#martyr complex

[cletusthurstonbeauregard]

another old-account exhumation, for those who missed it the first time.

[obvolution]

99% of martyr complex girls stop self-sacrificing right before they save france

[caeliangel]

Savior complex, villain complex, martyr complex, messiah complex, god complex, guilt complex

⌒⌒✦﹒x complex flags ⨟ flags for those who have these complexes.

PT. Savior complex, villain complex, martyr complex, messiah complex, god complex, guilt complex. x complex flags. flags for those who have these complexes. END OF PT.

[theweightofdivinity]

𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗺𝗲𝘁 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗻𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺𝘀𝗲𝗹𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘃𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗺 𝗼𝗳 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲?

In every story they cast themselves as the tragic heroine. Every heartbreak is fate. Every ending is doom. Every lover failed them. It’s never their patterns. Never their attachment. Just slow, romanticized martyrdom dressed up as depth. Some people don’t want healing. They want an audience. Be careful of anyone who romanticizes their own suffering. They’re not looking for partnership. They’re looking for a co-star in their tragedy. It’s not love. It’s the looking-for-a-savior mentality.

[rustbeltjessie]

—Jessie Lynn McMains, NaPoWriMo 2026 (Day 27)

Self-Portrait Painted Inside a Saint’s Mouth

Luck (1), I could choke on. Cupboards unbare, no Mother Hubbard (2); rather have been a mother Mary (3). A martyr (4) mother. Lucky me (5), me and my copper-penny (6) hair. Your litany (7) of all my sins luck (8), and you, mortified (9). Fuck the food, often we brittled from other forms of mal- nourishment (10). And I grew feral-er, more coyote (11) than child, more rat than girl. I know why the caged rat gnaws (12) (13).  Let’s eat the piano (14), Maman. Too late, it’s not. Axe (15) it up, shove ebony and ivory down our throats until we choke. Make a melody of bile. Lash our flesh raw with the strings (16). Gnaw the legs down to pulp. I’ll save the last bit, the best for you. You lick the walnut-stained wood, swallow the hammers down; a communion (17). Play a bone- hymn to your martyrdom (18), just the song you’ve always longed for, finally. No more psalms of self-denial.

—

Luck is a phenomenon or belief that humans may associate with experiencing improbable events, especially improbably positive or negative events. —Wikipedia, “Luck”

Old Mother Hubbard Went to the cupboard, To give the poor dog a bone: But when she got there, The cupboard was bare, And so the poor dog had none. —Sarah Catherine Martin

Yes, I believe you’d have sacrificed me if it meant you could be sainted. You’d already sacrificed everything for me, so you said, but there wasn’t much heavenly glory in that.

In psychology, a person who has a martyr complex desires the feeling of being a martyr for their own sake and seeks out suffering or persecution because it either feeds a physical and/or psychological need, or a desire to avoid responsibility. —Wikipedia, “Martyr complex”

Saying someone is “born lucky” may hold different meanings, depending on the interpretation: it could simply mean that they have been born into a good family or circumstance… —Wikipedia, “Luck”

Some good luck charms: 7, Amanita muscaria, barnstar, ladybird beetles, dreamcatcher, fish, four-leaf clover, horseshoe, pig, rabbit’s foot, white rat, wishbone, coins (find a penny, pick it up, and all day long you’ll have good luck)

7.

—“Litany of all the Saints”

8. “What right do you have to be sad? Your life is so easy.” (See also: “I’ll give you something to cry about.”)

9. The virtue of mortification is twofold, exterior and interior. Exterior mortification consists in doing and suffering what is opposed to the exterior senses and in depriving oneself of what is agreeable to them. In as far as it is necessary to avoid sin, every Christian is bound to practice mortification. —St. Alphonsus Liguori, “The Graces of Mortification”

10. Saint Therese’s self-denial was often…wholly interior; the not doing something, the repressing of a natural eagerness, of a too vehement desire, of over-curiosity, of a feeling of antipathy, of feelings of complacency or gratification. —Ave Maria Meditations, “St. Therese on Self-Denial”

11. I have been known to howl when my longings are denied.

12. In rodents, it is common for the mother to commit infanticide shortly after giving birth under conditions of extreme stress. —Wikipedia, “Infanticide in rodents”

13. Saint Gertrude of Nivelles’s veneration as a protector against rats and mice dates from the early 15th Century during the Black Death, and spread from southwestern Germany to the Netherlands and Catalonia. Saint Kakwkylla was a local saint in Sweden and parts of Germany where Saint Gertrude was not widely known, or was not associated with rats. She was a virgin, eaten alive by rats and mice while imprisoned.

14. A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are pressed, activating an action mechanism where hammers strike strings. —Wikipedia, “Piano”

15. Saint Boniface was hacked to death with axes, by a band of Frisian pagans. This may have been in retaliation for his chopping down their sacred oak tree.

16. Flagellants are practitioners of a form of mortification of the flesh by whipping their skin with various instruments of penance. Many Christian confraternities of penitents have flagellants, who beat themselves, both in the privacy of their dwellings and in public processions, to repent of sins and share in the Passion of Jesus. —Wikipedia, “Flagellant”

17. And as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.” —Matthew 26:26

18. [Other] martyr complexes involve willful suffering in the name of love or duty. This has been observed especially in poor families, as well as in codependent or abusive relationships. —Wikipedia, “Martyr complex”

Trauma poem number three. From my own “Footnotes” prompt. I have been attempting to write various versions of this poem for over eight years, and now I’ve finally gotten it close-ish to something I think might work with a little more tweaking.

[hooded-and-cloaked]

They call it a martyr complex, but it's actually quite simple: I have no purpose but to die for you.

[flowersosa]

Sometimes I think of Elliot and Quentin, for what the were and could have been if the writers were patient, and actually told their story.

Peaches and Plums motherfucker.

A line; that without context means nothing, but means the world to two men encapsulated in their own tragedy, yet undeniably and irrevocably in love.

[teal-hatori]

You called this love, I called this death, A Martyr for you, used, abused, broken, anything... anything to buy your love, even if it kills me.