I came across a web site of Robert Burney, a writer and counselor, that had some interesting viewpoints on the victim/responsible question. Bold text is my own emphasis.
Victim Perspective
It is vital in recovery to stop buying into the belief that we are victims. Anytime that we are focusing on the situation at hand and giving power to the belief that we are victims of the situation/people we have just interacted with, without looking at how that situation is connected to our childhood wounds - we are not being honest with ourselves.We will feel like victims - because we have been abused. But feeling like a victim and giving power to the belief in victimization are two completely different things.
If we have a pattern of setting ourselves up to be abused - then that pattern is our responsibility. To continue to blame and complain is not healthy, is not recovery, is not honest. It is also not honest to blame ourselves. When we buy into the critical parent voice that tells us it is all our fault, that we are losers or failures who deserve to be treated badly, then we are being the victim of ourselves.
It is vital to start viewing our own process from a recovery perspective so that we can stop being dishonest with ourselves. In our adult lives, it is our childhood programming that set us up to repeat patterns. We cannot get healthy until we start to recognize that.
As little kids we were victims and we need to heal those wounds. But as adults we are volunteers - victims only of our disease. The people in our lives are actors and actresses whom we cast in the roles that would recreate the childhood dynamics of abuse and abandonment, betrayal and deprivation.
We are/have been just as much perpetrators in our adult relationships as victims. Every victim is a perpetrator because when we are buying into being the victim, when we are giving power to our disease, we are perpetrating on the people around us and on ourselves.
We need to heal the wounds without blaming others. And we need to own the responsibility without blaming ourselves. As was stated earlier - there is no blame here, there are no bad guys. The only villain here is the disease and it is within us.
I want to make it clear that when I say "without blaming others," I do not mean to deny our anger. We need to own and release the anger and rage at our parents, our teachers or ministers or other authority figures, including the concept of God that was forced on us while we were growing up. We do not necessarily need to vent that anger directly to them but we need to release the energy. We need to let that child inside of us scream, "I hate you, I hate you," while we beat on pillows or some such thing, because that is how a child expresses anger.
That does not mean that we have to buy into the attitude that they are to blame for everything. We are talking about balance between the emotional and mental here again. Blame has to do with attitudes, with buying into the false beliefs - it does not really have anything to do with the process of releasing the emotional energy.
We also need to own and release the anger against those whom we feel victimized us as adults - and we need to take responsibility for our side of the street, own our part in whatever dysfunctional dance we did with them.
We need to own, honor, and release the feelings, and take responsibility for them - without blaming ourselves.
On the level of our perspective of the process it is very important to stop buying into the false beliefs that as adults we are victims and someone else is to blame - or that we are to blame because there is something wrong with us. (Text in this color are quotes from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls)
I have often told clients that going from feeling suicidal to feeling homicidal is a step of progress. It is a stage of the recovery process that we will move into - and then at some later point will move beyond. An incest victim transforms into an incest survivor. Owning the anger is an important part of pulling ourselves out of the depression that turning the anger back on ourselves has created. It is often necessary to own the anger before we can get in touch with the grief in a clean and healthy way. If we haven't owned our right to be angry, it is possible to get stuck in a victim place of self-pity and martyrdom, of complaining and gathering sympathetic allies - instead of taking action to change.
So, it is very important to own our right to be angry. That is a stage of the process that also needs to be moved through so we don't get stuck in an angry victim place. In order to heal, it is usually not necessary to confront our abusers. For some people it is an important part of the process to confront their abusers with their anger. Hopefully this can be done in an appropriate environment - although sometimes that is not possible. What is important to emphasis, is that we can heal without confronting our abusers directly - because the relationship that needs to be healed is within. To go to a place where we are lashing out at our abusers will often be just going to the other extreme - where we abuse the people who abused us.
There was a point in my codependence recovery where I would rage in AA meetings at old timers who were shaming and emotionally abusive out of their untreated codependence - their rigid, controlling, black and white thinking. That was a stage in my recovery that I outgrew - that I realized was not healthy. It was not bad or wrong (although the behavior was sometimes something I needed to make amends for afterwards) - it was a stage in a growth process. I learned to confront that kind of behavior in a gentler, kinder - and more effective - way as I grew.
Sometimes in our growth we find ourselves lashing out and being abusive. When that happens we can make amends for how we expressed ourselves - we never have to apologize for having the feelings. We cannot go from repressing our feelings and being emotionally dishonest to communicating perfectly in one step. Communicating in an appropriate way is something we learn gradually - and something we will never do perfectly every time.
With all types of abuse, we need to own and honor our right to feel and release the grief and anger about our victimization so that we can move into a place of empowerment. In order to move into a place of empowerment, in order to start being healthier in our relationships it is vital to start getting emotionally honest - and start taking emotional responsibility. Usually, prior to being able to name the fact that we have been abused, we blamed ourselves for the abuse. Upon realizing that we have been abused, we will want to place blame for that abuse on the abuser. Eventually, we will move into a place where we learn to take the blame out of the process completely. We will learn to take responsibility for our attitudes and behavior that set us up to accept abuse, while also learning that we were powerless over that behavior because of our wounding - and therefore not to blame. We will learn to protect ourselves from those who would abuse us, while also recognizing that they are reacting to their wounding - and not really doing anything to us specifically.