HERO VS. VILLAIN THINKING
Those who hold an abusive belief system have a certain way of looking at the world. When I say abusive, I am talking about anyone who does what they do to have power and control over someone else. And this behaviour isn’t always obvious. In fact, the belief system they hold can be very subtle.
If you don’t share their view of the world, it can be incredibly confusing to try to understand them.
Let’s talk about something that abusive people do.
They see the world in terms of heroes and villains. In each situation, someone is the hero and some is the villain. No matter what. If you approach someone and they think you are trying to be a hero, that is when they will bite your head off or will attack you for looking at life from your perspective.
They will assume the worst. They do not like being told what to do. They also don’t like it when they think you are telling them what to do, even if you are not.
You see, they always have to be the hero. They cannot and will not be the villain. They vilify everyone else, but themselves. In their minds, they are the hero of their story, and every story ever.
They are the type of person who never takes responsibility for their actions. They will find someone else to blame no matter how ridiculous or absurd. They believe the world is out to get them, so they approach all situations with that mentality.
Say they rear-ended someone: they will say the person stopped too fast or the person was a bad driver.
Say they can’t find a product they are looking for in a store: they will blame the first salesperson they see.
Say they get lost because they typed the address wrong into the GPS: they will blame the GPS.
Take my neighbour for example. Every time he takes the garbage cans out, he scrapes my car. Every. Time. And when confronted about this, he blamed me. He said I park the car too close to where he wants to take the garbage can out. He could take the garbage can four feet over, and drag it out on the other side of the car. But no “that’s not a straight shot to the curb.” So it’s my fault. My “bad” parking, in my parking spot, is making it so it’s hard for him to get his garbage out on the road.
Has he ever mentioned this to me? Nope. Has he ever told me that oh hey, your car is parked too close, could you please move it over? Nope.
No amount of talking would calm his freak out down. He was right. I was wrong.
He was the hero of his story. I was the bad-parking-mean-vindictive-disrespectful-villain. No matter how illogical, irrational and ridiculous it was. I am always the villain to him.
In fact once he was done complaining about the car situation, he went on to add on anything and everything he would think of that made him even more of a victim. He’d been secretly holding grudges against me. None of those grudges had he told me about or talked to me about previously. Only when I had an issue with him scraping my car did he decide to tell me everything he was pissed about.
He also denied that he ever scraped my car.
It was a no-win situation. He wasn’t listening. He already decided who was the hero and who was the villain. Therefore, he had to do everything in his power to control the situation and make sure I stayed the villain so he could remain the hero. Which included him saying a lot of mean, untrue things that could not be countered, because he refused to listen to a word I said.
He decided, and that was that. Abusive thinking is rigid thinking. It does not want to be changed, so it can’t be changed. It does not want to listen, so it doesn’t listen. He only cared about being right and not about anything else. And for sure, never even once thought about how someone like me might feel being yelled at.
The age-old story of villains always out to get the heroes, that’s the story someone who is abusive lives by. They thrive in it. They live to be the hero, which means everyone else has to be the villain.
They will intentionally hurt other people because they believe it is their right. They justify this right because of a wrong that has been done or a perceived wrong.
If you find yourself in a no-win situation, being disrespected by not being listened to, or being blamed for things that are not your fault, watch out. You might be dealing with someone who sees the world in a distorted way. Someone who is looking for the villain in their hero story. Those are dangerous people.
HEALTHY THINKING
A healthy way of looking at relationships differs from the hero vs. villain thinking. Healthy people are open and willing to listen to another person’s perspective, even if there is tension. A healthy person looks at interactions with others as an opportunity to connect, repair, grow or care. Healthy people listen even if they disagree. Healthy people give the benefit of the doubt. Healthy people seek out mutually beneficial solutions to problems.
A healthy interaction would look something like this:
“I’m not sure if you noticed or not, but you scratch my car each time you take the garbage out.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t realize that was happening. It would be great if you parked your car farther over, so I could get the garbage can out easier.”
“No problem, I will try to remember to do that. If I forget, please feel free to let me know and I will move my car so you don’t have to pull the garbage can out beside it if it’s too close.”
Obviously, conversations aren’t that tidy, but the idea is that each person can mention their concern and have it heard, and then come to a resolution. This can be done without yelling or name-calling or meanness or insults. Both people choose to make compromises and work together instead.
- Healthy people look at ways that each person can benefit rather than just one.
- Healthy people see the person who has the issue, not just the issue.
- Healthy people assume the best of the other rather than the worst.
- Healthy people see each individual as an equal.
- Healthy people take responsibility for their actions.
- Healthy people know they are not the only ones who live on the planet.
Everyone makes mistakes. It’s inevitable. The difference is that hero vs. villain thinking will blame someone else for the problem, but healthy thinking takes responsibility for mistakes and seeks to make amends.
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