Scapegoat

emotional abuse, recovery, scapegoat

Is someone in your family, relationship, job place, other group scapegoated?  
Is it you?

Scapegoating is a term to label what happens when a person of authority chooses a single person, employee, or group and blames these vulnerable people for all manner of things for which they are not responsible or that are not even real accusations. Once the powerful person in the family or system chooses the scapegoat the entire system will often join in with name calling, targeting, shaming, blaming, belittling, victimizing, abusing, and projecting, especially if the group is made up of emotionally immature or unquestioning people.

Anytime a person is at the bottom of the pecking order they naturally begin to think of themselves as bad, guilty, culpable, valueless, inferior... Accepting the blame, shrinking, enduring the domination, or swallowing the prejudice becomes a way of moving through the world. Being the scapegoat in one system makes it comfortable to be scapegoated in other systems as well.

Most parents do all they can to treat their children equally. Most places of employment seek to operate in fairness and justice. Most churches, classrooms, and other groups try to make their organizations healthy and loving and warm. But the unhealthiest of them project their unhealthy toxicity onto the weakest or most vulnerable. 

The quiet, the hyperactive, the quirky, the outside-of-the-box, the rebellious, 
the one unable to speak up for themselves, the different one, the mentally ill.  These are the people often chosen to be the one to carry the blame.
The scapegoat.

The scapegoated child becomes a suffering adult. 
The scapegoated employee becomes less and less employable. 
The scapegoated spouse becomes powerless. 

The pattern continues UNTIL the scapegoated person recognizes the dynamic. 
If you are this person, try to understand the toxic system later. Start today by recognizing that you can change the pattern in your own life. You have the power to learn more. Within you is the ability to be happy.

Read. Talk to supportive people. Read. Put distance between you and anyone who tries to keep you bound in that scapegoat box. Read, Seek help to break the patterns, to loosen the ties that bind you. Read, Decide to heal that wounded person inside of you. Read. Know the difference between being wrong and being to blame.


If you are working on affirmations, consider adding these:

• I am my own authority.
• I am a unique, interesting, precious human being.
• I am true to myself.
• This is my life.
• At any instant I can begin a new life.
• I am skeptical of criticism and of critics.
• All of my feelings are mine.
• I define myself.
• I accept responsibility for my own life.
• I don't need the critics to understand, accept, or approve of my growth. 
• I deserve kindness.
• I treat myself with love and gentleness. 
• It is normal to make errors.
• I can find happiness and harmony in this life.

 

 

Moving Forward. At Last.

It's not true, you know.
They have made us feel this way.
They have criticized, corrected, sarcasmed, controlled, abused us into thinking that we can't do a single thing right.

We feel half alive, we feel like we can't do the simplest of things right, we can't speak up, our voices tremble, we mumble, we feel as though we are broken or faulty, we can't face new projects, we feel personally responsible for failures of the system around us, we don't trust our own perceptions or memories, we carry shame, our relationships take more than we have to give, we feel overwhelmed, we feel invisible, our bodies don't feel real, we fully expect to fail, we think we have no value, we never feel good enough.

It is now clear that the people around us will not change or help. They are not interested in seeing us feel better. They deny having any part in our demise. They blame us too. They seem to jump on our errors. They can't see our floundering... our drowning...

We wonder How much of this do I have to take?

OK.
OKAY, ENOUGH.

We now know that it is up to us to make the changes. We have read enough to get started. We know that there are resources out there to help. We know who will support us, cheer us on, give witness to our risk. We know that it is our next move. We know that the choice is ours. The spark is there, the desire is there. We are no longer putting it off, closing our eyes and sleepwalking. We have the power inside, the power to take that single step forward...away...towards.

Without knowing where that first footfall will take us, we can take the first step down this road that we are creating. Without seeing a destination, we can know that the journey is valuable, constructive, ...worthy. Without a single other witness, we can reach toward that which we yearn.

What is at the end of the journey?
We are.
I am.

We deserve this.
I deserve this.