From Victim to Hero: Flipping the Script on My Life

For a long time, I lived in a victim mindset. I really did. I felt like everything was happening to me. Like life was just unfair and I was stuck being the one who got the short end of the stick over and over again. I would sit there and sulk, feeling like the world had turned its back on me—asking myself, why me? Why do bad things keep happening? Why does everyone else seem okay while I’m barely getting by?

I’d compare. I’d envy. I’d complain. I felt like I was being treated unfairly, and I kept spiraling in that headspace. And you know what? That kind of thinking is exhausting. It drains your power. It keeps you stuck.

But then something shifted. I started doing the work. I dove headfirst into uncovering all my shit—the good, the bad, the deeply uncomfortable. And what I found wasn’t just pain or shame or regret. What I found… was goodness. Yeah, you read that right. I found goodness—even in the darkest, most heartbreaking parts of my story.

Here’s the truth: it’s not that bad things stopped happening. It’s that I stopped seeing them as things that were being done to me… and started seeing them as things that were happening for me.

That shift? That’s the game changer.

I remember being at rock bottom—devastated, broken, feeling like no one cared what had been done to me. I couldn’t understand why the people who hurt me got to walk away while I was the one left picking up the pieces. But then I learned something that completely reframed my life: In your story, you can either be the victim or the hero.

A victim is helpless. Powerless. Just sitting there, stuck in pain and self-pity. But a hero? A hero takes all of it—the mess, the chaos, the heartbreak—and uses it. A hero turns it into growth, into strength, into something beautiful.

So that’s what I chose to do. I reframed everything—even the horrific abuse I experienced at the hands of my ex-husband. The abandonment. The manipulation. The ways I was humiliated, talked about, controlled. The friends I lost. The ways I hurt others. The ways I fell short of who I wanted to be. All of it.

Let me be super clear: I’m not saying any of that was okay. Abuse is never okay. It is never okay to strip someone of their freedom, to control them, to make them feel worthless. But what I am saying is that even the worst of it became part of my evolution. I chose to see it as a catalyst—not a curse.

Because here’s the thing—if I hadn’t gone through all of that… would I have ever taken the time to face myself? To go deep? To spend an entire year working on me, healing, becoming someone I’m actually proud of? I don’t know. Maybe not.

That’s why I don’t regret it. That’s why I choose to see the goodness in it. Because that’s what transforms you. That’s what turns you from a victim into the hero of your own damn story.

So if you’re sitting there right now feeling broken, lost, pissed off at the world—please hear this:

You are not powerless.

Your pain is not pointless.

And you? You have the power to flip the whole script.

Find the lesson. Find the goodness. Even if it’s buried under a mountain of hurt—especially then.

You get to decide: stay stuck in the story that broke you, or rise up and rewrite it. Be the hero.

Because the power that comes from that? That’s the kind of power no one can take from you.