Most of us have friends, relatives, or colleagues who embody traits so thoroughly that those traits become their identifiers. For example, you might have a “gym bro” cousin, or a “dog mom” coworker.
Any trait can hijack someone’s entire personality, and that includes martyrdom. Yet people can rarely see this type of hijacking in themselves, and that prevents them from taking action when needed.
As such, if you’ve unknowingly centered your life around sacrificing yourself for the benefit of others, it’s likely you’ll be experiencing the following:
1. You can’t recognize your own needs and wants because you constantly prioritize other people.
If you’ve spent most of your life trying to anticipate others’ needs — and then meet them as quickly and efficiently as possible — then it’s likely you haven’t been paying attention to how your own needs make themselves known.
As a result, it’s possible that you can’t tell what you need or want in your own life. Your body may be craving certain foods, or you may dearly wish to go for a swim or read a book in peace, but you can’t clearly recognize those needs because other people take priority in your life.
It’s very difficult to see yourself, and your actions, objectively when you’ve spent so long centering and serving others.
And since martyrdom is rarely reciprocated, you’re likely the only person in your sphere who isn’t being prioritized by anyone, in any way. This may become apparent at times like holidays when you discover that you’re the only one without any gifts. Because you did all the shopping for everyone else, but nobody did it for you.
2. The sheer amount of energy that you pour into others is burning you out.
You’re probably the first to step up and offer to help when someone else is unable to do something (i.e., calling in sick to work, having to care for elderly family members), often because you don’t believe that anyone else could do as good a job as you.
The problem is that you’re doing this across several different areas of your life, and it’s burning you out.
However, it’s likely that you don’t notice the burnout because you don’t have enough time to analyze how your own actions are affecting you. Instead, you’re using every last shred of energy to help those around you, depleting yourself horribly in the process, and never refilling your own well of energy reserves.
3. An obligation mindset can fuel ideas of victimhood.
When you prioritize obligation to others over your own needs, it’s easy to end up playing victim about all the things you feel are happening to you that are beyond your control.
Essentially, everything you feel you have to do for everyone else prevents you from doing the things you need or want in your own life. This is especially true if you feel that you’re the only person who’s capable of doing various things, so you burn out from working overtime in all directions, without respite.
Though it’s often not conscious, this is essentially a sophisticated way to avoid taking responsibility for your own choices as far as the difficulties in your life are concerned.
After all, blaming all the things you have to do that are keeping you from living life on your own terms is often a lot easier than acknowledging that you need to make real changes and prioritize yourself.
4. You end up experiencing chronic anxiety/depression.
Many self-martyring people experience intense anxiety and depression, and have no idea why. After all, they’re doing wonderful things by helping others all the time, and believe that they’re experiencing immense fulfillment and happiness by doing so.
This is very much a case of a fish not understanding what water is because it’s in it.
You may be experiencing anxiety and/or depression because of the martyrdom you’re perpetuating, but you can’t see that as the cause because it’s such an ever-present fixture (and driving force) in your life.
You can’t understand why you’re tired, and sad, and feel resentful because you have no perspective on your experience beyond your firsthand martyrdom.
5. You miss out on a lot of potentially good things — including opportunities.
If you’ve ever carried a heavy burden from one place to another, it’s unlikely that you stopped to admire the scenery around you while carrying it. You’ve simply been completely focused on just getting to your destination.
For example, I remember once going deep-woods camping with a 40lb backpack on. Apparently I passed by a waterfall and missed seeing a great horned owl as well as a porcupine because all I cared about was keeping one foot in front of the other until I could fall apart at our campsite.
Martyrdom is similar.
If you’re locked into carrying the cross you’ve chosen (unconsciously or not) to bear, you may not be able to see the beauty or open doors around you.
Your burden is both exhausting and blinding, but you are currently unwilling or unable to put down that weight so you can look around with clarity and openness.
As such, you’re likely missing out on some spectacular life experiences, many of which you may regret deeply when you look back on them in the future.
6. Your fixation on others’ needs may result in you neglecting yourself badly.
People who martyr themselves for others’ benefits often lose themselves in the process.
This can go beyond not knowing their own preferences because they prioritize those of others, and can even affect their health and overall well-being.
For example, one of my aunts had a disabled son after he was severely injured in an accident. Her husband had early-onset dementia, and my grandmother — who had Alzheimer’s — also lived with them.
My aunt’s entire life consisted of caregiving for those around her… until she dropped dead.
She had been entirely focused on caring for everyone else and died of a massive heart attack while preparing dinner one night.
There were undoubtedly warning signs ahead of time that could have led to her getting preventative care, but she either didn’t recognize them or brushed them off because she had caregiving to do.
If you have been the means by which others have lived for as long as you can remember, you won’t be able to step away from that dynamic and look at it with unbiased eyes.
It’s all you know, and that makes it hard to get out of your own head to see the situation for what it is, with clarity and full awareness.
7. Obsession over your selflessness can push people away.
Have you ever known a person who only ever talks about their pet, their favorite TV show, their hobby, or their niche special interest?
While it’s great that they’re passionate about this topic, most people want a bit of back and forth, and it can become very tiresome when every conversation is redirected towards themselves, their interests, and even their complaints.
As such, if you’re martyring yourself for the sake of people who you feel take you for granted, it’s possible that you’re complaining about this dynamic to everyone you interact with, but aren’t taking any action to change your situation.
Everyone needs to vent at times, but only talking about how unappreciated and exhausted you are and never doing anything to change that dynamic can push people away.
You’re likely unhappy, and telling everyone you know how unhappy you are, all the time. But when they offer advice or suggest that you make real change happen, you get defensive.
You may try to convince yourself or others that what you’re doing is loving and virtuous, but if that were true, would you be complaining constantly about how exhausted you are, and how used you feel?
Final thoughts…
Many people develop martyr complexes after being raised with the idea that their worth is based on their output.
Basically, if you grew up only being shown positive attention or affection if you were doing things for others and achieving things to their satisfaction, then you learned that your value in other people’s eyes depended on how much you were able to make them happy.
It’s difficult to unlearn this mindset and recognize that you’re loved and valued for who you are, but it’s so important to do so.
You are so much more than a tool to be used for other people’s benefit.
