Why would anyone want to suffer? Of course, no one really wants to suffer, or at least, they wouldn't if suffering were detached from the system in which it arises.
Suffering, however, occurs within a system. It's the cameo, not the star of the show.
Let's start with a quotation from Ken Wapnick:
It is this characteristic of separation and fragmentation that allows the ego to take the repressed sin and guilt in the Son's now fragmented and individualized mind, and project it out onto a specific person, other than himself. And this then becomes the ego's purpose for the body, for because of the dynamic of projection, the Son is able to fulfill this part of the ego's strategy of keeping his individuality, but not the sin. Possessing the additional self-concept of the innocent victim, the Son is able now continually to project his unconscious sin onto another, thereby believing that he is free of it. Finding sin and guilt in another thus becomes the secret purpose of everyone's life. And once these persons are found, their names are added to the grievance list of victimizers, held in safekeeping in the Son's mind against the time when God inevitably breaks through the defenses and confronts him with his sin.Kenneth Wapnick. The Journey Home: The Obstacles to Peace in A Course in Miracles
A good example is found in Al-Anon. Of course, those of us who grew up in homes affected by alcoholism (or alanonism) cannot, at least in a material sense, be blamed for growing up in such homes. But look at how many of us seek out alcoholics, crazy people, dysfunctional people, and dysfunctional organisations. No one is forcing us to date, sleep with, or marry alcoholics. We could marry non-alcoholics. But we don't. Why not?
Part of the effectiveness of the system relies on concealing the opening moves in the game, in other words concealing the fact that one has placed oneself in a situation or structured a situation where victimisation is likely or inevitable. All that is visible is the victimisation.
Why is victimisation so attractive?
I take my darkness.
I cannot stand it.
I must get rid of it.
But I cannot!
So I move it as far away from me as possible: in other words into you.
So I move it as far away from me as possible: in other words into you.
I'm the victim: you're the victimiser.
I then have relief from the shame, guilt, and fear.
The suffering is just the side effect; the price of present pain to pay for deferral of existential terror.
I came across a great example of this recently, in its usual three-act play:
Act One: Person A acted imperiously and officiously.
Act Two: Person B responded by shutting down the interaction firmly, politely, clearly, and briefly.
Act Three: Person A goes to others complaining of harassment.
This is extremely illustrative, because, firstly, Person A initiated the exchange and predictably elicited Person B's reaction, yet Person A construes themselves to be the victim. The situation also beautifully illustrates the flimsiness of the logical structure underpinning the victimhood narrative. What actually happened is that Person B wanted to leave Person A alone and be left alone by Person A; harassment is normally quite the opposite: rude, intrusive, unwanted interaction. If it's been elicited, it's not harassment; it's a boundary. But once the statue has been built, the temporary scaffolding falls away: the statue of the (anti-)Christ with the crown of thorns, the innocent, bleeding martyr.
Thus, the world has been used to construct the psychic narrative of victimisation, and the psychic narrative is what this is all about. This is why, when someone co-opts you (without your permission) to participate in one of these three-act plays, it really is not about you. You're the prop, that's it. Because this is the paradigm for all dysfunctional interactions, their behaviour is never about me. And my grievance is never about them. That is the bit that is really about me: my desire to have my cake and eat it: to have my specialness, to have my difference, but to locate the attendant guilt in someone else.