From Medal to Mirror: Letting Go of the Identity That Keeps You Stuck

I’ve heard it said we’re living in the age of the Victim Olympics — and everyone’s competing for the gold.

It’s never about healing and moving forward. It’s about hierarchy and staying put.

And in this game? The Victim is crowned the victor.

Now, combine that with a large swath of the population who suffers from chronic emotional incontinence. They're fueling performative fragility with all the pomp and circumstance of a Mardi Gras parade. Throw me your beads and I’ll show you my victim story.

Let’s call it what it is: A culture of hypersensitivity where discomfort is treated like pain and suffering — and that pain and suffering is a badge of honor.

Somewhere along the way, “this hurt me” became “now I get to hold the mic forever.”

And “this is my experience” became “this is the only acceptable perspective.”

We stopped learning to regulate our emotions and started using them to regulate everyone else.

Because it’s easier to perform distress than to develop resilience. It’s easier to cry “unsafe” than to admit, “I don’t yet have the tools to hold this discomfort without projecting it onto someone else.”

But here’s the twist no one’s talking about: If you’ve built your identity on being the victim, you’ll resist real empowerment — because real empowerment means giving up the perceived power that old identity gave you.

And if you’re the one constantly being labeled the oppressor, you might start believing you’re not allowed to speak, feel, or make a move without getting it wrong.
So you freeze. You shrink. You live on mute.

Neither of those are power. They are trauma responses in a costume.

The way out?

Real healing, growth or empowerment doesn’t demand a hierarchy.

It doesn’t ask, “Who’s more wounded?”

It asks, “What does actual freedom feel like — for everyone?”

Freedom to express without dominating.

Freedom to feel without performing.

Freedom to be seen without needing to stay broken to be worthy of care.

Freedom to communicate, engage and discover meaningful solutions.

So no — your pain doesn’t give you a crown. But your courage to face it — to feel it, own it, alchemize it. That’s where the gold is.

And for those who’ve been accused, silenced, labeled as “the problem” before they even speak? Your liberation lives in refusing to carry shame for wounds that aren’t yours.
You get to show up with integrity, accountability, with voice, spoken with love and compassion, without shrinking just because the room is tense.

Because if we’re ever going to transcend the Victim Olympics, we deserve to let go of competing for pain points and start holding space for actual power to rise.

Not reactive power. Regenerative power.

The kind that lets you say: “I see your pain. I know mine. And neither of us has to weaponize it. We can work together as co-creators of something better.”