11 Ways You're Playing Victim and Didn't Know It

"I want you to stop playing the victim," my life coach housemate said to me.

She was taller than me, bigger in what I perceived to be energy and impact.

We were seated on my scratchy L-shaped couch across from one another in conflict about our original rental contract, which she no longer felt in agreement with.

Somehow, it became an opportunity for her to "coach" me on how I was showing up in life.

At the time, I was in the throes of an as-yet-undiagnosed deep postpartum depression. Her words felt as though she were scraping large rocks of salt over my raw sensitivities. 

I didn't have the voice or the confidence to point out that she was most likely, projecting...

In the end, she moved out. 


And, we stopped talking.

Three years later, I'm reflecting upon whether there was any validity to her observation — are there still areas of my life where I'm not claiming my full power?

Plainly put, "Yes. Of course there are."

This past weekend, I hung out with my sister-in-law and her kids at LACMA and, as our kids sat beneath the giant boulder exhibit, we talked about victimhood.

"Even though there were things that happened where I had every right to be upset," she shared, "I've had people call me out on whether I'm playing the victim. No matter what the external circumstance, that part is always a choice."

What's surprising is that victimhood can happen in so many different forms... 

It can be obvious (like, "woe is me!") or super sneaky (like, you're the person who's trying to fix things all the time).

Turns out, both represent people who are playing victim roles!

This article does a great job of laying out the kind of victim you might unknowingly be playing in your own life. 

(I've especially been the Busy Bee, but have dabbled in most of these archetypes before.)

If you want to see what your limiting beliefs are on an unconscious level, just take a look at your current life:

Your reality is showing what you're believing.