[brundolf]

It's complicated, because a lot of people genuinely are victims whose suffering genuinely is someone else's fault, and they do deserve the help of others.

At the same time: for the victims themselves, their best chance of overcoming their circumstance is often to not think about it that way.

It's one of those tricky cases where a realistic mindset is not a useful mindset. You have to hold reality, and set it aside, and suspend your disbelief. It's hard to do that, so instead different people fully buy into one reality or the other and then get into conflict over the cognitive dissonance.

[esyir]

Essentially, to boil this message to its core, there are victims, but the victim mindset is counterproductive to recovery?

[gonzo41]

With depression it's common that in acute events the conversation with the patient is along the lines of "it's not you, it's chemicals etc. Your powerless, don't blame yourself" which is a pretty good short term strategy. But over time it robs you of agency to think this way.

Longer term, with recovery focusing on taking back agency the conversation does change to a "you were a party to your own depression, own it. be mindful etc"

But it's a pretty big view change.

[brundolf]

Yeah. Depression by its nature is a bit of a special case where when you're in the throes of it, "this is your responsibility, only you can fix it" is the absolute worst thing you can possibly be told. It will definitely just shove you deeper down the hole. But once you've got some upward momentum a shift toward "I can fix this myself" can sometimes be helpful.

[pbhjpbhj]

Which is correct?

[52-6F-62]

Both are, but in their respective contexts.