Parents who pit siblings against each other, a folly that fosters abuse

name of cartoon: "I'm Special; Compete for My Love"
image is © Lise Winne
(for questions regarding use of images contact: LilacGroveGraphics (att) yahoo.com)

(note: There is more discussion of sibling abuse on this blog post. There is also more discussion about the dynamic of the bully golden child and narcissistic parent from this blog post (on the Karpman's Triangle). This post covers how parental favoritism helps to propagate sibling abuse. This post covers the roles that happen in dysfunctional families where a narcissist is a parent. This is a post about competition baiting where a sibling or co-worker tries to get you "in trouble" with authorities).

Pitting family members against each other happens most often where one or more family members has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. As this article attests, there is a certain pattern to this type of family:

... when researchers realized that children raised in narcissistic families turned out very much like those children raised by abusive or substance-addicted parents, even if the children were never abused or technically mistreated. In this type of family, the interactions among family members are characterized by selfishness and competition; parents are generally more concerned about their own happiness and well being than that of their children, and will often pit siblings against each other to spur competition.

Just look at this Google search for the keywords pitting siblings against each other and you find that all of the top articles are about Narcissistic parents (and particularly Narcissistic mothers).

According to Karyl McBride, PhD, in an article about the Narcissistic family (where one parent has Narcissistic Personality Disorder), children are valued only for what they do for the parent, not for who they are in their own right. She states, Feelings are denied and not discussed. Children are not taught to embrace their emotions and process them in realistic ways. They are taught to stuff, repress, and are told their feelings don't matter ... There are few boundaries in the narcissistic family. Children's feelings are not considered important. Diaries are read, physical boundaries not kept, and emotional boundaries not respected. The right to privacy is not typically a part of the family history ... In healthy families, we encourage our children to be loving and close to each other. In narcissistic families, children are pitted against each other and taught competition. There is a constant comparison of who is doing better and who is not. Some children are favored or seen as the golden child and others become the scape-goat for the parents projected negative feelings. Siblings in narcissistic families rarely grow up feeling emotionally connected to each other.

From this Psych Central article by Cindi Lopez on Narcissistic mothers, she states:

Narcissistic mothers do not have children for the same reasons the rest of us do. They do not look forward to the birth of their child because they can’t wait to see what they look like or what type of personality they will have or who they will become. No, they have children for one reason only: More mirrors. They have children so that the children will love them unconditionally, not the other way around. They have children to do things for them. They have children to reflect their false images. They have children to use, abuse and control ...

According to another article on the Narcissistic parent from NarcissisticMother.com:

In functional families, sibling rivalry naturally occurs and, with adequate parenting, ideally turns into respect for each other as children mature. Siblings are encouraged to be close and love each other.
   This isn't the case in a family with a narcissist as the matriarch. Children are pitted against each other and taught from very early on that if they wanted any sort of “love” or attention from their mother, they’ll have to compete for it against each other.
   Sadly, siblings with a narcissistic mother often sacrifice relationships with each other to compete for something that doesn't exist: their mother’s unconditional love. Narcissists have difficulty feeling love or empathy for anyone, leaving you and your siblings to bid for conditional, short-term attention that can be switched on and off at any minute ...
   Children are often put into shifting roles by the narcissistic mother. First, the golden child, is the hero, the mother’s other-half, or her mirror. There are pros to this role, such as getting all of the best stuff, the attention, and the ability to entertain the illusion you can do no wrong.
   Your accomplishments, no matter how minor, are celebrated to the fullest extent. However, it is not all sunshine and rainbows for the golden child.
   You may become enmeshed with your narcissistic mother and grow up without any real knowledge of boundaries or self-identity. In this spotlight, you are just the puppet of the mother, and the one of whom the other siblings are ultimately the most jealous.
   Then there’s the scapegoat. When you receive attention from your mother in this role, it’s of the negative variety. But, oh, the relief in feeling you are at last beyond her control. Of course, that feeling can be short-lived as a child because the narcissistic mother will make great effort to strip you of that control and as the adult, she often has the power to do so.
   When in the scapegoat role, you shoulder the blame, shame, and anger of the family. If something goes wrong, it’s your fault. You are labeled as the “bad” one, even if you don’t fit into that category. The silver lining of the scapegoat role is that you often have a better concept of self and independence than does the golden child, which can help you later on in life.
   She can also make active attempts to insure the competition is fierce. She may spend excessive time alone with one of her children, most likely the golden child, instead of including all of her children in an activity or outing.
   She may commiserate with one child about the other’s negative behavior, so that a tag-team competition is set up as well. Some narcissistic mothers intentionally block bonding and encourage competition between siblings. Other narcissistic moms create a vacuum of neglect where the kids are left to prey upon each other for the meager emotional resources that are available in the family environment ...
   The negative feelings you had toward your siblings while growing up can carry on well into your adult life. Siblings may never be close to each other due to the deep emotional scars and animosity they were programmed to feel towards each other by the narcissistic family environment. You may find one of your siblings is unable to let go of the old system and actively keeps the rivalry going. He or she will then miss the value of having a fellow survivor, their brother or sister, who understands what they endured ... --- Michele Piper, Marriage and Family Therapist, owner of NarcissisticMother.com

From reading forums from people who grew up with a narcissistic disordered parent and are dealing with their Golden Child siblings, it seems that bullying is how Golden Child siblings often deal with their own part in the sibling rivalry. The scapegoats of the family are often the ones to endure abuse and blaming by the golden and then get punished further by the narcissistic parent who defends the golden in any dispute between the two siblings. Even if the abuse escalates to the point of endangerment, the narcissistic parent cannot face the fact that he or she made a wrong choice in appointing the golden status to a particular child. I discuss this at length in this post. 

Bully siblings can and do accuse their brother or sister of things that they (the bully sibling) is guilty of. It is called projection and competition baiting (the links are to my posts on the subjects), and it can actually work in situations where parents do not care to investigate and research issues between their children. These kinds of parents are mainly concerned with silencing the complaining. They punish "the complainer" because the complainer is making them feel uncomfortable, and look like bad parents (a common trait of narcissistic parenting not too endearing).   

But, surely, pitting people against each other in the workplace gets results from its workers, creates an ambitious team working hard to get results, and an admirable place of employment? This answer is a resounding NO. In fact, it is detrimental in every way; it will create an environment where people do not feel impelled to work or get results. It is not any better within the family. According to this Forbes article and this article by Vivian Scott, author of Conflict Resolution at Work for Dummies, it is not a good idea to pit workers against each other at all. Both articles say that the workers who are ahead or favored by their bosses will assert themselves more and the people behind tend to get depressed and give up. The unhealthy tactic also borders on abuse: it is a public display of humiliation and it will make it almost impossible for individuals in a team to work together. If a boss or coach allows gossip, instigates shaming, insults, plays favorites and uses sarcasm, more workers will quit, and it will further divide the rest of the remaining team. 

Not only will pitting workers against each other ensure that employees will quit in record numbers, it will create an environment where the bullies will rein supreme. As newbies arrive to take the place of the workers who went elsewhere, the bullies learn they will be rewarded by getting the confidence of their bosses through innuendos and damaging gossip. While the bullies get promoted, the business as a whole flounders, sometimes going under entirely. Having a team that can't work together to get the objectives of the company fulfilled, constant training of more employees, who in the end will not be able to work with the bullies, takes time and money. Inspiration and innovation are best in an environment where team-playing, healthy ways of relating and stability are upheld. Bullies know how to jostle competition to their favor, and get promoted, but they don't know how to co-operate to get a job done since they are only expert at giving orders, intimidating and driving their competition out through dishonest means. 

While bullies may be adept at hard work, they are the least innovative. Great ideas are the requirements of getting a business competitive with other businesses. (More on why inspiration/brilliance, requires an empathetic mind in a later post).

All of what is true for businesses is applicable to the family too: members will thrive where competition with each other is at a minimum and where they support one another. Where bullying, insults, taking sides and favoritism are allowed to flourish, members feel resentful and protect themselves from abuse by either keeping silent or at a distance. All of it splinters the family into one or more opposing sides, making succeeding in life harder as members are always dealing with wounds and hurt feelings, distancing and distrust, violated boundaries, little co-operation during hard times and emergencies, selfishness and disregard, escalations of abuse, and dealing with the family's bad reputation to outsiders. The dysfunctions can be distracting enough that members who want to do great things for society can feel held back or sabotaged.

Always remember the children ... 

even the ones not yet born who might receive the family legacy ...

triangulation, karpman's triangle, scapegoat triangle and abuse triangles

In this blog post, I talk about different kinds of triangles that exist in describing relationships. At the end of the post, I show my own contributions to dysfunctional triangular relationships. 

(Please note: this is a general post about triangulation, triangles in relationships, and karpmans triangle. For more on abusive narcissist's triangulations (particularly concerning the family, go here)

In topics about relationships in psychology and social work literature, triangles seem to abound. Most triangles in the early days of psychology theory started out by describing toxic relationships, but then ways to heal relationships started taking on the triangular shape as well.

Then there is the word triangulation.The definition of triangulation is about talking about one person to another person to keep from directly communicating to the person you are talking about. "Usually this communication is an expressed dissatisfaction with the main party" (Wikipedia quote). 

Abusers love triangulation and use it often. I found this blog to explain best how an abuser uses triangulating in order to control information and people, smear a scapegoat's or victim's reputation and sway others against someone:

Triangulation depends on one person sitting in the middle controlling information flow between others. The person in the middle is the arbiter of information: she tells people what she wants them to hear and often does her level best to prevent the others from talking to each other and comparing notes. She channels information between parties, removing stuff she doesn’t like, twisting—or even outright fabricating—information that will tend to cause her “correspondents” either take the bait and form opinions that mirror her own or be kept in the dark as to what is really going on ... 

... In the dysfunctional family, particularly a family driven by a narcissist, the deduction based on how normal people think and feel will be largely inaccurate, simply because the narcissist does things the rest of us would never do—like damage Uncle Bob’s reputation out of spite or as an exercise in the narcissist’s power. You think all of those people saying bad things about Uncle Bob cannot be wrong? Actually, they can—it takes only one narcissist feeding ugly misinformation and accusations about Bob to a lot of people over an extended period of time for people, especially those who do not see Bob often, to become indoctrinated to the idea that Bob is bad news. Those who have no frame of reference will uncritically accept the information they receive as truth because, after all, why would anyone lie about this stuff? ~Violet 

But triangles also abound in other ways too.

This is the most well known one:

The typical Karpman Triangle

(taken from this page where there is also a good explanation for how it works):

The Wikipedia article on the Karpman triangle is here.

Here is a variation on how the Karpman Triangle (with emotions identified in all three roles):

(taken from this page with explanations about how each party

uses negative emotions in an unsatisfying way, creating a situation with no resolution, 

catch-22s, switching roles and a thankless, pointless nonsensical cycle)

I thought this triangle (from this post by a minister) described it pretty well by putting in a boundary:

This triangle (from this post by Rhoda Mills Sommer, LCSW, ACSW) shows how to get out of the Karpman's triangle:

She goes into detail about how it can work in her post. Basically, there is an agreement between all three people to stop trying to manipulate and blame each other. Each party has to be willing to agree that the status of the unhappy relationship takes two people and the only way to resolve it is to recognize your own part in the conflict. 

Persecutors have to be right at all cost; it is all-or-nothing, even if their style is hurting others and they use lying and manipulation to get their way. They send the message that it is "their way or the highway". They use anger and intimidation to get their way. In addition, guilt and shame are used as whips and chains to ensure compliance. 

Writers of the Karpman's triangle state that victims can operate on the premise that "you have no integrity; I have the integrity." They are often too committed to pleasing others, can have poor boundaries, can be too eager to forgive and be self effacing, and try to control their own negative emotions (like anger) to always appear perfect, without reproach. They expect to be loved based on their integrity alone. Many analysts of the Karpman's triangle state that victims often use tears to get their way (victims are usually the least manipulative, but in the Karpman's triangle the point is that the 3 people can be, and often are, in interchangable roles: with the victim acting like a perpetrator to get the original perpetrator to change his rigid manipulative stances). 

In the Karpman's triangle, both persecutor and victim are said to be childish in their agendas and thoughts. Meanwhile The Rescuer tries to get the two people to make up, or to see each other's perspectives, or manipulate both of them for his own agenda, depending on intentions. Many rescuers, even those with the best of intentions, get swallowed into the drama instead, and sometimes they choose sides and perspectives that aren't to the best benefit of the individuals. The Rescuer then becomes blamed by one or both parties, the victim seeing the rescuer as another persecutor perhaps, and the persecutor seeing the rescuer playing another victim, because the rescuer failed to fix the situation between the persecutor and the victim. This keeps the persecutor and victim locked into a perpetual drama of blaming each other because it is the rescuers fault for not having produced the fix that both parties were looking for. The victim looks to the persecutor to stop persecuting and hurting him, and the persecutor looks to the victim to stop being recalcitrant and do exactly as the persecutor wants and demands.

The roles can stay fixed forever. However, the Karpman's triangle is about roles not being fixed, of being interchangable where the victim can act like a persecutor, and where the persecutor can act like a victim, and where the rescuer can act like a perpetrator in defending the perpetrator's actions, and another victim to defend the victim's actions.   

In Rhoda's triangle, the two people resolve to give up "dodging, deflecting and blaming" to "honestly face painful situations" and "take responsibility" and "negotiate". These are the basic rules of the healthy triangle she made:

Honesty: Say what you mean, mean what you say. There is greater soul in honestly facing painful situations. Look fearlessly within. The people you love the most are the ones to risk more honesty with.

Respect for Self & Others: Balance both. Take Responsibility. Learn boundaries. Have empathy and self-protection. Do not be either too self effacing or too narcissistic.

Make Agreements That Work: Negotiation/middle ground leads to possibilities. More able to handle complexity. There has to be room for both people’s wants and agendas. Solve problems together.

This triangle might seem like a simple alternative, it is not. This triangle requires risk taking, vulnerability and authenticity. This triangle is about developing greater self awareness about your own dark side instead of hiding out in blaming others. This triangle is about being open to dialogue instead of self protective monologues. This triangle is about the courage to work hard at relationships instead of being dramatic to get your way.  -- Rhoda Mills Sommer, LCSW, ACSW

This takes a lot of emotional enlightenment, especially if the triangle has been happening between, say, a mother and daughter for several decades or more. If the persecutor mother refuses to give up the role of persecutor if the daughter does not do exactly as she is told (even if the daughter is an adult), then as the daughter becomes more independent (which is the natural progression of all children, sooner or later), the relationship between the two becomes more and more locked in a toxic, strained and distant relationship with no resolution. The blaming between the two parties remain fixed and locked as well. Sometimes mother and daughter remain in this toxic bitter struggle until both die very old women. 

As the persecutor parent blames the victim child for not doing what she is expected and told to do, and escalates the anger and rage to get her way, the victim blames the mother for holding her back (infantilizing; i.e. not respecting that the daughter is an adult with her own way of doing things which may be separate from the mother). The persecutor is blamed by the victim for not loving her enough to stop hurting her, and the victim is blamed by the persecutor for not loving her enough to capitulate to all of the persecutor's demands. Triangulation is typical in alcoholic and narcissistic families.

My own perspective on blame is that it is rarely a simple one-way deal and is healthiest when it is shared among all parties. 

I'll use Shakespeare's plays to demonstrate:

King Lear: Who is at fault for King Lear dying of exposure in a storm? Cordelia for not pleasing her father? Goneril and Regan for lying to their father about their feelings and intentions? King Lear for expecting the flattery of his daughters to ensure his happiness and care in old age? Everyone has a part, but can any one person be blamed for the unfolding of events?

MacBeth: Who is at fault for the tragedy here? MacBeth, the witches, Lady MacBeth, Banquo or the murderers? It seems like there are a lot of people who contribute to the tragedy; one person would be hard-pressed to do it all alone.

Romeo and Juliet: Who is at fault for the lovers double suicide? Mercutio, Tybalt, Lady Capulet who insists that Juliet marry Paris, the prince of Verona who banishes Romeo, the nurse who insists that Juliet forget all about Romeo and do what her parents desire by marrying Paris, Friar Lawrence for giving Juliet a fake vial of poison, the reluctant Apothecary who gives Romeo some real poison, the entire families of Capulets and Montagues, or Romeo and Juliet themselves? 

In alcoholic and narcissistic families sometimes an authority figure decides who is to blame for everything that goes wrong in a family: a scapegoat. In King Lear, for instance, Cordelia would be blamed for everything that went wrong. So, to keep with a scapegoating agenda, the play would have to be rewritten so that Shakespeare and all of the characters he created would all blame Cordelia. What she was blamed for would not stop at not flattering her father, the king, but would grow by leaps and bounds. Perhaps Cordelia would be blamed for too much honesty, and through default for inspiring her sisters to lie. Cordelia would be termed ungrateful for choosing honesty over dishonest flattery as her two evil sisters had done. The sisters would have been seen as doing what is best by casting Lear out into a storm. Cordelia would somehow be blamed for her father being in the storm and exposed to the elements, perhaps because she was also cast out and thereby should have magically found her father and taken responsibility for him. Cordelia would also be blamed for Lear's death, of course. Anything else that might have implicated another character in the play would be Cordelia's fault as well. The writer would desperately grasp at anything that would always make Cordelia responsible for the events in her family, while making everyone else innocent. A glance, rolling eyes, a feeling by Cordelia would be blackened by the narrator to make her motives seem sinister. She would be villianized and tortured for all of it. It might not have been enough that she was merely banished. The rack and the screw might have been used too. Meanwhile Goneril and Regan would have been exonerated, held in the highest regard. This is typical alcoholic, narcissistic dysfunctional family thinking. 

Shakespeare is smarter than this: he knew that there are nuances that go into the making of a family tragedy: everyone has a part that contributes to the ultimate ending of the story.

… for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. --William Shakespeare

As Rhoda Mills Sommer, LCSW, ACSW states in another post: 

Relationships require disagreements in order to remain authentic. People who are black and white in their thinking need to be right and never want to be questioned which is a very defensive position. This impairs any possibility of longevity. Relationships by their nature, require dialogue, instead of one person caving into the other’s long monologue.

Anyway, I made triangles to explain the scapegoat dynamic, which is one of the most simplistic of family tragedies. Issues are not resolved. Instead, one person in the family is picked by the other family members to serve as a scapegoat. Every issue that comes up which is embarrassing, heated, causes pain, is uncomfortable, shows lack of integrity, makes someone look bad, is the scapegoat's fault:

    

What the Alcoholic Family Triangle is saying:

As long as blame is fixed and unchanged with the enabler(s) and alcoholic, with the scapegoat doing all of the work at trying to find a creative solution to the problems, the alcoholic family disease of scapegoating stays fixed as well. Once one scapegoat has left the family and gone "no contact", another family scapegoat usually is adopted from whomever is left within the family.

It is rare for alcoholic families to change this dynamic on their own. Only through counseling does the situation seem to change for the better, even for the alcoholic. Otherwise, alcoholic families are generally very splintered, with one or more members who no longer associate with the family. Some even dissolve entirely.   

What the Narcissistic Family triangle is saying:

Usually during episodes of sibling rivalry, parents try to break up fights and try to discipline with an even hand. In narcissistic parenting, the parent manipulates the children to get what he or she wants out of them. Narcissists are addicted to flattery, praise, and power and control over others and will do just about anything to get it. Unlike normal parents, narcissists like to pit children against each other to ensure that the children compete for parental love and reward. This makes it likely that one child will try to get the upper hand and the source of his competition out of the way, the competition usually being another sibling. The parent eventually becomes focused on and rewarding one child, while punishing and rejecting the other child. The likelihood of bullying is almost a given in a situation like this. When the bullied child complains to the narcissistic parent that he is being hurt by his sibling, the narcissist looks at it as infuriatingly unflattering. Narcissists cannot stand to feel criticized and will severely punish anyone who dares to even come close to suggesting the narcissist is less than a perfect parent, in all situations, all of the time. In addition, these kinds of parents are extremely defensive if they are ever confronted, and will deny conversations and situations to appear perfect. The narcissist will act as though they are deeply wounded and that the criticism deserves nothing but an all-out lengthy soul-destroying retaliation. 

The narcissistic parent rewards the bullying by punishing and ostracizing the bullied child for speaking out. Eventually, the bullied child learns to keep quiet about the abuse, often dealing with feelings in silence and secrecy. The bully then has free rein to do anything to his sibling. Since the hurt child can't express what his feelings are about, it gives the narcissist an excuse: the child is insane and cries over nothing, abandons situations over nothing, runs away over nothing, and so on. No one has to figure anything out; he gets the convenient label of difficult child, otherwise all else is a perfect family doing well. The label is hauled out to garner sympathy from others: "I feel for you having to deal with such a difficult child!" This reinforces the narcissist being right and flattered by the attention of others. The bullied eventually becomes the scapegoat for all that goes wrong in the family, for every family blemish, and is treated with disdain, called names, belittled, shamed and shunned and hated at every turn, and for any act of disobedience or rebellion even when an adult, while the bully golden child is touted as the child who can do no wrong, is continually rewarded, gains favor and keeps in good standing by flattering the parent and gaining the parent's confidence. All the while he is continually ensuring the scapegoat's reputation is down in the family honor system by lying about his sibling to the parent, as well as keeping his sibling on eggshells with threats and bullying. If the SG is gaining in prestige and stature, taking attention or favor from the parent that the golden child feels entitled to receive, he simply escalates. 

The more the scapegoat tries to rise out of his role, the more the family tries to bound him to his role: the dysfunctions of bullying, name-calling, hyper-criticizing and ostracizing are unleashed with a vengeance if the role is not entirely accepted. Everything is done to keep the scapegoat tightly contained. This is so the scapegoat can conveniently be abused and used over and over again by the family as the dumping ground for all that is embarrassing and dishonorable within the family system. 

Scapegoats usually leave their families as they become more and more educated and enlightened, usually during periods when they are ostracized. Since narcissists cannot hear complaining inside the family, scapegoats take their complaints outside the family. The SGs grow weary of being emotionally abused and rejected by their families and at some point it is easier to live without the family. This presents a dilemma. Since the golden child wants to remain on top, and the parent wants children competing for love and reward, a scapegoat is always needed. The parent who only has a golden child left can feel that the power concentrated into one child is not safe for the parent, especially since it becomes clear at some point that the golden child may be as narcissistic and manipulative as the parent. If the scapegoat can't be hoovered back into the family, a replacement scapegoat needs to fill the void. Replacement scapegoats have been talked about all over the web. There are some links and references about that from my earlier post here. If no new scapegoat can fill the void, and the golden child is the only one left, the parent will alternately scapegoat and reward the GC. Eventually, even the golden child gets worn down by the constant ups, downs, co-dependence and enmeshment of his parent. Going from being rewarded consistently to alternating between scapegoating and all-out love bombing (i.e. wild swings and walking on eggshells) can be shocking to a golden since they have spent their lives with only unconditional love and admiration, plus feeling entitled to absolutely everything the parent had to offer. 

Sometimes, another parent, particularly a parent who is divorced from the narcissistic parent, can help change a scapegoat's situation for the better. The other parent becomes protection and refuge from the emotional pain, suffering and living in fear. Sharing similar stories and getting distance from the N parent allow for healing. The child also experiences not being a scapegoat. This gives a lot of new perspectives and a chance to feel love without conditions. Interests and ambitions flourish. In turn, the narcissistic parent has a harder time keeping the scapegoat down, i.e. tightly controlled, unsuccessful, living in an impoverished state of wanting, disturbed and unhappy, with a shattered self esteem. Sometimes the N parent feels unfavored, which escalates more rejecting and abuse than before, though they quickly realize this is driving the scapegoat away for good, and towards sympathy, understanding, backing and success -- all through an ex they have been slandering to all of their friends. Can't have that! An N knows that a hankering for parental approval is the only way a scapegoat can remain a scapegoat, so the ostracisms have a planned obsolescence. Sometimes the narcissistic parent tries to win back the scapegoat from the former spouse with rewards which won't catapult the scapegoat into success, but will allow the scapegoat just enough comfort and approval so that the narcissist doesn't lose their precious source for blame altogether. They may try to convince the scapegoat, by acting concerned, that the scapegoat needs the N parent. The help is in the guise of generosities and advice designed to get through the pitfalls of life via helping a scapegoat decipher good intentions vs bad intentions of others (since narcissists are notorious for using gaslighting, so that their victims feel insane and can't decipher what is the truth and not the truth), decipher abusive suitors (since narcissists have an almost psychic perception about types of people who prey upon others), but the real intention is to get the scapegoat back in role again, punishing criticisms and emotional outbursts and rewarding flattery. The N parent is also known for rewarding failures and discouraging success, dreams and ambitions in scapegoats.       

My full length post about scapegoating in alcoholic families and narcissistic families (where I provide a lot of sources and links) can be found here. 

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. 

the silent treatment

name of illustration: The Scream Over the Silent Treatment

after the 1893 painting The Scream by Edvard Munch

medium: inks and colored pencil on Arches watercolor paper

image is ©2014 Lise Winne with proper attributes to Edvard Munch

(for questions regarding any images contact LilacGroveGraphics (att) yahoo.com)

(note: more of this topic is covered in this blog post, The Silent Treatment is Abuse!) 

I found this by a reader from the Silent Treatment Blog:

It occurs in small ways and begins in all the little things that you stop saying to each other. Then the resentment starts. The quarrels, the arguments, the snippy conversations, the single word answer to every question that is asked. And growing use of the word ‘Fine’. -- Kate

From one of my favorite bloggers on dysfunctional relationships, Thomas G. Fiffer (who writes many articles for The Good Men Project), here are some snippets from this article on the silent pain of emotional withholding (which can also be interpreted as "the silent treatment"). In the article he is responding to a reader who talks about a dysfunctional relationship that is the passive-death non-relationship in which every dissatisfaction you express is completely ignored or casually dismissed. Not with a bang but a whimper……….

Here are some of his responses (again, if you are interested in the full article, it is here):

If you've lived with a dysfunctional partner, chances are you've experienced it. Coldness replaces warmth. Silence replaces conversation. Turning away replaces turning towards. Dismissiveness replaces receptivity. And contempt replaces respect. Emotional withholding is, I believe, the toughest tactic to deal with when trying to create and maintain a healthy relationship, because it plays on our deepest fears—rejection, unworthiness, shame and guilt, the worry that we've done something wrong or failed or worse, that there's something wrong with us ... You're desperately lonely, even though the person who could comfort you by sharing even one kind word is right there ... When you speak, you might as well be talking to the wall, because you’re not going to get an answer, except maybe, if you’re lucky, a dismissive shrug. And the more you talk about anything that matters to you, the more you try to assert that you matter, the more likely your withholding partner is to belittle or ignore what you’re saying and leave you in the cold ... You ask yourself, am I here? Do I mean anything to this person? Do I matter? Do I even exist? ... Your accomplishments go unrecognized, your contributions unmentioned, your presence at best grudgingly acknowledged, and any effort at bridging the chasm is spurned ... Emotional withholding is typically a response to your trying to stand up for yourself, to an assertion of your rights within the relationship. And perhaps the deepest pain of all comes from your partner’s insistence that you deserve to be treated this way, deserve to be punished, and, to paraphrase my older post, your partner’s absurd argument that if you just give up your silly notion of having a healthy, communicative relationship between two equal partners and resubmit to emotional domination and abuse, the caring, compassion, communication, and connection, the warmth and the love, will return ... And they might—for five minutes, five hours, even five days—until you assert your yourself again." --- Thomas G. Fiffer

The point is that even if you capitulate and give in, it is likely to happen all over again when you need to assert yourself again. And it is very, very likely that you will have to assert yourself again over another issue! Imagine all of the ways in which you will not be able to compromise. Some of these might include (or think of your own): you might be expected to apologize to an abusive sibling through the pressure of a parent, you might be expected to allow an abusive in-law who has molested your daughter back into your life by a spouse, you might be expected to go on a dangerous trip in a war-torn country where there is heavy artillery with your newborn baby by an abusive boss, you might be expected to drive through a blizzard when no one else is out on the roads except snowplows, anything... If the relationship has a pattern where you have bended under pressure to concede or grovel for love lest you take the consequences of being dismissed or abused, you'll be expected to knuckle under again and again, no matter what is at stake to you, your life, your health, your sanity ... "What you allow is what will continue."

As Thomas G. Fiffer says in the closing of his article:

The truth is, caring, compassion, communication, connection, warmth, and love should NEVER be conditional and NEVER be willfully withheld, EVER, unless the relationship is already over and you need to draw a boundary to establish your new life and preserve your own sanity. Withholding these within a relationship is abuse, a kind of emotional blackmail, no different from the other kind that threatens to hurt you where you’re most vulnerable if you don’t comply with your partner’s desires or needs. But the harder you work towards creating a healthy relationship, the more your dysfunctional partner will withhold the very things on which the health of the relationship depends. This is how your relationship becomes “the passive-death non-relationship” ... sunk under the weight of scorn and silence instead of buoyed by the lift of love.

If you have a narcissist in your life, they use the silent treatment as a way to manipulate and control you (the victim) as this article by Alexander Burgemeester will attest to:

When a narcissist uses the silent treatment with someone, they take it to the extreme. A narcissist may refuse to speak to or even acknowledge someone for great lengths of time- and then demand an apology that is out of proportion to the perceived offense. By demanding this apology, it supports the narcissist’s inflated view of himself or herself. The silent treatment is a common form of abuse used by people who cannot tolerate being on the receiving end of someone else’s self-assertiveness ... When the victim does something that displeases the narcissist, they cease to exist for a certain period of time-most often extensive and disproportionate amounts of time. -- Alexander Burgemeester

Many psychology journals refer to "the silent Treatment" as silent bullying.

"The Silent Treatment: A Narcissistic Control Mechanism"

with Yitz Epstein, Life Coach

Is it abuse or brain damage when pathological lying comes from alcoholics?

name of illustration: Brain (D)effects

medium: inks and watercolor on Arches watercolor paper

image is ©2014 Lise Winne

(for information regarding licensing any images, purchasing the original art or a print of the art 

contact LilacGroveGraphics (att) yahoo.com)

If you were wondering, pathological lying is abuse. 

Alcohol can damage the hippocampus of the brain, making it hard to decipher whether an alcoholic is lying or has brain damage. An article I found on the subject is HERE.

You can also see the disturbing pictures of brain damage from alcohol HERE.

Do you wonder if you are in an abusive relationship with an alcoholic (even if the abuse isn't physical)? Take the quiz HERE (mainly for partners of alcoholics, but you can modify your answers if you are in other kinds of relationships). 

But the disease of alcoholism (without brain damage) can also turn a person into a pathological liar. Here are some snippets from an article by Floyd P. Garrett, M.D.:

The first casualty of addiction, like that of war, is the truth. At first the addict merely denies the truth to himself. But as the addiction, like a malignant tumor, slowly and progressively expands and invades more and more of the healthy tissue of his life and mind and world, the addict begins to deny the truth to others as well as to himself. He becomes a practiced and profligate liar in all matters related to the defense and preservation of his addiction, even though prior to the onset of his addictive illness, and often still in areas as yet untouched by the addiction, he may be scrupulously honest.

First the addict lies to himself about his addiction, then he begins to lie to others. Lying, evasion, deception, manipulation, spinning and other techniques for avoiding or distorting the truth are necessary parts of the addictive process.

... In order for the addiction to continue it requires an increasingly idiosyncratic private reality subject to the needs of the addictive process and indifferent or even actively hostile to the healthy needs of the addict and those around him.

... in the more serious or advanced cases all such human counter-attacks upon the addiction, even, indeed especially when they come from those closest and dearest to the addict, fall upon deaf ears and a hardened heart. The addict's obsession-driven, monomaniacal private reality prevents him from being able to hear and assimilate anything that would if acknowledged pose a threat to the continuance of his addiction...

... At this stage of addiction the addict is in fact functionally insane. It is usually quite impossible, even sometimes harmful to attempt to talk him out of his delusions regarding his addiction. This situation is similar to that encountered in other psychotic illnesses, schizophrenia for example, in which the individual is convinced of the truth of things that are manifestly untrue to everyone else.

... In many cases the addict responds to negative feedback from others about his addiction by following the maxim of "Attack the attacker." Those who confront or complain about the addict's irrational and unhealthy behaviors are criticized, analyzed and dismissed by the addict as untrustworthy or biased observers and false messengers. -- Floyd P. Garrett, M.D., Psychiatrist

Perhaps this is why addiction often mimics psychological disorders like Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Schizophrenia? 

Here is an excerpt from someone I found on the AA Active Board:

Alcoholics Are Usually Pathological Liars
Long before they became physically addicted and often when they're very young, most alcoholics adopted lying as a "preferred defense strategy."  In other words, they usually found it easier to lie their way out of situations than to tell the truth and face the consequences.  And once fully addicted, they now have an endless supply of reasons for lying because they are always making excuses for their behavior and shortcomings.
So eventually, lying becomes a way of life and the first lie is that they don't have a problem and they don't need help.  And because everything else is built on top of the denial that they don't have a problem and they don't need help, everything else about their life tends to become a mixture of lying and denial as well.  That's how an alcoholic can rationalize sitting in a bar bragging about their children while in reality, they've abandoned their kids and stopped making child support payments.  In essence, the alcoholic is such a convincing and constant liar and denier, while they're in a good "buzz zone," they can even convince themselves of the lies. -- Larry H.

Quotes on lying and addiction from recovered alcoholics:

The deceit & dishonesty that addiction brings to love is certainly not what love is about. It's contrary to its very nature, to its essence ... Addiction replaces family & friends with those that don't love, those that really don't care, & those that will never have your back ... Addiction is a bully, a liar, a cheat. It taunts. It stifles. It disrespects & disrupts. It removes the life & the heart out of the spirit ... Addiction puts extraordinary pressure on ordinary people. It puts strain on all they hold dearly. It takes honor from everyone it touches. -- Jim Wallor, PainofAddiction.com

Grandiosity and self-centeredness are issues with all recovering addicts ... why we need sponsors to help us stay on track. -- Michael Liimatta, Chief Academic Officer at City Vision College, Kansas City, Missouri

Alcohol destroyed my ability to stand up for something more important than my own narcissistic addictions. -- Bill Wilson