Identifying the Drama Triangle
Let me tell you a story.
Amy is a great listener, and she feels deep empathy for people. She meets Brandi, who opens up to her very quickly. They talk until 1:00 a.m. that first day, Amy commiserating with what Brandi’s going through, maybe sharing some of her own stories to show how she can relate. It’s an intoxicatingly intense conversation — sharing so much, opening up so wide. They feel deeply connected to one another.
Over the next weeks and months, Amy becomes one of Brandi’s primary supports. She shows up when Brandi is in crisis at midnight on a Wednesday, making her tea and talking her through it. She picks up the phone when Brandi calls her, crying, at 2am, because Brandi’s significant other got abusive again. She lets Brandi stay at her place for a couple nights, hoping this time maybe Brandi will get out of that situation for good.
But she doesn’t. She cycles through the same issues over and over again. Amy asks her to get therapy, or some kind of other help, and Brandi makes excuses as to why she can’t, or says that she will but never gets around to it. Amy’s feeling increasingly tired and burnt out, frustrated, but she never says “no”.
She tries, once, but Brandi falls apart so frighteningly that Amy thinks she can’t ever say no or Brandi might not be okay, and then it’ll be Amy’s fault.
Once, Amy asks Brandi for help, as Amy’s going through a bit of a rough patch at work and needs some support. Brandi’s the first person she asks, because she feels so close to her, they spend so much time together and have shared so much. Brandi can’t help, though; she gets upset that Amy even asks, or devolves into a crisis of her own again because she panics that she can’t spare the time or energy to help Amy. Amy apologizes and feels intensely guilty, but also a throbbing deep anger that she can’t quite suppress, and feels additionally guilty for.
(Brandi can’t help it, after all. She’s dealing with so much. It was selfish to ask.)
Finally, Amy’s growing resentment breaks through her restraint, and she lashes out. It all comes out like an infection bursting: “I do so much for you, and you can’t even do this one little thing for me,” “I need you to pay me back the money I’ve given you for all these things,” “Why can’t you do anything for yourself,” and on and on.
Brandi feels betrayed. Amy feels used. They get defensive, lash out, and both feel awful afterwards.
Maybe Amy finally cuts Brandi off and stops talking to her. Maybe they have a huge fight and then figure things out and go back to their old cycle. Maybe Brandi is so upset by it all that she stops talking to Amy and finds a new support person.
Does this sound familiar at all?
It’s a classic cycle modeled by Karpman’s Drama Triangle. Amy starts out as the Rescuer in this example, and Brandi starts out as the Victim. Brandi’s significant other is the Persecutor, for a time… until Amy burns out, takes on the Victim role, puts Brandi in the Persecutor role, and lashes out, moving into the Persecutor role herself, and embodying the combination of all three roles: the Martyr.
An overview of the Drama Triangle
Have you ever tried helping someone, only for them to go back to the same situation you just helped them out of?
Or have you supported someone through crisis, again and again, showing up for them at all hours, until you burn out and lash out, full of resentment, or just give up?
Maybe instead, you’ve had people try to help you, treating you like you can’t do anything on your own. Maybe you’ve even accepted that help, or maybe they helped without you asking for it. Do you ever find yourself getting resentful of them doing things for you like that?
Or maybe their help came at a cost, as their “no strings attached” support suddenly turns into, “I do so much for you, you owe me”, and you don’t know what happened?
There’s a map for that pattern of behavior: Karpman’s drama triangle. It’s an old model, but a useful one. I won’t bore you with the history of it, or with further details about transactional analysis; I’m just going to talk about the drama triangle’s therapeutic pertinence.
Just about everyone has played all the roles in the triangle at some point in their lives, even if it’s just with themselves: Victim, Persecutor, Rescuer, and a combination of all of the above, the Martyr. We learn these dynamics early on, in our families of origin, and play them out again and again in our relationships.
(A note: when I say “Victim” here, I’m not talking about someone who’s an actual victim; I’m talking about the Victim role, someone feeling and acting like a victim.)
The Victim feels helpless, afraid, powerless, passive, dependent, unable to make decisions or solve problems. They feel like a victim — nothing is their fault, their environment and the people around them are being awful to them, their life is happening to them and they don’t feel like they have any control or responsibility over it.
The Persecutor is controlling, blaming, critical, oppressive, angry, self-righteous; there’s the narrative of “I’m right”, and “what’s happening is all your fault”. They lash out at others around them.
The Rescuer is the person with the white knight complex, or healer complex, or savior complex. They feel the need to help, to save others. They are self-sacrificing, focusing on the needs, wants, and comforts of others at the cost of their own. The Rescuer takes responsibility for everyone else’s feelings and actions. Often, they see their value and security in relationships as coming from what they do for others or provide for others. They need to be needed.
The Martyr is the combination of all of the above — because the Rescuer burns out eventually, never asking for their needs but still needing them to be met, afraid to ask because they feel they’re not “allowed” to have needs, and then upset if no one meets their needs without asking. Or, perhaps they do ask, long after helping has turned into resentment, and if they’re met with rejection, they go on the attack: “I do so much for you, why can’t you just do this one thing for me?”
All of these roles are about trying to feel secure in a relationship, and trying to feel some sense of control.
The Persecutor tries to feel secure by controlling others. “I can’t trust people to stay or meet my needs without coercion or force.”
The Rescuer tries to feel secure by helping others. “If people need me, then they’ll want me around. My value is in my usefulness.”
The Victim tries to feel secure by being helpless. “If I am in crisis, if I need people, then they’ll stay with me.”
How do you escape?
(Note that this is just an introduction to the drama triangle, and escaping it is not so simple. I’ll get into more detail on the how of exiting the drama triangle in later articles.)
Escaping the drama triangle is difficult, both socially and emotionally. It feels frightening, unsafe, and guilt-ridden at first, as not being in the drama triangle is unfamiliar, and breaks all the rules you were taught growing up. Terrifying, really.
The Persecutor needs to respect the boundaries of others, and learn how to get their needs met without punishing or manipulating.
The Rescuer needs to identify and assert their own needs, respect their own boundaries and those of others, learn to say no, and ask permission before helping.
The Victim needs to own their power to choose and respond, and rely on their own problem-solving while also asking for support when needed.
The Martyr needs to meet their needs for themselves and make requests pro-actively, recognize resentment and out-of-control feelings and set clear limits instead, and take responsibility for their own choices and actions.
Each role has healthy needs, unhealthy expressions of that need, and healthy expressions of that need.
But here’s the thing: When you step out of the drama triangle, everyone around you who has related to you through the triangle all this time might freak out and try to suck you back into it.
If you’re a chronic Rescuer and you start saying no when you need to, assert your needs and wants, sharing yourself with others rather than just trying to be what you think others want and need, and stop solving people’s problems for them, all the Victims you’ve gathered about yourself will react poorly. They might call you selfish. They might stop talking to you. They might say you’ve changed and they don’t like it. They might go into more intense, frantic crises, trying to lure you back into familiar Rescuing behavior with them.
If you’re a chronic Victim and you start exerting independence, asking people to support you differently, and setting boundaries with your Rescuers and Persecutors, they will panic. They will try to control you more fiercely, telling you that you need them, you can’t do it on your own, they know better than you, you are disrespecting them, you owe them. They will say you are hurting them, cutting them off, that they’ve done nothing but give everything for you and how dare you create any distance.
If you’re a chronic Persecutor and you stop controlling people, your Victim(s) might feel like you don’t care anymore. They might try lashing out against you, or running away to get you to chase them. They might act out and do all the things you’ve told them not to do, trying to get you to exert control again — or maybe even just testing to see if you really mean it, you’re not going to blow up or tell them what to do anymore, are they actually safe with you?
You might lose your entire social circle. All your interpersonal relationships.
You might have to start over.
The drama triangle is an addiction like any other. One of the things that help with quitting an addiction is avoiding being around people who are engaging with that addiction — so, if you’re trying to quit drinking alcohol, you might avoid bars and parties that have alcohol. Often, though, your whole life is organized around the addiction: your friends are all at the bar, your friends all socialize around alcohol, your friends are all people who drink a lot, and not many people are willing to spend time with you in places and contexts that have no alcohol in them.
It’s the same with the drama triangle. It’s addicting. It’s intense. It’s familiar. It feels great, sometimes, when you’re playing your chosen or assigned role; it feels like a high, like intoxicating closeness, like the lines between you and the other person are dissolving and your whole world becomes each other for the moments you’re engaging in the crisis.
It is seductive as hell, and you will fall back into it sometimes.
You’ll need to mourn, too. Grieve the loss of who you thought you were, if your identity was built up around your role. Grieve the loss of your relationship dynamics, which must all be forged anew, even if they’re with the same people. It hurts.
You’ll feel awful about yourself, sometimes. Scared. Guilty. Frantic.
But I can tell you this: it’s so much better.
Relationships outside the drama triangle are mutually supportive, reciprocal, and so much more genuine. Less stressful, less — well, less dramatic. More stable. More nourishing and real, as you relate to people as separate individuals, and they relate to you as who you are rather than the person you’ve tried to be for others.
Further reading
- Three Faces of Victim — An overview of the drama triangle through the lens of each role being a Victim role, by Lynne Forrest. This is the article that finally made the drama triangle “click” for me.
- Escaping Conflict and the Drama Triangle — This one covers some of the history of Karpman’s drama triangle and its development.
- The Power of TED: Making the shift from drama to empowerment — An explanation of one model of a healthy version of the drama triangle.
