Others Have the Power You Give Them: How to Stop Being in the role of the Victim?
187. Others Have the Power You Give Them: How to Stop Being in the role of the Victim?
You have the impression of being a victim of other people’s bad behaviour and you would like to know how to break this repetitive pattern? You often have the feeling that you cannot influence your relationships and that you are subjected to abandonment, rejection, non-commitment from your partner and it is a bit of a “take it or leave it” situation. You feel that you cannot defend yourself, earn respect or act in alignment with what you want. Your partners often reproach you for behaving like a victim and you do not know if this is the case. Or finally you sense that you are self-victimising and you do not know how to get out of it: You often hear yourself making excuses “it’s not my fault” “there were these circumstances that caused it”, you have the impression of losing control over your life “why me” or you dramatise situations quickly. This episode aims to better understand self-victimisation (and its mechanism in the Karpman triangle) and to give you the first keys to getting out of it. Having accompanied more than 600 people, this is one of the most courageous patterns to identify and the one with the greatest potential for transformation.
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Spotting when you are in self-victimisation
Of all the roles in the Karpman triangle, the victim role is often the hardest to recognise in oneself.
Yet without identifying when you take this role, without taking responsibility for your 50%, you cannot take back your power in your love life.
The best way to identify your moments of victim-attitude (and I reassure you, I also play this victim role from time to time) is to list all the moments that make you suffer and where you have the impression of being subjected to things:
- That date who does not give you news about a second meeting
- That crush who asks you for a break and time
- That person who suddenly ghosts you
- That indecisive person who changes their mind about your relationship
- Your partner who imposes certain choices in the relationship — for example, planning weekends with friends without telling you and you find yourself looking after the children
- At what point did you not exercise your power, did you let things happen? (Looking at the past)
- What should you have done differently: in the choice of partner, clarifying/confronting, setting your limits, working on your perception of “there is nothing I can do about it”… (Looking at the past to correct things next time)
- How can I take back my power now in this situation?
- How can I take back my responsibility now?
Why do you victimise yourself?
The first thing is that this is not a lack of willpower.
The victimisation mechanism occurs when, in your past, you tried to defend yourself (flight/fight/people-pleasing) and none of these survival mechanisms were effective — so the only solution for you was to endure (dorsal state).
This evolution is very clearly visible in the people I accompany on the Day of the Past: People first describe events in early childhood where they show their disagreement, express their needs, try to defend themselves — and it has no result (in vain). After several repetitions, the child or young adult changes their mechanism to victimisation. And it can evolve to the stage where you put yourself in victim mode toward life or by default without anyone asking (“there is no point in explaining how I feel — he won’t listen to me anyway”, “there is no point hoping I can have that in life, it has always been difficult for me”).
It is important to understand this evolution because to change it, you will need to rebuild trust in the fact that taking back your power in relationships will give you better results than what you had in your past.
With the experience of the people I have accompanied, the origins of the victim role are often all the times when:
- You asked for listening, love, attention and did not receive it. This is the pattern of emotional dependency (I talk about it in episodes 73 and 74)
- You expressed your limits and they were not respected. This is the abuse pattern (episode 164).
- You expressed your disagreement in vain. As if what you say does not count.
- You tried to defend yourself or you could not defend yourself and you were victimised: rape, sexual touching (episode 101), physical and psychological violence.
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A hidden obstacle: shame
The victim role is often poorly judged — seen as weak, lacking willpower — and the shame of admitting to playing this role can mean you avoid addressing this mechanism.
Yet it is the one with the greatest potential to transform your life.
So every time you find yourself judging yourself harshly on this subject, every time you take flight — remember what I told you at the beginning of this episode: it is because everything you tried before did not work that you adopted this victimisation mechanism. It is not a question of willpower.
Getting out of victimisation
- The first step is to work on the imprints from the past that triggered this victimisation mechanism to prevent it from being your default reflex. This is what I offer in the Day of the Past option of my programmes, at the heart of my Somatic Deprogramming method: a psycho-corporeal approach to deprogram the automatisms of your nervous system and reprogram new, more adapted relational reflexes.
- The second step is to bring energy to your nervous system, which can see this change as a mountain and want to give up before starting. This is not in your head — the dominant dorsal state is a real lack of energy in your system. Your body functions in slow motion.
- The third step is to see the real cost of self-victimisation in order to consider better solutions. Remember all those moments of suffering where you had the feeling of being subjected to things in a relationship.
- The fourth step is to experiment with mechanisms where you take back your power and see their results: choice of partner, setting your limits, clarifying with your partner, acting in alignment.
Pour aller plus loin
Si tu as envie d’approfondir le sujet et d’identifier tes propres schémas amoureux, j’ai dans mon livre tout un encart sur le triangle de Karpman et comment sortir du rôle de victime, S’ouvrir à l’amour disponible dans toutes les librairies.
Je t’y présente un outil pour apprendre à ressentir tes limites dans l’engagement social et ce que tu peux faire quand tu sens que c’est trop avec l’exercice de la bulle.
S'ouvrir à l'Amour
Le livre qui va te permettre d'identifier tes schémas amoureux et te permettre d'apprendre les clefs pour construire une relation saine
Going further
And if you would like to work on your love patterns through the body and transform your love life, you have the programme Opening Up to Love.
Sandy Kaufmann
is a somatic therapist and coach, based in Switzerland. She is the author of two books published by Editions Eyrolles and has accompanied more than 600 people. She is the creator of the Somatic Deprogramming method and hosts the podcast “S’ouvrir a l’amour“, ranked in the French top 50 in the relationships category.
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