1989

[Mutt]

I've been reading about narcissists and dysfunctional families and I'm starting to realize how really dysfunctional things were.

In 1989, I was 15 and kicked out of the family home I was kicked out because I hadn't listened to my dad for the umpteenth time about going out with my friends. We drank and I slept over a friends house and returned home the next morning to find that my dad wouldn't let me in the house because he had locked the door.  I waited for around 15 maybe 20 minutes, grabbed a hockey stick and start hitting the door with it and a few minutes later the RCMP came around the back of the house and they took me in their patrol car and we down to the station.

It took a few hours between the police station and social services and I was put into an emergency shelter, followed by a foster home and eventually group homes.

That was a day that brought a lot of feelings of guilt, shame for nearly 24, 25 years. My father has NPD traits and I was the truth teller in the family.

The Scapegoat motif began centuries ago as a part of the sacrificial dynamic with a god or gods.  The members of a village would write down their sins on a ribbon tied around a goat's neck.  The goat was then sacrificed or sent away into the wilderness.  Either way the Scapegoat carried the "sins" of the village with him.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/traversing-the-inner-terrain/201101/the-scapegoat-identity

Today, I still get blamed for everything with my family members. My father lives far enough away that we have very little contact and I do have contact with my sister and my brother. My sister is the "golden child" in the family and cannot do anything wrong in my father's eyes.

I can see how the severity of the family dysfunction was, it would raise alarm bells for  me today that there's a mental illness, or substance abuse if I were to see someone kicked out of their family. My ex step daughter had no choice to leave my ex wife's family, she is the "scapegoat" or "black sheep" of the family.

I see the role that I played in my family and the guilty feelings I had for a longtime make sense now. Can members relate? Are you still the person blamed in your family? How did you break out of that role with your family?

[Leaving]

HI Mutt,

Reading your story reminded me of when I was doing my student teaching in 1987 and had a male student who experienced the same thing you did except that his mother's boyfriend locked him out of the house.  He was also 15. 

Any role that children play in a dysfunctional family is imposed on them.  No one volunteers.  So, the only way to escape that role is to remove yourself from the overall dynamic because you're the only one who will change, not them.   I am the scapegoat in my family and the one who always sought truth and questioned authority and I've been NC several times for on average 4 years each time.  When I was NC, the scapegoat didn't exist in my family and it ticked my brother off big time.  He was so angry at me the first NC I established.  What I have found is that in my family ( my mother, brother and I) that on the few attempts I made to reconnect, my mother pigeonholed me right back into the scapegoat almost immediately.  So, in my opinion the only way to escape is to leave.

That said, there are two dimensions of being the scapegoat:  Our physical/active role in the family and our psychological mindset... .So, even though we may establish NC and choose to abandon our physical role as scapegoat, we often have it so ingrained in our psyche to be the scapegoat that we choose relationships or jobs with people who are seeking a scapegoat, making us their victims.  I believe this is ultimately why  I'm currently in an abusive marriage with an NBPD who projects everything he is ( abusive) on me,  punishes me and cries victim.  I didn't want to marry him but you see, my mother wanted me to marry him and she guilted/manipulated me into doing so by making me feel like a horrible selfish woman if I didn't.   Even though I had been NC with her, my mind/emotional state had not escaped and was still vulnerable to her manipulations.

Today, she could not do that to me.  After having her as a mother and being married to my NBPD husband, I've paid my dues, learned my lesson and am so fed up that I don't listen to anyone except ME.  I'm SO done with managing sick people and their sick behaviors.  I just focus on me now and making myself healthy and establishing my freedom ( soon I hope)

[Kwamina]

Hi Mutt

In 1989, I was 15 and kicked out of the family home I was kicked out because I hadn't listened to my dad for the umpteenth time about going out with my friends. We drank and I slept over a friends house and returned home the next morning to find that my dad wouldn't let me in the house because he had locked the door.  I waited for around 15 maybe 20 minutes, grabbed a hockey stick and start hitting the door with it and a few minutes later the RCMP came around the back of the house and they took me in their patrol car and we down to the station.

It took a few hours between the police station and social services and I was put into an emergency shelter, followed by a foster home and eventually group homes.

I remember you posting about this once before. You were just 15 years old, this really is a horrible experience for a teenager. Have you since this time ever had any real conversations with any of your family-members about what happened and the impact it had on you?

That was a day that brought a lot of feelings of guilt, shame for nearly 24, 25 years. My father has NPD traits and I was the truth teller in the family.

Many children of disordered parents find themselves dealing with guilt and shame. This can be a huge burden to carry around as I imagine it might have been too for you all those years. Are you just referring to yourself here or do you also mean it brought feelings of guilt and shame to the rest of your family? How were you able to overcome or at least start to overcome these feelings of guilt and shame?

Today, I still get blamed for everything with my family members. My father lives far enough away that we have very little contact and I do have contact with my sister and my brother. My sister is the "golden child" in the family and cannot do anything wrong in my father's eyes.

Could you give some examples of the things they blame you for today? How do you respond to or deal with their blaming behaviors?

PS. Good thing you didn't choose a goat as avatar!

[Mutt]

That said, there are two dimensions of being the scapegoat:  Our physical/active role in the family and our psychological mindset... .

Hi Leaving,

I feel the same way, I've paid my dues and I'm starting to see the physical/active role beyond the family dynamics and the psychological mindset, I have a habit of speaking the truth and taking the family skeletons out of the closet and throwing them in middle of the family room floor

I can also see how we can scapegoat our own family as well, I'm starting to see that my middle child gets blamed a lot and I try to not take either polarized sides with the kids and I try to remain objectionable.

[Mutt]

Hi Kwamina,

Have you since this time ever had any real conversations with any of your family-members about what happened and the impact it had on you?

No, they don't listen to what I say.

Are you just referring to yourself here or do you also mean it brought feelings of guilt and shame to the rest of your family? How were you able to overcome or at least start to overcome these feelings of guilt and shame?

It brought the feelings of guilt and shame from the rest of the family. I felt awful for a lot of years, it's a heavy burden. After the split, I started to read about projection with my uBPDex, I understood that her feelings are not my feelings and she projects them because she feels shame and guilt and I see that with family members as well that they couldn't cope with feelings of guilt and shame. I'm not sure if the scapegoat is the most sensitive child in the family, the mentally healthiest or the most empathic. I'm thinking I was the most sensitive / empathic.

Could you give some examples of the things they blame you for today? How do you respond to or deal with their blaming behaviors?

Yeah I can. Back in Dec we had a small family reunion around the holidays. My siblings blame me for my divorce. I have a court order, boundaries with my ex that displays BPD traits. I have seen her cause drama with her ex and my SD, although he didn't have a court order.

Her family members, my family members sometimes organize things that conflict with each other parents parenting time with the kids, we share custody. My family wanted my kids to come at the reunion ( my brother and sister ) I specifically told them that this is how divorce is, we all have to get used to it, my exe's family and my family. They were blaming me that I don't know how to talk to my ex wife and that I'm difficult. It was on my ex partners weekend, her time. No one asked me if it worked for me?

It's black and white thinking and not taking into consideration both sides and the grey area. It was frustrating and it's also my kids, everyone's going to have to adjust to divorce, it's how things are. So, I get blamed from my ex for being difficult because she doesn't like boundaries and I get blamed from my family members as well.

My ex made her choice to leave me for another man and start a new life, it's not who's at fault that the marriage didn't work or that people are unhappy with divorce, family members have to get used to it. I'm tired that I have my ex that blames me, and I don't have support from family and they blame me. I need to untangle myself from family.

PS. Good thing you didn't choose a goat as avatar!

Yes! Or a blacksheep  

[Leaving]

That said, there are two dimensions of being the scapegoat:  Our physical/active role in the family and our psychological mindset... .

Hi Leaving,

I feel the same way, I've paid my dues and I'm starting to see the physical/active role beyond the family dynamics and the psychological mindset, I have a habit of speaking the truth and taking the family skeletons out of the closet and throwing them in middle of the family room floor

I can also see how we can scapegoat our own family as well, I'm starting to see that my middle child gets blamed a lot and I try to not take either polarized sides with the kids and I try to remain objectionable.

Hi Mutt,

Nothing wrong with telling the truth BUT... .Learning how to be more diplomatic when being truthful has been challenging for me as well.  Our lack of diplomacy at times most likely stems from a desperate need to be heard and acknowledged and most of all loved.  Did you ever read the Stephen King poem in the front of his book, ' Stand By Me'?:

“The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear."


Interesting what you said about us making our families scapegoats.  It caused me to wonder: Are we using them as an excuse for our lack of progress because we feel powerless to change ourselves or are we just assigning 'blame' to the proper people?  Or, are there times when we identify so much with being their victim that we can't imagine ourselves any other way?  Maybe all of the above at different times in our lives?

  I've never really been bitter or blamed them with resentment. I was always a pragmatic realist so I had that  ' if the shoe fits' mindset... .hahahhaha ... .but, I expected the person wearing the shoes to have the good character to take responsibility for their own behavior which of course, never happened.  My stepfather did and I never had to ask or tell him to do that.    I take issue with people who are unwilling to see how they have harmed others and who won't make some attempt to rectify but I don't harbor ill will or hatred toward them- just sheer frustration and disgust and I don't want them in my life.   If my mother were to call me right now and admit how she made mistakes and how they harmed me, I probably wouldn't think twice about trying to reconnect with her.  But she's never once done that ever in my 54 years of life!  I doubt it will ever happen.  She would rather lose her only daughter and son than to face the truth and ask for forgiveness. It's her loss.  I can't imagine not wanting to do whatever it took to keep my child in my life life.   

Alright, I confess  that I still get upset about one thing relating to my childhood and that is that my poor body has taken such a toll from chronic stress related to the sick people in my life.  When I remember how I suffered so as a young girl and had no idea the role that the fear and anxiety had on my health and how no one cared enough about me enough to change their ways, it really upsets me- makes me very sad.   When I see young children going through what I did, it really triggers a rage in me. SELFISH abusive cowards that choose ignorance and denial are people that I don't want in my life. 

   I have an autoimmune disease now - a result of too much stress for far too many years and I will die with this disease.   If there is any one reason to leave these types of relationships it's for your health!  Do you think any one of them would come care for you?  I doubt it. 

Mutt, I know that it's possible to physically and mentally create your own life separate from your family.  I started by making physical changes like changing my name which really helped me to begin to see myself as independent of my past and be able blossom into my authentic self. I don't even

feel related to my mother on any level.  I feel toward her the same I would about an annoying stranger that shares my seat on a bus.   It's truly bizarre how I feel now but thankfully the NC gave me enough space to develop my own values and finally reach this point.  When I recall memories of me as a child, I really only see me alone growing up alone.   I guess that's a fairly realistic perspective given how I was really all alone anyway, right?  I hope that doesn't mean I've tipped off the deep end!