Is it "persecution" or self-infliction?
Is it really persecution if you have set up the dynamics, the parameters, the situations in which you are now being persecuted? If you created that and the consequence was persecution, are you really being persecuted? Or did you do this to yourself? But there's another way. Let's say you're playing a poker hand and you have pocket aces. The hand plays out and you lose. Was that really a bad beat?