Childhood Singling Out One Child In The Family

[Candleflames]

In some ways I can count myself as the favorite, as in the favorite one to hit or throw or drag around by the hair. It didn't so much happen to my sister. She rarely got the brunt of our dad's fury. Usually it was only when I got out of the way and she was next to me. Most of the time it was me that got beat.

I thought that meant that I deserved it or that I was somehow defective. I also think it made it so much harder for anyone to step in because only one of us showed any signs of abuse. I was the one acting out, yet I had a sister who seemed to excel. That made it so much easier for others to also believe that there was something wrong with me. The real kicker is that the whole family dynamic has left my sister just as damaged as me, or maybe even more so.

I used to think my family is strange but I have come to learn that this scenario where one child is the abused one while the others are spared is actually pretty common. Knowing this so far hasn't helped it not twist my brain into knots.

Has anyone else had this to contend with as well? Anyone with some insight?

 

[kagamine]

I was the brunt of it a lot of the time when it came to my first stepdad. My older step sister started singling me out too, because I was the "freak" so she would lock me in closets while she played with the younger kids. Everyone in the family thought I was the freak. I got picked on for everything I did and liked by everyone

I started showing more of the signs around middle school, but they were subtle enough to fly under the radar until I lost a lot of weight and went completely over the deep end. I went into a lot of therapy, I was diagnosed with a lot of different mental illnesses, only a couple that were legitimate, and my mom really latched onto me being her 'bipolar' child who she was a saint to put up with, even while I took care of her.

I think when I was doing inpatient they called it symptom bearing, one person, usually a child, in a dysfunctional family needs to be scapegoated so that everyone can feel like they're the normal ones.

 

[stuff]

Yes. I don't know much more to say about it, but you are not alone. I apologize to the air when the wind knocks a paper over. I apologize when I don't even know what happened in the first place. When you are the scapegoat it makes no difference what is happening. It will be your fault.

 

[Notsowild]

I was the most abused of my sisters. I'm not sure why. I was very shy and quiet but I fought back a lot. But then he would punch me or try to suffocate me. I still kept fighting back though. Maybe I was a challenge to him. Hmm

 

[Friday]

Not from an abusive family... But I was the designated scapegoat. I assigned myself to the role. :D One of my siblings did something to get in trouble, and I'd claim credit or do something worse so my parents would be mad at me, instead of them. To the point of picking up a vase and throwing it at a wall kind of "distraction needed!". It became such a norm in my family, that if something was wrong I did it, that my brother wrecked the car and my mom was screaming at me, and grounded me, and it wasn't until the next day that she "realized" I wasn't the one who had wrecked the car. She actually came up and asked me how I wrecked the car when I'd been with her all that day. Um. I didn't wreck the car. Remember? Whoops.

Schemas, the roles we play within our own families, exist in all/most families.

The good kid, the troublemaker, the smart one, the talker, the funny one, the serious one, the golden haired boy, the red headed stepchild, the irresponsible one, the overachiever, the whiner, etc.

It's such a "normal" thing, that when adults come home to visit their parents (holidays, etc.) most people instantly fall into the role they played as children. Regardless of how little it is true in their normal lives, now. And for some, they don't even have to come home. They never develop a peer type relationship with their parents. I've been watching 'The Closer' recently, and she cracks me up. Because the moment mama or daddy enter her mind, much less are on the phone, it's like she's 6 years old, instead of an adult. Seriously stuck in script & schema.

So it's a thing that we do as people, which makes it so much harder when there is abuse involved. Because you're fighting normal psychology/ human tendency in addition to abnormal psychology. So it's not like there's a safe place to land.

 

[shell]

My mother singled me out for the majority of the abuse, I was the focus of her rage, her hatred and her violent attacks. She said that the reason she couldn't get along with me was due to my personality, because she was trying to justify to me why she treated me like she did. That was the theory her therapist came up with, but she didn't tell them the truth that she was violent, just that she couldn't get along with me. I rebelled a bit in my teenage years, so that probably didn't help the situation. My twin brother would also occassionally cop it if she wasn't sure who did something wrong, but my eldest brother was the golden child who could do no wrong, even when he did, he wouldn't be hit.

My T said it was black and white thinking, in that one child will be the focus of all the hatred and do no right, and one child will be the golden child who is loved idolized and a perfectionist. This was my eldest brother the child who received 4 perfect A's in year 12, was groomed to go to university and was doted on.

My mother tried to kill me, constantly wished I was dead, and blamed me for everything that was wrong in her life, I believed I was defective for most of my life because I thought that something about me made her treat me that way. I now know it was something wrong with her, not in me.

My oldest brother was emotionally affected, as was all of us kids, you can't live in a house of violence and fear and not be affected.

 

[shimmerz]

I find that information on the 'drama triangle' if you google it may help to understand how dysfunctional families work. Some of us who are really sensitive give ourselves up to the family to be a scapegoat because we just can't stand seeing others suffer. I understand that the black sheep of the family (or the scapegoat) is actually the strongest in the family because they refuse to keep with the status quo by continually throwing out there to the family what is wrong.

This may be a helpful link.
[DLMURL]http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/traversing-the-inner-terrain/201101/getting-rid-shame[/DLMURL]

Also, there is a book out there called the conscious parent which has helped me to understand what I REALLy wanted when I was being raised and how parent's triggers are actually the cause of family dysfunction when the parents refuse to deal with their stuff.

I too am a black sheep. I am okay with that. I don't and never will want to be like them.

 

[shimmerz]

I apologize to the air when the wind knocks a paper over.

So me.....!

 

[Deleted member 12723]

In my abusive family all of us sibs were the black sheep. I survived the best out of all of them. Now both abusive parents are dead, one brother is dead and I have a step brother I do not talk to and another brother who I do not know where he is at and have not for years. I have a phone only relationship with my highly toxic sister who does not know where I live and I do not know where she lives and I have to have really strong boundries with her.

 

[Candleflames]

Thank you everyone for sharing. It's a horible way to grow up but I do feel a little better that it's not just me.

Schemas, the roles we play within our own families, exist in all/most families.
The good kid, the troublemaker, the smart one, the talker, the funny one, the serious one, the golden haired boy, the red headed stepchild, the irresponsible one, the overachiever, the whiner, etc.
It's such a "normal" thing, that when adults come home to visit their parents (holidays, etc.) most people instantly fall into the role they played as children

As adults my sister and I have switched roles in our parents eyes. Whereas I was the wild and crazy one growing up my sister is considered to be that one now that were almost 40. We are too old to smack around anymore so now it's all verbal. It never really ends.

It's the why that has me thrown. I have kids and they are such amazing and complex individuals I can't imagine slapping one label to describe their whole personality. Yet it was done to my sister and I from a very young age. The one that was the worst at labeling us and pitting us against one another was our stepmother. I could understand her prefering a bio child to a step child but welcoming and nurturing one step-kid while abusing the other and then getting the favored kid in on the abuse too is more than I can get right now.

I was very shy and quiet but I fought back a lot.

She said that the reason she couldn't get along with me was due to my personality, because she was trying to justify to me why she treated me like she did.

I do think that some of my personality played a role. I was so eager to please people but also was never very good at the quiet part. I did fight back. It made the beatings so much worse.

My T said it was black and white thinking, in that one child will be the focus of all the hatred and do no right, and one child will be the golden child who is loved idolized

My T also said this too and that it is very common among people with personality disorders.

have a phone only relationship with my highly toxic sister who does not know where I live and I do not know where she lives

My relationships with my siblings is also either nonexistent or very limited.

 

[The Albatross]

I was singled out. We were both RH babies. But my brother was the second. He had collapsed lungs and jaundice when he was born. I was the eldest. Both parents, dished out stuff. My mother primarily neglect while she focused on my younger sibling, and my father who dished out emotional, physical, and verbal sexual abuse. Eventually my brother learned it. We have no contact.

 

[Candleflames]

My sister was also sick as a baby and also the second. I've often wondered if that played a role in how she became the favorite or at least not the target of the abuse.