posted
Disclaimer: No formal training, no pretense to formal training: hence no authority here being claimed beyond whatever credence you may give to speculation of KatieThinkingOnHerWayToWork. It may or may not be true - judge for yourself.
What are the qualities that make some people more vulnerable than others?
1. Youth Definitely, being young makes someone vulnerable. Young people are generally smaller, weaker, and have less or no experience with the evils human beings can do, so they don't know the warning signs and haven't learned how to protect themselves.
2. Something to Lose The risk is higher when you have something to lose. Everyone alive is in danger of losing their life, but property, comfort, and loved ones all make some people more vulnerable than others.
3. Loneliness We are social beings. Even introverts need to feel loved and needed and to have those social connections. I sometimes feel like a prisoner of my extroversion, because I MUST have large parties a couple of times a month. These can be in all different forms, but it needs to be more than ten people and I need to be able to mingle and talk to most of the people there. Through some rough experience, I know I need this, and without it, I am unhappy. Crazily enough, I don't even need to like the people there - I just need to interact with them.
The need for raucous socialization has led to moshing at KMFDM concerts (Fun!) and attending birthday parties of people who would never bother coming to mine (Not So Fun).
I think it is this last that leads to lots of bad relationships of all kinds - the need to feel needed and to belong. It isn't a sign of weakness to need that; to not need it means to be a little less human. But the human need for interaction that disciplines us enough to create civilization can also make us vulnerable to those who would use it.
4. ______________
Fill in the blank. What did I leave out?
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posted
I think it is more than just a lack of confidence, sometimes. A lot of people out there have really bad self-images, and that manifests itself in a lack of confidence. Some people have a vulnerable quality to them because no matter how often they receive validation from others they always feel unworthy for some reason or another.
Also, some people are more sensitive than others, more empathetic. While that doesn't automatically transfer to a physical sense of vulnerability, emotionally it often does. If you are more perceptive of how you actions affect others, and more in tune to what others need, that can appear weak to someone who doesn't have those same sensibilities.
I saw that a lot when I was younger...in some ways I was a lot stronger than most of my classmates, because once I decided I wanted to so something I did it....but in others I was weaker, at least socially so, because I didn't play the same sorts of games other kids did. I was always aware of the hurt others felt when people were saying nasty things about them, and I always tried to be kind to people who were less fortunate than I was.
And often it WAS a weakness, as I was too sensitive to what others said about me and my friends. I was at times oversensitive, and had to learn how to laugh things off, and how to grow a thicker skin in order to deal with others.
A lot of people saw that as weakness rather than strength...and sometimes I agreed with them.
As you get older, a lot of things that were once liabilities as a child become strengths, such as empathy, kindness, caring about others. . . but as child all too often those qualities are seen as weaknesses by those who don't have the same level of sensitivity.
posted
Wow, that is so true. And part of that is an unwillingness to harm others. I was never the teaser in grade school, always the teased.
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posted
I hadn't even thought about children. I was thinking more of adults. There really isn't as much teasing as adults, mostly because of our magical ability to walk away.
Maybe the things that make us vulnerable as adults are the things that make us unable to walk away.
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Katie, I just want to say I love what you said in your post.
And, Kwea, I totally agree that a lack of self-confidence makes someone much more vulnerable. Sometimes that translates into needing too much, other times it may translate into giving too much in order to feel needed.
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But Katie, there's an attitude, especially among women, that you "just can't" hurt someone, that carries over to being an adult. When someone attempted to rape me as a teenager, I hurt him. Badly. I think, and hope, he is damaged for life. I didn't want him doing that to me, and I don't want him doing it to anyone else. But I have friends who struggled, but didn't get away because they couldn't bring themselves to cause that much harm to someone. My gut reaction, after a childhood full of being the victim, was to lash out immediately and hurt him as much as I could. Some people don't have that instinct.
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posted
Hmm... maybe part of being an adult is knowing when it is necessary to protect yourself, in order to keep yourself useful to those who depend on you. Sort of the "put your oxygen mask on yourself first because helping others with their oxygen masks" idea.
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Actually, I've always wondered about those kids who got picked on in school and how many of them seemed more empathic. I've had doubts as to whether they got picked on because they already were more empathic, or whether they became empathic because they were picked on.
I suppose I just want to know whether to be grateful or bitter over being picked on so much.
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posted
None of those things make someone a victim. They all can make a person more vulnerable but the victim part is (by definition) caused by someone or something outside one's self.
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posted
Well, I was picked on because I was empathetic. There wasn't really anyone else I could empathise with for being picked on; as a smart, sensitive, glasses-wearing, curly-haired girl who wore hand-me downs and would rather read books than watch tv or play sports and spent much of my time in my own world, I was bottom of the food chain.
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posted
While Youth is considered a ticket to victimization, so is Age.
And you need to clarify youth. There are some bullies at 6, and most people performing the violence are under 25, all youthful.
While age leaves one physically limited, and if you have outsurvived your friends and many of your relatives, it can leave you very alone. That makes you an easy victim.
But the most important thing to remember, the biggest thing that makes someone a victim, is that someone else must be the victimizer. A victimizer will make a victim out of anyone.
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quote:I suppose I just want to know whether to be grateful or bitter over being picked on so much.
*hugs*
I got picked on a lot, too. Sometimes it was because I was monumentally unskilled socially, sometimes it was because they picked on my older brother and it extended down, sometimes it was because I had a hard time disguising my own contempt and so that contempt was returned (I am not proud of that part). Sometimes it was because my older brother was an idiot. (That one was not my fault.)
I don't think that abuse/teasing creates empathy that wasn't there before. When someone is hurt, they protect themselves and view the person who is hurting them defensively. That's why so many families are trapped in generational cycles of abuse.
Whether or not it caused the teasing, you are empathic because you are. It is the sweetest of qualities. It also makes me worry for you a little bit - I think it would definitely make you more vulnerable.
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quote:the biggest thing that makes someone a victim, is that someone else must be the victimizer. A victimizer will make a victim out of anyone.
Actually, I don't believe this. Just because someone is hurt, that does not mean that someone else set out to hurt them.
For instance, my need to be with people means that I search out groups of people and take what I can find in an emergency. It has led to not good consequences in the past, but no one set out to hurt me. The victimizer would be my need for people. That's the same need for people that leads to planning family reunions, so it isn't all bad.
Another examples would be all the victims of "the system." Like the legions of foster children that slip through the cracks - they are definitely vulnerable and have been failed, but I truly do not believe that anyone set out to place them in that position (I'm not talking about individual cases where there was a clear villian.). Someone can still be hurt even if no one intends to hurt them.
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posted
Some people. . .not a lot, but some. . . are users, and emotionally vulnerable people are their favorite target because of their sensitivity.
It isn't just lack of self confidence though. It is a feeling that includes that, but runs deeper, a lack of respect for themselves. A lot of people have trouble giving themselves enough credit, but they would have no problem giving someone else a lot of credit for the same actions. Not humility, but a profound lack of self worth.
Those people tend to draw the worst users out of hiding, like they smell blood. . . and in a way I guess they do. Most of us have limits to what we are willing to offer others, but someone like that has no limits other than everything they have. There is no built in cutoff, where they say "Wait a second, that is just too much.", so they give and give until they have nothing left for themselves.
Kat, we don't always have the right or the ability to walk away, even as adults. Sometimes the people doing this stuff are targeting people we care about, or are people we work with. There is a fine line between walking away and being rude, and sometimes if you do you find yourself labeled...and those labels can come back around and bite you.
Recently I was in a pool hall watching friends play in a league. I was no where near the table, and wasn't talking to anyone who was playing. I was also aware that I like to talk a lot, and sometimes don't realize how loud I am talking, so I was actually almost whispering to my friend. The guy on the other team was drunk, and while I didn't know him well, I did know him a little bit.
All of the sudden this guy, Greg, started yelling at me, accusing me of coaching someone. Now here is the thing....even if I was, which I wasn't, it would have been legal, as he wasn't playing at that time. The next thing I know this guy is in my face, yelling at me, and threatening me with his pool cue.
Then he threatened to shoot me.
No real reason, no real motivation, and this is in a place I have been going for 6 years, without incident. I have only seen one fight there, and that was 4 years ago. It is a safe, local place, where people bring their kids to during the day.
Now I got pissed. In the past I would probably walked away, but if I had done that I KNOW I would have been blamed for the whole thing. I didn't back down, and said some things back to him, although nothing really bad....I told him to cool off before I called the cops. Then I told him I wouldn't leave, but that I would back off a little way...even though I had been no where near the table in the first place.
He then tried to hit me..twice more...with his pool cue.
I still hear about this, and probably half the people in the place think I was probably talking too loud...even though the guy 5 feet away from me said he was having trouble hearing what I was saying to him. I even had a regular say to my face that I had provoked Greg...even though he had not been there during the situation. He said " Well, I know you like to talk, and it was bothering him."
In the past I had not stuck up for myself in those situations, and because of that "label" Greg thought he could threaten me and force me to leave. I guess he was wrong. If I had left, Greg would have followed me outside to follow up on his threats. I chose not to allow that, even though there were risks staying, and had he not left almost right after that (he was asked to) there might have been more of a problem. . .I would have called the police.
It is a local pool hall, with music blaring, and people dancing, and TV's everywhere...but me talking quietly 10' away was bothering him? I
If every person in that bar was like that, I would have walked away because I wouldn't have cared. I don;t g there often these days, not because of this but because of my new job, but my wife and I like most of the people there, and like the place.
Even as an adult, you run into people who think fists are the best way to settle an argument, and if you show them any of what they call weakness they will hound you.
Walking away in that situation would have only made things worse, I am sure of it. But when I was younger, I would have walked away, right into trouble, without even realizing it was still coming.
As it stands now, he was almost barred, both from the hall and from the pool league, and he has admitted (to others, not to me) that he was drunk and was out of line.
posted
Theca, there was a really good study with 3d graders about that question. They divided the kids into a Blue group and a Red group, and treated them differently for a day. The blue group could do no wrong, and was given a much higher social status, and that carried over to they way the kids treated each other. The teachers were always telling the kids "Well, you are special, aren't you glad you are in the special Red group, and not just the Blue like the others?"
Then they switched the treatment of the kids on another day.
The premise was that the kids in the Red group would be nicer on day two, because they know what it was like to be picked on for something that wasn't their fault.
But that isn't what happened. In fact the Red group kids were FAR worse to the Blue group kids then they themselves had been treated. They were the worst, by far, much to the surprise of the psychologists.
So I don't think that most kids are more sensitive and caring simply because they have been picked on themselves. In fact, the worst bullies are those kids that were smallest and most picked on in the past. They have an early growth spurt, and all of the sudden they are the biggest kid, and they become the bully that they always hated. They feel it is "their turn" so to speak.
quote:Originally posted by Kwea: The premise was that the kids in the Red group would be nicer on day two, because they know what it was like to be picked on for something that wasn't their fault.
But that isn't what happened. In fact the Red group kids were FAR worse to the Blue group kids then they themselves had been treated. They were the worst, by far, much to the surprise of the psychologists.
Back when I was flippant and sarcastic, I might have said "only a psychologist would be surprised by that." Good thing I'm not like that any more.
I don't know how it could have worked out differently given that status positions were switched immediately after mistreatment with the opportunity to get revenge on the very same people who had dealt out the mistreatment.
I have no idea what kind of generalizations can be made about how kids who were bullied work things out through the years. In my case, I became pretty absorbed about the issue of justice and became even angrier with school officials who tolerated bullying as "normal" than I was with the bullies themselves. (Note - every time I fought back, I ended up in the principal's office with the bully. If I didn't fight, there were no consequences for the bully.)
Anyway, I'd like to think that I am very careful about how I treat people. While physical bullying isn't really an option for me, I could probably get away with a lot of verbal bullying of people if I wanted to. But I don't.
quote:Note - every time I fought back, I ended up in the principal's office with the bully. If I didn't fight, there were no consequences for the bully
Did they give you the ol' "We expect this from some of the other students, but we thought you could do better" (read: we're not going to bother to punish them because we don't expect them to behave, but you we will punish because you're supposed to be one of the good kids)?
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posted
I also didn't do a perfect job of explaining the actual experiment. There were more controls on it, and it wasn't as clear cut as I made it...I mean the results were, to be sire, but I didn't want to go into greater detail about it for two reasons..
1) I read it more then once, but a few years ago
and
2) I don't type particularly well, and felt that the details weren't all that important to this discussion. so why bother if I am not sure anyway.
posted
No, KQ - they kept up the pretense that it was a fight rather than one person defending themselves against a bully. That way the "blame" was equally shared.
Great quote from one of those times (from kid who'd shoved me hard while I was minding my own business), while waiting for principal: "I hope you're satisfied."
And my parents thought it was the whole Vietnam thing that poisoned my attitude about authority. They realize now that the principal of my Middle School was largely responsible for starting that process.
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posted
Yeah, I had to grab a bully by the shirt and jump off the second floor balcony before anyone at the school would take me seriously about him.
He had run me off the road, hit me with his dirtbike, and throw me down a flight of stairs before I did that. At that point I didn't even care if I died, as long as I killed him too. ( although I figured this would be more of a trip to the hospital together for this...)
He grabbed the railing, with me hanging from his shirt, and slid half way down the stairs before falling (it was one of the balconies in the stairwells at school)
quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: [QUOTE](read: we're not going to bother to punish them because we don't expect them to behave, but you we will punish because you're supposed to be one of the good kids)?
I think the message I took from it was this:
"We don't expect this of you. You're supposed to be a quiet victim.
As an adult, I realize it is more complicated than that. We all have an amazing ability to tune out things so we don't feel compelled to attend to them. That is mostly how schools treat bullying. When a victim of bullying fights back, it breaks the normal rhythm of things, and that does demand attention. (On a certain level, I understood this then, as well - and it didn't do anything to foster my trust for authority. At least one MMPI score would attest to that. )
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posted
I should have known that childhood teasing and bullying would come up.
I really hadn't even thought of that in connection with this - I am so rarely around kids these days. I was thinking about what it is like as adults.
I know that as adults just walking away isn't always easier when it comes to involved relationships, but I did mean that generally mean teasing from the guy you barely know who lives down the street doesn't happen as often. Maybe it is because we are more rarely forced to interact with people. It isn't like we are all in recess together, and if it happens at work or school, it's horribly unprofessional and is much less likely to be tolerated. You can sue at work for things like that.
I was thinking about it in terms of myself, as an adult. I have been taken advantage of a few times to varying degrees, and while I have since regained my footing and mentally relegated them to the fiery pits of YouHurtKatie Hell, there's no guarantee that it won't happen again. The times it did happen were also the times I was I felt the worst about myself and when I was the loneliest: right after my mom died, and right when I moved to Dallas by myself. I went along with things then that I'm floored at now, but I remember how I felt, and why I did it at the time. Whatever else their faults, they were strong when I felt weak.
Maybe that's it - it happens when people feel like they have been weakened, even if they are not inherently.
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posted
I think the term "victim" has too many shades of meaning for this discussion to really make a lot of sense.
I mean, are we really thinking that it's possible to lump people who are overly-needy and get burned by friends and coworkers in with people who have been physically attacked by random strangers?
There is such a thing as a victim mentality, I agree, but that's different from actually BEING a victim.
I think the psychology of low-self-esteem people stuck in abusive relationships is not at all linkable to the pre-attack psychology of people who are victims of violent crimes -- at least violent crimes other than rape (and that usually by someone they already know).
So...I think it'd be helpful to have a better delineation of the parameters before we try to identify or address a constellation of personality traits that correlate with the status of becoming a "victim."
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posted
I used to get picked on and teased a ton, and it really bothered me. It rarely extended to phsyical bullying but it did sometimes. I was always terrified of getting in trouble if I fought back physically (and never very good at returning fire verbally). At some point I kinda cracked, I decided that I didn't care about the consequences any more, I'd fight back however I had to if anyone did it again. Since then I've been sorta half waiting for someone to push me over the edge just so I have the reason I need to take them out. Oddly enough, since I made that decision and got in that mind set, people stopped bothering me. In the process I grew a thick enough skin that verbal bullying stopped bothering me as well. I either simply ignore it or fire back as if it were friendly banter and don't let it bother me that my replies often aren't really all that scathing. I don't get verbally bullied much anymore either.
So I really think it has a lot to do with being willing to fight back.
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I think it's not a meaningful term UNLESS we decide first what situations we're talking about.
"Victim" in the sense of someone who goes through a string of abusive relationships is different from "victim" in the sense of someone who is mugged (even repeatedly mugged).
And to the extent that the victim's personality has ANYTHING at all to them being victimized, we'd probably want to be clear which kind of victimization we're talking about first.
Otherwise it's far to broad to have any real meaning (i.e., in any diagnostic or "curative" sense).
quote:Otherwise it's far to broad to have any real meaning (i.e., in any diagnostic or "curative" sense).
Oh, I can see that. I'm not really applying the scientific principles here, though - mostly musing. I like getting the different perspectives.
It is a source of continuous wonderment to me how extreme competance in one area does NOT mean competance in all areas. I guess it shouldn't be, and I do believe that succeeding at one thing means the same person can succeed at other things if they try, but it's hard to make the transition. Most of the successful, happy people I know have one area of their life that is a mess, and I suspect that the others I simply don't know well enough. I used to get frustrated with myself, but now am I just trying to maybe figure out why.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: [QUOTE] It is a source of continuous wonderment to me how extreme competance in one area does NOT mean competance in all areas.
See, it doesn't suprise me at all. I have know a ton of people who were extremely conpitent at things I had trouble even understanding a little, and then watched those same people flounder at things I was good at.
And then watched a third person make us both look silly, doing both things better than either of us.
I do see what you mean about adult victims being a litle different than what happens when you are a child, but I think that there are a lot of similarities too. Most of our habits and behavior patterns are formed as a child, so a child who is constantly the victim is at high risk for continuing that behavior patten into adulthood, IMO.
Either because they are used to it, or feel that it is all their fault and that they don't deserve better.
I see a lot of that in families that have abuse problems, myself.
quote:Morticia: You have enslaved him. You have placed him under some strange sexual spell. I respect that. But please, may we see him?
--------------------------------- Wednesday: I don't want to be in the pageant. Gary: Don't you want me to realize my vision? Wednesday: Your work is puerile and under-dramatized. You lack any sense of structure, character, or the Aristotelian unities. Gary: Young lady, I am getting just a tad tired of your attitude problem.
---------------------------------- Debbie: These Addams men, where do you find them? Morticia: It has to be damp.
posted
I have met many very successful, intelligent people who have a messed-up area of their lives. However, I hold out hope that somebody, somewhere, is truly well-adjusted. I suspect, however, that "well-adjusted" is entirely a matter of perspective.
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posted
I think the sorts of cues mentioned in the first are signals someone has been a victim in the past. They can't help having been victimized- this would be my definition of an actual victim as opposed to victim mentality.
But if they carry that around with them for the rest of their lives, what happens. They aren't responsible for being victims again. But they are choosing to remain the likely targets of whatever bullies happen upon them.
Sure, if the world were perfect, there wouldn't be bullies to worry about. But the world isn't perfect. Anyway, I am even confused a lot of the time whether I'm really a victim or falling into victim mentality. I think victim mentality is like hypochondria- it is mental, but it can still hurt as much as the real thing.
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It is the sweetest of qualities. It also makes me worry for you a little bit - I think it would definitely make you more vulnerable.
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