The martyr's alibi.
- Psicotepec
- Dec 2
- 1 min read
Your excessive devotion to others isn't love. It's cowardice disguised as generosity to avoid confronting your own desires.
The martyr's alibi.
The neurotic complains about having no time for himself. He lives sacrificed for others' causes, exploited by external demands, parasitized by everyone else. His schedule is filled with urgencies that aren't his own. But this excessive dedication isn't generosity. It's an unconscious strategy to evade the terror of confronting his own desires.
Psychoanalysis reveals a fundamental paradox: we give ourselves to others precisely to avoid giving ourselves to ourselves. Sacrifice functions as the perfect alibi. While I'm busy saving everyone, I don't have to ask myself what I truly want, what project terrifies me to undertake, what failure I fear facing. The other becomes a sophisticated excuse for one's own existential cowardice.
Contemporary clinical practice demonstrates that the martyr doesn't love others too much. He fears himself too much. He prefers the certainty of self-sacrifice to the uncertainty of his own causes. Sacrifice isn't devotion. It's flight disguised as virtue.
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