Playing the Victim Card

And how to get over yourself

Dear Son,

We are at the tail end of my letters to you and frankly I feel like I have given you all the knowledge I have so far about life. I am after all only friggin’ 30 — how much do you expect me to know? So, I really had to wrack my brains on what I could write to you about from the letter V aside from reminding to have your five serves of vegetables a day.

That’s until I saw you make a cute little pout this evening when I told you that we wouldn’t be going to the park today. I realised that unknowingly this was you trying to play ‘The Victim Card’ on your mother and guilt me into doing what you want. Luckily (for me) I am made of sterner stuff and you didn’t get your way. I must admit though that resisting that pout of yours took a lot of willpower.

While I can’t blame you for having a tanty or playing the Victim Card and at 18 months, you will find that playing this card as you grow older (especially as a teenager) may get you what you want in the short term but it certainly wont lead to happiness. What’s the Victim Card you ask? Well, that is when you are tempted to blame all your troubles on others, hold grudges forever and often feel like you’re stuck in life and will not miss an opportunity to complain about it to someone.

When you play the Victim Card the first few times, the people who love you will likely give into your drama and you will have your way. But, it gets old really quick so here’s your mom’s three step guide on how you can get over yourself and become happier faster:

1. Are you sure it’s not your fault?

When bad things happen, it is easy to blame everyone around us. As a fat teenager who couldn’t be bothered losing weight I am well acquainted with this strategy. I would happily blame my mother and the food she cooked, the cold weather, how boring the fitness class was that I had signed up for and even that I was too busy studying. While the blame game gave me temporary comfort, it certainly didn’t help me lose weight. What did help was actually getting off my ass and doing something.

2. Let go of the anger

Going through life and its disappointments without getting angry is not easy, unless you’re a saint. In Mumbai, I often find myself getting angry at everyone from the car driver in front of me to the crowded trains or even at your dad for working such long hours. It has taken years of practice to check myself in these instances and take a deep breath instead. It is harder when your anger is directed at people you trust or love and when they let you down. While some cope with such anger by shouting, others simply go quiet and hold a grudge or mete out the silent treatment. But the only person you hurt by getting and worse by holding onto anger is yourself. The other person will move on and before you know it will be you and Mr. Grudge sitting in a room having pizza that none of you are enjoying.

3. Smile, even when you don’t want to

I think I was 16 when I first heard about Laughter Yoga. I thought it was really strange that people met early in the morning and just stood around and laughed. Especially when there were so many problems in the world and more importantly my life that needed solving. After all, who wants to laugh when they’ve lost their job or a close friend or even that toy you were pining for? It would just feel fake! I have learnt over the years though that you can easily trick your mind into thinking it is happy. All you have to do is start by forcing that smile or laugh. Before you know it, you will be laughing for real and that problem you thought was so enormous will find a way of fixing itself. I practiced this when your Mamaiji was in the hospital for over six months. Visiting her day after day through her chemo wasn’t easy but what helped us both was just starting the day with a smile. Somehow laughing about the cancer helped us cope with it easily that getting angry would have.

So the next time you get tempted to play the victim card, just try getting over yourself instead. Trust me, that is the happier way of going through this thing we call life!

This post is part of the annual #BlogChatterA2Z Challenge .When my son was born I promised myself I’d write him love letters as often as I could as this challenge is part of that promise. V is for The Victim Card. Do follow P for Parenting for more articles in this series and to read my next post W is for What’s in a name