Why is it sometimes so nice to feel like a victim of circumstances? Thus, we can get rid of responsibility for our mistakes – and we receive from others what we often lack: care and attention.
“I am a fairly successful person, but if something doesn’t work out for me, then immediately there is a desire to present myself as a victim of circumstances. I can spend whole hours imagining that I have been diagnosed with a terrible illness or grief has happened, and everyone pities me and tries to help. Perhaps I lacked attention as a child: I was the “golden child”, and I was always given less time than my slob brother, because they knew that I was doing great at everything. Most often, fantasies are accompanied by failures that depend only on me: a failed exam, mistakes in work. Maybe this is how I try to hide my mistakes? How can I get rid of this?”
Marina, 24 years old
Konstantin Slepak, psychotherapist:
“Two possible reasons for such fantasies you have described. The first is the need for emotional closeness with parents, the second is protection from experiencing real failures by experiencing fantasy ones. In any case, it is important to understand that your significance for others is not based on possible illnesses, sorrows and weaknesses, but your fantasies seem to protect you from significant life actions and steps.
I would like to suggest another possible reason. In the inner life of a person, all images and objects have their opposite – this balances our psyche. Light is offset by dark, and vice versa. Consciousness and success is the bright side of mental life, but there is also a dark side, which in analytical psychology is called the Shadow: that in our personality that we do not want to notice and recognize as part of ourselves.
Carl Gustav Jung asked acquaintances when they met: “What terrible thing happened to you lately?”, thus recognizing the power of the Shadow. What can be in the shadow of the “golden child”? I dare to suggest that since the “golden child” is the light itself, what is inside him turns out to be in the shadow: instincts, feelings, destructive thoughts, fear of failure. All that breaks out in the form of fantasies. Maybe there is nothing wrong with these fantasies, it is important to understand their meaning for your life. Think about what you do not want to notice and recognize in yourself?