What Does It Feel Like to Be the Scapegoat in a Family?
By Dr. Betsy Usher
Let me begin by saying that a family that has a scapegoat child is a dysfunctional family like mine, most likely a narcissistic family dynamic. Now a parent doesn’t have to have NPD in order to be a narcissistic family dynamic. What this means is that the parents are dysfunctional by being selfish, demanding, neglectful, spiteful, hurtful, use you as an object, and can be jealous of you.
The abusive parent doesn’t see you as a whole person; you are an object to them that they use to project their fears and mental health issues on. The scapegoat usually suffers from C-PTSD from being labeled the scapegoat as well as the abuse that kept them in this role. This has been my personal experience on being the scapegoat in my family.
The message to the scapegoat are:
You are not good enough
You are THE problem in the family (you are to blame for everything)
You are unlovable
You are not who we want you to be
We don’t see, hear, or understand you and your ways
The abusive parent(s) are greatly disturbed, most likely abused, neglected, and were shown very little boundaries as a child. They take their dysfunction and issues and place them inside of you, yes inside, all the way into your core and soul.
The main way they do this is projection. Projection is taking how one feels about themselves internally and instead of admitting it, they displace it onto someone else.
The child has been groomed (programed) for these projections to be partly true about themselves so they take them on, they buy into it; they believe them.
Which child do they pick to be the scapegoat and why?
There can be many different reasons why one of the children is picked to play the role of the scapegoat. The mother feels competition or reminders her of herself and the child doesn’t obey her every word. The child is strong with their opinions. They are usually the rebel in the family and the whistle blower, calling out the family’s dysfunction, the problems each family member has, and unfair treatment.
They are then a threat to blow the family’s cover of being a “good family” because the rebel may tell people about whom they really are, abusers. So, the family makes the child feel as though they are the problem. This would silence the child since they do not wish to tell people how “terrible and bad” they are.
Lastly, the scapegoat almost always has more psychological awareness than any other family member. This is why they are the whistleblower that see’s what’s really going on. They are emotionally intelligent and that is a threat to the abusers.
The scapegoat then feels worthless and unable to do anything right; just their mere existence is wrong, bad, and a burden. They feel unlovable and this carries throughout their entire lives. The feelings of being a burden, toxic, worthless, and unlovable are intolerable feelings and yet this is the core of how they then feel about themselves.
A part of the person labeled the scapegoat feels that a part of them believes they are all bad and a part of them knows that the abuser is wrong. However, it may take years of therapy to get to a place where they feel like a part of them knows their truth and the family’s truth.
See, they never were given the chance to find out who they really were/are, they were just told that whatever they were doing was wrong and therefore they are just wrong. So the scapegoat struggles with identity. They are stuck in cognitive dissonance not knowing if their parents are right and they are the monster, or if their intuition is right and something is wrong with their parents.
Where there is a scapegoat you will find the Golden Child. This child can do no wrong and is adored and loved by the abuser(s). The scapegoat compares themselves to the golden child as do the parents. This drives the scapegoat to act out and become the person the abuser(s) say they are. Self-fulfilling prophecy. They believe they are a bad seed, the black sheep, so they act bad, get into trouble, act out in ways that are self destructive. They believe they deserve it and they are already bad anyhow, might as well live it.
The family hates the scapegoat and the scapegoat feels it. They want them gone because to them that would fix all of their problems. Except that the scapegoat is not the problem and if the scapegoat were to leave the family would pick a new one to replace him/her. The dysfunctional family needs someone to blame, no matter how good the scapegoat is, they family will find something to criticize them about or to flip it and make it all about how great the abuser is.
Once the scapegoat realizes that they are the scapegoat they are angry, frustrated, confused, and can feel hopeless. They realize that nothing they can do can stop the family from blaming everything on them. They have a choice then, stay and continue to be abused as the families punching bag of shit, or to walk away.
The scapegoat may feel caught in what to do. The family you see isn’t always mean, they are great sometimes, helpful, may even help them financially so they want to justify their actions and replace them with when they are good. This is just like an abusive relationship. It goes in cycles and the good times are always for manipulation. The family just doesn’t realize that.
If the scapegoat doesn’t leave and doesn’t’ get into therapy to help them reconstruct who they really are they are stuck playing the bad one in their family and possibly in other places such as work, with friends, and partners. It’s been engrained in them that they are bad and worthless. This is very hard to undo. It takes time and effort and most importantly to not be around toxic people confusing you about your true self. The scapegoat is strong, fierce, and brave. They are capable of leaving and starting again out of any of the family members.