This is 'blaming the victim'?

[Pixelated]

Post on my FB page from somebody asking if anybody else finds it "weird" when a person compliments another person's skin. The OP is asking because it *always* upsets her when this happens, since she is apparently extremely conscious of what her skin looks like (I should add she's currently receiving some kind of treatment and ATM, at least, she looks AWFUL. Presumably she will look better when she's done ...)

I said all that I could think of was that you can't control other people's actions but you can control your REactions ... to which she responded no, you can't; once you've been totally crushed by somebody, you can't control how you respond to them ever again (or presumably anybody else?) I said you are letting those people live rent-free in your head, which they don't deserve.

After which I got the "Thanks for blaming the victim" comment.

Well, look, lady, if YOU can't control your reactions, who can? There are bullies and asshats everywhere. Nothing stops these people EXCEPT the lack of a reaction on the part of the victim.

Anyway ... I got out of the discussion because, rightly or wrongly, it was starting to sound as if I was trying to converse with a voluntarily perpetual victim.

[Daskinor]

If I am understanding this.......

Person A complements person B's skin. Person C overhears this and is upset because person C believes she has horrible skin.

So person C posts that to social media and you reply.

If that is it I agree with you. Person C is not a victim, she was simply reacting to something that is outside her control. Nor is it something that was offensive to anyone but her.

[kibbles]

She is not a victim at all! Am I the only one sick of everyone lately thinking of themselves as victims..what a horrible time period we are in!

[Pixelated]

Daskinor, that was how I understood it. I don't know if Person B was WITH Person C at the time or if it was just a conversation overheard by Person C.

kibbles, I didn't see her as a victim either -- other than possibly as a self-created one. The cold fact is you cannot control other people's actions. You can either train yourself to let this stuff roll off your back ... or you can be perpetually distressed and upset.

[s_stabeler]

That attitude...can be problematic at times (specifically, taken to an extreme it can be used to dismiss the actions of a legitimate bully, putting the responsibility on the victim to put up with the bullies (oh, and in my experience a lack of reaction by a bully's victims just causes the bully to escalate. Also, that same attitude- that the victim shouldn't react to the bullies- does tend to end up with people who actually do have the authority to intervene not doing so, which can make the situation worse, since being told "just don't react to them" often merely makes the victim think nobody cares. Or even, in extreme cases, that the authority figures agree with the bullies)

However, it's certainly true that in the example given, it sounds like Person C was being overly sensitive.