Playing the Victim Doesn’t Pay
Even when you have plenty of justified victim in you.
by: E.B. Johnson
It’s undeniable. We’re living through one of the most unique and interesting times in modern history. In an age of trends and pandemics, chief among the discord is a new victim mentality. More and more people are waking up to the reality of their hurts and their traumas. Along with theses realizations comes a dangerous new temptation, however. Playing the role of victim can give you a certain level of power. But that power doesn’t pay in the long run. If you’re serious about being happy in life (or in love) then you have to get out of your victim mentality and do something for yourself.
Why playing the victim doesn’t pay off.
There are a lot of people out there who relish playing the victim. In the right audience, it pays big. In the long run, however, it’s not something that really works out for our best interests. People aren’t as dumb as we think they are. They know when they’re being manipulated, and they leave manipulators behind. When you play victim, you create a lot of resentment. Worse than that, though, you shut the door on your own opportunities and limit your own potential.
You’re going to end up alone
Living is hard for anyone. Modern life has a lot of excess pressures and demands, and it only gets harder when our loved ones get involved. It’s very difficult to carry your own weight through life. Carrying someone else’s? Let’s just say that it’s not a tenable situation. The longer you play victim to take advantage of other people, the more division you’re going to create. They’re not going to carry you forever. Nor should they.
You’re creating a lot of resentment
People have empathy and compassion, but that empathy and compassion only goes so far. When you continue to take from others, or you continue to flaunt your trauma and hardship over theirs, you’re going to create a lot of resentment. No one likes to be continually dismissed. And they don’t like to stay in places of perpetual negativity and suffering. It’s unpleasant, and it erodes connections while breeding resentment.
You’re making your life harder
Even when your victimhood is entirely justified, reveling in it only makes your life harder. This world moves fast. Nature is brutal, and man’s society is even worse. When you sideline yourself and put on your victim’s megaphone, the world will pack its bags up and pass you right by. It’s survival of the fittest, and that has little to do with our physical state and everything to do with our mental and emotional resilience.
You’re not living up to your potential
The saddest part of the victim games is that you sell yourself short. You can’t live up to your full potential when you’re only focused on the shortcomings and the hardships. Yeah, life is hard. It’s probably worse for your neighbor. Dwelling there doesn’t allow us to grow, however. Looking backward doesn’t allow us to create a vision of a future that motivates us to move.
You’re teaching your kids toxic lessons
When you’re a parent, everything you do becomes a lesson to your child. They don’t just listen to what you say. They watch the way you interact with others, and internalize all the silent and subtle realities you may not even understand yourself. If they watch you play victim to get what you want in life, they learn to do the same thing. Rather than taking charge of their own lives, they end up in the same spirals and depending on others for the things they are capable of providing for themselves.
You’re destroying opportunities
Because perpetual victims push away their friends, their families, and positivity in general, they can find that they destroy opportunities for themselves. They sabotage their careers, their relationships, and even their family homes; all in an effort to nurse injuries that aren’t even connected to the present moment. When you insist on playing victim, you’re destroying opportunities for yourself.
You’re a drain on everyone else around you
Have you ever been around someone who is a total emotional drain? When you leave a hang-out, you probably feel exhausted or frustrated (or maybe both). Talking to them can feel like talking to a wall. They dismiss you and talk over you. Whenever you tell a story, they bring it back to them. If you’re playing victim all the time, then you are this person. After friends and family walk away from you, they end up exhausted and questioning it all.
You’re actually being abusive
Whether you want to accept it or not, playing victim is manipulative and abusive behavior. This is especially true when it comes down to harming others or keeping them from being themselves. Victimhood is one of the primary ways by which the covert narcissist abuses those around them. Instead of grandstanding and demanding a place in the sun, they quietly pull strings by emotionally micro-manipulating every situation they encounter.
How to stop playing victim and start being accountable.
All of us, to some extent, have experienced heartbreak and trauma. For some, that trauma is an every day, lived experience (whether it comes from institutionalized disadvantages, or permanent physical suffering). Our suffering is valid, and it is not our fault. Finding better ways to live is our responsibility, though, and we have to accept this truth so that we can make the improvements that create a livable life.
1. Accept the reality of it all
Let’s just go ahead and get the facts out of the way. Before you can heal, you have to accept some hard realities about life. First, it’s not fair. It’s brutal, and it’s not fair in the ways you want it to be fair. You can’t punish other people for the bad things that happened to you. You can’t get “revenge” or “justice” that way. It doesn’t work. What you can do, though, is give yourself so much good that it helps you accept the bad. These truths have to be invested in, though.
Accept the truth. Your trauma and your pain aren’t your fault — but healing it is. Think of it a bit like an investment property. Sometimes, other people come along and damage that property, but we’re still the ones that have to fix it.
Why? Because we are in charge of our own lives. We are naturally ordained to be the high priests of our own futures. Yes, it’s hard work (for some the hardest work they will ever do). No, that’s not fair. That’s the reality, though. Until we live in a world in which we don’t wound each other, we have to tend to our wounds and seek a higher level of peace. Acceptance has to happen before moving on effectively.
2. Get tired of your own sh*t
Perpetual victims are wallowers. They wallow in their grief and their emotional injuries. They focus on all the bad and refuse to give the good equal space and value in their life. While this gives them a superficial sense of power, it’s not actual power. Genuine power is giving ourselves a life we can relax into. It’s giving ourselves peace of mind and people we want to spend our time with. To get that, though, you need to get sick of the negativity and sick of holding yourself back as a victim.
At some point, you’re going to have to get tired of your own sh*t. The victim role is exhausting. It requires you to water yourself down, lie, and manipulate others in order to get what you want. Is that really a quality of life you want to lead forever? Never knowing if anyone around you is there for love or for pity?
When you get sick of settling and being miserable, you’ll decide to change things — but not before then. You’ll keep settling for the victim role until you watch everyone else around you create fulfilling lives that you had planned for yourself. Then, you might look around and decide that you’re powerless and stuck in a place you never wanted to be. It’s never wise to play the victim when we have the choice to be the hero of our own story.
3. Take action to change things
Getting out of your victimhood isn’t something that happens with thought alone. You’re not going to “manifest it” by just looking at things in a brighter light. That’s a first step. We have to get the internal conditions right so that we can start affecting the external conditions. Your life won’t change unless you actively change it. You need to mindfully make different decisions and then follow through so you can transform the quality of your life.
Take action in your life to change things. Instead of being at the mercy of others, claim charge over the outcome of your own life. If you’re being beaten down by something material — make plans to change it. Being plagued by chronic illness and exhaustion? Find the smallest ways to make improvements to your level of comfort and your mental and emotional health.
Being a victim is an inherently passive place to inhabit in life. You put yourself at the mercy of anything and everything around you; you leave yourself open to attack and to slander. It is better to be a person of action than a victim if you are seeking to be truly happy and in control of your life. While you may think that you have been granted power over others, this power is superficial and fleeting. Mark it, human and empathy and compassion only go so far when there’s no benefit offered in return.
4. De-personalize the experience
One reason that victimhood is tempting is that it is very self-centric. It allows people to put themselves in a certain kind of spotlight which brings both attention and sympathy. And that can be seductive when you’re struggling, hurt, or lonely. It’s a slippery slope, though. The more you go down the me-me-me road, you begin to see everything as a reflection of yourself. You dissolve into a world of “me” and feed the narcissistic tendencies that each one of us has.
Stop seeing everything as a reflection of yourself. Step down off your high horse and see that you are no better and no worse than anyone else around you. Instead of personalizing every interaction you have, detach and know that not everything is a reflection of you.
Escape your narcissistic tendencies. Break away from that social media centerpiece mentality and see the world for what it really is: Billions of people are doing the best they can do to get by. When you see yourself as a part of the whole, it is easier to understand why the victim mentality doesn’t work. As you look around and see others like yourself, you will begin to accept that settling for a place on the sidelines is unfulfilling and unsustainable. At the end of the day, the world doesn’t care if you sink or swim. When push comes to shove, you’re doing either on your own.
5. Re-channel your pain in a positive way
Your pain is justified. Making it the central focal point of your life (in a negative way) will do nothing save give more power to the people that hurt you. Yet, you can’t remove that pain or the scars and memories left behind. So what’s to be done? We can choose to see our suffering in a different light and look for a silver lining and the positive side-effects of hurts unearned.
Re-channel your pain positively. How can you take what you’ve gone through and make it a positive? Maybe you pick up an art that helps you cope, and spend the next 20 years making nice pottery for yourself in the garden. Perhaps you start a charity, or write a book that gives someone the courage to leave.
There is no end to the way you can apply the lessons of your past to a more positive future. It’s really the only way we can learn to survive and thrive with the wounds that (truly) never leave us. Remember, though, this re-channeling has to be for you, and you alone. You can’t go into this action with anything but the highest intentions. Don’t seek to make anyone happy but yourself. Don’t seek revenge or retribution. Instead, decide on using your pain to give yourself joy in some way. This is how we re-claim our power and find strength.
Putting it all together…
Have you been playing the victim in life? In your relationships? At work? While you may be cruising the wave of covert power now, it won’t last forever. Investing in a victim playbook only ends up in resentment and loneliness. If you’re serious about being happy 10 or 20 years from now, then you have to become determined to control your own life (whatever that means for your specific situation). Get tired of your own sh*t and commit to being happier, healthier, and more in love with the future that you’re building.
Accept the reality and the hard truth of your situation. Your trauma and your physical injuries and emotional wounds aren’t your fault. That responsibility lies very much at the feet of the world that hurt you. Healing and finding peace is your responsibility, though. You’ve got to tire of your own victimhood enough to decide to take action. From there, you can start depersonalized and pulling away from your narcissistic tendencies. Embrace your sameness. Embrace the fact that your life is your responsibility and get creative about making a life you want to be a part of. Re-channel your pain in a positive way for you. If you have to live with it, make it your friend by using it to create something valuable for yourself — whether that’s making key chains on a seashore, or starting a business to help other people just like you. Insist on making good and your life will be transformed.
