Scapegoating In The Family And Its Consequence.

[Tanishq]

Thank you gizmo. :) big hug back at you,too.

Thus, my fault! I would be a millionaire if I had collected $1.00 from her for every time she told me and others about it and her labor.

Hi Let it be,

Sometimes this gets ridiculous. My parents don't give me much, they have lots of. I did feel like you felt. They scare sometimes what if we became millionaire and famous.

My young sis is also golden child in their eyes. She is brainwashed and I can see lot of difficulties coming in her life. She has not grown her own confidence. Just one dimensional study hard and get big score. That doesn't make you much successful.

Your situation is much damaging. I do try to protect my young sis when she is blamed. I try to treat her well. I make sure that she doesn't feel all the things I felt. I have seen her getting lost and sympathized with her. She feels that is not sufficient. I hear her. She wants to be accepted when my dad denies her. But she is lucky, she still brings big score and in future I think she will be able to earn on her own. But as confidence and my social knowledge is not there with her she will crumble a lot.

I would hate situations like that.

 

[Tanishq]

I sympathize with everyone in this thread. I can understand the feeling getting mentally beaten over and over. It eats away mental peace and makes us wander for more peace and sanity. I can understand it does make us to look for more clarification. It is wrong direction, we may not get the things we want to hear.

:hug:

 

[Philippa]

That's crazy that your parents blame you for all those things that are clearly not your fault jaret. I think they need a big shaking down. It's ridiculous to blame you for bills and material things like this.

 

[Tanishq]

Philippa, They like bashing things at me. I have notice this many times. They bash at me with a passion and they enjoy calling themselves as master. They say they are allowed to bash me because they have mastered, made money and are happy in their life. They tell I deserve punishment if I don't learn anything.

Last week we had problems on his desktop. My young sis and dad uses desktop. Desktop had some problems in network card. He came to me and started bashing that I messed up that computer and now I am supposed to speak truth. I told him, I don't sit on desktop and what would I get by messing it. He kept going on and on that I mess everything. I am a big mess that no one would like to have in home.

I ignore it, but sometimes it catches me and makes me feel very bad.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

Jaret, I am sad that you are getting traumatized now. It must make your recovery very hard. You work so hard on yourself. I am sorry that your dad treats you this way. My heart goes out to you. It seems he does not see or hear you so talking to him probably does not help you.

He has a plan for your life. You have one life. It is good to be true to yourself. I wish you the best in dealing with your dad. I hope you feel better. You are a good person. Big hugs.

 

[Tanishq]

Thank you gizmo. big hugs back at you,too. :hug:

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I think we live in a scapegoating society. Find someone to blame and label and hate. I think it is rampant. What about self responsibilty? We are each responsible for ourselves. I am learning to stay away from hot topics that people get emotional about. I do not want to get involved in that.

I think scapegoating is a form of hatred. Blind hatred. I find it very painful to think that my parents hated me. It hurts alot. So I am sensitive when I am attacked. I am beginning to watch the language of people to give me clues about their personality. It is helping me determine who is safe and who is not.

I remember being frozen in front of both of my parents blaming me for what the others did. I grew up in a very crazymaking, high drama house. I never got any comfort. No real apologys. Life just went on and their toxicity was normal for me. I do not know if I ever got used to it.

I am so glad I do not live back there anymore. I am so glad I escaped them all. I am weary of overlooking the harm done. I am tired of being patient. I just do not want it in my life anymore. I have had to overlook alot of stuff with my sister. Now she may be dying. I stay away even though I live an hour away from her.I have had to overlook so much. I have been understanding but she went too far and she hurt me so bad.

I feel bad because she cares for me more than i do for her. I have a love/hate relationship with her. She has a daughter who I know was abused that lives with her.She keeps me away from her daughter. I do not know why. Her daughter told me that my sister is greedy. She does not want to share me. She looks at me like I am her possesion.

I was always responsible for her. My mom would always say, take your sister. My mom only cared about herself. She never gave a thought to what I needed or wanted. My sister is the same way. She treats me like a thing she owns. I do not talk to her on the phone much. It is what it is. I can never have a quality relationship with her. We are too different from each other.

I had to teach her that I was her sister and not her mom. I took her to her first concert and she idolized me for doing that for her.

My kindness to her means so much to her. I feel bad but it is what it is. I remember when she was little she had pushed a chair to the open window and was throwing combs and brushes out of it. We lived on the fourth floor. I remember I was so scared for her. Why was my mom not watching her?

She always wanted to be alone. She was bothered by us being there. She was a very selfish woman. I am just rambling now. But I hate her for making me responsible to watch the other three.

I remember getting kicked out of the house two weeks before my graduation for stuff the three of them did. I went somewhere. My dads reasoning if I had been there they would not have gotten in trouble. If I had been there they would have gotten in trouble anyway. They were always getting into trouble. They were always doing things they should not have been doing.

They got to be kids. I did not. I was set apart and different, and I have not been able to connect with my sister on a quality level. I know that she is probably dying and I should go over to see her. But I do not want to. I wonder what I will do when she dies. That is the last of my family. I imagine that I will have phone contact with her daughter.

Family means so much to my sister. It is because she had such a hard life. She made some terrible choices throughout her life. She even lost her daughter for awhile. She does not know how I feel. I just talk to her and keep the peace. She is the last one of my family. Will I feel relief when she dies? I wonder. I feel like a terrible person, but I do not feel close to her at all.

I have not seen her in years. She still works very hard at her job and comes home and stays in bed. I have hard feelings against her because my brother died and she did not call me. She is a drama queen. I know this is harsh. I did not get invited to the funeral. I was forgotten. I do not understand how she could do this to me. I have hard feelings against her for that.

The strange thing is that I did not want to go to see her all sloppy drunk and making it about her. I wonder if I will feel relief when she dies? I think I will. The charade will be all over. I will not have to be responsible for her. I have not done much for her. I used to send her christmas presents and cards but she never sent me any. She always stayed in contact by phone.

When she lost her daughter she wanted me to take her. I did not want to be involved with her husband who would probably come and visit her dauther. My family said no do not take her. I always felt bad about that but it worked out. I got a huge box of stuff to send her and it all got stolen by the kids in the group home.

My sister is so possesive of me. She treats me like I am her thing. She talks about herself alot. She tries to make me laugh. I wish I could forgive her. But I do not like her. I feel like such a fake because I tell her that I love her. We cannot talk about the things I want to talk about.

I wish I could make sense of this. I was ashamed of my sister for years. She always has these plans for me when I get older that do not include my family. She is so messed up. She is on a ton of medication. If I was to see her she would cry at being so happy to see me. I would not cry. My half brother is comeing down at Thanksgiving. I will be at my daughters house.

So I will probably miss meeting him. He is a wild child. I have talked to him a few times and he was abused my dad too. He is a free spirit and is into his music. There is a niece I have never met because she had contact with my dad. I know my sister would talk about me behind my back and that it would get back to my dad through the neice and my brother. He would get drunk and talk alot.

He told my dad where I was. I had lived for years looking over my shoulder to avoid my dad. My dad wanted to get in touch with me, but said he would leave it up to me. I never got in touch with him. He told my brother if he had it to do over again, he would do the same things or worse.

I think my dad was a psycho. I was so afraid of him. I did not want him knowing anything about us. My brother and my sister were in denial. It has been rough. I feel nothing for my sister. I have had to cut her out of my life a few times. She is so sick now. I know a visit would cheer her up. None of my family liked her. Now there is real clue for me.

My sister calls to hear the sound of my voice. Her voice does not comfort me. There has been too much hurt between us and no ability to talk about it and resolve it. She does not see or hear me. She loves her idea of me. We made a pact when we were little that we would always be friends and it means so much to her.

She has alot of friends. She is always helping people. But they are sick and dysfunctional and end up ripping her off. She used to get a place and get hooked up with some psycho guy and she would end up losing everything.

I have boundries with my sister. My brother did not have any boundries with her. I think she wore him out. He got sick with lung cancer. He had diabetes. I had to cut him out of my life because of his drinking and loose talk and he had contact with my dad and he did not believe me about many things. But we were close and could talk. It hurt very much that my sister kept things from me about him.

She got in the middle between us and caused problems. She is so messed up. Life has been very hard on her. They lost my nieces son for a year about child abuse. I do not know why I stay in touch with her. Mabe I am trauma bonded to her. I feel sorry for her. Everything she has now she has worked for very hard. She has stayed in the place she is at for a long time now. She is not hooking up with psycho guys anymore. '

Her daughter has heart problems and a deformed hand. Her son is autistic with add. They got him back after being court ordered into therapy. They have social workers that come into the home to check them out. I have survivors guilt with my sister. I think that is the glue that holds me to her. She has had such a rough life. My dad always called her the bad seed and she had fulfilled that prophecy.

I feel so guilty for the way I feel. I wish I could make some sense out of it. But I cannot. I hated being responsible for her. I was the little grown up. I survived the best so mabe all of those responsibilites made me want something better for my family.

I hated being blamed for what they did. I hate being blamed for things that I do not do. It is a sore point with me. Sorry for my rant and my vent.

 

[Philippa]

I'm not sure that I agree that scapegoating is about hatred. I think it is more about people having very sophisticated defense mechanisms, fragile egos and cowardice in not wanting to see where the person is causing the issue, and yes, not taking responsability definitely.

I'm just not sure it is stemming from hatred as much as it might feel like it is. It's just more self-interest and closing off from seeing how that is affecting anyone else, as I see it. The ego wanting to protect itself from the truth. People hate the truth...they will do almost anything to avoid it.

I think it is taking it personally to say that it is about them hating you gizmo. I'm not saying this to attack or criticize, as I've had the same issues as well, and sometimes still do take things very personally. It may not have anything to do with you as a person at all...you just happen to be the one they have deemed the scapegoat.

If anything it is self-hatred they are projecting onto you. I've read that scapegoats are usually the most healthy, emotionally, of all the other family members. That is something to keep in mind I think. If anyone is hating you, it is really something they see in you that they cannot own about themselves. I know it does feel terrible though, to feel as though you are hated.

If you can try and think at the time that when someone is projecting their own stuff onto you, that it is really their own stuff and has nothing to do with you, you just happen to be there and they can't stand feeling the discomfort they are feeling in knowing that they have caused trouble or pain to someone else...it might help you not take that on?

About your sister, it is possible she may be jealous and insecure that you will steal her daughter, or her daughter may like you more than her. It sounds crazy, but some mothers do get this way. I've experienced it myself. I don't know of course, but that's just a suggestion you may want to mull over?

I'm sorry you were not allowed to just be a kid, and were thrust into roles that they had no right to put on you like that. It isn't fair at all, and you deserved much better. Every child deserves to have a childhood, but so many parents just are clueless, it's scary! They don't deserve to be parents...and they certainly have no idea of what it is to be one, or the honor THEY HAVE in bringing kids into this world. Kids are precious and to be treasured, and LEARNED FROM! They hold so much more wisdom in their little fingers than most parents have in their entire bodies and miserable existences.

It's ok to feel exactly how you are feeling, and that includes guilty for feeling what you are feeling, although there is no need to feel guilty for what is only natural to feel after what you have been through. Never apologize for venting here. If there is anywhere in the world where that is ok...it's this place.

 

[shell]

I was the family scape goat in our family, the middle child, the black sheep, the focus of all the rage and pain my mother was in. It's easier to make a young child the focus of everything that is wrong in your life, and for my father to blame me for constantly making her angry, than to admit my mother was disfunctional and abusive and mentally ill.

My mother was so needy as a result of her abuse, that when she couldn't feel loved by my father (which was every day) she would lash out her anger at me. I was even blamed for making my mother lose a baby, she said she wished it has been me that died, because she hated me so much.

Fortunately before I cut off my connections with my mother we did have several conversations about my childhood, as a she had done alot of therapy after I left home. She was able to explain why she acted like she did, which helped me to understand why I was singled out more than the others, and what was causing the rage. It was just a shame she didn't learn that I wasn't responsible for making her abuse me, but I don't suppose she admitted to belting the crap out of me to the therapist.

It's only now that I understand I can't possibly have made her lose the baby, that I can't have been all those horrible things she said, I was just a little girl.

Sometimes just loud voices in a room of people talking has the potential to make me feel like I am being critized again, I can feel myself getting anxious, but it helps to recognize what is triggering that feeling to control my response.

When we hand back the issue to them, it takes away its power to hurt as much, it's no longer our issue but theirs, and we don't need to accept their burden anymore.

I think it helps to recognize whose problem it is, and then if I don't believe it is justified, if it's not my issue, then I shouldn't be required to feel bad.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

Hi Philipia, thank you for your well thought out response. I think you are right that I was the victim of their projections of unfinished buisiness and self hatred.You helped me not to take this personally anymore. They were both selfish and self centered. It was more about them.

This also helps me with a couple of other incidents. I do not take it personally anymore. I think it is sad but not the end of the world. Not anymore.

It is only natural to take it personally when I am attacked by someone. Especially when I did not do anything to deserve it. I did not deserve what my parents dished out to me. But I agree with you. It spoke more about them and who they really were. They worked together as a team. That is all I knew.

I think you are right about my sister too. She does not want me to be close to her daughter. She very well might be jeolous and insecure. She is very greedy. She is very possesive.

Thank you so much for saying the things that you did. I really appreciate it so much.


Shell,
I am so sorry for what you suffered and endured. I think my parents were very needy too. They did not show any love. Everything was so conditional. On their moods.

We were targets for their rage. My mom could rip a person in shreds with her tongue. My dad beat us. He used to come home and take out his frustrations on us. Now I imagine her was unhappy with someone in his day and he would come home and find a realease in hitting us in his rituals of abuse.

I liked so much what you said about handing it back to them. This helps so much. It gives me relief. It does take their power away. I am all for that. It is not about me after all. It never had anything to do with me. It is their own stuff. They were very dishonest people. They were always preaching to me about telling the truth.

One time I came home late and they both were interrogating me and I was telling them the truth and they did not believe me. This went on forever. I finally made up a lie and they believed the lie and said why did you not tell us this in the first place? There was no comfort ever.

It is not my issue with so much. You made me feel so much better and I really appreciate it. It did not have anything to do with me ever. And I can use this with other people like my sister. It is not my issue. I do not have to feel guilty anymore. It is what it is. I can accept that now.

I will practice not taking things personally anymore. I have had a couple of instances where I was attacked. It caused a break in the relationship. I cut off contact. Do it to me once, shame on you. Do it to me twice, shame on me.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

It just occured to me that there was not much humor in my home of origin. I was the butt of jokes at my expense. They thought that was really funny. I got my feelings hurt alot. I had no one to tell about it and get some good feedback on how to deal with it. I was raged at and I was attacked. I was afraid to walk past my parents when they were angry, I was afraid they would hit me. I was frozen in terror and horror so many times.

When they were lecturing me their faces would distort. I was so tired of it. I had not one soul to talk to. My grandparents on both sides thought the way I was being raised was wrong. I remember them telling me that. I do not remember talking about it. There was no comfort for me at all.

I want to learn to laugh off the nonsense that comes my way. I was just used to it. I was raised to be the perfect victim. Just stand there and take whatever they wanted to dish out to me and to my brothers and sister. I remember we did not talk about it to each other.

It was when we all had escaped my fathers house that we began to talk about what happened to us.

I want to learn to laugh off the nonsense that comes my way from certain people. I want to learn to laugh it off with my sister. I will pracetice finding the humor in any situation.

I already learned how to disengage and walk away. To cool off and think things through. I will take baby steps and learn this. I think it can be done. Because people who attack other people must not feel good about themselves. I want to do no harm and likewise I do not want harm done to me.

With my sister I can cut the phone conversation short. I can practice that. I want to learn and grow. I have learned alot this week. I have heard that all of life is a practice.

I was held responsible for what the other kids did because I was the oldest. It got to the point that we were taking turns getting into trouble. My dad caught my brother and sister talking about whos turn it was to take the blame. It was a horrible place to live. I was not allowed to feel anything but fear and guilt. I was so mentally crippled growing up in that home. I was kicked out because of something the three of them did. Lucky for me a friend of mine got this girl to take me in. That was the happiest summer of my life. But I did not have a job and could not pay to help out and she needed me to go. So I moved back home.

I moved in and out of there for awhile . When my mom was killed in the plane crash, I got a small check of insurance money and could afford to get out. I was supposed to loan my dad a thousand dollars. I did not do it. I just moved out. I moved in with my future husband. My dad did not like anyone I brought home. He said he liked my husband but my husband did not like him. Interesting. I had not told my husband of the abuse I had recieved.

I did not tell him anything until I got into therapy many years later. He was so sweet. He wanted to make up to me all that I had been deprived of. He did it too. My husband loves me very much.

My dad could not manipulate my husband. He was still trying to tell me what to do. He dared to lecture me after I got married. Before I cut him off I would go and visit him. I would give him a hug and he acted repulsed by it. He got married to a girl from the Philipenes. She built him up a good home and furniture. She was a hard worker.

But I cut him off. I told him that I was starting therapy and he said very tenderly I needed therapy. And I never saw him again. My therapist said he was saying good by to me. I turned him in for a unliscensed day care. He stayed away from me. He sold out and moved out of the state into Oregon. And there he stayed. I guess he divorced his wife and got custody of my half brother. I have only talked to him on the phone after my dad died. He was abused too.

i do not know if I will ever meet him face to face. Supposedly he is moving to this state to live with his mom. I do not have contact with her. My sister does and they gossip together. This is why I do not tell my sister anything at all. My life is my personal buisiness and I do not want her gossiping about me. I am sure she doesl Now I have to learn to laugh this stuff off. I want to learn. I am a survivor. I made it. I am trying to get my life back. My brain is turning to mush now and I am losing my train of thought. I guess I am angry because my sister has such a big mouth.

 

[Philippa]

I had the same thing to some degree gizmo. My father seemed to love to play "jokes" on me that were playing on my naivette and gullability and I remember he called me a fool one day and laughed right in my face, though I cannot remember for the life of me what I'd actually done to be called a fool? I think it was because I was always too trusting, and he considered that stupid.

My whole family don't trust anyone and they consider that to be a good thing. I was never like them, I always trusted too much, and while I think that is a beautiful quality, I came to understand that it is not good to trust everyone, because most people aren't worthy of my trust, but I still gave people the benefit of the doubt.

So dad would play little gags on me, that were mainly to amuse himself, and things that really caused me to develop complexes later in my life, that he has no idea he even did.He would tell me I'm smart one minute, then a fool the next and couldn't work out why I had no confidence, or as he interpreted confidence to be, that is, talking loudly and all the time, when I was pretty quiet. I felt inside that I was quietly confident though, but because it was never outlandish he decided I had no confidence.

He even laughed when I tried to express how much it hurt me when he killed my pet mouse, and my brothers also laughed at me, as though it were nothing, and i was a joke for getting upset over a stupid rodent.

He even laughed about it to my face ten years later, thinking that we were able to have a laugh about it together, only he didn't hear me being totally silent listening to my heart silently break in my chest as he carried on laughing, still oblivious to the pain he caused me.

I never knew what to say at the time, when they would laugh. I just froze and couldn't say anything, and with other people, I would always think of what I should have said hours later when it was all past and gone and everyone had moved on...except me.

I felt like I was slow in some ways for not being able to get over things as fast as everyone around me seemed to be able to.