352. How to deal with someone who is ALWAYS the victim
The Psychology of your 20s
iHeartPodcasts
4.8 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 10 November 2025
⏱️ 42 minutes
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Summary
Have you ever met someone who always seems to see themselves as the one who’s been wronged - or maybe noticed that pattern in yourself? The sense that life is happening to you, not for you? It might not just be negativity - it could be a victim mentality, a learned way of seeing the world that often begins as a form of protection.
In this episode, we take a look at the psychology behind the victim mindset - why it develops, how it impacts our relationships, and what it really takes to move from powerlessness to self-trust.
We explore:
• What exactly is the victim mentality?
• How trauma, learned helplessness, and chronic fear shape this mindset
• The overlap between victimhood and covert narcissism
• Why relationships with ‘perpetual victims’ can feel draining or triggering
• How to support someone without losing yourself
• When compassion becomes enabling, and when to let go
If you’ve ever struggled to understand why some people - or even parts of yourself - stay stuck in stories of unfairness or defeat, this episode is for you.
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The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. |
| 0:08.6 | Hello everybody. I'm Jemma Spike and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, |
| 0:14.0 | the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our 20s |
| 0:19.9 | and what they mean for our psychology. |
| 0:27.4 | Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, |
| 0:32.9 | old listeners, whatever you are in the world. It is so great to have you here back for another episode as we, of course, |
| 0:40.5 | break down the psychology of our 20s. Today, we have a listener requested episode for you all, |
| 0:49.0 | one that a couple of you actually wrote in and DM'd me about after our toxic friendship episode. |
| 0:55.7 | In that episode, we talked about the victim friend. |
| 0:59.8 | And it brought up a lot of questions about the victim, the broader victim mentality that we |
| 1:06.3 | spoke about in that episode. |
| 1:08.1 | And what psychology actually says about people who always play the victim. |
| 1:13.2 | I fell down such a rabbit hole of information about this, about this idea, this phenomena, |
| 1:18.9 | this concept. And so today, here we are. We are going to dive into the complex psychology |
| 1:23.9 | behind the victim mentality. Now, I want to start with a very important note. |
| 1:30.5 | When I talk about the victim mentality, I'm not trying to minimize the experiences of people |
| 1:36.7 | who have genuinely been victimized by abuse, by systemic injustice, by trauma, by loss. |
| 1:43.4 | If you have been through something that's left your body and your brain on constant |
| 1:48.7 | high alert, if you've learnt through experiences that bad things do happen to you more than |
| 1:53.9 | others, you are not a problem or the problem that we are unpacking today. |
| 2:00.0 | What we are talking about is a pattern of |
| 2:03.9 | behavior or a psychological habit whereby people turn neutral situations or situations that |
... |
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