Drama triangle
I’ve blogged before on the Drama Triangle, but I think I need to say more about it.
First, a brief review: the Drama Triangle has three roles: Victim, Offender, and Rescuer. None of them is pretty. If you’re the Victim, you are feeling (and acting) weak, oppressed. You’re the “hurt party.” That means whatever strengths you have are being suppressed or hidden, and whatever responsibility you have for your own suffering is being denied, by you or by others. If you’re the Offender, you’re the one everyone thinks is responsible for the Victim’s pain. You’re probably behaving in offensive ways, and you’re responsible for that, but the system is also responsible for moving around you in such a way that you’re the Bad Guy. If you’re the Rescuer, well, that sounds like a nice role, but in fact you’re probably not helping anyone very much. You’re probably reinforcing the Victim’s belief that s/he is a Victim (which, when you think about it, is not a nice way to treat a person), and you may be the first of the three to see yourself shift roles, going from Rescuer to Offender (when you go after the Offender on the Victim’s behalf), or going from Rescuer to Victim as you get trapped in melodramatic confrontations with everybody else.
Like I said, it’s not pretty.
What’s the solution? Well, first of all, you should know that it’s common to find yourself somewhere on the Drama Triangle. I myself was on the Triangle this past weekend (don’t ask!). So if you find yourself getting sucked into the drama, it doesn’t mean you’re mentally ill. It just means you have human relationships going on in your life.
The solution is to practice stepping off the Triangle. Practice, practice, practice! Consider some of these non-drama behaviors:
–Someone tries to get you to be the Rescuer, telling you all about how he was harmed and enlisting your help to get back at the Offender. You express empathy, but you also (hard as it might be) decline to play the Rescuer role and just clearly state what you can do–and not do–for your friend.
–Someone tries to get you to be the Victim, telling you that you’ve been harmed, you’ve been wronged, and it’s time to get back at that Offender! To avoid becoming a Victim, you might want to take time by yourself–or with a friend, or with a counselor–to decide what your best course of action might be. Try not to act on your feelings without taking time to inform your feelings with reasonable thought and reflection. At some point you may want to tell the person that you’re fine, actually, and capable of handling the situation. You appreciate their concern, but you want to deal with this yourself.
–Someone harms you, verbally or otherwise, and becoming a Victim is a tempting option for you. In this case, you may need to seek justice or resolution of the offense, but it’s also good to notice how your own reaction to the offense may only make things worse for yourself. You may have been harmed, but you were not destroyed by what happened. You still have tools, options, and strengths. You still have You!
–You have been the Offender in some way. You have harmed someone. And they are taking a Victim stance, or you’re finding yourself dealing with Rescuers that the Victim enlisted to go after you. You choose to be honest about what you did, but you also set boundaries with the Rescuers (”This is between me and the other person…”) and you figure out how you want to interact with the Victim in a way that holds yourself accountable for your actions but does not lead to a situation in which you are perpetually treated as an Offender. For example, you may want to genuinely apologize to the Victim, and seek reconciliation, but if the Victim is unwilling to let go of the Victim role and work with you on reconciliation, you may choose to end the relationship.
As I’m sure you know, this gets a lot harder when the people involved are really close to you, or really important to you. The important thing to remember is this: The Drama Triangle is easy to get into, and sometimes a lot of fun (?!), but it diminishes everyone who’s involved in it, and causes a lot of pain. Even if no one thanks you for not being in it (and they usually won’t!), it’s worth it to practice stepping outside of the Triangle–for your sake, and for the sake of everyone around you.
