Being a victim is unpleasant. At some stage everyone is a victim of something whether it be violence, crime, illness, abuse, poverty, famine, fire or bullying. Where we can, we should avoid becoming a victim. It is natural to feel compassion for a victim and to want to help relieve their suffering. We must distinguish between victims and victim mentality. People respond differently to becoming a victim of the same thing. Looking at 100 people who are made redundant from their jobs, there is a wide variety of responses. The average reaction is probably to feel disappointment, fear, loss and then to consider the alternatives available and explore those. A minority take it as an exciting challenge to reshape their life. Some slip into depression, hopelessness, drugs or alcohol or wallow in self-pity and dysfunctional, self-sabotaging behaviours. This is victim mentality.

It is absolutely right to feel compassion for a victim and to do what we can to help empower them, support them and relieve their suffering. It is absolutely wrong ever to indulge victim mentality because this serves merely to further harm the victim. Our society, me included, is riddled with victim mentality. We all do it some of the time, to greater or lesser extents. Dr Stephen Karpman elaborated on the work of Eric Berne, author of Games People Play, with his description of the ‘drama triangle.’ The three players in the drama triangle are the victim, perpetrator and rescuer. There are many healthy examples. For example, a victim is burgled by a burglar and rescued by the police. A victim is infected by bacteria and rescued by a doctor with antibiotics. Victims of a famine are rescued by aid workers. A victim of a workplace bully is rescued by the HR Department. A victim of racism is be rescued by the law. An exploited employee is rescued by his union.

The drama triangle can also be unhealthy. When I feel that I don’t have enough money, I might feel like a victim of my fate and buy a lottery ticket, placing a bet with money I can’t afford to lose, in effect hoping to be rescued. A comfort eater perceives himself or herself as a victim of anxiety and stress and will reach out for the temporary but counter-productive rescuing relief of food or alcohol. Criminals often feel that they are victims of the rich, of racism, of a poor education and environment. Well-meaning rescuers wish to alleviate the suffering of the criminal so as to break the cycle of their behaviour but sometimes do this in a way that is naive and acts to both excuse and encourage criminal behaviour. Anti-racist campaigners are sincerely motivated to prevent racism. Sometimes they disempower victims and create new victims by promoting other forms of racism. Feminists are rightly concerned to put a stop to sexism. Sometimes this takes the unhealthy form of encouraging the hatred and disempowerment of men rather than the empowerment of healthy femininity and empowered women. Sometimes doctors treat patients as passive victims of illness rather than empowering them to heal themselves and take responsibility for their health. It is natural to want to alleviate the suffering of people enduring poverty in the developing world. Some of our attempts to rescue those victims through charity and aid work are counter-productive because they create a dependency culture, attracting the brightest and best in those countries to non-productive activities, giving money to corrupt elites and failing to undertake more effective empowerment work.

We teach victim mentality in our fairy tales. Cinderella is presented to us as the beautiful girl whose life was made a misery by her evil ugly sisters and stepmother. Her absent father is unable to protect her. The other main characters are all different types of rescuer. Buttons, her father’s trusty manservant, poses as a friend and sincere rescuer, offering comfort and support to Cinderella. However his motivation is really to keep her small and weak, in the hope that, in desperation, she might accept him as her boyfriend. The fairy godmother appeals to our belief in a magical eye overlooking everything we do, able to waive the magic wand to make our lives better. Cinderella chooses Prince Charming as her rescuer to transport her to her dream life. Who said Cinderella couldn’t go to the ball? Why couldn’t she go anyway? What was stopping her from leaving home? Why didn’t she stand up to the ugly sisters? Where was her father? Why didn’t he discipline the ugly sisters?

Ugly sisters are perpetrators but also victims. They feel ugly, inferior, disadvantaged and betrayed by their father. Why do they work so hard to keep Cinderella down? Because she is beautiful, desirable and her father’s favourite. So they feel themselves to be victims of Cinderella and thus justified in attacking her. Buttons is an oppressed victim of poverty. What would an empowering version of Cinderella be like? Perhaps you might be inspired to write it?

So what is the alternative? David Emerald describes the ‘empowerment dynamic.’ Rather than choosing a victim consciousness, we choose to be a creator. Rather than being a perpetrator, we choose to be a challenger. Rather than being a rescuer, we choose to be a coach.

We can shift from victim mentality to being a creator by shifting our focus from what we don’t want to what we do want. We take baby steps to get us moving in that direction. We take responsibility for our situation and take charge of our emotions, seeking mindfulness, equanimity and control of our decisions, resisting the urge to make reflex responses like a machine. We shift from self-pity, passivity and reactivity to self-confidence, using the power that we actually have and making conscious choices about our behaviour. We perceive our situation as an opportunity to learn, adapt, mature and grow. We parent our inner children rather than letting them run wild. We take charge of our boundaries, assert ourselves effectively and communicate our needs, desires and intentions. We live in the present and focus on opportunities and dreams rather than living in the past and blaming others for our misfortunes. We take charge of our lives, accept reality as it is and flow with life. We stop trying to be right and instead try to be happy. We let go of our losses and attachments. We are where we are. Whether we want to or not, we can free ourselves to get on with life if we can sincerely forgive those, including situations and ourselves, who have harmed us. We cultivate compassion for ourselves and others.

A persecutor can become a challenger, inspiring the creator to learn, to grow, to think or act differently, to gain a skill or to break a situation down into its parts.

A rescuer can mature into a coach who supports the creator, leaves the power with them, facilitating, not taking charge. Coaches help the creator clarify their envisioned outcome, identify and take baby steps in that direction, generate new ideas and see new possibilities. A coach wishes the creator well but is not attached to a particular outcome. They don’t try to fix the other. A coach asks questions rather than giving solutions and advice. If they do make suggestions, they are not attached in any way to whether the person acts upon them. A coach acknowledges the other person’s worth, power and responsibility for their choices and decisions.

Moving ourselves from a victim-perpetrator-rescuer mentality to a creator-challenger-coach mentality is both possible and essential if we are to improve our lives and thrive. It is easy to say and much harder to do. Take baby steps, one at a time.