fulfilling life goals after being a cast out scapegoat

art by © Lise Winne

available for sale here

I have been reading Lenora Thompson's articles for awhile and I usually respond to them, and we often have discussions about each of them. The reason why? I'll tell you.

Lenora writes for Psych Central and the Huffington Post about being the child of narcissists. She is a self-proclaimed golden child (an only child) to what would seem to be helicopter parents, parents who, according to her, would not let her grow up. You can read her stories in the articles. She has many, many articles on how she felt stifled and imprisoned by her parents, how every decision she wanted to make was superseded by her parents' decision-making, how she felt she was being groomed to please them at all times.

Every abusive family has a golden child (favored and coddled) and a scapegoat (unfavored and picked on, and often rejected). That's just a fact of life when you have Cluster B personality disordered parents who put their own feelings and dreams first, and expect their children to put their parents dreams and feelings first too (no, that's not how it is supposed to work, if you are wondering).

When she and I talk, I give her the scapegoat versions to her stories. They tend to be drastically different, opposites. But not all of the time.  Sometimes we find only nuanced differences between the golden versions and the scapegoat versions.

I have been working on a side project full of scapegoat stories (which I plan on publishing some day). This is just a teaser.

Sometimes she feels the scapegoat is so much better off than the golden child, other times she sees how painful being a scapegoat is.

So what is a common thing that scapegoats and goldens share, since most of the time there is such a huge disparity between the two roles? And let us not forget that these are roles -- they were thrust on us by parents or caregivers (usually) at a young age, perhaps even when we were pre-verbal, rather than how we define ourselves.

Gaslighting would be one of the things that golden children and scapegoats have in common. But the nuances are these:

Gaslighting of a golden child would be: "Oh, she's a little crazy, but we love it! So creative! So full of life and wonder! So cute when she does that, isn't she?" Gaslighting of a scapegoat would be "She's our crazy one. Yes, she's creative, but she has so many problems! We just can't deal with her any more! She should be put away, but that's not how the world works these days." The first one is to get strangers to admire their offspring, hoping they can cover up the abuse with great accolades and admiration and the image of being perfect parents of a lovable crazy child; the second one is to get strangers to reject their offspring before that offspring spills the beans and exposes the abuse and the parent's image.

But who is kidding who? Golden children are just as capable of exposing abuse as scapegoats are, such as in Lenora's case. Goldens often feel so suffocated and burdened by their parents that they feel spiritually squashed, emotionally squashed, physically squashed, developmentally squashed. It is claustrophobia on steroids. Goldens have been brought up to be pleaser puppets. They can't say anything at all that doesn't please their parents, and after awhile, don't even try to challenge that coding (except maybe through their own very private thoughts which they don't dare to share with anyone ... until they can't stand it any more). This is not what life is meant to be, to be an eternal child with no choices and no dreams, and only to be thinking about your parent's thoughts, feelings, dreams and image (let's not forget their image!). Our spirits really have a hard time with being shoved into Stepford child roles (after The Stepford Wives).

I see her point of view. Love is super conditional whether you are a golden child or a scapegoat. For the golden, it is totally reliant on people pleasing and competition with your sibling (if you have a sibling). The golden feels he cannot be anything else, and be safe from the abuse he sees being hurled at everyone else.

I feel sorry for the golden child in my own life who has to live this way and give up his own dreams, who is called to do it constantly, who has to be careful and terrified over everything he says, and walk on eggshells. He has been groomed to compete with his sister on everything (for the parents divide-and-conquer strategies), and since the sister gave up on the competition and left the family, he has to provide ALL of the narcissistic supply now. There are no more roles left, in fact, no other siblings to take up the lost roles. He will have to fulfill them all. And if something doesn't suit his parents, he will have to endure a barrage of shaming, temper tantrums and insults -- as though he is still a little boy who needs to be reprimanded. If he sees rage, he'll have to pretend he didn't mean what he said. He'll have to stir up a pot of excuses, fast talking, fast thinking, taking things he said back, explaining that he didn't mean what he said, saying things like "It was just a stupid comment. I agree with you" even when he might not want to agree with them, asking how to make it better, giving word salad explanations for every little hurt feeling they have that they blame on him, or on his wife, all with the most syrupy apologies. He will have to have no convictions about anything. Interests? No, too threatening. Opinions? No, he's required to have their opinions. A career? No, not one that will take time away from his parents. A sister? How dare he think to have a relationship with his sister when they have anointed him the golden child! How dare he even think about his sister!

He will have to constantly ameliorate them (and make no mistake about it: he is expert at ameliorating -- as if that is a good thing to be).

I have seen him in 24 hour rages when they aren't around, and then turn it all off like a switch and be sticky sweet with model vocabulary and wit. That's a good life??? Talk about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde! He has to "go along to get along" with hair-trigger parents. That's not love! They don't love him!

And worst of all, he seems to have become another Cluster B, full of phony faces and charm just to get through life. I believe the swearing, rage-ful, disrespectful, laugh-behind-their-backs, deriding-of-others personality is really who he is, although that may be a cover-up for how scared, vulnerable, sensitive and sweet he really is. Who knows, but it is all so sad. The worse part of it is that he does the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde because his parents squashed him, wanted him to be their daily pleaser. They spoiled him rotten, favored him over his sister, and tried to convince him that his sister was at fault for any rage he felt. "Take it out on her, not us!" they cried. Because, you know, all narcissists are perfect, and they can't hear otherwise, and what they did to him has to be taken out on someone, after all ...

So one of the things Lenora and I were talking about had to do with living our dreams, and how she had to put that off for so long (required to be the daily pleaser: don't forget!). Any way, here is my response to this article by Lenora about living your dreams after having them squashed by narcissistic parents for most of your life:

I'm always thinking of the scapegoat part of this story, Lenora.

The thing about scapegoats is that they are onto their NMs or NFs earlier than anyone else. If we are given the scapegoat role in our family, we're the canary in the coal mine. That's why we are scapegoats: we see the evil, we hear the evil, and we speak about the evil we see and hear. How dare we speak about it, right? How dare we want to make that better for all children of the household? 

And the first thing they do about it is try to shut us up and shut us down emotionally. However it doesn't work because we still see, hear, etc ... so we are punished for it instead. The "punishments" for seeing, hearing and knowing are brutal, let me tell you. They are so unethical, unjust and severe as to encode us with traumas and triggers. In fact most "other" family members don't want to acknowledge what we go through because it scares them half to death. So they only "watch" the abuse in horror on the sidelines, perhaps try to tell themselves it is not so bad and that it is "normal" in some way, hoping it doesn't happen to them. 

In fact, they are rarely singled out for abuse until we leave. And we have to leave if we are to survive. When we leave for good to fend for ourselves, the narcissists adopt another scapegoat. They always do; they always feel they have to in order to keep any kind of potential bad image they might acquire away from THEM. 

So eventually we are no longer alone when the new scapegoat appears and says to us, "I went through it too! I'm so sorry!"

But the difference between us and the golden child is that a parent or caregiver trying to disable us and our dreams by severe punishments and THE BIG BAD SILENT TREATMENT does not get internalized within us (well, a lot of us). It may get internalized in the beginning, but for many of us with long term "no contact" or living our lives autonomous from their opinions? Not at all. I think most scapegoats can attest to not feeling much shame at all over being given the silent treatment. Why? Because it almost always is over a myriad of silly excuses like a look on our face they didn't like (as though we should have a facial complex JUST FOR THEM), or because we refused to be their full time Cinderella to our brothers and sisters (as though we should really WANT that for ourselves), and a number of equally bizarre "reasons". They grasp at the most desperate of straws to make a scapegoat. 

They do this scapegoating for THEM, because THEY feel threatened by the truth and by exposure. The more they abuse, the more desperate they are to hide it, the more they absolutely NEED some sort of  scapegoat!!  All people who see, hear, and speak of what they see and hear must be scapegoated in their eyes ... except, wait! Doesn't everyone tell of what they are about behind their backs? Aren't all people in their lives just ass-kissing back-stabbing two-facers? 

So they get ultra paranoid.

The reason why a lot of us scapegoats don't internalize their mediocre dreams for us is because we never "really" try to please them. Ever. We know the cost is too high, and nothing will be good enough. We may pretend at it at times because not every battle is worth it, and we want some peace, just like they pretend to love us, all the while slandering us to everyone they can, and throwing us away to the wolves and casting us as "crazy people".

We aren't supposed to please them anyway: they assigned the scapegoat role to us, the role that can never please them NO MATTER WHAT. We find, unlike the smooth fast talkin' always-make-an-excuse goldens, that there is no smooth fast talkin' for us to adopt. What we say, what we do, is ALWAYS vilified. So we give up on pleasing them, and decide to please ourselves instead, and we go for our dreams. 

That's one big difference between a golden child and a scapegoat child.

We HAVE to go big for our dreams to survive without a family, support, and familial approval. So many of us put our dreams first, in fact, and a lot of us (the ones who don't stay in the matrix of the abusive family to get beaten down again and again), are pretty satisfied with where we end up. There are times we might be taken in by the hoovering of our parents or caregivers, but for the most part we are cast out at pretty young ages. Try 15 as opposed to 30 or 40 for you goldens. 

Sometimes there are narcissists along the way who try to trip us up, or stalk us, or slander us, and other tactics. That can set us back. But we also have been able to get back up from being knocked over since childhood when our parent or caregiver was doing it.

The reason our abusive parent always goes for tactics such as hooverings and punishments is because narcissists hate our successes. Yes, I believe that. 

How dare we be successful when they have tried so hard to beat that out of us, when they have worked so hard to smash our self esteem and make us lower our heads in shame our whole lives! They can't stand that their mediocre dreams are only about narcissistic supply: spreading lies, gossip, covering their tracks, panicking over "not covering their tracks ENOUGH", fear of exposure, trying to convince others that they are model citizens who love their children when they don't, trying to keep all of these false identities and false motives together and trying to remember which false identity went with which person, and which lie and wild tale they told to whom, trying to think of top-of-their-heads excuses as to why they are estranged from their children, and continue to be, trying to think of shamings of their children that will stick like glue and permanently damage them -- what a life! 

And to compensate for a life of boredom that selfishness, insulting of others, discarding important people and unfulfillment inevitably produce, they create drama. How? Rejecting or picking on another empath from their lives, or two or three or four. "Yes, let's do that so that we have no empaths when we are sick and old!" Now isn't that the dumbest thing ever? 

So instead they find themselves surrounded by other narcissists or sociopaths when they aren't feeling well. Who envies that?

So glad we are not them and that we pursue dreams that are actually meaningful and worthwhile, while they muck around in the putrid swamp of "trying" to manipulate people all of the time. Good luck with that agenda, eh?

healing from abuse I: realizing the situation is hopeless and saying no to any more abuse

Healing Victory by Lise Winne

(art available for sale HERE)

Healing from abuse is extremely challenging. Most people have PTSD and/or C-PTSD if the abuse went on for a long period of time or started in childhood or was brutal or severe in some way. So, there are two things to heal from: the abuse itself and the trauma-related emotional injuries that manifest as PTSD and/or C-PTSD. Note: C-PTSD can also effect the brain, especially if you grew up with child abuse or child neglect.

Some alcoholics can be become abusive under the influence of alcohol, and I will get to that shortly. However, this post primarily focuses on abusers who have Cluster B personality disorders.

One thing about abusers with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder (who are the Cluster Bs most likely to abuse) is that they are fairly predictable across the board. They are known to practice several types of abuse all at once. It is like they are given a formula to gaslight you, erroneously blame you, rewrite history (including determining how you think, feel and experience events without conferring with you about accuracy -- called perspecticide), expect perfectionism from you (in facial expressions, deeds and motives), punish you for not doing what they want at all times, punish you for not seeing them in an idealized way, run smear campaigns on you, attempt to isolate you from some sort of social group or relationship, financially abuse you in some way, play favorites with children, attempt to put you into a role with rewards and punishments, most usually give you the silent treatment and use word salad arguments to explain away their unethical and immoral treatment of you and others. Not only that, but they are retaliatory and vengeful, highly envious of others, arrogant and haughty,  not empathetic, pathologically manipulative and pretend they are victims. They idealize you and love bomb you, and then when they think you feel loved by them, seek to discard you and destroy you. They live in a world of lies (it is like they concoct a fantasy world for themselves and lies are the perfect way to do that).

Also, if you are hurt by them, it is extremely rare for them to apologize unless they have been "publicly found out" or are in danger of it, and even then they will try to cover up what they have done with dodging, deflecting, splitting hairs and excusing themselves.

They are so ingrained in these "habits" that it is unrealistic to expect them to change at all. Most abusers are ultra-rigid. They do not change, nor do they want to change. Blaming their victims is their easy way out of culpability and self reflection. If anything, by all survivor accounts, abusers actually get worse over time. Within relationships, they escalate abuse as well. This is because very few abusers seek therapy or express a desire to change (they believe their victims need to change and be punished instead, to their liking). A very miniscule number of them wake up to the fact that they are not like others, that their lives are in tatters, that many people seem to back off from them, so they seek therapy sometimes under those conditions. Even then, some extremely traumatic event usually has to take place first before they seek to understand anything at all about themselves or others beyond their own projections and hopes for live marionettes. The high majority of abusers (who tend to have Cluster B personality disorders) do not think about a thing except where their next hit of narcissistic supply is going to come from. Narcissistic supply basically boils down to attention, flattery, and their hopes and dreams of absolute power, control and domination over someone, anyone, everyone.

Some alcoholics are abusive too. If they are abusive only when they drink, it is a sign that drinking is the main culprit. If they are still abusive during dry periods, or after being rehabilitated for a year or more, then it is likely they have a Cluster B personality disorder in addition to being an alcoholic.

One reason why most people can no longer accept narcissists and sociopaths (both from the Cluster B spectrum of personality disorders) into their lives is because of the wounding they do. The wounds they inflict tend to be deep, because they spend a lot of time interrogating you and studying you to get a sense of how they can traumatize you, plus draw you in (mirroring and love bombing). They tend to be sadists who try to do the most damage at the worst times of your life.

Some survivors may live with Stockholm Syndrome until they can get away, but living with chronic or ever-debilitating PTSD is not tolerable for most people. The only people who are able to withstand relationships with abusers and not get hurt are other abusers  -- because they too have very few emotional feelings, have predatory minds and play one-ups-man manipulative games themselves (with the most cunning manipulative abusers winning).

So, the first order to heal from PTSD is getting away from abusers. Many domestic violence therapists push clients to go no contact to keep the client from getting further traumatized and further disabled from PTSD. PTSD has a way of getting worse, and it can get much worse, and faster, with continued contact.

Some therapists suggest that if the narcissist in your life is a parent, you can try very limited contact, at first, in big crowds. Big holiday events or a wedding with a lot of people around is considered to be "very limited contact." Whether your PTSD flares up or not is one way to tell if you need to go no contact. Most survivors of narcissistic parents find that even limiting contact to texting and e-mail can cause PTSD symptoms. It's your body and mind's way of telling you that you can only take so much abuse and stress. All human beings have a limited capacity in terms of exposure to abuse and sensitive empathetic people have more limitations in that regard than others.

One reason why narcs target empaths is because they seem to make the easiest prey. On the other hand, they lose that prey very quickly. So narcs, from everything I have seen and read, mostly (but not always) spend their old age with fellow narcs just because fellow narcs can endure the unethical displays. They do not care whether someone displays dishonesty, manipulating, stealing, cheating or immoral behavior because they are that way themselves; they keep their focus on what ever prize they might get from associating with the narc (kind of like two thieves trying to out-wit each other). It is seen as a challenge to dominate or hoodwink another narc.

My comment in parentheses "(but not always)" will be discussed in another post. In short, there are narcs (the cult leader types) who actually prefer empaths to other narcs and will be a lot more careful and wily not to lose or scare away that source of narcissistic supply even while they dominate and play head games and favorites - they are always in competitions themselves, and expect other to compete too. They do this while shamming everyone by appearing humble and like an ultra-empath who only has equality and his disciples in mind. They prefer empaths because they deem them to be more exploitable, easier to brainwash. They also deem empaths to perceive good, honesty and exemplary intentions in everyone and every action. Empaths by nature are more about people-pleasing and taking care of others than any fellow Cluster B will be. Even so, empaths can be hurt by sublimating themselves and their needs so deeply that they can act like brainwashed robot zombies who hang on to every word, even wild fantasies that the narc is God (again, think of cults). Empaths can also put themselves at risk and danger too (especially if the narc ever gets paranoid and retaliatory, which a lot of narcs tend to do eventually).

While paranoia keeps many narcs from escalating abuse with "loved ones" who have defected or who are on the edge of defecting, the more defectors there are, the more risk in terms of social standing and the ability to attract more followers. Narcs and sociopaths have been known to be scrutinized and/or tracked because narcs (and cult leaders) are notorious for using child abuse, and allowing child abuse especially if "loved ones" or "concerned ones" have contacted law enforcement, social services or mental health professionals and have some evidence. They have especially been known to allow sexual abuse of minors to go unchallenged (and some of them even condone the practice). The narcissists on the malignant end of narcissism can even partake in the sexual abuse of minors.

When narcissists know their defectors are talking and they are being watched, their paranoia can go off the rails. Most put their remaining "loyal" members under greater surveillance and control, and therefor at greater risk, and some commit murder-suicide. Again think of cults and cult leaders: Jim Jones, David Koresh, Marshall Applewhite, Shoko Asahara, Charles Manson, Warren Jeffs and to some degree Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (or some of the people who he anointed to be first in line to deal with the public). 

This is not to scare you, but to make you aware that most abusive families are like cults. In the eyes of abusive leaders of families, you are either totally loyal, a living marionette (worthwhile for them) or you are the enemy (someone to be shunned, or disapproved of, or abandoned, or hated, ridiculed, demonized). That is because abusers look at people in black and white terms.

In this Atlantic Monthly article by Jennie Rothenberg Gritz, survivor Teri Buford O'Shea talks about Jim Jones's cult, Jonestown, and tells how Jones's paranoia manifested (and you might see some parallels):

... he was very paranoid. He could not accept the fact that one person would leave him, ever. He had us all sign papers -- Jim called them compromises. They were blank sheets of paper, or typed sheets of paper that he'd cover up while we signed our name. He had something he could blackmail all of us with. One guy tried to leave and Jim said he'd use his paper against him so he'd never see his children again. So he came back. The thing was, too, that Jim would not let children off the compound. So if you were going to leave, you were leaving your child. There was no way of getting a child out of Jonestown.

And if people did defect, Jim said he'd send them things that had poison on them.

I think any survivor of abuse can relate to how abusive people go on the attack if they think you might leave their control, or dare to want to live your own life, or talk about or show people how you were treated, or how they held things in hostage: pets, children, personal property, love, belonging, birthdays, weddings, money, acknowledgement, respect, the ability to talk and get your perspectives across, etc. 

She also talks about how drugs were used to control members of the Jonestown cult (a not uncommon practice among child abusers as well):

... I learned after the massacre that he drugged people on the outpost there to keep them from trying to leave, to keep them from trying to dissent, to control them in different ways, all unbeknownst to the masses ... 

One of the ways Jim Jones tried to induce paranoia into his followers (the non-defectors) was to paint an altered reality to get the followers to comply with him even more (a not uncommon practice among domestic abusers either):

Then he would tell us that in the United States, African Americans were being herded into concentration camps, that there was genocide on the streets. They were coming to kill and torture us because we'd chosen what he called the socialist track. He said they were on their way.

We didn't know this at the time, but he'd set up people who would shoot into the jungle to make us feel as if we were under attack. And there were other people who were set up to run and get shot -- with rubber bullets, though we didn't know it at the time. So there you were, in the middle of the jungle. Shots were being fired, and people were surrounding you with guns.

A lot of us survivors can relate to this as well, of wanting to get out of the control of someone who does not have our interests at heart, all the while knowing that our escape will probably mean they will try to stage or sabotage something, or that they will want to hurt us for leaving. Some survivors report that their perpetrators tried to make them homeless, or slandered them so much that they were derided by the community of common family and friends (brainwashing):

I was fortunate that I had an opportunity to escape and I took it. Even then, I thought Jim Jones would find me and kill me. I had to get to the point where I didn't care if I died. I just wanted to have my own life, however short it might be. My goal, in fact, was that I wanted to live to be 30 so I could have a rich and full life. Now I have a daughter who's 29, and I'm 60. I've had double what I wished for.

I think it is important to think of the abusive family as a cult, even if it is not as bad as Jonestown, or only practices emotional abuse on its members instead of physical abuse (Jonestown is an extreme example, but I think it is important to look at these kinds of extremes to see where your situation fits within the scope of mild to severe control and abuse).

And by the way, many survivors of abuse and/or prejudice are attracted to cults. I will talk about communes and cults in another post, but suffice it to say that it is important to see the abusive family as an unhealthy cult with a leader. If you are from an abusive family, you will know it because they stage things, scare people, control people and rewrite history (or they rewrite your experiences, feelings and thoughts and believe they have the inalienable right to do so). They tend to have willing followers at first, and threatened followers later. Perhaps you have several narcs or dark triads in your family, all vying for dominance and hierarchical positions, which leaves you on the outside of "the cult of abuse" to live an authentic life.

Some other reasons why the high majority of survivors eventually realize the hopelessness of the situation and move on:

1. Narcs and sociopaths generally do not apologize.
If they do apologize, you need to look at the circumstances around their apology. Do they feel in danger of being exposed? Are they willing to get on-going domestic violence therapy? Are they in need of money? Are they afraid of losing your love, your adulation and control? Are they making excuses for abuse? How much do they want to change their behaviors? If all that they have to say is, "I realize I missed you and couldn't live without you" -- this is usually a sign of hoovering, which is a part of the cycle of abuse (the honeymoon stage).

2. Your children are being effected by abuse (and if you don't have children yet, they will be exposed to it if you are exposed to it, and either learning how to abuse, staying unnaturally quiet and neutral during abusive episodes through shutting down their feelings, or getting PTSD themselves). Even if just one person in a family is being abused, it effects the whole family. That family will have to deal with the PTSD symptoms of the member being abused and it puts tremendous strain on the family.

3. Abuse tends to escalate. It is rare for it to de-escalate.

4. During the escalation process, the abuse will not only intensify, but it is common for different types of abuse to surface. The escalation process happens when the abuser feels he does not have power over the person, so tries to compensate by attempting more and more control over the person.

5. Emotional abuse: you don't have to be hit for abuse to be deadly. Emotional abuse does and can cause suicide ideation. For instance, in child abuse victims (both adults and children) who receive any kind of lengthy silent treatment by a parent, roughly one quarter of them end up committing suicide. Part of the problem may be that society puts a God-like status on parents ("respect your elders", and other kinds of statements not helpful for victims of child abuse).

6. * For survivors of child abuse: If you are a child abuse survivor, your parents probably used shame and/or the silent treatment quite a bit. To count as abuse, the shaming has to be more than once or twice in your life time, and the silent treatment has to be more than a day and happened more than once or twice in your life time too. In other words, shame, isolation and the silent treatment were used on you as "misguided discipline" for your "naughty behavior" (i.e. when your parents thought they were losing control of you), and most likely it continued into adulthood too. Most child abuse does continue into adulthood, and that is a good way to tell if you were abused as a child. In other words, if you are continuing to receive shaming and long bouts of the silent treatment as an adult (and especially if you are not an addict with a violence problem, or a criminal), there is no question that this is abuse.
* Again, if you are being abused by your parents, the abuse will escalate unless they show an unwavering desire to change their behavior towards you. Promises of "I'll never give you the silent treatment again" in my experience, never works and cannot work because abusive behaviors need total rehabilitation. In that way it is like alcoholism in that it takes a concerted on-going effort. Abuse is an ingrained habit and pattern and it takes a lot of work for abusers to stop using it to solve life's problems. It seems that the only chance of a promise like that working is if they are committed to anger management classes and on-going domestic violence therapy, and even then, roughly only a quarter of perpetrators in on-going treatment can maintain it. This should show how hard this habit is to break. Narcissistic and sociopathic parents almost never go to therapy and instead try to focus their attention on smear campaigns instead, trying to convince themselves and others that you, and only you, are the problem. This phenomenon is called the identified patient. In family systems theory the identified patient in narcissistic and sociopathic families is often a scapegoat too.

Because of the escalation of abuse (and the dangers they present), combined with ever-worsening PTSD symptoms is why most survivors seek to escape and set up boundaries, often with the help of the mental health community and/or law enforcement.

When you know that you can't fix the situation and that you need to say "no" to any more abuse, it is the first step in healing. It is the first step in saying "I need to heal, and enduring continual abuse is only making my situation worse."

The majority of domestic violence therapists believe that in order to live without abuse, we need to live without the people who perpetrate it and who insist on continuing to use it. It is the way we survive most effectively from it and begin to work on resolving the PTSD symptoms that resulted from the experiences.

When our liberties are at stake, when our children are at stake for being exposed to toxic narcissism or sociopathy, and when we are treated so badly by our members or spouse, trying to live an authentic life is all that should matter.

And yes, I am a fellow survivor, so I speak of this through experience. I value the authentic life just about more than anything else (except empathy and integrity: they have a higher standing, though I do believe empaths need to be careful about who they show their empathy to and who they serve, as empaths are specifically targeted by the Cluster B personality disordered for control and abuse). 

5 scientific secrets to handling a narcissist -- by Eric Barker

10 toxic people you should avoid like the plague -- by Travis Bradbury

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - Treatment -- Web MD

The Connection Between PTSD and Suicide ... Fear and Isolation are Risk Factors -- by Matthew Tull, PhD

Past abuse and trauma can predict suicide -- Jorge Lopez-Castroman, M.D., Ph.D. from Montpellier University Hospital

Suicide and PTSD - National Center for PTSD

PTSD Raises Suicide Risk In Major Depression -- by Christine Lehmann

Recovering From Narcissistic Abuse Takes Time and Education -- from the blog, Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Flying Monkeys -- Oh My!

Movie Reviews: spotlighting survivors of abuse, survivors of toxic partners and families, survivors of alcoholic families

image by © Lise Winne

(please note, this page will be constantly updated as I write new reviews)

pg 1:
(click on movie name to be taken to the review)

Into the Wild -- a young man from an allegedly abusive family who has graduated from college, leaves on a two year adventure that neither his parents or sister know about.

August Osage County -- a toxic abusive family with substance abuse issues gathers for the disappearance and death of the patriarch.

pg 2:

Good Will Hunting -- a survivor of severe child abuse and parental abandonment is a genius janitor who works at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and ends up transcending his past through therapy and abilities to solve complicated math problems.

The Tudors (series) -- my pick among movies and series about how abusers act (narcissists, malignant narcissists and sociopaths). King Henry VIII of England rules with an iron fist, believes his words are divine, surrounds himself with other narcissists and sociopaths in the way of flattering servants, practices "idealize, devalue and discard" with his wives, has his wives banished or executed with trumped up charges, and is a serial bully both on the world stage and in his private life.

pg 3:

The Book of Esther (T.V. show: Law and Order, Special Victims Unit) -- a survivor of egregious child abuse tries to get free of her family and ends up with the Special Victims Unit, only to return to her family. Based loosely on the Turpin case.

pg 4:

Mommie Dearest -- The quintessential child abuse movie. A survivor of child abuse from a famous alcoholic movie star goes through life wondering if her mother loves her, and dealing with the fallout of her mother's unpredictable rages and narcissism.

Gaslight -- The movie that inspired the psychological manipulation game called "gaslighting" (a favorite game of narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths). A vulnerable young woman marries a man who tries to convince her that she is going insane, but his motivations are not what they seem.

pg 5:

Sleeping with the Enemy -- A domestic violence victim from Massachusetts tries to find a way out of her abusive situation by planning an escape (while fawning so as not to be suspect). She fakes her own death and takes up a new identity in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

pg. 6:

Maid -- A woman who is the victim of domestic abuse, leaves with her daughter only to find poverty, bureaucracy, an unsupportive challenging family situation, underpaid maid work that is disgusting or that constantly seems to squash her dreams of providing a better life for her daughter, bad luck, and a society who largely treats her needs and her child's needs as if they are invisible. 

pg. 7:

Series Review: Wilderness (Amazon Prime version in six episodes, 2023 -- A little girl grows up with a cheating father and marries someone who cheats on her too. During a dream trip of national parks, gazing on high mountaintops and cliffs, and hiking in the wilderness, she dreams of revenge, but there are unforeseen consequences for those revenges. 

DOCUMENTARY REVIEWS:

Jeffrey Epstein, Filthy Rich (Netflix) -- This four part series takes on sex trafficking and sexual abuse of underage girls: how they were trafficked to other powerful men (allegedly even government leaders), how they were silenced, the trauma they endured, the conspirators around them who condoned, normalized and pushed for the abuse. Gripping heartbreaking ending, with some hope.

Guardians Inc, Dirty Money Season 3, Episode 5 (Netflix) -- This series takes on the subject of forced and fraudulent guardians who sell all of an elder's assets without the consent of the elder, pockets the money, charges exorbitant fees, gets them declared incompetent (a ward of the state) by over-medicating, and isolates their victim, all with a wink-wink-nod-nod from corrupt judges and unscrupulous lawyers. A must-see.

co-dependent no more in the abusive family

name of art: "Followers as Zombies"

image is © Lise Winne

digital art, 2015

(for questions regarding use of images or to contract an image for your next article

contact: LilacGroveGraphics (att) yahoo.com)

Someone asked me once what co-dependency meant. I told them that in short, it is a dependency on a dysfunctional unhealthy relationship or person. However, that is a simplistic version. For the sake of better clarification, I'll focus on an encyclopedic meaning (from Wikipedia):

Codependent relationships are a type of dysfunctional helping relationship where one person supports or enables another person's addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement.[1] Among the core characteristics of codependency, the most common theme is an excessive reliance on other people for approval and identity.[1] ...

... In its broadest definition, a codependent is someone who cannot function from their innate self and whose thinking and behavior is instead organized around another person ...

... Codependency has been referred to as the disease of a lost self.[12][17] Codependent relationships are marked by intimacy problems, dependency, control (including caretaking) denial, dysfunctional communication and boundaries, and high reactivity ...

The article also talks about what it is like to be a co-dependent of someone with Borderline Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder (two disorders that show high rates of abusiveness -- and yes, alcoholism can mimic Narcissistic Personality Disorder).

I thought this post by Melanie Tonia Evans from her blog, described what it was like to live with a narcissistic abuser and how she eventually got free from it. And, by the way, all of the things that work in normal relationships like asking to be heard, arguing your points, pleading, expecting decency, expecting the other person to meet you half way, does not work in abusive relationships. In fact, sometimes the more you try to work at resolving conflicts, the more the abuser tries to continue to hurt you, and the more severe the PTSD symptoms become. Your emotions and your life unravels. The abuser gets a high from all of it, all the pain and anguish you are feeling (they looooove all this drama, after all: all of your fussing to be heard and considered, all of your working, all of your overtures, all of your efforts at understanding, all of your emotions, and compromising, and pleasing, and pleading -- it is just delicious for them and makes them feel sooooo self-important!). It is disgusting, but unfortunately, it is the way it is. Here is part of the post from Melanie Tonia Evans:

As with all narcissistic abuse the ex-narcissist targeted my weak spots, my unfinished business, profoundly ...

... But rather than accept how his many abusive behaviours were diminishing me piece by piece … I stayed, I argued, I prescribed, I lectured … I fought back ...

... And I stayed even though there was no change or resolution that ever lasted ...

... My reactions got worse and worse … and I didn’t realise that this was wonderful for a narcissist – it granted him tons of attention. The knowing that he existed and had the power to affect another human being so significantly ...

... All of this drama was keeping him distracted from his own tormented inner being and alive ...
... The more I was hooked onto trying to get him to change his behaviour, the more I lost the ability to detach and look after myself, and as a co-dependent I had never mastered this skill previous to him anyway ...

... In this severely dangerous state of me being separated from being anchored in my own body able to create my own sanity, safety and peace, he was able to swiftly pull out the rug from beneath me, with violent threats and actions, intimidation and or abandonment – with me not letting go ...


Co-dependent relief, I believe, comes from being with others who are willing to share the power with you. And believe me, relief after being through this kind of hell is the right word.

In musical band terminology, sharing power is called "not having an ego."

Egomaniacs are bad for bands because they jockey for attention away from the other performers in order to get the audience to have eyes on them. They often play too loudly, or take too many leads, or they try to play a lead line when someone else is playing a lead, or they dance too frenetically and bump into the other musicians, or they always want to play their songs. One of the reasons why bands break up or go through a lot of members is because of problems with egos. As Alison Krauss said in this interview by Piers Hernu about performing with her band, Union Station:

I’ve been working with Union Station for 26 years now and with all the differences in personality, not being family, being raised all over the country and having different tastes, it is amazing that we’ve stayed together. The secret to working with the same group of people for a long time is lack of ego – no one person rushes to the front and is self-serving.

All long term relationships are like Union Station.

Just as in a band, if your voice is being drowned out by one, two, three or more voices in an abusive family that desperately needs co-dependents, you aren't really part of that family except in your genes. Abused members of families tend not to have voices. Or, to take the band analogy, their voices are drowned out; it is like playing a quiet acoustic instrument like a harp with no sound reinforcement while one or more of the other members are blasting their sound with neon electric guitars through huge speakers. And by the way, the harp analogy is a good one because many of the victims of family violence tend to be doves (and doves flock together, and are the symbols of peace and co-operation). 

If you leave your family, your contributions, your expertise on your instrument won't be missed, because it was barely audible to begin with. You could be playing your heart out, and be superbly talented, and be playing along note for note, adding tasteful flourishes here and there, but no one notices, and furthermore, they don't care how talented you are because they are EGOs: they only care about showing off their own talent ("and by the way, don't listen to that harp player way in the back; she's a nobody"). If you are a family scapegoat and act up in the back with your harp, and try to bring attention to the fact that you have something to contribute, it will be like your family will put a glass box around you and your harp, contain you from breaking out of the soundless role they want you to fulfill and the glass box they have put you in (and yes, being in an abusive family makes you feel like a prisoner). Furthermore, the whole band will be told to stand in front of the glass box so that no one in the audience will see you. And often when the family is done performing for others, it will expect you to be a Cinderella and clean off the stage like a stage hand. If the family performance was less than stellar, they will tell you, the harpist, that it was all your fault that the family sucked in their performance and that the audience wasn't pleased. And by the way, sucked is the right word: abuse tends to be crude in its vocabulary. If they are really abusive they'll call you names, spit at you, and kick you around.

So part of breaking out of the family prison and co-dependent role is to find a band of like minds (like Union Station): a band of people whose members can take leads and then be in the background when someone else needs to take a lead. It takes awhile to build a family of choice, because it is not always easy to tell if someone is going to dominate the group, until you've played with them for awhile. Therapists generally suggest one or two years to assess the situation correctly.

It is the supporting professions and the helping professions where one finds the most team players, and the least egos. It is not always the case, but it is mostly the case.

So back to our harp analogy: harps do not really go in a band of loud obnoxious electric guitars anyway, even when they are more audible. So, if you are a scapegoat and leave your family, whether that is forced upon you through shunning or it is your voluntary decision, one of the first things you will feel is that you "didn't belong in that family anyway." You feel different from them. It's like you were born to the wrong species. The idea of them prancing around on stage like a bunch of peacock GODS competing for guitar riffs makes you feel disgusted, sick to your stomach. The audience is just as craven and unsophisticated as the band is: all those drugged glazed zombie eyes in the audience seem to think that just because something is loud, neon, screaming to be heard, and that when one of the players amps up the sound on his guitar, that it means the music is good. In fact, to any critic that happens to come around, it sounds like a discordant mess (and yes, a lot of toxic families are loud and discordant). There are always fist fights breaking out in the mosh pit. There are usually arrests and a lot of illegal substances. The audience they attract seems as out of control as the band. In fact, the members of the band are now all turning on each other, especially since they don't have the harpist to blame any more. It is almost like they needed that harpist to keep themselves unified. They fight amongst each other about who is better, they shout over each other to give each other advice and commands, they are all in disagreement about who needs to stay in the background, and who needs to clean up the bloody mess after the show! It is an angry, gnarly situation which is attracting negative attention from the press. Venues stop hiring the band because they bring trouble.

So, let's just say your new band of choice has a cellist, a classical guitarist, an acoustic bassist and a multi-instrumentalist who plays recorders, penny whistles and a flute. Your harp sounds exquisite with these instruments. The audience you play to might be smaller, but they are attentive, respectful, quiet (they want to hear your music after all, and not just get shit-faced and throw empty beer cans at the stage). The seats are more expensive too than they were for your foul family band, so in the end you are making more money with a whole let less stress. You actually can sleep better at night because your ears aren't buzzing from the after-effects of ungodly decibels, watching near-murders in the mosh pit, watching the egos bump into each other and give each other dirty looks when the audience seems to prefer one over the other. Most of all, your life seems more serene because you made a definite choice (because making choices in a voiceless, hopeless, desperately toxic-to-your-health situation makes you feel in control of yourself and your own life, and takes the control out of your prisoners' hands). The press says "Where has this talent been hiding out?" When the reporters find out, you tell them, with embarrassment, that you made a big mistake in thinking your past band was a good fit. Finally, you have arrived at the peace you deserved all your life, and all along (if only you had been confident enough to know that your voice should have been heard sooner ... so you see, this was the problem all along: your family taught you that you weren't worthy of being heard, that you only deserved to be in a small glass box, and ignored).

       

In a nutshell, you leave a co-dependent role by being independent of abusers and finding a family of choice. If it takes awhile, then you can work on it little by little until you can escape. 

And sometimes it feels just like an escape too: you might escape with no money, with just the clothes on your back; you might be in as much danger from your abusers as escapees from kidnappers; you might feel they will try to do their damnedest to give you bad press (slander you); you might feel they will never stop at trying to stuff you in that glass box again; you might feel that they'll try to make you comply with the same toxic family rules and guilt trips every time you bump into them (and to this I say that even many child sex molesters pummel their victims with guilt trips! -- yes, it is true); and they might always be scheming at how to effect you negatively. 

It sucks being in an abusive family and it is hell when you are co-dependent with a family like this. But like all hells, they are like caves: there will be a way out eventually, especially if you search for the light and work hard and intelligently for the escape route.

One reason why a family becomes a bullying family (using one scapegoat as its punching bag) usually has to do with co-narcissism, which I'll talk about in another post. Basically there are generations of narcissists: junior narcissist became a narcissist to survive the abusive tendencies he or she saw from senior narcissist(s). Often it is the favored golden child (or children) in a family who carry on the tradition of being narcissists and perpetuating narcissistic abuse for future generations. 

Being a family victim of co-narcissists is totally unendurable for most people. It is like any abusive relationship except it is x 2 (and sometimes x 3, or x 4, or more). Having one abusive spouse or parent is hard enough on most people. Being abused by a bunch of co-narcissists all drooling to take pot-shots at you is like a singular person trying to fight an army. Don't do it. Find a way to escape.

note:

If any of you are wondering, I do play the harp (a Celtic harp)

I also have a lot of dove paintings. Some are here in my Artfire shop.

also note: 

for more information on how I made the art/illustration above, 

I have written about that extensively on my art blog here.

I found this on the Baton Rouge Counseling Center website:

The article where I found this graphic has some good advice as well:

Codependency can be very difficult to deal with unless you seek qualified help and support. The good news is that through counseling, recovery literature, and support, these codependent patterns and their origins can be recognized, faced, and overcome.

This wonderful post by Annie Reneau is a love letter to parents who keep minimal or no contact with their abusive families in order to bring up their own children in loving homes without dysfunction and abuse. As the article says, it isn't easy for the parent to renounce their family, but your kids will thank you for it.

ostracism and being the scapegoat in the alcoholic family

name of art: "Scapegoat Healing"
(meant as healing art for scapegoat victims)
© Lise Winne
for sale as a fine art archival print HERE

note: a much more thorough post about scapegoating in both alcoholic and narcissistic families is on my main blog HERE. 
What scapegoating sounds like is on the Walking on Eggshells post HERE (towards the end of the post #3).

My experiences in various Alanon and ACOA meetings is that they are full of scapegoats and ostracized family members. In one I went to, between a third and a half of the attendees either had no relationship with their family members or barely any contact with family members (aka very strained, superficial relationships). 

It was shocking for me to learn this! And also upsetting and baffling.

In most of the Alanon meetings I have attended, the people in them are gentle, quiet, reasonable, responsible, respectful souls. The attendees that show up every week for years and years are community leaders, teachers, therapists, yoga instructors and nurses with altruistic motives, people who have worked very hard on themselves to do the right thing, to go way out of their way to help others without expecting anything in return. In short, they seem like the most empathetic members of society. When I think of the people in these groups, I think of the doting nurses in hospitals who allay your fears, and make sure you are comfortable as you transition through a scary and emotional time. Some even seem downright saintly. And these are the hated black sheep of their families? I was aghast! How did it end up this way?

Scapegoating (in terms of the family) means being bullied by the entire family. The family picks on one of its members, blames that person for everything that goes wrong in the family, desperately goes on fault finding missions to explain away abuse, and (mis)interprets the victims feelings in an ugly way to further convict and bully (the explanation comes from my post on invalidation and perspecticide).

So, as it turns out, the most bullied members of society are in the helping professions: nurses and school teachers as evidenced by this NPR broadcast here.

The scapegoating of these kinds of members of society actually makes sense when you research why. Alcohol destroys the part of the brain that is in control of empathy (NBC article here). The disorder associated with a lack of empathy is Narcissistic Personality Disorder (the other Cluster B disorders may be evident as well -- alcoholism mimicing these disorders has been well documented in psychiatric literature). Borderlines, Narcissists and the Anti Personality Disordered (all Cluster B) constantly indulge in situations where all blame for life events and relationships that go wrong are heaped onto someone outside of himself, usually a scapegoat. For the sake of convenience, I will use the term "narcissist" to refer to the Cluster B personality disorders.

The documentation for narcissists who pick a child to be his or her favorite (usually labeled a golden child who can do no wrong), and another child to be a scapegoat (who is the least favored and can do no right) is called splitting, and well established in psychiatric literature also. The golden child is someone who is chosen by the narcissist from the group of family members, someone who has similar values and traits to the narcissist parent (so naturally this favored child would resemble the narcissist the most: i.e. a child who most exhibits a lack of empathy, feels entitled and has abusive tendencies ... and with further nurturing of these qualities, the narcissist parent, in effect, creates another narcissist who bullies his other siblings). The Scapegoat role is assigned to the child who has the least amount of traits of the narcissistic parent (usually a sensitive empath). Since alcoholic brain damage mimics narcissism, the narcissist chooses a scapegoat in the family who is the most sensitive and empathetic and heaps all blame for what has gone wrong on this member (while convincing other family members who share similar bullying characteristics to help in ganging up on the scapegoat). And who are the most empathetic members of society? Nurses, school teachers, yoga instructors, home health aides and the like. 

As this Psych Central article by Erika Krull, MSED, LMHP states, it is also the act of setting up boundaries and telling the truth which leads to a situation where one becomes the scapegoat:

Going against the grain in an alcoholic family could make someone a hot target. If one person tries to speak the truth about an alcoholic and put up boundaries, that person quickly can become the black sheep. Family members often will air out the truth-teller’s dirty laundry; whatever positive standing they might have within the family could be knocked down. Rumors and negativity may even spread beyond the family group. If that’s the price for helping an alcoholic family member, why would anyone do it? It takes courage to stand up to an entire family, and many people aren't sure they have it.

And indeed, the scapegoat is usually the truth-teller, the family member who is the healthiest emotionally, the member who wants a more functional relationship based on honesty rather than denials, lies and sycophantic behaviors, the one who can no longer accept abuse and speaks out about it, the one who feels empathy for other abused members, is the one who is unconsciously chosen to be the scapegoat by the other family members.

In this blog post by licensed therapist, Kellen (from Kellevision), a family drops off their problem child at the therapist's office to be fixed. It turns out the child is the family scapegoat and is acting out. The acting out is actually deemed to be a normal response to the domestic violence, physical abuse, blaming and shaming going on in the family. So in order to fix the child, the whole family needs to be in counseling:

The entire family ostracizes her because of her "anger problems". Her only problem is that she is clearly carrying the anger for all the other children at the situations and conditions of violence and chaos they have experienced. Like a typical scapegoat she is the truth teller, complaining vociferously about her mother's boyfriends and the problems they create for her and her siblings. She confronts Mom. She says what the other children stay quiet about. This allows the other children to sit and smile and look like angels by comparison. She grabs her sword and shield and does battle against the things that are wrong in her family. She openly defies her mother and the two of them are locked in a power struggle ...

Everyone has their role. But you can't see this unless you have the entire family in the room together interacting with and reacting to each other.

If this family can be educated about the parts everyone is playing and change those roles there is hope that the "problem child" won't have to keep acting out the dysfunction of the system. ... Fixing the dysfunction of the system fixes the "behavior problems" of the child.

A lot of parents are extremely resistant and sensitive to being labeled as the problem by a clinician. Some will absolutely refuse to participate in the process at all and refuse to consider any suggestion that anyone but the child has a problem ...

If I can create a safe environment with strong boundaries and clear rules which limit blaming that is the ideal. I also work very hard to explain the concept of family systems theory and be very balanced in my listening and feedback. -- Kellen

Kellen also has a post about what the scapegoat role is really about here.

In this article from Sober Recovery by Lynne Namka, Ed.D, scapegoating goes beyond the family and becomes a societal ill: 

Scapegoating is a serious family dysfunctional problem with one member of the family or a social group being blamed for small things, picked on and constantly put down. In scapegoating, one of the authority figures has made a decision that somebody in the family has to be the bad guy. The mother or father makes one child bad and then looks for things (sometimes real, but most often imagined) that are wrong ...

It seems as if we humans as a species seem to need someone to vent our anger on and make wrong. Scapegoating is a projection defense. It is the ego saying "If I can put the blame on you, I don't have to recognize and take responsibility for the negative qualities in myself. What I can't stand about myself, I really hate in you and have to attack you for it in order to deny that I have the same quality." 

Scapegoating is a huge social problem contributing to the hate that exists in the world. There is scapegoating of whole groups of people happening when there is prejudice or stereotyping. Unfortunately, in a larger sense, some Jewish people or other ethnic groups and minorities have been scapegoated by the less conscious members of their own culture.

Elaine Dove, a scapegoat-turned-therapist recognized that her role was the typical result of what happens "in families affected by alcoholism and/or narcissistic parenting..." She realized her role was the result of a mother who would deny anything bad about herself and a family who not only went along with it, but who was unwilling to own their contributions to the abuse and dysfunction. In order to keep the round of denials and abusive behaviors going without a hitch, they needed the scapegoat child to be the dumping ground. She got sick of being the scapegoat, took herself out of the family, disappeared, and when she went back temporarily for a family function, noticed that in her absence, a new scapegoat had taken her place (there can't be a chasm in this system if denial is going to work). She realized then that her family needed her more than she needed them, in order to keep the denials going. It was her way of healing from the traumatic experiences of being the scapegoat.

She is not the only one. In fact, there have been a lot of articles written about replacement scapegoats.

And like Elaine, scapegoats do, in fact, leave their families ... often, and sometimes forever. ACOA, Alanon and Co-dependents Anonymous are full of people who were or are their family's scapegoats. Once the scapegoat leaves their family, the other family member that is chosen to fill the role/void is, in fact, next up in line in terms of sensitivity. In this article by licensed therapist, Kellen, an intellectual family chooses an "emotional child" to fill the void:

The official Scapegoat has resigned from his position and refused to play the part any longer. So the family is desperately (though unconsciously) seeking someone else to fill the position. It seems to be moving toward the younger sister. This family values intellect and the younger sister is rather emotional. She has been labeled a "drama queen" by the family (notice the negative labeling which precedes the scapegoating).

There's just one problem. Though she may be a drama queen (and she can be a bit), she actually has a very serious and very real situation going on right now. A situation which would typically require the family to band together to support her. But it appears that the family is using the "drama queen" designation to deny the validity of her problem and, in doing so, eliminate their responsibility to support her. This tactic also denounces her emotional reaction to the problem as merely being "drama". By defining painful emotions as "drama" other family members can avoid feeling them. They avoid having to listen to her experiences and her pain. And they put her down for experiencing them. -- Kellen

In this article on living with addiction, Tian Dayton, MA, PhD, TEP says of the dysfunctional family:

... family members seamlessly slip into patterns of relating that become increasingly more dysfunctional. The children are often left to fend for themselves and anyone bold enough to confront the obvious disease may be branded as a family traitor ...

... Alcoholic families may become characterized by a kind of emotional and psychological constriction, where family members do not feel free to express their authentic selves for fear of triggering disaster; their genuine feelings are often hidden under strategies for keeping safe, like pleasing or withdrawing. The family becomes organized around trying to manage the unmanageable disease of addiction. They may yell, withdraw, cajole, harangue, criticize, understand, get fed up; you name it. They become remarkably inventive in trying everything they can come up with to contain the problem and keep the family from blowing up. The alarm bells in this system are constantly on a low hum, causing everyone to feel hyper vigilant, ready to run for emotional (or physical) shelter or to erect their defenses at the first sign of trouble ...

... Without a rigorous program of treatment and recovery for all concerned, the dysfunctional personality styles and relationships developed in the addicted family environment will tend to recreate themselves over and over again. Sobriety needs to happen on all levels and in all family members, emotionally, psychologically and physically ...

Emotional, physical and psychological abuse is unfortunately all too often present in families that contain addiction and trauma. Abuse is part of the impulsivity that characterizes families where feelings are acted out rather than talked out. The other side of abuse is victimization...

In this blog, the scapegoat decides to stop speaking the truth or getting involved in family disputes, and decides that if the truth isn't being spoken by her, then other family members might come forward and speak the truth. In other words, the scapegoat is a kind of shield or champion for the oppressive situation where one member does all of the work of confronting and trying to make the family better and whole again, but also takes all of the blame and branded as a troublemaker by most of the other members. The blogger suggests it might be helpful to other people who have been saddled with the scapegoat role to remove themselves and be silent. However, make sure you read the comments below the blog. In situations of abuse, violence and bullying, this may simply be impossible. In my own experience in witnessing scapegoats in Alanon and ACOA, the abuse is too severe, plus the scapegoat role stays with the individual forever, whether they are silent or not, whether they are in the family or not (ostracism simply replaces the role, someone else may take on the role in the absence of scapegoat #1, but as soon as the scapegoat #1 returns to the family again, the role returns, sometimes with a vengeance).

So much of the advice in Alanon and ACOA is to work on redefining yourself as a child of God (or what ever your higher power is), not as the emotionally beat up and blamed victim of your family. You are encouraged to be more than your sick family's definitions, not to take their barbs, insults and blaming tactics into your heart and mind and let it hurt you and fester there, and to move beyond your family's definition by reaching out to others who are healthier and appreciate you more. In a way, these groups are like fellowships where life-long friends and substitute family can be found. Staying in situations where you are bullied, degraded, abused, silenced about your pain, kept from your dreams and where there is a lot of hypocrisy, double standards and lying is not acceptable (which can all be part of the alcoholic family system: more information here and here and here).

Many ACOA and Alanon attendees wear their black sheep status with pride inside the walls of these groups. Some have lost their entire families and gone through incredible grief, thoughts about suicide at one time, wondered what they were living for, wondered what they were going to do without a family. But in the end, after many years, they wondered why they put up with so much deep pain for so long. The scapegoat role is a very, very painful role. It looks and sounds like bigotry and can even border on sounding like slavery. Who needs to be approved by bullies, scapegoaters, hypocrites, control freaks, liars and people who punish you when you speak the truth? Even if they are people you have known for a good portion of your life? You simply may have outgrown your need to be in situations where you are nothing more to these members of your family than what they want from you, or how they perceive you (which may always be negative and degrading, or at best, about weakening your autonomy and rights within the relationship in some way, including having your thoughts and feelings heard).

In my own life:

I look to an uncle to keep me on track when it comes to bullying situations. He had a supportive wife and a completely comfortable life where he could have been very self-indulgent. He risked it all in the first band of Freedom Riders, the ones who saw and experienced the most violence and terror. He continued with many other protests, including The Golden Rule. He was staunchly against an addicted, inebriated society in general, and felt that alcohol was not only poison, but could change morals and honor for the worse. Events at his house were always without alcohol. I doubt that he would have submitted to domination, docility and being a willing scapegoat or sycophant just to be part of a relationship where he wasn't respected. I often put him and his example in my mind (he and I were close).

And I also look to my father. He told me many, many times that he didn't want me to be docile for anyone, that he felt I had a greater purpose and a better spirit than to submit to domination, strong-arming, silencing and manipulations. Although he said it to me many, many times throughout my life, it was as though, on his deathbed, he handed me those instructions in spades.

If you want a better world, with integrity and honor in it, you have to live it first, and look to people who have it, and surround yourself with more people who have it. As Billy Graham said: "Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are stiffened."

A visual work I thought of that depicts walking away from people who scapegoat is the Eight of Cups in the Tarot. It depicts someone in pursuit of better ideals, who willingly leaves behind comfort to face a difficult terrain or road (and in a reading, that is exactly what is portended). According to the Biddy Tarot:

The Eight of Cups is a card of change and transition. The card evokes an immediate reaction of sadness and a sense of solitude. The young man in this card has turned his back on all he has accumulated or accomplished before. He disappears by night into a barren and difficult terrain with only a cloak on his back and a staff in hand ... This individual has chosen to forsake the familiar and the comfortable in the pursuit of higher goals.

Perhaps that is the path that most scapegoats come to take eventually.