From Victim to Victor: You’re Not the Damsel in Distress

In the Karpman Drama Triangle, people enter through different roles: Victim, Rescuer, or Persecutor.

Some enter through the Victim. This often happens when you’ve learned that the world is too big, too harsh, or too unpredictable to handle. So you wait. You hope someone else will fix it.

You become the damsel in distress — not because you’re dramatic, but because somewhere along the line, it felt safer to collapse than to confront.

The self-talk sounds like this: “I don’t know what to do. I’ve tried everything. No one helps me. This always happens to me.”

This is when you wait to be rescued. But there are other options. You can become the creator of your future life. You do not need to wait. You are not the damsel in distress.

David Emerald’s Empowerment Dynamic offers a shift: Victim becomes Creator.

But we can go further than resilience. We can become anti-fragile. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan, coined the term. Anti-fragile means: “Some things grow stronger under stress.” Like lifting a weight makes a muscle grow. This moment — this hardship — is the weight.

So ask yourself: “How do I grow from this? How do I become better than I was before?”

Let’s also be honest, sometimes there truly is no choice inside a system. The only way out is through — or away. You may need to leave the job, the role, the marriage, the system.

But even then, the work remains: How do I use what happened to build strength?

This is how you build your future out of the rubble of the past. From victim to victor, that’s where the Victor begins.