Scapegoating In The Family And Its Consequence.

[Mary Black]

It's a classic tale: Parents think adoption will be like a dream and then the kid turns out to be human and the parents feel burdened.

Makes you wonder why they would adopt in the first place...:rolleyes:

 

[Mary Black]

Me three! really, I am the eldest and I was saddled with great responsibility while being treated like I didn't deserve much of anything.

Me too!

 

[Philippa]

It's a classic tale: Parents think adoption will be like a dream and then the kid turns out to be human and the parents feel burdened.

Like kittens...once they outgrow their cuteness factor, people no longer want them, and dump them out on the street, or drown them.

 

[Philippa]

I've often thought my mother was jealous of the relationship I had with my sisters and needed so badly to destroy that. It seems your mother is similar.

I felt like my mother was doing this with my brothers...turning them against me. My father did it too. Now one brother thinks I'm atrocious and disgusting for not contacting them, and the other shames me for stuff I did 8 years ago when I was highly symptomatic and suicidally depressed.

Not one of them stop to consider what I may have been going through at the time, or what I was going through that made me want to stop contacting my own parents all together. They just think I'm full of shit.

 

[ms spock]

me three! really, i am the eldest and i was saddled with great responsibility while being treated like i didn't deserve much of anything.

I am still fighting against feeling like I don't deserve much of anything. It is so hard.

 

[ms spock]

I think being blamed for my sister's sexual abuse is more damaging than anything my parents did directly to me. I would have willingly taken any abuse from anyone (and did later on during my worst trauma period), if it meant my sisters were spared and protected. I virtually brough my sisters up due to my mother neglecting us all and I was very protective of them.

It is such a destructive lie to tell both you and your sister, Shellbell.

I really feel for you.

I was blamed for the fallout in my family - for naming the abuse - not the abusers for doing it - but me for naming it - in an effort to stop my father from killing us all, as he was threatening to do.

I virtually brought up my sisters due to our mother neglecting us all. I protected them so much and never thought that could be broken. But it was by my mother's manipulation, lies and playing us off against each other.

 

[ms spock]

I felt like my mother was doing this with my brothers...turning them against me

My mother told me that she would do it. That she would make sure that my sisters and brothers grew up like strangers to me, if I didn't come back and say that the sexual abuse had never happened. I didn't believe she could do it.

 

[Shellbell]

It seems there are such similarities in the way bad parents single out one child, usually the eldest for the worst abuse, neglecting all the children, forcing that child to be a mother to her siblings, and then blaming that child, who never had a childhood, for anything and everything. Then going on to destroy the strong sibling relationships forged through the parental neglect.

I feel deeply for all of us who have been through this. It is severe psychological abuse.

 

[ms spock]

It is Shellbell. A lot of eldest children don't actually make it through. So we are lucky to be alive.

(Gosh I don't feel that today!)

 

[Shellbell]

Yes, 'lucky' isn't how I feel either today. But, it is good we are alive and can have the chance to gain some healing from it all.

:hug:

 

[Philippa]

My mother told me that she would do it. That she would make sure that my sisters and brothers grew up like strangers to me, if I didn't come back and say that the sexual abuse had never happened. I didn't believe she could do it.

Pure evil.

 

[Philippa]

It seems there are such similarities in the way bad parents single out one child, usually the eldest for the worst abuse, neglecting all the children, forcing that child to be a mother to her siblings, and then blaming that child, who never had a childhood, for anything and everything. Then going on to destroy the strong sibling relationships forged through the parental neglect.

I feel deeply for all of us who have been through this. It is severe psychological abuse.

I have to say that whilst I was definitely singled out and made responsable for my brothers, and there was definitely emotional abuse and neglect, I did have a childhood that was fun and carefree, and it was free from sexual abuse and torture, so I cannot claim that I have experienced the same degree of harshness as some of you have...and I am grateful for that.

My parents seemed to only become this way when I got older, but also I did not really come to realize some of the behavior as being not normal until I was around 18 anyway...like my mother insisting that I ask her permission every time I went to the toilet at night time?? wtf??

For years I thought I had to ask her permission to go to the bathroom? I had to actually re-learn to go to the bathroom without asking permission when I was an adult....which is bizarre.

It is interesting though, how the eldest seems to be the one that is chosen for this. My brothers were not given the same treatment as I was, so they do not understand from my point of view and there is no way I can make them, but they do have their own issues with my parents that I don't know about.