12 common complaints of people with a victim mentality.
You likely hear or read things from someone who has a victim mentality on a daily basis. This is a person who’s always complaining about something that someone else has done to offend or upset them. Or someone who is constantly “being blamed for others’ mistakes.” In their mind, they never do anything wrong, and others are always out to get them.
The petty complaints that follow are some of the most common ones you’ll hear from a person whose life revolves around their perpetual victimhood.
1. They assume they didn’t get what they wanted because of their race, gender, sexuality, etc. when the evidence suggests otherwise.
According to Healthline, constantly making excuses for things not working out as you want is a key way that people with a victim mentality avoid taking accountability.
Whenever they don’t get what they want, these people will automatically insist it’s because of some attribute of theirs that others dislike, rather than some issue with their personality or the work they put in. If they ask someone out and that person isn’t interested, then it’s because that person is phobic about their body type, or is too insecure to handle them.
It never occurs to them that there may be aspects about themselves that others find off-putting. Instead, the universe is always against them and others despise them for no good reason whatsoever.
2. They claim to know what others think about them, and it’s never good.
You might have heard people with a victim mentality claim that they know what someone else thinks, such as: “She thinks she’s so much better than me”, or “He thinks I’m stupid, I just know it”. Unless they’re truly gifted psychics, they have no idea what’s going on inside someone else’s mind — they’re simply projecting their insecurities onto other people.
Inevitably, they behave as though they’re being horribly and unfairly mistreated, even if the person they’re accusing of behaving badly towards them has no idea what’s going on.
3. They moan that they aren’t appreciated when nobody has asked them for help in the first place.
They’ll give advice that nobody asked for, or show up with items that nobody can use, and then insist that the ones they’re trying to “help” are ungrateful. The worst part of this is that not only is their “help” unsolicited (and generally unwanted), but it’s often a projection of their own insecurities.
For instance, if they struggle with their weight, they may offer a colleague diet pills. Or if they’re chronically late, they may buy other people day planners to help them stay organized.
4. They project blame onto others when they make poor choices and get caught out.
Surprisingly, people who embody a victim mentality due to past experiences seem to have lost their ability to have empathy for others. As a result, according to Psychology Today, they’ve forgotten how to put themselves in others’ shoes.
This may cause them to engage in hurtful or otherwise damaging behavior towards others while maintaining that they are the injured party, and that their actions are completely justified. An example of this would be mistreating a colleague, and then insisting that they were reprimanded because their boss hates them, not because of their own poor actions.
5. They complain that nobody cares about them and use it as a guilt trip to get what they want.
This behavior is often used to manipulate others into behaving a certain way, such as canceling plans to go out so they can stay home with them instead. If the other person says they’re sticking with their original plan, the one with the victim mentality says it’s obvious that the person doesn’t care about them.
A person with a victim mentality is often incredibly self-involved and wants others to make them feel comfortable at all times. If they don’t, they may guilt-trip or threaten them as a punishment for not making them feel sufficiently adored.
6. They bemoan other people’s lack of morality, compared to theirs.
Those with a victim mentality will invariably believe they are far more moral and ethical than those around them. According to Scientific American, people who behave like this use this assumed personal morality to “maintain a positive self-image”, and end up projecting their own poor behaviors onto others because they can’t bear to be thought of badly.
They’ll often judge and condemn other people for things they’ve been guilty of doing themselves, but have a selective memory about their own behavior.
7. They show blatant hypocrisy in condemning others for doing the same things they do.
Many victims are the monarchs of double standards. It’s fine for them to behave a certain way, but if someone else does the exact same thing, then their actions are irresponsible, horrible, and injurious to themselves.
For example, they’ll have no problem eating the last item in the fridge because they need it (due to feeling faint, having low blood sugar, etc.), but if someone else does that because of their own needs, they’re labeled as inconsiderate, or as intentionally trying to upset them.
8. They feel personally injured if people don’t respond in the way they want them to.
For example, let’s say someone with a victim mentality is texting someone who doesn’t respond for a day or two. The “victim” will feel they’re being used or taken for granted; like an injustice has been done to them. It wouldn’t occur to them that something bad might have happened to the other person that prevented them from responding.
In their mind, they are always on the side of righteousness and justice, and if they don’t get the responses they want, it’s due to someone else’s intentional wrongdoing.
9. They expect special dispensation because of X issue.
We touched upon the lack of accountability earlier, but unnecessarily weaponizing frailties or medical diagnoses is another way a victim mentality can manifest. For example, someone might push through to the front of a queue, and if others complain about their actions, they’ll say they can’t help it because of some personal trait or struggle.
Similarly, they may behave atrociously towards their friends and family members, and when confronted about their poor behavior, justify it because of their past trauma or neurodivergence and expect special dispensation rather than acknowledge their mistakes and learn from them.
10. They tend to condemn all people of a certain race or religion because one of them did something bad to them once.
The past inclines, but it does not bind. Just because someone of a particular demographic may have caused the person in question (perceived) harm at some point, doesn’t mean that the millions of others in that demographic are all going to behave the same way.
A person with a victim mentality is likely to shy away from anyone who reminds them of the one who upset or hurt them, and condemn everyone who shares their demographic solely because of association.
11. They invalidate other people’s experiences as not being as bad as theirs.
For example, if someone contradicts a statement they make about past trauma, they’ll often say: “You’d think differently if you experienced what I’ve lived through”. Then, if it turns out the person experienced the exact same thing, the one with the victim mentality will say it obviously wasn’t as traumatic since they feel differently about what they went through.
In their mind, the only valid response to their traumatic experience is their own, and anything that falls short of that must indicate a lesser level of distress than they had.
12. They complain that they have to do everything themselves (when they don’t).
An almost ubiquitous trait of those with a victim mentality is that they exaggerate their own contributions while simultaneously minimizing those of others. For example, they might only do 5% of the housework but insist they’re carrying the weight of all the household management on their shoulders without any help.
The worst part is that when others point out how much they’ve done, the perpetual victims will claim that they did it wrong, so it had to be redone. By them, of course.
