We talked about identifying drama in your life last time. If you suddenly realized that you play a bigger role in the drama in your life than you previously thought, this post will help you change your role.

Type 1: The Victim Who Wants a Rescuer

Do you ever feel loved and cared for when someone swoops in and rescues you (solves a problem for you)? Are there people in your life you consider your “knight in shining armour” or your “angel here on earth”?

If drama is involved, you might feel like there’s just a bunch of bad stuff happening in your life. Maybe you feel sorry for yourself and might even think, “Poor me.”

It’s possible that you grew up in a home where you didn’t get much attention unless something was wrong with you. Even if the attention you got wasn’t positive, it felt better than no attention at all.

So, creating drama and being a victim served you well back then. It helped you feel loved, it gave you a way to interact with others, it let others notice you, and, most of all, the reaction you got to creating drama made it feel like someone cared that you existed.

As a child, telling your story of drama became your way of reassuring yourself that you matter in the world and are worth someone noticing. But now that you’re an adult, the drama program may no longer be serving you.

Freeing yourself from Type 1 drama:

  • Stop telling your drama-filled story. Stop telling it to yourself, and stop telling it to others.
  • Every time you want to tell the story, ask yourself what you’re getting from it. Then make a plan to do something to help yourself.
  • Ask, “How can I help myself? What action can I take? How do I take responsibility?”
  • Form a solid, reasonable vision of what you want your life to be, and commit to it
  • If you want to talk about your problem, think to yourself, “Nope. What am I going to do about my problem?”

You are worthy of love and attention, and you don’t have to prove it to anyone or demand it via drama.

Next time we’ll talk about the second type of drama: The person who is bored without the stimulation of drama. Stay tuned!