A lot of people nowadays complain about playing the victim card. After all, it is a common term that people have picked up recently. But the problem is not something new. In fact, most people have actually started talking about this common psychological trait of playing the victim.
I know we all use the term “playing the victim”. But a lot of us don’t clearly understand what it means and how a victim card can affect you or spoil your life.
In fact, playing the victim card is nothing more than exhibiting a common set of behavioral characteristics. But in this article, we won’t discuss how we get hurt by people who play the victim.
Instead, let’s explore this psychology in detail. Our goal is to help you detect whenever someone is playing the victim the next time.
What Does “Playing The Victim” Actually Mean?
Playing the victim means blaming others for whatever wrongs or negative things happen in your life. Simply put, you feel relieved when you are able to victimize someone for whatever wrong happens to you.
But who do they blame? No, they don’t target strangers, actually. Instead, their prime targets are close people who actually care about them. For example, partners, parents, friends, and often colleagues. WebMD sums up the behavior of playing the victim as follows.
Have You Really Faced Someone Playing The Victim In Your Life?
If you know someone who acts like that, you need to read the full article, right now. At first you need to understand that there is a basic difference between playing the victim and being the victim.
When you are an actual victim, it means something bad happened to you. I mean something genuine. But that feeling is permanent and constant.
I mean, let’s say you had a breakup. Simply put, the other person around you actually broke up with you. Instead, they are not playing a blame game. Again, they have nothing else in mind and are not trying to play games with you. But if someone is actually doing the latter ones, they are playing the victim.
What Is A Victim Mentality?
People with a victim mentality feel that they are the damsel in distress. In other words, they already assume that they are too powerless. Most importantly, they feel that everyone around them is conspiring to harm them in one way or another.
Now it’s normal to feel victimized after a really bad experience. However, Charlie Health confirms that the sentiment of feeling victimized every now and then is a mental disease.
What Psychologists Say
Psychologists have a specific term for this pattern. It’s called Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood, or TIV. Researchers define TIV as the idea of someone who thinks everyone cheats himself or herself in the relationship.
The TIV measure includes four core components:
- need for recognition
- moral elitism
- lack of empathy
- rumination.
Takeaway For Readers
Do you need people to constantly validate your suffering? Again, do you secretly believe you’re morally superior to those who hurt you? Lastly, do you feel you can’t really empathize with others’ pain? If you answered “Yes” every time, you need medical attention, I’m sorry, but you have all the traits that say you are playing the victim.
I took these questions from the article in Personality and Individual Differences in 2020. The article is peer-reviewed and has rigorous research. Again, it is not a self-help book. Certainly not a podcast
Dr. Menije Boduryan-Turner, a licensed psychologist and founder of Embracing You Therapy in California, describes victim mentality as
“Playing The Victim is the belief that in any given situation, you are the victim.”
Real Case Studies
I wanted to understand how far people can actually go with the playing the victim mindset. That’s when I discovered these landmark case studies from research.
If you want to know how destructive the mindset of such people who play victim is, don’t skip the case study part.
Case 1: Anne And Steve
Psychology Today published a case that I think perfectly illustrates how playing the victim works in a relationship. Steve is head over heels in love with Anne. He may propose to her any day.
But finally he discovers something shattering. Steve finds her with one colleague, and it’s visible that it’s not a formal meeting. No way!
But what does Anne do when Steve brings up the topic? She starts sobbing immediately. Again, she starts clamoring about how others cheated her in the past. So much so that now Steve feels he should not have brought that issue now. At least not now!
His question was never answered. He ended up apologizing. Anne’s instant dismissal and her immediate attempt to switch focus to past adversities may be a sign that she is playing the victim to escape accountability for her actions.
This is a textbook case of playing the victim.
Case 2: Ronia’s Story
Trauma recovery coach Ronia Fraser shared her personal account. In simple words, she was living what she called her California dream life.
To clarify, she had a successful finance career. Again, a house in the Hollywood Hills. Till that point, everything was going well.
Then she entered a relationship with a man who, behind closed doors, was methodically dismantling her. He used her shared hopes, dreams, fears, and insecurities as ammunition.
He began pulling out one building block of her identity after another. Until the life she’d built collapsed around her. She eventually had to delete and block him and everyone connected to him, and spend two years in hiding, barely leaving the house.
Here’s The Twist:
He was the one playing the victim to everyone around them. He was the one telling their mutual friends she was difficult, unstable, the problem.
He was the one who always had a story about how she’d wronged him. This is the dangerous edge of this behavior. That’s why it doesn’t just affect the person doing it. It harms the people around them.
Source: https://worldhealthlife.com/narcissist-abuse
Where You Can Go Wrong
Let me be direct. Here are the mistakes people make. Meanwhile, some of these mistakes might make you uncomfortable:
You Confuse Explanation With Excuse.
Yes, your childhood was hard. Yes, something terrible happened to you. I get it; those things are real.
But there’s a moment where explaining your pain turns into using it to justify avoiding accountability forever. Victim mentality is learned behavior. Certainly, it is not something you’re born with. You have the power to overcome it.
You Use Your Pain Competitively.
This one’s subtle but real. When someone else shares their struggles, you quietly compare and conclude yours are worse.
You need to be the most wronged person in the room. In other words, you believe you are so upright or morally correct that others are jealous of you.
For them, they are right, and those who disagree are wrong. This indicates a lack of nuance and an inability to cope with complexity.
You Punish People For Not Validating You.
Others must also validate that the situations were unfair to her every time. Or else they too will be accused of victimizing the person.
That’s an exhausting dynamic for everyone around you.
What You Should Actually Do Instead
I’m not going to tell you to “think positive.” That’s useless. So, here’s what actually works:
Start with radical honesty about your role.
Not self-blame as that’s totally different. Ask yourself: in this specific situation, what could I have done differently?
Even if you get one thing, start from there. A therapist can help you learn to choose whether to leave a situation or accept it, and to take responsibility for what you can control, including how you react.
Change Your Language Around Yourself.
There’s solid advice from clinical practitioners: instead of calling yourself a victim, switch to calling yourself a survivor of abuse.
It’s more empowering and can help create emotional confidence for future relationships.
Document Patterns, Not Incidents.
If you keep a journal and look back over three months, you’ll see whether the world is genuinely against you. Or whether a pattern in your responses is creating similar outcomes across different situations.
That’s honest self-reflection, and it’s harder and more useful than anything else.
Finally, get a therapist who challenges you.
Not one who only validates. One who gently pushes back.
Acting with compassion and care is important. But also recognizing that this is likely a learned behavior. Meanwhile, the person may not know how to help themselves.
What To Do Right Now?
Here’s what I want you to take away. Playing the victim isn’t a weakness. It started, for most people, as survival.
But survival strategies from childhood often become the very things that trap us as adults. The goal isn’t to dismiss your pain. To clarify, the goal is to stop letting your pain run your life. And everybody around you.
You’ve suffered enough already. You don’t need to keep paying the same price.
