Deconstructing The "Drama Triangle" & "Get Out Of Your Victim Story" Narrative
How Teachings About The Drama Triangle Can Be Weaponized By Narcissistic Individuals & 9 Red Flags To Spot When It's Being Misused On You
I was (briefly and painfully) dating a polyamorous New Age celebrity shortly after my divorce from my daughter’s father when I first heard the “Get out of your victim story” schtick. When we met at a New Age spirituality conference, where we were both speakers, his frequent “That’s a story” knee jerk response initially landed as inspiring. Sure, it’s not helpful to loop your disempowered, helpless, self-pitying victim narrative for decades. Sure, getting out of the limited narrative of the drama triangle (victim, martyr, persecutor) can shore up poor boundaries and limit boundaryless triangulation. At its best, the “Get out of your victim story” teaching points toward something genuinely liberating. None of us wants to remain imprisoned forever inside an identity organized around learned helplessness, resentment, or powerlessness.
But then I noticed that when I was sharing anything I was genuinely upset about, whether it was something painful from my past, something politically upsetting, something that dinged my conscience, or something mean he had just done, his “That’s a story” dismissal landed as a hurtful justification for a complete lack of empathy.
If I tried defending my story, “Yes, it’s my story and I want you to care about it,” that only made things worse. In a smug, self-righteous, “I’m more spiritual and therefore better than you because at least I don’t raise my voice and lose my cool” way, he’d explain that I can simply change my story if I want to feel better, without acknowledging that there are structural things happening in the world that one individual has very little power to control, or that there was some validity to why I was upset at him. Suggesting that I could just gaslight myself in order to change my story so I could feel better about Trump being elected or Black men being murdered by police or him showing no empathy when I was telling him about my father’s death (“He’s in a better place now”) very quickly fell flat.
Later, I met my New Age lover’s wife, who didn’t seem to know he was polyamorous until I unwittingly broke the news to her. He had introduced the two of us, and as someone brand new to ethical non-monogamy, I assumed she knew about her husband’s poly lifestyle. Turns out she did know about me—because he had just told her—but she had no clue about the dozens of other lovers he’d had since they had gotten married four years earlier. He’d shared the lurid details with me, but apparently, not with her. That’s when I realized he wasn’t poly. He was just a garden variety cheater.
She had an understandable reaction to this news, as any wife who thinks she’s in a monogamous marriage would. But when I asked my New Age lover how his wife responded to finding out he’d been advertising himself as poly while cheating on her, he used the same line to shut down her protest. “She’s stuck in her victim story.”
At first (and I’m not proud to admit this), I validated his response. Sure. Let’s put the blame on her, so I don’t have to feel ashamed of being the “other woman” I didn’t consent to becoming. Sure. Let’s withhold our empathy for her legitimate pain and justify it by making her out to be the less evolved one. Sure. Let’s just cast her as not cool enough or evolved enough or spiritual enough to rise above her low vibe reactivity. Let’s frame it as her being stuck in the Stephen Karpman’s “drama triangle.” As soon as she plays the victim and casts him or me as the persecutor, expressing her understandable and appropriate anger at having her boundaries violated, let’s spin it as she’s now persecuting us.
It’s a total mind fuck and empathy-bypass, but I was buying it for a hot slick minute. I was even parroting that narrative in ways I now see were hurtful to other people, which I wrote about in Outing My Own Spiritual Bypassing Shadow here.
But as karma would have it, he later turned “Get out of your victim story” on me. After hours of discussion between the three of us, he had agreed to a closed throuple with only me and his wife and then slept with one of his sycophantic students at a workshop in Europe without discussing it with either of us or wearing a condom. I was outraged. Now I was the one stuck in my victim story, as was his wife, who was also upset. That’s when I realized that this way of thinking was a very convenient way of shirking accountability, like…Every. Single. Time.
When removed from context and applied indiscriminately, “get out of your victim story” can become one of the most psychologically uninformed and spiritually bypassing messages in contemporary healing culture. What is intended as empowerment can easily become invalidating gaslighting. What is presented as wisdom can become another way of silencing people who are still carrying unbearable pain.
In the throes of the chaos of 2020, it horrified me to hear that people like psychiatrist, conspiritualist, and COVID denier Kelly Brogan MD apparently required as a prerequisite to joining her mental health community a clause that asked clients to promise that they will get out of their victim stories or risk termination from the group. Where is the empathy in a statement like that? While such a teaching is a convenient way to suppress legitimate anger and make sure nobody challenges you for your unempathic treatment of their vulnerability, it’s cruel and lacks both safety and integrity.
There comes a time during trauma healing treatment when you need to have your victim story heard, validated, witnessed, and healed by you or by a therapist, holding Self energy, in order to transform your story into a more empowering, meaningful, soul growth-oriented narrative. This happens naturally as healing progresses over time. It doesn’t happen because someone blended with a narcissistic part who wants to control and dominate you shames and silences you with “Get out of your victim story.”
Telling someone who is hurting to get out of their victim story not only lacks empathy; it’s downright abusive. People can’t get out of their victim story until they’ve had adequate healing, and such healing is often expensive, painful, time consuming, and not accessible to many financially disadvantaged or marginalized communities. The kinds of treatments that actually transform people’s victim narratives are often pricey and not covered by insurance.
If someone tells you to get out of your victim story, what they’re really telling you is a likely to be a combination of shirking accountability for harm they’ve caused, trying to shut you up, or trying to shut you down and bypass your feelings so they don’t have to feel uncomfortable with the intensity of your pained emotions—so they can feel better. Whether the goal is letting themselves off the hook or not getting overwhelmed by how your suffering makes them feel, “Get out of your victim story” is never an empathic response to your pain.
When we’re in pain, what most of us need is some version of “I hear you and I believe you” or “I’m so sorry that I hurt you and I want to understand more” or “I don’t even know what to say but I’m with you and you won’t be alone through this” or “It makes sense that you’re hurting.” “Get out of your victim story“ is the opposite of empathy and a giant red flag for outright sociopathy.
So…let’s deconstruct this baby and parse out what’s helpful about the “drama triangle” or the “Get out of your victim story” teaching, peeling the useful bits apart from the muddy ass bathwater of New Age bullshit. I’ll use my New Age celebrity lover’s accountability shirking tactics as a road map of 9 red flags to look out for, so you can protect yourself from people in positions of power who weaponize the drama triangle.