Have you ever known someone who seems to be perpetually surrounded by drama? Everywhere they go, someone is mistreating them, betraying them, jealous of them, or somehow out to get them. They’ve supposedly been nothing but kind, loving, and generous, yet the entire world seems determined to make their life miserable.
After a while, you start noticing something. The people change, the circumstances change, but the story stays remarkably similar. They’re always the innocent party, everyone else is always the villain, and there’s never any acknowledgment that they might have contributed to what happened.
Now, before anyone gets their broomstick in a twist, I’m not talking about people who have genuinely experienced repeated abuse, trauma, or mistreatment. Sometimes life really does hand someone an unfair amount of shit, and being hurt repeatedly doesn’t mean you’re responsible for it.
I’m talking about people who have become so attached to being the victim that they’ve made themselves practically incapable of accepting responsibility for their own behavior.
There’s a pretty big difference.
Our brains are remarkably good at protecting the stories we tell ourselves. Most of us want to believe we’re good people with good intentions. But when maintaining that image becomes more important than being honest with ourselves, we start finding ways to justify behavior we’d criticize in someone else.
Someone who constantly talks behind people’s backs may eventually find that nobody trusts them. Rather than examining what they did to damage those relationships, they complain that everyone is disloyal. Someone who repeatedly disrespects boundaries may find people distancing themselves, only to insist they’re being abandoned by people they did nothing but love.
And here’s where it gets interesting. They may genuinely feel hurt or betrayed. Their emotions are real, but that doesn’t automatically mean their interpretation of what happened is accurate.
Feeling victimized and actually being victimized aren’t always the same thing.
There’s also a certain comfort in believing everyone else is responsible for your problems. If the entire world is against you, then there’s nothing you need to change. You never have to examine how you communicate, how you treat people, or what expectations you’re placing on others. You can continue doing exactly what you’ve always done because, in your mind, the problem exists entirely outside yourself.
And unfortunately, the people who care enough to challenge that thinking often become the next villains in the story.
Let’s bring a little Witchcraft into this, because our spiritual community isn’t immune to this behavior either.
Not every uncomfortable experience is a spiritual attack. Not everyone who disagrees with you is sending negative energy your way. Someone setting boundaries isn’t necessarily operating from a lower vibration, and being held accountable doesn’t mean the Universe is conspiring against you.
Sometimes you’re simply experiencing the consequences of your own choices.
You can cleanse your home, light every candle you own, cast protection spells, and call upon every deity you’re comfortable working with, but none of that replaces examining your behavior.
Magic is not a substitute for accountability.
This is where genuine shadow work gets uncomfortable. It’s relatively easy to recognize how other people have hurt us. Examining our own jealousy, defensiveness, dishonesty, or need for control takes a different kind of courage.
Sometimes shadow work means admitting we weren’t the innocent party. Maybe we made assumptions, crossed boundaries, manipulated a situation, or lashed out because we were hurting. Maybe the person who walked away wasn’t abandoning us at all. Perhaps they were simply protecting themselves from behavior we refused to acknowledge.
And yes, someone can have experienced genuine trauma and still behave in ways that hurt other people. Understanding where those behaviors come from matters, but it doesn’t erase their impact.
Our past can explain our reactions without making everyone around us responsible for managing them.
I think one of the hardest lessons in personal growth is learning that being a good person doesn’t mean you’ve never behaved badly. I’ve certainly had moments when my emotions got ahead of my judgment, and I think most of us have. What matters is whether we’re willing to recognize those moments, take responsibility, and do something differently.
If every friendship ends in betrayal, every relationship ends with someone being labeled toxic, and every disagreement becomes persecution, it might be worth examining the common patterns. Not because repeated mistreatment is impossible, but because self-awareness requires us to consider our own role in our experiences.
Can we listen when someone tells us we’ve hurt them without immediately getting defensive? Can we accept that someone else’s experience may be different from our own? Can we acknowledge that our intentions might have been good even when our impact wasn’t?
And can we admit we were wrong without deciding that makes us a terrible person?
Accountability isn’t supposed to be a punishment. It’s an opportunity to recognize what’s happening and make better choices. But when we insist we’re always innocent, always misunderstood, and always surrounded by horrible people, we leave ourselves no room to grow.
So, by all means, protect your peace, honor your boundaries, and recognize when someone is genuinely mistreating you. But while you’re examining everyone else’s energy and behavior, make sure you’re willing to examine your own.
Because sometimes the things you’ve been fighting aren’t demons, curses, or enemies.
Sometimes they’re consequences.
And unlike everyone else’s behavior, your own choices are something you actually have the power to change.
Lady Shiya’s website: https://ladyshiya.com/#the-mystic-path
PJ Perkins 
Guy Finley