When Your Parent Needs to Be the Victim

In some families, there always seems to be a victim.

No matter what happens, the story somehow finds its way back to the same person. They were hurt. They were disrespected. Nobody appreciates everything they've done. Someone else is selfish, ungrateful, cruel, or causing the family problems.

And sometimes, that person is your parent.

When you're growing up in this kind of dynamic, it can be incredibly confusing. You may find yourself constantly trying to make things right. You apologize when you're not sure what you did wrong. You carefully choose your words. You learn to anticipate reactions. You may even begin taking responsibility for your parent's happiness.

Over time, you can become very good at keeping the peace.

But keeping the peace isn't the same thing as having peace.

When everything becomes about them

A parent who consistently needs to be the victim may have difficulty taking responsibility for their own behavior. Instead of acknowledging how their actions affected someone else, the focus shifts toward how they were hurt.

You might try to explain that something they said hurt you, only to find yourself comforting them because they are now upset.

You might set a boundary, and suddenly you're accused of being selfish.

You might make a decision for yourself, and it becomes evidence that you don't care about the family.

You might finally speak honestly about something that happened, only to hear a completely different version of the story.

This can leave you questioning yourself.

Maybe I really am the problem.

Maybe I should have handled it differently.

Maybe I should just keep quiet.

Maybe it's easier to let it go.

You are allowed to have your own experience

One of the hardest parts of untangling from this dynamic is learning that you don't have to convince someone else that your experience is valid.

Your parent may never agree with your version of events.

They may never understand why something hurt you.

They may continue to see themselves as the victim.

You cannot control that.

What you can begin to control is how much responsibility you take for someone else's emotions.

You can care about your parent's feelings without managing them.

You can have compassion for what they have experienced without excusing behavior that hurt you.

You can love someone and still need boundaries with them.

And perhaps most importantly, you can stop making yourself smaller simply to keep someone else comfortable.

Untangling the guilt

Guilt can be one of the hardest things to let go of.

If you've spent years believing that keeping your parent happy was your responsibility, setting boundaries can initially feel wrong. You may feel selfish, disloyal, or cruel simply for saying no.

But discomfort doesn't necessarily mean you've done something wrong.

Sometimes discomfort is simply what happens when you begin doing something you've never been allowed to do before.

You are allowed to have needs.You are allowed to have boundaries.You are allowed to tell your own story.And you are allowed to step out of a role you never chose.

You don't have to become the villain in someone else's story just because they need to be the victim.

Untangling begins when you stop carrying what was never yours to carry.