Like the strong goat Aaron selected, the target of family scapegoating is also often the strongest and healthiest member of the family. At first blush, this may sound counterintuitive. But think about it a little more.
For individuals, scapegoating is a psychological defense mechanism of denial through projecting responsibility and blame on others. [2] It allows the perpetrator to eliminate negative feelings about him or herself and provides a sense of gratification.
Sometimes the golden child can become another narcissist. Indoctrinated into the worldview of the damaged parent, the chosen one absorbs emotional damage alongside the attention. Despite what most scapegoats will tell you, golden children are usually the more severely traumatised in narcissistic families.
SCAPEGOATS BECOME HEALERS
Scapegoats, since they have been there, often help others to become aware of narcissistic abuse within a dysfunctional family structure and help others to recover. Scapegoats typically are empathic and can empathize with others easily.
When a scapegoat leaves their family of origin they are going to experience a lot of invalidation, devaluation, dehumanization, and chaos that is designed to manipulate them back into the abuse cycle and remain a repository for the family's negative emotions.
A narcissist will decide who their scapegoat is based on their own fears, feelings of jealousy, sense of inadequacy and insecurities. From a narcissist's perspective, a scapegoat is someone who somehow triggers their fears, feelings of jealousy, sense of inadequacy and insecurities.
Substance use and other addictive behaviors: Scapegoats often try to escape their pain in various ways. What is this? They may turn to certain vices like drugs or alcohol to numb their feelings. Likewise, because they've often been told they're “bad” or “useless,” they may assume they're doomed to addictive behavior.
A family scapegoat is a person who takes on the role of 'black sheep' or 'problem child' in their family and gets shamed, blamed, and criticized for things that go wrong within the family unit, even when these things are entirely outside of their control.
Signs you're the scapegoat of your family:
You feel you have to act out or defend yourself in rebellion (e.g., feeling hurt and angry, or the need to fight or lash out in some way). You look for the truth in your family's dynamics, and they don't want to hear it (e.g., "How dare you question my parenting").
The purpose of a scapegoat is to pass responsibility onto someone else. Usually, this person is unsuspecting at first and agrees because they are trying to get along with others. This technique of passing the buck is very common with narcissists, sociopaths, and addicts.
The Golden Child is trained to not support the Scapegoat, and to treat as less than, to neglect and to be unaware of their needs, just like the narcissist.
One significant comparison between narcissists and scapegoats is that people identified with narcissistic traits show lack of empathy, whereas people with scapegoat traits are empathic.
If the scapegoat has left home, then the narcissist must find someone to take over their role. A narcissist must have a scapegoat to vent their anger and frustration on, and to project on all their faults and flaws. Someone else in the family will have to take on this role. But they won't like it.
They do this by seeing themselves as the healer and fixer of you. It is at this point that the scapegoat becomes the identified patient in the social group. They use the idea of themselves as a good person for focusing on helping and fixing you to further avoid their own pain.
Scapegoats often have trouble feeling safe in relationships – especially intimate relationships – due to the massive betrayal of trust in their family. They can also have challenges managing emotions, and find they either feel overwhelmed and anxious, or shut down and not know how they are feeling.
In early Roman law an innocent person was allowed to take upon himself the penalty of another who had confessed his own guilt. Christianity reflects this notion in its doctrine of justification and in its belief that Jesus Christ was the God-man who died to atone for the sins of all mankind.
Childhood scapegoats may end up in relationships with someone NPD because it feels familiar, verbal abuse is normal to them, and they're used to being treated this way. Low self-esteem. The combination of being shamed, verbally abused, and humiliated can create challenges with self-esteem.
Everything that goes well becomes associated with the golden child's goodness, while everything that goes wrong is blamed on the scapegoat. The golden child recognizes the inequity of this, and feelings of guilt for the treatment of their siblings may be carried into adulthood.
A scapegoated child may feel isolated to the point that they do not know how to bring attention to the pain they are feeling. In these cases, self-harm or self-sabotaging behaviors could help to draw attention to their suffering.
Depending on the situation, a scapegoat can certainly recover and rebuild their life, but it takes time, self-reflection, and often therapy to do so. Someone who has been scapegoated likely experienced deep-seated trauma and hurt, and these feelings can linger for a long time.
In adulthood, some scapegoats become narcissists themselves as a defence against being victimized again. Others learn ways of compensating for their low self esteem and lack of trust in others by becoming highly successful in order to gain recognition from others outside the family.
According to the American Psychological Association, scapegoating is “the process of directing one's anger, frustration, and aggression onto others and targeting them as the source of one's problems and misfortunes.” The word's origin is an ancient Jewish tradition in which a goat was symbolically sent into the ...
They are more likely to believe that they are exaggerating, are being too sensitive, or can't trust their judgement. Self-sabotage or self-harm: Scapegoats tend to internalize the harmful messages they've received about themselves from birth or early childhood onward.
As adults, scapegoated children may find themselves paralyzed with fear when they consider dissenting in work environments or with their partners. Disagreeing with someone brings oneself into the forefront. The act delineates the self in stark relief.