded as tarnished, impure, broken, and weak. As if it were not enough to be petrified to say anything for fear of more bodily harm, when they are finally safe and able, they may then choose to stay silent for another fear of being judged in the above manner and treated as a social outcast. Although the blame lies upon the rapists, the same situation applies to them as social outcasts who are branded as evil. The victimizers then choose to not speak about the crime, sometimes burying it deep within themselves because they know that they are not intrinsically evil. However, their hiding can turn into deep denial and disconnection to where they somehow believe they didn’t rape anyone. I know about such a person, but I also know that his bodily and emotional behaviors maintain some memory of what he did.

In the middle lies the mould where compromise has become sacrifice and complacency. Here, we don’t question. We follow the rules set up by someone else. We are labeled as good people because obedience is “good.” We accept the affronting abuses, at least in part, because we are taught that we are also to blame. There is no contrast or polarization in this position—we are all victims and victimizers. This view is not representative of the original problem. It is a muddied mishmash of the cycle that has lost the clearly delineated plot.

We are generally aware of situations wherein the victim eventually becomes the victimizer according to the severity of these terms. When this happens, the past victimization does not diminish or negate any responsibility from the new act of abuse. What I would like to do is introduce a situation and a belief that misdirects blame in the very beginning, so we can be mindful to prevent the cycle of abuse.

Situation: Instead of addressing the root of every individual problem, the adversary changes the focus to the victim’s reaction. For instance, if the victim is ignored and belittled, and he or she raises one’s voice due to being upset, this reaction can be targeted in a new blame game that diminishes the original harm and the understandable reaction.

Belief: The victim somehow caused the abuse. We are familiar with the tired and baseless story that blames a woman for how she dresses or behaves as though that overpowers a strong, manly man and forces him to rape her. There is another story, a hidden story, that fundamentally weaves personal responsibility into all harmful acts performed against—or rather for—us. It frames violations as learning experiences that somehow benefit us. It says, “We don’t need to question how or why because we (or a god) created or consented to these experiences before we entered this human life. This perceived powerlessness is somehow empowerment on a deeper level, so no worries. There is no good or bad, just experience. We’re all in this together; there is no real division or individuality, so just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

I highly doubt any victim who has clear awareness of oneself in response to the abuse would easily or fully submit to this whitewashed complacency. This story can be stretched to say that an innocent child deserved abuse due to karma from a past life transgression. A religious man who followed a Hindu-based “ascended master” actually told me this last statement to which I immediately reacted and deflected the crippling energy back to him by declaring, “No. That is not true.” I was finally at the stage in my development where I was gaining self-esteem after a lifetime of constant manipulation and prodding toward that self-less societal mould. If I had not learned to trust my intuitive reaction that knows my childhood innocence, I would have again believed that I was somehow at fault. What a way to keep people in a small place—start with young children and ingrain the perception throughout adulthood that says you were always to blame no matter what. Shame, doubt, sin: that’s all fine because someone else can then “save” you by molding you into, well, the subservient mould.

In conclusion, this mould is the Victim-Victimizer game at its finest. Ironically, it is the societal norm, but its superficial center removes the heart, mind, and soul of Humanity. As long as we escape from the depth of ourselves, we lack the necessary honesty and accountability to address the root of the problem. Why is the root so important? It is the foundation. When we can see the foundation of a perception, that perception no longer exists as an opinion or belief; it is reality. Opening our awareness as Humans in our abundant attributes is the way we can tackle issues head-on with precision and practicality, therefore uprooting and healing each problem and putting an end to the wasteful and harmful games that have kept us enslaved.