Do You Take Pleasure in Your Victimhood?

We can all suffer and feel like victims of toxic people or "fate." This can lead to depression or depressive tendencies. Depression, however, can be made more complicated if one has masochistic traits. While depression and masochism can often look and feel similar, understanding the specific masochistic traits can help in identifying treatment-resistant depression or stubborn patterns that sap us of joy or motivation.

What is masochism?

One of the important things about masochism is that a certain amount or degree of masochism is normal for all of us. One of the ways to understand masochism, according to Nancy McWilliams, is as altruistic self-sacrifice. Think of how parents engage in normal self-sacrifice for the sake of their children. We can enjoy or take pleasure in cleaning up after our children or putting our wants or desires on hold for the sake of others. As McWilliams argues, this pleasure in sacrifice is evolutionarily driven as it preserves the species.

Normal masochism

Another way to look at masochism is through a religious or spiritual lens. Humans have long engaged in practices that involve a degree of self-flagellation or pain for the sake of a larger purpose or spiritual aim. Think of religious fasting or self-denial as a practice linked to spiritual cleaning or self-purification. In all of these cases, we may say that it is healthy to take some pleasure in some bodily pain when it is linked to a larger spiritual vision.

We also have secular versions of this in modern life. Think of sports, exercise, or academic pursuits. They often require great self-sacrifice and physical or mental pain in the service of greater achievement and a sense of accomplishment. Inviting and enduring a degree of pain and self-denial are “normal” and often requisite rites of passage for the achievement of great goals. We would not think it abnormal for someone to take pleasure and enjoy these kinds of pains if they led to a specific goal ("No pain, no gain").

Unhealthy masochism

Masochism can look a lot like depression, but unlike depression, it can be much harder to treat and manage because of its early developmental roots. Often, masochism emerges in early childhood as a result of an absent or “not good enough” parent structure. The child, who is unable to identify flaws in the parent, will naturally assume that they are the problem — “I was not good enough as a child.” The child will then often keep demonstrating need or suffering as a way to try to get the love and attachment they are missing. In other words, attachment is seen to be predicated on suffering.

In adult lives, this can manifest in conscious or unconscious pursuit of ongoing drama and conflict that engenders the same kind of suffering one experienced in childhood. One may find oneself in constantly toxic interpersonal dynamics or routinely “victimized” by others. Within this pattern, there often exists a “relentless hope” that in their suffering, something good will be achieved. They will be seen, recognized, and loved.

There might even be a subtle moral pleasure in this suffering (moral masochism), where one’s suffering is felt as noble or righteous. In a religious universe, we might feel that God is taking notice and validating our suffering. In a secular world, we might consider who our private suffering serves or benefits.

Treating or managing masochism

Treating masochistic traits can be difficult because of the often felt moral pleasure experienced in victimhood or martyrdom. Suffering gives us an identity and often a sense of legitimate grievance that can engender a lot of empathy and attention from friends, family, and therapists. Overcoming cycles of masochism often involves recognizing the early childhood patterns and, in particular, acknowledging the not good enough parenting we were exposed to, and seeing our parents as fallible (and in some cases failed) adults.

It also means embracing a view of ourselves as more than just victims of circumstance and fate. It means seeing ourselves as agents to a certain degree in our lives and partner choices. It does not mean forgetting the past, but recognizing the power of our choices in the here and now and backing them with force.