Any person, in any situation of his life, has had to assume the role of victim . Most of the time, this role is assumed based on objective facts that justify our feeling more vulnerable or helpless.

Victimhood as a Personality

However, there are people who display chronic victimhood : they are in a permanent state of unfounded complaints and laments. These individuals hide themselves in a victimizing personality , although some of them adopt this attitude unconsciously. In this way they free themselves from any responsibility for their actions and blame the rest of what happens to them.

Maintaining this type of attitude over a long period of time, which we have called “chronic victimhood”, is not in itself a pathology classified in DSM-5 , but it could lay the psychological foundations that could end up developing a paranoid personality disorder. This occurs because the person persistently blames others for bad things that happen to him.

Victimhood and pessimism go hand in hand

This way of facing the day to day can bring more negative consequences. One of the clearest prejudices is the pessimistic view of life that chronic victimhood brings with it, as it creates an environment of discomfort and distrust both for the person who is always complaining and for the people around them, who feel unfairly treated.

In a large number of cases, the person who shows this tendency towards chronic victimization ends up feeding a series of bad feelings, such as resentment or anger, which can degenerate into an aggressive victimization. The aggressive victimizer not only blames others and regrets everything, but may also adopt aggressive and violent attitudes, intolerance and contempt for the physical and moral integrity of the people he considers guilty for some reason.

How are the victimizers?

But, what recurrent personality traits and attitudes do these people perform? Let’s get to know them through the following points.

1) They systematically deform reality

People with chronic victimization sincerely believe that all the blame for what happens to them is someone else’s fault; they never assume any responsibility for their actions . The underlying problem is that they see reality in a distorted way, with a locus of external control. They tend to think that both positive things and bad times depend on causes that are external to their will.

It is also true that they often unconsciously exaggerate the negative, so that they fall into a strong pessimism that prevents them from seeing the positive things in life.

2) The constant lament reinforces them

The individual victimizers believe that their personal situation is due to the bad acts of others and the circumstances , therefore they do not feel responsible for anything that happens to them. Consequently, they spend the day lamenting, to the extent that they find an important reinforcement of their attitude in lamenting and complaining, assuming their role as victims and trying to call the attention of their surroundings.

They are not able to ask for help from anyone, they just complain about their bad luck in meeting undesirables. This is nothing but an unconscious search for attention and protagonism .

3) Their aim is to find the guilty party

The permanent victim status is also strongly associated with a suspicious attitude . They believe that others are always moved by spurious interests and act in bad faith against them. For this reason they inspect to the millimetre any detail or gesture of the people around them trying to discover some grievance, however small or non-existent it may be, in order to reinforce themselves in their role as victims.

By acting in this way, they end up reaffirming their personality and are very sensitive to the way others treat them , exaggerating any small detail to a pathological limit.

4) No self-criticism

They are not capable of self-criticism about their attitude or actions. People with chronic victimization are fully convinced that they are not to blame for anything , so they do not think that anything in them is reprehensible or improvable . As we have already mentioned, they hold other people responsible for everything, they are incapable of accepting any criticism whatsoever and, of course, they are far from being able to reflect on their attitude or their actions in order to improve in some facet of their lives.

They are intolerant of other people’s failures and defects, but their own mistakes are perceived as minor and in any case justifiable.

The tactics used by victimizers

When there is one person who assumes the role of victim, there must be another who is perceived as the culprit . To this end, chronic victimizers employ a series of tactics and strategies to make another person feel guilty.

If we ignore this modus operandi of the perpetrators, it is easier for us to fall into their mental framework and for them to convince us that all the blame is ours.

Rhetoric and oratory of the victim

It is very common for these people to try to ridicule and disqualify any argument from their “enemy” . However, they do not try to refute the opponent on the basis of better data or arguments, but rather disqualify and try to get the other person to assume the role of “attacker”.

How do they get it? By assuming the role of victim in the discussion, so that the opponent is left as an authoritarian person, with little empathy and even aggressive. This point is known in the discipline that studies argumentation as “centrist rhetoric”, since it is a tactic that pretends to present the enemy as a radical, instead of refuting or improving his arguments. In this way, any argument from the opposing side is only a demonstration of aggressiveness and extremism.

If they are cornered by an irrefutable statement or data, the victim will not answer with arguments or other data but will say something like this: “You always attack me, are you telling me I’m lying?” or “I don’t like you imposing your point of view” .

2. The “timely withdrawal” of the victim

Sometimes the victim’s speech is focused on avoiding responsibility to try to avoid having to acknowledge a fault or apologize for something he or she has done wrong. In order to do this, he or she will try to get out of the situation in any way they can. The most usual strategy, apart from disqualifying the argument of the interlocutor (see point 1), consists in draining the bundle to avoid recognizing that he was wrong in his position .

How do they get it? By assuming the role of victim and manipulating the situation so that the interaction enters into a spiral of confusion. This means that the victim tries to project his mistakes onto the opponent.

For example, if in the course of an argument, the opponent provides a proven and reliable piece of information that contradicts the victim’s position, the victim will not recognize that he was wrong. Instead, he will try to withdraw using these typical phrases. “This fact does not contradict what I said. Please stop confusing us with irrelevant numbers” or “You’re blaming me for giving my simple opinion, there’s no point in arguing with someone like that anymore” . And, after these words, you usually leave the scene feeling like a “winner”.

3. Emotional blackmail

The last of the strategies most frequently used by chronic victimizers is emotional blackmail. When they know well the virtues and defects of their “adversary”, they do not hesitate to manipulate their emotions to try to get away with it and show themselves as victims . Victims have a great capacity to recognize emotions, and use other people’s doubts and weaknesses to their advantage.

How do they get it? They are able to detect their opponent’s weaknesses and try to make the most of the empathy they can give him. In this way, they forge a situation in which the other person assumes the role of executioner and they strengthen their position as victims.

This type of attitude can materialize, for example, with that mother who tries to blame her child with phrases like: “With everything I always do for you, and this is how you repay me”. Emotional blackmail is also a typical manipulation strategy in relationships. We explain it in depth in this article:

“Emotional blackmail: a way to manipulate your partner’s feelings”

How do you deal with a person like that?

The bottom line is, if you have a chronic victim in your inner circle, be able to identify him or her. Then, you have to try not to get caught up in their game of manipulation . Just let him know that his regrets are always the same and that the brave thing in this life is to try to find solutions. If he is willing to find ways out of his problems, we must give him a hand and make him realize that we are with him, but we must also make it clear to him that we are not going to waste time listening to his complaints.

Being pragmatic, you should worry about yourself and avoid getting the bad vibes as much as possible. You should not accept that they try to make you feel guilty about their problems. He can only hurt your feelings if you let him have that power over you.