Anatomy of a Victim: The Devastating Emotions They Experience

Many people have gone through at least on traumatizing victimization of one sort or another. Let's take a look at what kinds of traumas cause someone to feel like a victim, and the intense emotions they experience after they have been victimized.

We must start at the beginning just to give you an idea of what types of traumas that can happen to a person to make them feel like a victim. Most people think of victims as people who have had a crime committed against them. This is of course true. However, besides any crime that would be committed against someone, or their loved one, there is also other traumas that may be less thought of as a victimization. A natural disaster that would cause someone to lose all their possessions or even the life of family or friends. Oftentimes soldiers in battles feel like victims of a situation they can not get out of or escape. People are sometimes victims of an institution, such a as the government, medical profession, or any other institution they feel they been victimized and taken advantage by. Adults who grew up in an alcoholic or drug addicted families very often feel like victims. The homeless can feel like victims of society. Even a car accident that wasn't someone's fault, or a drunk driver that killed their child. Then, the one we here about way to often, sexual abuse of a child. There are unfortunately, so many different reasons people end up feeling like victims, it would take forever to list them all. Now that you understand a little bit about who might be a victim, let's take a look at the very intense emotions that most victims experience after a victimization.

Rage-

Boy, is this one easy to understand. No, rage is not just anger. It's anger multiplied a million times. It's anger way out of control. Rage is an extremely normal reaction to an extremely abnormal situation. When someone feels like something happened that they didn't deserve, and can't understand why it happened, along comes rage. Sometimes that rage ends up being revenge, and then the original victim, ends up victimizing someone else. Case in point; a husband shooting the man who raped his wife. Unfortunately, rage is so overwhelming, that sometimes a victim feels it can not be stopped unless an act is committed that relieves the rage. This is why it is so very important that people have a good counselor available to them immediately after they been victimized, and for as long after that as needed.

Helplessness-

When someone is victimized they can end up feeling helpless about the whole situation. They can't go back and change it, they don't know how to feel better, and they don't understand why it happened to them. This is why it is important that police officers, and any other person or agency involved in helping the victim, must help them to feel they have some form of control over what's going on after the victimization. Sometimes victims feel like cattle that are shoved around from one place to another and everything is in everyone else's hands. Victims need something to do and need to feel they are helping in either capturing a perpetrator, or getting back on their feet after some disaster. Case in point; when a woman is raped she needs to feel like she is doing everything possible to catch her assailant, so she doesn't keep on feeling helpless.

Depression and Despair-

Most victims feel an overwhelming sadness which can lead to despair and a deep depression. After the victimization they are feeling like their life has changed forever and it will never be the same. This of course is very true. it's a very deep loss that they will need to grieve. Some victims never get over what they have lost and carry that sadness and despair with them their whole life. This is almost like a second victimization they didn't even see coming. It's extremely important for a victim to have strong family support, as well as good counseling to help them start a new life, and to grieve the loss of the old one. Case in point; if a child was molested when growing up, it's important for them at some point in their life to grieve the loss of their innocence that was taken from them long before it should have been, to be able go on in life with a healthy self-esteem that can encourage a happy life.

Each person of course is an individual, but unless they're a sociopath chances are they will experience these intense emotions after being victimized. Of course they will be to different degrees depending on the person, and what type of trauma it was. In the end, we all know that sometime in our life (no one gets off the hook), we will be victimized in some way. The best we can do, is feel what we need to feel, grieve what we must grieve the loss of, and do whatever we can to help ourselves move forward to a new, and yes different life!