If you have a victim mentality, you will see your entire life through a perspective that things constantly happen 'to' you. Victimisation is thus a combination of seeing most things in life as negative, beyond your control, and as something you should be given sympathy for experiencing, because you deserve 'better'. At it's heart, the victim mentality is a way to avoid taking any responsibility for yourself or your life. By believing you have no power then you don't have to take action... and it is not your fault.

The victim mentality has gone mainstream in the West. It's through the ideology commonly known as 'identity politics', which neatly divides society into victims and oppressors. It's an ideology that tells various minorities that they're hapless victims of an oppressive system: whether of Power, Gender, Race, Age, Wealth, Bodily shape and size, Personal beliefs. In reality everyone is a victim and an oppressor at the same time.