Loy Young

The star in every Western epic, every family saga and Jurassic Park is, of course, the hero. In the Broadway play Goodness Triumphs Over Evil the heroine rescues the victim and goes on to defeat the villain. Both, hero and victim know the script well. No matter how long it takes, in the end the good guys win.
True heroes believe in the drama of the victim’s lot, or the villain’s. The suffering is what our emotions relate to, and the better the plot the more our feelings become involved. Especially hard-luck stories appeal to the heroines as they share the characteristic purity and gullibility with the victim.
Both, victim and hero also know that the final act ends with ‘They Lived Happily Ever After’. Did you ever notice that the happy end is always very short, and then the curtain comes down fast?

We never get to see how the protagonists live happily ever after. Not withstanding the brevity of the scene, both victim and hero know that they will receive this magic energy, just before the curtain comes down. It is their reward for having played their parts well.
That happiness also prompts hero and victim to rush back as soon as the curtain comes down and audition one more time for the same roles in hot pursuit of vanquishing evil yet again. Heroes and victims become depressed if they leave the game for too long because the play is the source for their emotional energy.

The making of a hero
Usually an actor auditions for the hero role after having played the victim many times. He has finally found a method to survive which becomes his solution to save other victims. The hero cannot endure the pain of seeing others suffer as he once did and every time he implements his strategy, it feels like he is saving himself all over again.

1. Former victims as heroes
Karen’s parents were in the military, moving every two to three years crisscrossing the nation. A shy girl, Karen had a hard time making friends and every time she finally began a friendship, her parents were forced to take up a new post elsewhere. The pain Karen felt as a consequence drove her into depression. Her grades started to fail and she stopped eating. By the time she was a teenager, she had become afraid of making friends.
Despite her caution, the inevitable happened: Karen fell head over heels in love with a boy in high school. It was paradise! For the first time, she felt secure in a relationship. But it wasn’t to last. When her parents were posted to another city, Karen suffered a nervous breakdown and contemplated suicide. The experience scarred her deeply. To survive emotionally, she refused to make any new friends in the next town, claiming that she wanted to ready herself for college. She became an avid reader and escaped into her world of books.

Reading became Karen’s solution for her victim role. She thought, quite logically, that everyone should learn how to read, however, perhaps not surprisingly, she pursued her mission with fanatic passion, eventually opening her own bookstore.
Despite her professional success, her private life barely existed. Love was sorely missing from her life. She had no friends; and when romance found the way to her door it was not for long. Even though twenty years had gone by since her childhood drama, Karen’s emotions just kept replaying the scenario, leaving the woman teetering between the victim and the hero roles.

2. The hero who saves himself
The victim role trains you to become your own hero. If someone else comes to your rescue, you will repeat the same scenario until you can save yourself.  Becoming your own hero is your emotional destiny.
In fiction as well as in real life this is the theme of coming of age. Our emotional nature does not care how many repeats it takes to drive the lesson home as each time the intensity of the feeling increases.
The more dramatic the situation the more the sensations can express themselves and that is what they thrive on. Furthermore, the feelings know that one day they will triumph.
Marcela, a woman from Peru, grew up with a father who was a high-ranking military officer. He was a dictatorial personality both in his profession and at home. Marcela shuddered with fear whenever her father came through the door. She never learned stand up to him. She just ran to her mother and clung to her apron for safety.
As a young woman, Marcela repeated the same scenario with a husband who resembled her father in character. As soon as the honeymoon was over and she had moved to Chile with Jose, Marcela was deprived of her mother’s protection; and her fears escalated. She had to learn to put her foot down to a strong and powerful person just like her father.
Marcela did not dare to speak up, and began to be ridden by one headache after another. She also developed so much pain in her genitals that sex became intolerable.
As time went on, Marcela criticized Jose, first behind his back, then by nagging him openly. Finally, she decided not to take her husband’s tyranny anymore. The only problem was that he controlled the family’s finances.
At that point Marcela came to me. I told her that she would have to develop her own strength and confront either Jose or her emotions, which forced her to pick domineering men until she could say, “I elect to love myself by not putting myself in a situation like this.”