The graphic above shows the relation between the drama triangle - or Victimville, if you will - Survivorhood and The Thrive triangle (which I will share more information about next week).
The Survivor arrow inbetween is when you are living in "Survivorhood". Here you are numbed out to big emotions and you miss out on the joy of living, but you are content with just surviving right now. You feel the need to fight for what you have and for those other victims that are not ready to stand for themselves yet, thus, you are in constant battle mode. You do everything you can to ensure persecutors are justly punished. You make it day by day and proudly proclaim your survivorship status. You feel better about yourself, but you're still angry and hurt about what happened to you. You haven't quite forgiven the perpetrator, let alone yourself. You are on constant lookout for the next bully, the next person trying to do you harm. Happiness does appear in your world, but it is overshadowed by the pain you hold close to your vest. In this state it is easy to slip back into the drama triangle from time to time.
When you numb out you miss out - not just on the negative, but the positive as well. Every emotion serves a purpose, and I do get that at times some of them can be overwhelming, and most people tend to go into "numb-out mode" just to survive. While this does serve an important purpose the problem is that for those who were living in "Victimville" they only move a short distance and then get stuck in "Survivorhood".
"Survivorhood" over "Victimville" is an improvement in your living situation; however, it's still not an ideal place to live. It's only meant to be a transition place. You know, a temporary stop on your way to "Thrive Town".
In "Victimville" everything happens to you. Your inner critic rules your mind and is constantly proven right by all the bad things that go on. Happiness is fleeting snippets quickly squashed as you are re-victimized time and time again. No matter what you do, you will never be enough. You try to put up a brave face but have truly lost hope that your life will ever be any different. So you move into "Survivorhood" and become numbed out or always in fight mode as I described above. What if I told you there was a better place to live? Would you be willing to move there?
Next week I will tell you all about "Thrive Town"!
I'd love to hear your stories, struggles or questions. Feel free to comment. To your transformational enlightenment ~ Bo
