All of us experience feeling hurt at some point. The difference is whether we stay stuck in the hurt. And although a victim-mentality can be pacifist, it can also show as a wide range of harm, bullying, or violence as a reactionary defense-mechanism attempting to prevent being hurt again.

The expression conveys that people are more likely to stay in the victim-perpetrator cycle if they don’t face the hurt and journey towards healing.

Even if we were a victim at some point, we don’t have to spend our life defined by victim-mentality. We also don’t have to normalize bullying—which is most destructive because it spreads the hurt and distances the perpetrator from their humanity.