EP 159 You're probably not a victim. Except you kind of are.

Resources from the Episode: 

• Mothers of Creation - Provo, Utah - September 26th
• David Emerald's book, Three Vital Questions
• MDM Academy

Most of us would never describe ourselves as victims.

And yet — if someone asked you where you feel resentful, or stuck, or like things just keep happening to you no matter what you do — you'd probably have an answer pretty quickly.

That's what this week's episode is about.

Lindsay Wright is back, and she's walking us through something called the victim types — six different ways that we show up in a victim orientation without ever realizing that's what we're doing. Not because we're weak or broken, but because these patterns were useful once. They helped us manage fear, avoid pain, survive hard seasons.

The problem is they also keep us stuck.

AI-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT 

 Introduction and Context

AUDREY: Welcome back to the podcast. I’m Audrey Rindlisbacher, author of The Mission Driven Life and founder of the Mission Driven Mom. I’m so excited for you to join me today as I have a great conversation with Lindsey Wright. Now, most of us don’t think of ourselves as victims, except that we do often show up as one of six or seven victim types in our real lives without realizing that we’re doing that. And that’s what we’re going to deep dive into today. So Lindsey, thanks for being here.

Super excited to talk to you. Just as a little bit of background, let me explain the context of what we’re going to talk about today. The drama triangle is something that not a lot of people know about, but it’s an insanely helpful framework for seeing how you’re getting stuck in your life. There’s a persecutor, a victim, and a rescuer in this drama triangle that we all kind of fall into. And yet in the end, when we’re in drama, we often feel stuck because we are actually being a victim without realizing that we’re being a victim. We call this problem orientation and we call it our problem story.

Now you and I — if you think about it for a minute — you’ll realize that you know plenty of people in your world who complain and struggle with things that just aren’t a problem for you, that that would just not be an issue for you in your life. Well, that’s what we call a problem story because it’s not a problem for everybody. It’s a problem for you, or it’s a problem for them, because of who they are, because of how they think, because of what’s showing up in their life.

And there are certain reasons why that’s a problem story, which we can talk about another time. But this is the framework for what we’re going to talk about today: that we get stuck in our lives in problem stories. Maybe it’s a rebellious child. Maybe it’s the loss of a job. Maybe it’s a spouse that asks for a divorce. Or maybe it’s something simpler, like you just can’t seem to get the weight off and you’ve been trying for years and you are sick and tired of it. You just incessantly complain about how you can’t lose the weight because you’re a victim to your weight. And so these problem stories keep us frustrated and irritated and angry, or whatever the case might be.

And we want to talk to you about how you might be showing up in this problem story as a certain type of victim. Lindsey’s going to help us understand why knowing a little bit more about what victimhood is and the different types of victims can be insanely helpful as a catalyst to help us see what we’re doing to ourselves a little more clearly, and be the first step toward getting out of this problem story and getting the car back on the road and moving again.

So as a little bit of background, if you’ve been around very long, you probably recognize Lindsey’s face. She’s been with the Mission Driven Mom from the beginning. She’s phenomenal. She’s brilliant. She helped vet content for the Academy, helped get it built, has mentored hundreds and hundreds of women for us, has spoken on our stages, and I just can’t even begin to say how much I love her and how incredible she is. She has taken on the job of mentoring women who are going to be attending our Mothers of Creation event this fall. Bless her for that.

We have an online community and we talk about these victim types in detail. Women are mentored in them in preparation for coming to this event. So she’s going to share with all of you today a little bit of what’s been going on in that community and why it makes such a huge difference. So the first question I want to ask you today, Lindsey, is: why do the victim types matter? Why do they matter, do you think, in general? And specifically, why do they matter to you?

Why the Victim Types Matter

Lindsey: The victim types matter because they just help to bring awareness to something we might not realize that we’re doing, or patterns of thought and behavior that we don’t realize that we’re perpetuating. And so there are these victim types. I think if I were just to ask you, “Where are you being a victim in your life today?” your automatic response would be, “Well, I’m not,” because we don’t want to believe that about ourselves. But if I were to ask you, “Is there anywhere in your life that you feel resentful?” that might give you some clues, something that you could think about. And then if I were to say, “Well, there’s a way of being a victim that the feeling you get is this resentment,” and tie that back to the specific victim type, I think that’s a little bit more helpful in helping us to see these things, these things that we’re doing in our lives.

AUDREY: Why does it matter to you personally, then? Have you had that experience?

Lindsey: Yes. It’s so fascinating to me. The more that I learn about the victim orientation and the creator orientation, and I look for that in my life and I find it. But then — because I don’t just stay there, and that’s part of what we’re doing in the fall. We don’t want to just stay in the victim orientation. We want to learn how to get out of it. But awareness is that first step. And so when we become aware and I can start to see those things in my life, what’s happened is that I’ve been able to make changes in my life. I’m not stuck in some of the places that I was stuck in before.

I feel more empowered. My relationships are better. Like, everything is better. My thinking is more clear when I can notice these things about myself and then also know what to do when I see them.

AUDREY: Agreed. And we’ll get into this here in just a second. But just for me, knowing the title of what I’m doing — of how I’m being a victim — helps me see why I should just do the opposite of that. And there’s so much rich context that you’ve helped build around all of these victim types, and you can explain that to us. But just the title for me is so helpful because then it gives context around my attitudes, my behaviors, the way I’m approaching things. And it’s hugely motivating because I don’t want to be a doormat or I don’t want to be a chameleon. I don’t want to be that thing. And so it stimulates me to want to get out of that victim mindset and be different.

Lindsey: Yes. And when you can name something, then you can start to create order. That is part of the process of creation — you have to name it.

AUDREY: That’s a great point. Identify it, and then you can move on to the next steps. Yes, super helpful. All right. So let’s head into this. Can you give us a little more context around how you would answer the question: what is a victim type?

What Is a Victim Type?

Lindsey: So all victims have a few things in common. All victims have something that they’re afraid of. All victims don’t want to take responsibility for something. All victims blame. There are certain characteristics of just this victim orientation in general. But these types of victims are helpful because they help us to see some of the nuances. They help us to see that there are a few different flavors of being a victim. And they’re a little bit different in the thoughts. So one of the things I’ve done is I’ve tried to connect a thought and a feeling to each of these victim types to help us understand it a little bit better. And so the thought and the feeling, there’s nuance there. And then the tool and the truth that they need to get out of it is also a little bit different. So when we can isolate this certain particular flavor of victim that we are participating in, then it’s helpful because then we know the next step. We know how to get out of it.

AUDREY: Yeah. So with that in mind, let’s just walk through each of these and you can kind of give us some context and framework with some of the things that you feel like are most vital to understand about each one.

The Avoider

Lindsey: So one of the first victims that we talked about in our Mothers of Creation community is the avoider. And I know from conversations that you and I have had, we both really struggle with the avoider.

AUDREY: Yep.

Lindsey: And I want to say that it’s not — we’re not bad people because we have this tendency. It’s just something that we do. It’s something that maybe we picked up — just the way we handle pain and struggle. It worked for us then, but now we know better, and so we’re going to do better.

AUDREY: So when you were just talking, Lindsey, it made me think that maybe for our listeners one of the things that might be helpful to think about is that one aspect of the victim type is the way that you respond to fear. So something is happening that you don’t want to have happen, that you don’t like, that you’re afraid of. So what do you do about it? How do you respond to it? And like you said, for me, one of the common ways that I respond to fear is to avoid. But then the problem is that later on I look back and regret that I didn’t do something. And maybe doing something would still have been doing nothing, but at least it would have been a conscious choice instead of a reaction. Because I feel like the victim types are reactionary. Maybe that’s a reaction to those feelings of fear, maybe it’s a reaction to other things too, but anyway — so go ahead and give us some examples so that we can have some context.

Lindsey: So the avoider — there are four possible reactions. You just reminded me when we were talking about reactions. And we’re all, I think, familiar with these: you can fight, you can flee, you can freeze, and there’s a fourth one that I learned about from David Emerald, and that is to appease. So you’re going to appease the people in the situation so that that conflict can go away. And so — take the avoider, the victim type of the avoider, and their reaction is to freeze. That’s the reaction. And they’re reacting to an anxiety that they have. They’re not necessarily reacting to the problem itself, they’re reacting to the way they feel about it. And they think, “I can’t do this. I can’t face this. This is too hard,” and so they freeze. Like you said, they don’t address the problem. And well, what happens when you don’t address problems? They get bigger. Then the anxiety gets bigger.

AUDREY: Yeah. If you don’t face that anxiety it will just continue to get bigger and bigger.

Lindsey: Yes. And so that’s where we get the avoider. They’re just avoiding those hard things that make them feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed. So what other aspects of the avoider can you share? The avoider feels stuck. And a lot of victims will feel stuck, but the avoider really feels stuck because they froze, right? They’re not moving forward. And they’re really afraid — say you have a relationship where there’s a hard conversation that needs to happen. The avoider is afraid that if they have this hard conversation, first of all that it’s going to be really uncomfortable — which is true, it is going to be really uncomfortable — that they’re going to lose control, that they’re going to lose the security, and maybe they’ll lose that relationship. So they’re reacting to that fear, to that anxiety, instead of making a proactive choice to deal with something.

And isn’t there a truth that each one of the victim types needs to know? So what is it for avoiders?

So the avoider needs to know that right now is what I can control. Sometimes an avoider will do something that seems like action, that seems like they’re addressing the problem, but actually isn’t. So they start to get into the future, they start to make plans. Say the problem is that your house is always a mess. What does the avoider do? Well, instead of addressing the actual problem, “Oh, I’m going to plan. I’m going to make job charts. I’m going to set up incentive systems.” They spend hours and hours doing all this and it feels like action.

AUDREY: Oh, that’s so me. Yes.

Lindsey: But I’m not actually — it’s not going to change anything. And how do we know? Because a week into this new job system, it’s not working anyway. Not that no one should ever plan, but if you’re feeling reactionary and freezing as an avoider victim to a hard situation that you feel anxious about, if you remember the truth that right now is what you can control, then you will just get busy cleaning the house. Just clean the house. In the five hours it took you to create that new job system, what could you have done?

AUDREY: Yeah. And then some of the anxiety starts to be alleviated as you take action and you remember that you have more control than you think you do. And you can be planning in your mind while you’re cleaning, I suppose.

Lindsey: Sure, yeah. The difference is — because planning is good, we all need to begin with the end in mind — it’s when you’re using the planning to avoid the doing, that’s when it’s a problem.

AUDREY: I can see that in myself, that as I avoided, I liked to make plans, but actually nothing was happening right now. Yes.

Lindsey: Yes. And one of the tools that we teach is radical acceptance of your current circumstances. Maybe my house is a little messier than I would like it to be because I’m a very busy mom. Maybe I have young children, or maybe I’ve just had a health crisis, or whatever. And so accepting where I am now, the season that I’m in now, and then controlling what I can control right now, here in the present. That’s how we can make that shift.

AUDREY: I love it. Okay, let’s contrast that one with another one and go through each of those, and then maybe we can finish out by just touching on all of them so people just have some frame of reference for each of the types.

The Quitter

Lindsey: Okay. I want to do the quitter next because just like the avoider, the quitter’s reaction is to flee. They want to get away from it. They don’t even want to try. They just want to get as far away from it as possible. So what might that look like? It could look like not getting out of bed in the morning to take care of your family. Or think of a young child — I have a young daughter who struggles with some things, so she just doesn’t want to do them. “It’s too hard.” She just doesn’t do it. So the avoider is kind of pretending like they’re doing something about it because they’re making all these plans, but the quitter just says, “I’m done.” They’re just out. They just quit the thing — quit the sport, quit the lessons, quit the conversations, quit the relationship. Just walk away instead of engaging. Yeah.

AUDREY: Okay, I think I see that. And what are the other aspects of the quitter as compared to the avoider?

Lindsey: They’re not necessarily thinking, “I can’t face this,” but more like, “Why do these things always happen to me?” or “This is too hard.” So a little more self-pity. We’ve got another victim type that I think really embodies the self-pity, though I think all victims to a certain extent feel badly about themselves. But the quitter will start and then decide it’s too hard. The avoider won’t engage at all. The quitter starts and then stops. And it comes from some misbeliefs: that I’m not capable, that the world is too hard, that the world is fixed, that there’s nothing that I can control.

AUDREY: I loved your example about the music lessons, because most of us have maybe experienced that, or our children have, and we can see the pattern: we do this thing and then it gets hard and we quit. That actually is super helpful, because I was just thinking about two different kids of mine and different experiences that happened in their past when they were in lessons. One kept saying, “I want to stay in, I love it, I’m going to do better next week,” but then didn’t practice. So the avoider: making plans for the future, saying that they want this, but just not digging in and taking control of today. And then in other circumstances a child would sign up and go like mad for a couple of weeks or a couple of months, but it would be unsustainable, or it was just so much harder than they thought it was going to be, and so they would just quit. So I can see the differences. In both cases they’re not showing up for themselves in something that they said they wanted, and not taking responsibility for what they can control and moving forward with something methodical happening. But they did manage an uncomfortable situation differently.

Lindsey: The quitter’s deep fear or anxiety is that they’re going to make a mistake. And they’re so afraid of making a mistake that they’re just going to stop now and then they don’t have to deal with that. So it kind of sounds a little bit like the avoider, and they are similar — they’re all victims. We’re just teasing out some of the little different nuances. But what the quitter needs to know is that they can practice the principles, that they can do the things that they know will work, and wait for the results. They can patiently keep moving forward to the best of their abilities and trust that as they do — as you practice the piano every day — it’s going to get better. It’s going to get easier. Principles will always deliver if you’re persistent.

And the tool for the quitter is that they can practice those baby steps. Sometimes you or your child had this idea that they are going to be the best pianist in the whole world. And they want to be perfect now. And that’s why they get frustrated — because they imagined in their mind that it’s going to be great, that they’re just going to achieve it and it’s going to be easy. They don’t realize the work.

AUDREY: And the child I was thinking of as a quitter — that is so fascinating because that exactly corresponds. They have an idea, they get excited, and it’s too big, it’s too much too soon. They’re not realistic about the process that it’s going to require and the daily choices that have to be made. And then because they’re here and the goal is so far out of reach after a few attempts, it just feels too impossible to get there. So they’re done. They just quit.

Lindsey: Yes. But if we would just remember baby steps. Nobody is going to be the best at anything the first time they try it. Just baby steps. Just putting one foot in front of the other. That’s how we get there. We just have to remember those baby steps.

The Remaining Victim Types: A Brief Overview

AUDREY: Oh my goodness, I can totally see that. So we’re getting a little bit low on time. Let’s just run through the rest — give us the titles and just a little bit of context around the rest of these victim types.

Lindsey: Sure. So we talked about the avoider and the quitter. We have the martyr, and I think moms especially relate to this one. The martyr uses suffering as proof of their love or their value. If they’re suffering, then you know that they are a really good person. And I don’t think they’re making it up — I think they actually feel like they’re suffering. But isn’t it kind of like wearing that suffering on your sleeve to garner attention or empathy?

AUDREY: Yeah. Or carrying this chip on her shoulder. “Why am I the only one that cares this much about this thing?” “No one says thank you. No one helps with the dishes.” Which is a way of avoiding responsibility — right? Because to train and educate and organize so that people will participate takes real work.

Lindsey: So the martyr just stews in resentment and self-pity. That’s really one where we see the self-pity come through. And then we have the doormat, which is what it sounds like. The doormat’s fear is conflict. They don’t want it, so they’re an appeaser. We talked about those four reaction types. The doormat is an appeaser. They don’t want the conflict, so they’re just going to appease, which means that they are going to abandon their own boundaries in order to avoid conflict. We just go along to get along. And then they just get walked all over and they start to feel exhausted and hopeless.

AUDREY: And it can make the situation — I guess any of these make the situation — it’s all drama. And like you’ve talked about avoiding responsibility, but I feel like a big part of what all of these victim types are avoiding is the work of thinking and taking responsibility for actual, true problem solving. “I’m going to just not think about it and avoid it.” “I’m just going to give up because it’s too hard.” “I’m just going to lay down on the floor and let everyone take care of me.” “I’m just going to do whatever you think.” These are all ways of avoiding deep pondering and the work of finding truths that could liberate you — of telling yourself the truth.

Lindsey: Victims do not tell themselves the truth. That’s for sure.

AUDREY: Great point. Okay, a couple more.

Lindsey: I may add a few more before our celebration event because I’ve been thinking about these things. But a few more today. We have the dummy. The dummy either fights or freezes, and they’re the ones who don’t feel like they can solve their problem. So they’re inviting a rescuer — somebody come solve this problem for me because I’m not capable of solving it. Or they just want you to stop talking about it. “I don’t know what to do.” End of story. End of conversation.

AUDREY: That actually reminds me of someone. A lot of times when I’ve tried to have problem-solving or root-getting conversations, it’s: “I don’t know” — silence. “I don’t know” — silence. “I don’t know” — silence. That’s a good way of avoiding responsibility. And maybe part of that is — I mean, I think they all have their issues with self-image — but in this particular case, they just don’t see themselves as capable problem solvers.

Lindsey: Yes. And then there was one more, and that is the chameleon. This is an interesting one. The doormat abandons their boundaries to avoid conflict. The chameleon abandons their identity to gain belonging. This is the people-pleasing person. Whatever group they’re in, they assume a different identity to fit in with the group. And the problem with that? They don’t know who they are, and nobody else knows who they are either. How can we interact with each other if nobody knows who you are?

AUDREY: Wow, that’s profound, Lindsey.

The First Step: Awareness and Naming

AUDREY: While you were talking about this, I just realized that the inverse of this can also be super helpful. Just in those titles alone, women will recognize themselves. But then the next thing they can say is: “And when I do that, I’m being a victim.” And that is so helpful because you recognize that it’s not a helpful or healthy way of being, it’s not where you want to stay. And as you understand these different aspects — the feelings that accompany each type, the truth that goes along with it, and the tools that they need — then if they can identify that behavior and recognize that as a victim way of being, they can walk themselves back out of some of that with those tools.

So as we finish up, what’s the first step? What is something that you recommend that women do when they’re just becoming oriented to these victim types?

Lindsey: Well, I’m going to quote David Emerald. He says — and this is from his book, Three Vital Questions — “This transformation begins by recognizing one’s own drama.” So that is the first step: just to become aware. To know first of all that there’s a victim orientation and a creator orientation, and to name it. Have those things to name it, and then start seeing it. That’s what’s been really fun as I’ve kind of done a deep dive into this material — as I’m in it and I’m thinking about these names, I can see them. I can see them in movies, in books, in relationships, and especially in myself. So that’s what we’re doing in the community right now: trying to develop this awareness so that we can see it more quickly. And then the more quickly you can see it, the faster you can change it.

AUDREY: Wow. That’s powerful. That is awesome.

Invitation to the Mothers of Creation Conference

AUDREY: Well, if you can see — I think anyone listening can see that Lindsey knows her stuff, and she continues to flesh this out. There’s an in-depth training that we did a few months ago that lives in the community. There’s ongoing mentoring in that community. Lindsey, I think you have another training coming up here pretty soon, and all of those are recorded in that community.

But the best part is — if this has been interesting and stimulating to you, if you want to understand it better — we would invite you to sign up for our Mothers of Creation MDM Celebration that will happen September 26th in Provo, Utah, in a beautiful big ballroom hall in a library. We will spend a whole day together talking about all these things in great depth. And leading up to that, the moment that you sign up you will have instant access to that community and to Lindsey. She will answer all your questions. You can watch these past recordings, you can attend this upcoming training, and you can begin to orient yourself around this whole chart — which is available in there. She’s adding to and fleshing it out and improving it all the time. And you can begin to understand and name for yourself how you are showing up in your life as a victim, why you don’t want to do that, and how you can work your way out of it.

Just understanding these victim types is a huge, mega tool set for that. But then at our event in September, we will walk you through the entire framework for going from problem orientation and problem story to being the creator in your own life through disconnecting and reframing that problem story. So we hope that you will join us for all of those things, and we can meet you in September. But again, thank you for joining us. Hopefully understanding a little bit about these victim types has been helpful for all of you, and we will see you next time.