When I see myself I often see a big black squiggle, like half my being was already annihilated. I thought that this feeling of rejection and aloneness was something I had to live with on my own. I didn’t know that I fell within predictable behaviour patterns by those who have been scapegoated and that these behaviour patterns have been observed over and over in the counseling community. None of my many counselors throughout my life told me. I don’t know why except that I had not, until recently, known how to properly categorize my experience.
If I had known and had the words to intelligently explain my situation I could have said, “I was the scapegoat in a family where my mother was definitely a cluster B, if not an out-and-out narcissist, who despised my birth. Her behaviour set my other siblings against me through a combination of poisoning the well along with fear on their part to not go along with her low assessment of me. I’m living my adulthood in a stream of family ostracism, fear, anxiety, and suppressed self-hatred. I feel like I need to justify having a place on this Earth and I need some help to sort this out and train myself to see myself in a manner that benefits me.”
Instead, I gave them piecemeal problems with different counselors during different crisis points in my life because I didn’t know they were related. I thought I was a mess and dysfunctional in just about every category in my life. The reality was something that would be so much easier to deal with in my mind – I only had one issue, being a scapegoat. It coloured all the categories of my life, yes, but it had one cure – DISMISS everything I was told from my family and start fresh with all the positive feedback from others throughout my life and things I’ve noticed on my own too. Yes, I have things I don’t like about myself and most likely others would also agree they’re not good traits, but I can come up with those without an issue. And it’s not time for that right now. And, yes, it won’t be as cut and dried as that, but having a term and a map of behaviours gives my mind something to settle on. I have a huge job in front of me to actually learn and accept the good traits about me and my place in this world. And it’s about time, too.
It changed so much for me to know that I wasn’t a personal messy phenomenon. I am so grateful for everyone who writes and speaks on their experiences, as well as those who counsel scapegoats and put out out helpful information on the internet. It’s set me on a whole new course in my life.
Prairie Crossroads 
I know what you mean, it’s not like anybody told me either. I had been in therapy for decades but what did make the difference was googling my questions and finding answers that made sense. I found articles on scapegoats and the narcissistic family. Once that happened, I realized the problem wasn’t really mine, but, more of a problem made for me. I wish I had been born into a healthier family yes, but since that wasn’t possible, my wish would be that I discovered all of this a good ten years ago. It’s taking a long time to make a new life and I’m becoming old. I fear running out of time. But I have heard, that when we women figure it out, we are usually in our 40’s. So, I’m right on schedule lol.
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I found the information by searching the internet as well. And I noticed we’re almost all in the same age range.
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Lovely Psalm on your “About” page btw:) that’s a good one.
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YES. This didn’t show up on my feed so thus the delay in reading it Counseling absolutely fed the monster” we always knew something was wrong with you” as I accepted labels instead of receiving understanding. It played to my persecutors greatest con job that I was the mentally ill one in the family and they projected all their darkness on me. It also them license to amp up the persecution and rejection as for me label was nothing but an affirmation I belonged in a dump heap. I wrote a blog about my experience of being put on a dump truck the right question to ask is what was done to you instead of what was wrong with you. So often counselors do not have lived experience encountering the kind of spirit breaking evil narcs do to their children victims! They lack insight and it harms their counselee I think people with experience surviving the abuse should be the counselors
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I absolutely agree. There is such subtlety in the narc-abused’s ways of seeing of themselves that counselors can miss them. I remember a counselor asking me about my self-esteem. I said my self-esteem was fine. I said that it’s not that i don’t think I’m okay, it’s that OTHER people don’t think I’m okay and I don’t know why, and that people viewed me that way my since birth. He seemed satisfied that at least I felt okay about myself.
Later on I realized he had missed that my self-esteem had been obliterated if I was going around thinking people could take one look at me and see something deep inside me that told them I wasn’t worthy to be alive. There is such twistings to how we see ourselves that a counselor would almost have to come from the same sort of background to “sense” that we weren’t using the term “self-esteem” in the same way.
But, yes, I also was the ‘troubled’ one in the family who kept having crises. My two younger sisters had crippling anxiety to the extent of panic attacks and medications. But these were regarded as personality quirks.
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Same here, I did not know anything about narcissistic personality disorder and scapegoating until I started reading blogs about 5 years ago. Suddenly my whole life made sense.
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I know, my whole view of my life went from a confusing mess to an easy-to-read map. It’s a life-changer.
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