How do you deal with victim mentality behaviour

[JonnyTheDogFacedBoy]

I think I'm describing this behaviour accurately by saying victim mentality, but I might be wrong.

Basically, whenever anyone tries to have a difficult conversation with my mother, or she does something to upset someone and they call her on it, she will cry (fair enough, I know that's not always controllable) but the infuriating thing is that she will apologise in such an overly dramatic way to garner sympathy.

So, using a made up scenario as an example: she says she will meet me at a restaurant at 1pm. She arrives at 2pm. I say, in a mildly annoyed voice but not shouting, "mum, you're an hour late, what happened? I've been sat here like a lemon."
She would burst in to tears and wail "why are you shouting at me? I'm sorry I'm such a useless terrible person and everyone hates me because I'm such a horrible human" etc etc. So I then have to comfort her and reassure her and she's neatly sidestepped being accountable for her behaviour.

It makes it impossible to discuss anything important with her because she always turns the dynamic around to her needing me (or whoever she's with) to reassure her. The drama triangle thing rings a bell, like any instance where she could be seen as the wrongdoer switches round to her being the victim.

Anyone have any experience of this dynamic and know how to respond in a more useful way? Also, feel free to share any of your personal experiences of this mindfuckery behaviour. Misery loves company, as they say.

I have this with my Mum. I stopped enabling and feeding into it. When she bursts into tears, I calmly tell her that her reaction is very ott for the situation. I am simply upset because a,b,c. That her starting to berate herself is not a helpful response. She gets no sympathy now but my mum is very volatile emotionally and perhaps some manipulation there. The tears now stop as quickly as they started and she starts attacking me instead. She gets no reaction from me and we move on, with her having the hump. But I'm not feeding into anymore, and I just explain my point of view very calmly and matter of fact and try to ask why her reaction is so extreme. But I have got to the point I'm so tired of it, I can't be bothered anymore.

You can't reason with unreasonable people. Behaviour like this is designed to keep you in your box and prevent you asserting any boundaries (e.g. expecting someone to keep an arrangement).

I totally cannot be arsed with people like that. They're a pain in the backside.

Would it be passive/aggressive behaviour?

I used to work with a woman who would very, very deliberately wind people up by saying unpleasant or outrageous things, until they eventually snapped at her. She would then cry and claim she was being bullied. Your mum sounds a bit like that, only with an added element of heightened melodrama.

Minnie, she is very passive aggressive too. Will refuse help and then sigh and tut, shut drawers loudly etc to show she's annoyed at having to do whatever she's doing, so then I again offer to help or just take over helping, and she refuses again and on it goes. It's like she is trapped by her need to feel hard done by.

So next time say you have to leave as you can't stand the smell of burning martyr anymore.

I know one of these. Now I either just leave when it starts or I sit quietly and ask them to let me know when they've finished with their dramatics.
Outcome can be either a temper explosion about how cold/uncaring I am or she just snaps back to normal

My DD has a "friend" like this. It's been going on since this girl joined the school in year 2 (they are now year 9 and DD tries to avoid her). The girl will be mean to someone, then cry when people tell her to stop being mean. But, the kids telling her to stop being mean would often then be punished by the teachers, so the behaviour was effectively rewarded... I have seen similar in workplaces too. I don't know what the answer is.

I try to avoid them whenever possible - it's exhausting to have to parent one's own parent constantly.

Thanks. It is disappointing that I can't ever have an honest conversation with her. I tend to try to stay neutral in my responses now, which is sad because our relationship is superficial as a result.

Worked with someone like that. Nasty bully, but if ever called out she would be upset. not upset that her behaviour was nasty, but upset that she'd been called out. Someone called her "crocodile tears" as she'd screw her face up to look like she was crying but no tears ever came.

I absolutely love this! I'm extremely tempted to use this on my DM. My sister and I used to recognise the signs of what was referred to as 'early Christian martyr' in our household but I've never actually said it to mother.

One incident I remember from childhood is that my DM (for some unknown reason) once bought 4 pork chops for tea. This was to feed herself, my DF and the 3 of us children. She dished up a pork chop, mash and veg to us all and it wasn't until my DF had just cleared his plate that he realised she was still pottering about and not sitting down. When he asked her why she wasn't eating with us she said in a brave, wobbly voice 'there wasn't enough for me. There were only 4 chops'.

He went absolutely nuts. She was always pulling this kind of shit to make people feel bad for her.

Omg she does this!!! Not the amount of food, but always sits down last. Even when I help and carry everything out to the table, she will contrive something that means she's still "busy" in the kitchen and still comes out last, with a huff and a sigh.

Is it always only women that do this 🤔

I think the best way to treat it is like correcting a child - no anger (that feeds it), just calm and factual. "This is a very dramatic response to someone pointing out they feel hurt by your actions. Instead of just quickly apologising for being so late like most people would, you are turning this into a pity party for you... and I'm sorry but i dont want to attend that party."

“So I then have to comfort her and reassure her”

Thats what you do, rather than what you have to do. Like others, have you tried changing your response to sitting quietly and waiting? Of course, easier said than done when you’ve had a lifetime of this.

You can’t change any behaviour except for your own. You have my sympathies though, it sounds very draining.

The grey rock technique works well with this behaviour.

My Mum can be like this, but I’ve been phased out of the audience. People like this, don’t like being badly thought of so you’ve got to meet it head on.

Calmly call the crying what it is. Guilt tripping, manipulative, unnecessary behaviour. As for the tutting, sighing and loudly closing cupboards etc again call it out. “Mum instead of the passive aggressive, attention seeking noise, tell me what you want”. If she then overreacts leave. It’s not immediate and it gets worse initially, but then you get years of relative peace.

In the past, I would comfort her and reassure her. Now I just tend to sit in silence until she's stopped her nonsense and then I change the subject. So, I'm no longer giving her the attention she wants, but nor am I addressing the actual problem. It's really frustrating. But if I say calmly "I'm not shouting at you, I'm upset that you were late." She will just double down and say "I know I'm awful and you must hate me", so i feel compelled to at least say "no, I don't hate you, I'm upset" and this goes on and on with her never actually taking any ownership.

Grey rock? Is that not responding?

I feel like she's quite child like in her behaviour.

Yes, I see. You’re doing what you can really.

A friend did this constantly. Either turing up hours late or cancelling at the last minute. Eventually I summoned up the courage to say something so I said, please don’t make dates if you can’t keep them and btw, you have cancelled me so many times this year, that I’m beginning to find it quite hurtful. Cue tears and drama, ‘you have no idea how awful my life is, I wake up every night crying, etc’. Reader, I ended up apologising to her because I was a soft touch in those days. Ex friend now.

Why do you wait for an hour? Leave after 15 minutes!

2 things-one it a a bit narcissistic isn’t it, it’s all about her, not about you at your feelings. I’m completely familiar. My mother often had a whiff of burning martyr about her. I really tried to talk to her about her feelings before she died (she knew she has a terminal illness) but she really didn’t want to go there. She just could not accept her part in the dynamic. I have had lots of therapy and I do sort of understand it. Mainly though, if you can retain a sense of humour, that helps. And (and I’m talking to
my self here) remember THEY are out of line. As their children we think it’s us: that’s what children do, they blame themselves. BUT IT ISN’T YOU!!