The Quiet Power of Not Stepping Into The Drama

This week in our group session, we used something called Karpman’s drama triangle. I’ve written about it before, it’s simply a way of describing what humans tend to do when things feel hard.

There are three roles:

Victim
Rescuer
Persecutor

And the most important bit is:

You can’t be in the drama triangle on your own.

The moment you step into one role, you invite someone else in.

So if I slip into Victim:

Why is it always me?
I can’t cope.
This is unfair.

Someone else will be pulled into another role.

And often, with mums, that “someone else” is their child.

So mum feels resentful and overwhelmed (Victim)…
and the child comes back big, angry, demanding, loud (Persecutor).

In the group, most of the mums live between Victim and Rescuer.

Victim:
Why am I always the one doing bedtime, homework, housework, emotional labour, holding everything together?

Rescuer:
It’s fine. I’ll do it. I’ll sort  it. Leave it to me. I’ll just do it quicker.

Rescuing feels like the good role.

But it still fuels the drama cycle and keeps it alive.

Because rescuing is usually about avoiding discomfort, not actually solving the problem.

One mum said something that explained a lot:

“I was raised to be the good girl.”

And that’s the thread running through so much of this work.

So many women were taught to:

• be compliant

• not make a fuss

• sense emotional tension and smooth it

• swallow difficult feelings

• look capable

• put others first

It looks good from the outside.

But what it often teaches is self-abandonment.

That your needs don’t matter.
That you’re responsible for everyone else’s emotions.
That being “good” means being quiet, helpful, and easy.

It is the perfect training ground for the Victim or Rescuer.

You were possibly modelled it beautifully by your own mother. I know that both Laura and I were.

Then you have children.

You don’t want to repeat how you were raised.
You want to allow feelings.
You want to do it differently.

But the old programming is still there.

So when your child is angry, anxious, dysregulated, refusing, melting down…

It terrifies you, it pulls you straight into the drama triangle. The triangle is after all comfortable - it's what you know.

You either default into Victim, or you flip into Rescuer.

Because that’s what you were taught to do with difficult emotions.

Because sitting with big feelings , yours or anyone else’s,  was never something you were shown how to do.

The result?

Mums who feel resentful, exhausted, and invisible.
Children who escalate because they don’t feel steadiness and they  feel the slippery pull into the drama triangle. 
Families stuck in patterns that no one consciously sees or would chose.

And a generation of women who were never taught to lead emotionally,  yet feel entirely responsible for everyone else’s feelings.

But this isn’t a character flaw.
And it isn’t permanent.

These patterns are learned.
Which means they can be unlearned.

And when a mum stops engaging in the drama even slightly the dynamic shifts.

We teach how to do this in The Leadership Method.
It opens again in February.