Playing the Victim: How Abusers Flip the Script

Abuse in relationships can take many different forms, some subtle and hidden, while others are overt. One of the most confusing and painful tactics used by abusers is playing the victim—a manipulative strategy where they flip the script, shift blame, and make the person they are harming feel like they are the problem.

This tactic not only creates confusion in the moment but also profoundly impacts a survivor’s ability to trust themselves and their perceptions over time. It is a powerful tool for instilling guilt and control. Understanding it is one of the first steps toward reclaiming your sense of truth and restoring peace in your life.

In this blog, we’ll explore what it looks like when an abuser is playing the victim, why they do it, the excuses they use, the impact this tactic has on survivors, and healthy ways to respond.

Introduction: When Reality Gets Flipped

If you’ve ever walked away from a conversation with your partner feeling more confused than when it started, you are not alone. Many survivors describe second-guessing themselves, questioning whether they are too sensitive, or wondering if they are the one at fault.

Instead of being comforted or validated when they express a reasonable complaint, concern, or hurt, survivors often encounter a sharp reversal of roles. The opportunity for connection, understanding, and solutions gets twisted until they are portrayed as the aggressor. You may be an empathic person who is willing to reflect and accept responsibility when you do something harmful. Offenders, on the other hand, have different motives than survivors do. Those who cause harm have little to no tolerance for your sincere emotions. The abuser wants to WIN arguments rather than use them to stay on topic and as a tool to resolve conflicts in healthy ways. 

You might hear phrases like:

• “You’re such a nag.”
• “Nothing I do makes you happy.”
• “You’re gaslighting me.”
• “Stop attacking me.”

Suddenly, what started as your attempt to share pain turns into their story of being wronged. This is not only manipulative—it erodes your trust in yourself and erases your rightful place in the relationship.

Recognizing playing the victim as a deliberate tactic and being able to identify when it is happening is an essential step toward protecting your well-being and reclaiming clarity in your life.

What Playing the Victim Looks Like

Denying Responsibility and the Rise of a Victim Mentality

A common tactic is outright denial. They might say, “That didn’t happen,” or “You’re overreacting.” Some even twist the very words you’ve learned about abuse back on you, accusing you of “gaslighting” them.

This denial is part of playing the victim—a way to shift attention away from what actually happened so they never have to be accountable for their behavior. Over time, this creates a strong victim mentality, where they continually cast themselves as the injured person.

Shifting the Blame Through DARVO

Other times, they may use DARVO—Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender. They blow things you said or didn’t say out of proportion, they minimize your concerns, or spin the issue until you are told that you are the cause of the problem.

Blame-shifting is designed to leave you feeling guilty while they walk away without being held accountable. Often, DARVO is disguised as they present themselves as misunderstood or unappreciated. They may complain about how hard their life is or bring up their past trauma, using their struggles to avoid accountability.

Reversing Roles, Leading You to Feel You're to Blame

Another painful tactic is role reversal. They may insist, “I’m the real victim here,” or even call you the abusive one when you begin to set healthy boundaries.

Some abusers get stuck in victim syndrome, thinking they are constant victims of circumstances. This may have served them well over the years, not only avoiding self-reflection but also providing the secondary benefit of receiving sympathy from others.

This form of playing the victim is particularly damaging because it paints the survivor as the offender and erases the truth of the harm being done. It can make you feel as though nothing you say or do will ever be enough to shift the narrative back to reality.

Inflicting Guilt

Abusers may also use guilt as a weapon. Perhaps you’re made to feel guilty for sharing your time with friends, keeping close ties with family, or spending money on necessities.

Meanwhile, they may spend freely on themselves without any sense of being accountable for their actions. They may even tell you that you are “too demanding” or “too critical,” turning your natural needs into evidence of their supposed suffering.

Using Past Hardships

Some abusers explain their harmful behavior by pointing to their past hardships or trauma, hoping to draw on your sympathy. While trauma can absolutely impact coping skills, it never excuses abuse.

Instead of choosing to take responsibility and seek healing, they lean on old wounds as justification for harmful actions. Survivors need to know that this is yet another version of playing the victim, often reinforced by a negative attitude that insists the world or you are against them.

Covert Tactics

Not all abuse is obvious. In fact, most abusers rely on covert emotional abuse. Coercive control, subtle intimidation, and manipulative behaviors often lurk beneath the surface.

Understanding covert abuse is critical. It shines light on how playing the victim and refusing to take responsibility become tools of emotional control, leaving the other person feeling stuck and doubting their own life choices or worth.

Why Do Abusers Play the Victim?

The underlying motives behind playing the victim are consistent, even if the tactics look different.

Avoid Accountability

Abusers play the victim to escape responsibility. By shifting the blame, they avoid having to change or be accountable for the pain they cause. They also experience a secondary gain by garnering sympathetic attention.

Create Confusion

Confusion is one of their strongest tools. If they can make arguments so chaotic you can’t even recall what started them, they succeed in keeping you destabilized. Survivors describe feeling like no matter how much they explain, the other person will turn it against them.

Control the Narrative

Flipping the script keeps the focus on your supposed flaws or the "bad things" you do, rather than on their harmful actions. The more you feel the need to defend yourself, the less you’ll be dealing with what's actually happening.

Controlling the narrative can cause exponential harm when the abuser successfully uses the victim card and receives sympathy from family, friends, or a co-worker. In contrast, the actual victim is portrayed in a bad light, slandered, or scapegoated.

Manipulate Empathy

Perhaps the most insidious reason is their exploitation of empathy. Survivors often show deep compassion, willingness to self-reflect, and a readiness to apologize.

Abusers see this quality and use it as leverage. They instinctively know you are more likely to take responsibility. At the same time, they adopt a victim mentality. They may complain about how difficult their life is, how difficult you are, hoping you will feel for them and prioritize their feelings while ignoring yours, further pulling you into their distorted narrative.

Common Excuses Abusers Use

Victim behavior, or victim mentality, where the abuser sees themself as the victim of circumstances or your choices. Playing the victim is often reinforced with a set of predictable excuses. You may have heard some of these yourself:

• “It's not my fault, you made me do it.”
• “It wasn’t that bad.”
• “I was drunk or high.”
• “You provoked me; it’s your fault.”
• “I had a rough childhood.”
• "You always dwell on the bad things I do."

• “You talk about your feelings, but what about mine?”

Each of these statements avoids the central issue: the abuser refuses to take responsibility for their actions. They frame themselves as the injured person while casting blame outward.

But here is the truth: abuse is a choice. Difficult circumstances may explain poor coping skills, but they do not excuse harming another person or not making valiant efforts to change.

The Impact on Survivors

The harm caused by offenders playing the victim extends far beyond the arguments themselves. Survivors can begin to experience learned helplessness, feeling unable to change their situation, and a sense of hopelessness and despair.

How a Victim Mentality in an Abuser Affects the Survivor

When someone has a habit of playing the victim, their victim mentality can confuse and exhaust you. Survivors may begin to absorb misplaced blame and carry emotional weight that does not belong to them, leaving them feeling drained in every area of life. It may appear as though the victim is having trouble coping with their mental health, when in reality the abuser has twisted what is happening, preventing the victim from receiving the validation and support they need and deserve.

The Role of Self-Pity in Emotional Manipulation

Abusers who rely on self-pity often succeed in silencing your concerns. You may stop speaking up to avoid conflict, especially when they continually complain about their own hardships or when your hurts are consistently ignored and conversations rarely, if ever, lead to solutions. This increases feelings of isolation in the person being harmed and increases the power imbalance between the two people in the relationship.

Why Survivors Start to Feel Powerless

Over time, repeated blame-shifting and manipulation cause survivors to feel powerless. Being with a person who refuses to take responsibility makes it difficult to see hope for your life. This erosion of self-worth can leave you doubting your perceptions and struggling to see a way forward. The one being harmed is more likely to then feel that something is intrinsically wrong within them, or that they are an unlovable person. The combination of both people blaming the victim is a distorted viewpoint on the part of each person in the relationship. The victim, in essence, is gaslighting themselves, or said another way, experiencing cognitive dissonance. This is where the victim fails to perceive the dynamics of the relationship accurately. This is one reason why we say at The MEND Project that clarity is the first necessary step to healing. Without having a clear vision of what is actually occurring, one cannot make decisions based on reality. They will often remain stuck in a cycle of self-blame, exhausting themselves through countless failed attempts to fix what is wrong within themselves or their relationship. 

How Your Response Can Help to Stop Playing With Your Mind

While you cannot control the offender’s behavior, nor their choice to adopt a victim mentality, you can take steps to protect your emotional and physical well-being.

• Recognize Manipulation – Trust yourself. Recognizing when playing the victim is happening. Your internal thoughts are likely distorted; therefore, self-trust and intuitive or gut feelings are more difficult to discern. Listen to your body. Your body can feel you are experiencing injustice before your mind.
• Validate Yourself – You are not responsible for their behavior, even if they continue to complain or blame you. Nothing you say or do can change the other person. It takes two people to make a relationship work and only one person to harm it. Educate yourself about emotional abuse and allow the words you read to provide you with the validation you desperately need and deserve.
• Set Boundaries – Boundaries prevent endless cycles of blame and guilt. Listen to our workshop/webinar on boundaries, or read a book on the topic. You need to overcome your fears surrounding setting boundaries and begin by taking baby steps to build your strength.
• Choose to Disengage – Walking away is strength, not weakness. Stop bringing your feelings and vulnerabilities to the unsafe partner, expecting they will soothe your hurts. Confide in a trusted friend or therapist for your emotional needs. You may or may not choose to walk away from the relationship, but if you can learn to walk away from a toxic conversation, it’s a powerful first step.
• Seek Help – You need and deserve to have support from someone who can help you restore truth, health, and balance in your life. Take our course Finding Clarity and Healing in Difficult, Confusing, or Abusive Relationships, and then join an online support group where you will learn, be understood, and supported.
• Practice Self-Care – Find ways to nurture your health and well-being. Do things that used to bring you joy, or find new activities like an exercise or art class. Activities where you can be physical or creative produce endorphins to counteract the stress hormones surging through your body.
• Build Self-Love – Cultivate positive truths about who you really are and a compassionate, accepting attitude towards yourself. This may require internal work with a therapist to change your internal thoughts about yourself. You get ONE beautiful life.
• Consider Legal Protections – Especially important when someone refuses to take responsibility and continues to play the victim. You need to understand that offenders will say and do just about anything to make you at fault. Seek advice from a qualified attorney who understands narcissistic abuse. Reach out to a domestic violence agency regarding adequately planning for an exit in the event you make that decision. Don’t share what you’re thinking or doing with your partner. 

Why Recognizing Abuse Matters For Your Mental Health

Understanding these dynamics is powerful because it allows you to see things accurately. A clear mind is often considered a sign of a healthy mind.

• Empowerment – Awareness helps you discover your sense of self and stand firm in truth, even when someone is playing the victim or taking on a victim mentality.
• Protection – Recognizing patterns, such as constant blame or excuses, equips you to prepare safe and healthy responses. The more you understand the offender’s common tactics, the less you will feel blindsided when they occur.
• Healing – At The MEND Project, we often say: clarity is the first necessary step to healing. Being able to accurately name these dynamics gives you the strength to begin taking back your life.

Conclusion

Abusers who play the victim, adopting a victim mentality, are engaging in one of the most confusing forms of manipulation. They aim to disorient you, erode your confidence, and keep the power in their hands.

But by learning to identify these tactics, you can begin to dismantle their impact. You can change the dance, protect yourself, reclaim a sense of reality, and take meaningful steps toward healing. Survivors are never responsible for another person’s refusal to take responsibility for their actions.

If you are experiencing what this article describes, please know: you are not alone. Healing begins with awareness and compassion for yourself. Each day, you can begin your story again.

If you haven’t yet, I’d highly encourage you to consider taking The MEND Project’s Finding Clarity and Healing in Difficult, Confusing, or Abusive Relationships course. This course was created for situations just like yours and has been life-changing for many. Graduates often share that it gave them language, tools, and hope to move forward with confidence.