Heroes, Victims, and Villains

I’ve been thinking about this idea of black and white living where we don’t allow for nuance in others. They’re either good or bad, a hero or a victim or a villain. And then I think about my own swinging between all extremes in my healing journey.

For so many years, I wore the word victim as a badge, an identity. After so much complex trauma, it made a lot of sense. I had been victimized. And to be honest, when I was younger living in that state, it felt good to tell a story villainizing those who harmed me and living firmly in the narrative as the victim. It got me the attention I so desperately longed for. Being a victim felt comfortable for me. There were good guys, bad guys, and a clean, neat storyline. I knew where I fit.

But eventually I realized something frustrating. The longer I lived with the victim badge, the longer I stayed bitter and stuck. And angry. So, so angry. I remember a counseling session over twenty years ago where my counselor stopped me and said, “Your heart is bitter.”

I didn’t want to hear it. Her words made me irate, to be honest. Didn’t I have every right in the world to be angry? Wasn’t I right to villainize those who had harmed me? Where was the justice if I let go of my anger? Wouldn’t that mean the perpetrators got away with their crimes?

Initially I pushed back. “No,” I said, “I am not bitter,” I spat.

But her words had a ring of truth to them.

I viewed the entire world through the lens of my bitterness, and it was preventing me from moving forward.

I shudder to think how long I stayed in that state (and I truly need to offer myself grace as I look back on me at that time).

Eventually, as I recognized the state of my heart, I began to heal from needing to call myself victim.

Problem was, I leapt from victim to hero probably too fast.

Because, by golly, if it wasn’t good for me to be the victim, then what better thing to pursue than to be heroic? Maybe helping others would dull the pain that screamed inside.

I’m not saying it’s wrong to be heroic, just that the pursuit of it may backfire. We are not black and white like that—only heroes, only victims, only villains. And people who are villainous aren’t 100% that way. We are all a mixture of it all, in desperate need of healing.

I am still tempted to run back to, “Look at me; look how I was a victim.” I still jump headlong into trying to be heroic without first thinking through what that might mean for me (sometimes burnout, sometimes pain). I also look back on my life with deep regrets when I played the villain in another’s story. And I desperately want to rewind and change history.

Truth is, I am all three. Hero. Victim. Villain. And the only way I can not let any of those roles permeate my identity, embittering me to my core, is to simply be honest about it, asking Jesus to please help me heal.

Jesus, I have been victimized. Help me to heal from that pain, but please don’t let me linger in the land of bitterness.

Jesus, I have jumped headlong far too much trying to rescue others in my own strength. Help me to step back and seek you before I do that. Please don’t let my identity rest on being heroic. (You are the hero).

Jesus, I have been a villain. I don’t know how to process my regrets without internally tormenting myself, plunging myself toward the earth, and wallowing in my sins and mistakes and regrets. Please carry my past, too.

I am grateful my counselor helped me face my own bitterness. I realized I didn’t like myself in that state. And staying bitter meant I wouldn't grow beyond the past pain. It took me years of hard work, coupled with God’s kindhearted healing, to move from bitter victim toward a person who saw the world as it was: nuanced.