Character Defects - Victim Role/Martyr

“People who consider themselves victims of their circumstances will always remain victims, unless they develop a greater vision for their lives.”  Stedman Graham

I'm hoping to tackle different character defects in this blog as well as the steps, spiritual principles, traditions, concepts, and anything else recovery I feel the need to write about.  So here is my first: the role of victim a.k.a. the martyr.

Playing the role of victim is usually a role we pick up in childhood.  It is a role that many may think is determined by circumstance.  I would challenge those people to find someone in 12 step recovery who has overcome that role and found serenity.
  That’s not to say I haven’t been victimized in my past, in fact my childhood and adolescence had a number of different types of abuse. My awareness of this defect has changed my life.  The more I see in manifesting in my life, the more I’m determined to see it in my rear view mirror.  It is my Higher Power and the 12 steps that have allowed me to reclaim my power.  I’ve found a treasure chest of buried positivity in my life and a new way to live. 

When I play the role of victim I can only see the negative; I live in the sympathy for me: “poor me”, “look what they did to me”, “look how they made me feel”, “it’s not fair”, and on and on.  This is why playing the role of victim in life is a character defect.  While all the steps help us with this defect, we usually run into it when we do our first 4^th and 5^th step.  That was my experience and it ended up being just another defect I put on my 6^th and 7^th steps the first time around.  It later ended up being on my 10^th step but I really didn’t understand the depth and hold this defect had on my thoughts and feelings. 

At first I found the victim role an uncomplicated one because of my past, I knew what to do.  When I am the victim I don’t have to be accountable for any part of the relationship, be it with a family member, employer, employee, teacher, student, and so on.  Recovery is all about accountability:  I need to own what is mine (without being a martyr) in order to find serenity.  The awareness really grew for me as I went through the steps for a second time.  I realized how it affected my self-esteem, assertiveness, ability to set boundaries, and more, it seemed to affect most of my relationships.  This self awareness took time for me to accept and it is something I need to watch for when doing my daily inventory. 

There are many types of victims; I was the type who took on too much and then complained about my life.  The actions in my life were not congruent to the values I thought I had.  I was over-committed and if something had to give it was always my marriage or my kids.  It wasn’t until this was pointed out by a sponsor that I was able to make the change.   This sponsor questioned my motives for the commitments I was making and what I found was me looking for something outside myself to make me feel.   This shortcoming has a lot of different faces but all of them end up selling themselves short and missing out on life.  A martyr is self-centred, self-absorbed, and runs on self-will rather than God’s will. 

I want to quickly mention (in case it’s not obvious), I’m writing about a character defect which we find by working the 12 steps.  It is usually a learned behaviour from a time when we really were somebody’s victim.  Those incidences that happened are not our fault and people in 12 step fellowships are not counsellors or doctors, including me.  If anyone is dealing with trauma of any kind they should seek professional help.  I did seek professional help for trauma and became better able to differentiate between the self-centred defect and what happened so long ago.  By practicing the spiritual principles of the 12 steps I have been able to heal.   

Being a victim is a discouraging space filled with pain, sorrow, rage, desperation, just to name a few feelings.  The only way out of this defect is to accept that our thinking is flawed and our pain is not caused by something outside ourselves.  Yes, it is hard to believe but it is true!  We are the problem and with our Higher Power’s help we can find serenity.  Like all things in recovery it’s a process, and the only way out is through.  We have to trust the process in recovery; we see evidence in the meetings and in our sponsors.  It will become easier with practice to spot the role and change our thinking accordingly. Through the grace of God, I have not played the role of victim for a very long time.  Wishing you serenity in this moment!  Bonnie J