This is a really bad position to find yourself in. After you finally move out of the abusive home, where you were the scapegoat, you find yourself having to face the really ugly truth, "She doesn't love you". (Or him, or both parents.)
Scapegoat:
- a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency
- (in the Bible) a goat sent into the wilderness after the Jewish chief priest had symbolically laid the sins of the people upon it (Lev. 16)
Usually it is the whole family that gets involved in using one person as the one who is the cause of all wrongs in the family, however, it usually starts with one of the parents. One of the parents who has never grown up enough to take responsibility for their own emotions and own failures. So, they put these onto the child, the scapegoat.
The scapegoat is often very confused, and doesn't know what they have done. All they know is that they are bad, wrong. All they know is mother is angry, and is saying things about how the child should have known better, and if they cared for mom, they would never have done those things.
We all know that children make errors. It is a natural thing to do when learning and growing. And they should never be made to fell like they are wrong / bad for a failure. But what is worse is that mother is attacking from her perspective, a perspective the child has no clue about. The pain that mother is feeling is ALL in her head, and the child has no way to grok that. Hell doesn't have a torture this cruel.
Cluster B - Borderline
The reason i use "mother" in this post is that most borderlines are women, and that many women have traits of borderline (not enough to be labelled a borderline, but have several of the boxes on the list checked) leading many psychologists to believe that it is women's nature. (men and narcissist to be talked of next. Men can also be borderline)
Basically the borderline lives in constant fear that they will be abandoned. And the things that go through their head are the slightest mistake, or perceived injustice, will lead to this abandonment. So, them seeing something that doesn't fit with their idea of perfection become extremely painful. And, one relief is to put that mistake onto a scapegoat.
So, mother comes in and sees the dishes not cleaned yet, and the husband is coming home soon, and this causes a huge spike of pain and fear. They get very angry at the child who has not done their chores yet, and yells at them that they are lazy, no good, and that they never loved her. To the child, they may have hours before the chores were supposed to be done, and this anger is just confusing. The child thought they were following the plans as laid out. But the mother sees the dirty dishes as her husband is going to see them, and then he is going to be disappointed in her, and then he is going to leave her, just getting in the car and driving away, with that disappointed look on his face. This is what mother put onto the child. And the child has no clue about any of this.
Cluster B - Narcissist
Of course, this can also happen with the father being a narcissist.
Usually in a family that has a narcissist father, there is a golden child and the black sheep. The black sheep is similar to the scapegoat, but they are just wrong. The father doesn't get triggered by an emotion, they play out an act, where the father is the good one, and the child is the wrong/bad one. Thus, the father feels better than, and gets his narcissistic supply he needs.
These acts can go on forever. The father gaslighting their child. Making up stories of how everyone knows what the child did was wrong, and how the child is stupid. (And these things can be normal things children do, but they do not know that. All they know is what father told them. Even when a therapist finds out this childhood trauma, and tells the person that they were not wrong, the traumatized will usually still believe the father. It is a long road to recovery.)
The scapegoater does not love you
This is really hard to discuss because the knee jerk reaction is to say "Mother's love their children". And the child wants to believe, often more than they want to live, that mother loves them.
The child will do anything to please mother and get mother's love. Including killing a part of themselves. Including never developing a strong personality. Including never seeing themselves as ok (good is just right out).
If mother actually loved their child, they would never want to harm the child. They would put the child's emotions over there own emotions. Love is caring for another, like you would take care of yourself. Putting their needs on the same level as your needs.
So, when mother accuses the child of being bad (not doing wrong, but actually being not good), the child has to make a choice. Either do not believe mother, or believe mother and decide that you are bad/wrong. What a choice for a child to make. And if they choose to not believe mother, woe is their life. Choosing to destroy their own self worth means placating mother, and thus you may get cared for and fed. The other way is risking pissing off mother and not having your basic needs met. And the most basic need is that of mother's love. Even the illusion of love is better than nothing.
When you grow into an adult, and you realize that you were the scapegoat, you have to do many things.
- Accept the fact that mother never loved you.
- Accept the fact that your entire idea of what is right/wrong and your entire vision of life/reality is fucked up.
- Re-parent yourself. Talk to you inner child and find a good parent for them
- Rebuild yourself. You have no firm self. You are usually a doormat for all others in the world.
- Take care of yourself like your mother never did.
scapegoat and the Law of attraction
If you feel that mother never understood you (because, in the child's mind, if they were understood, then mother wouldn't have said all those mean things) then you will replay this with everyone else in your life. Like bosses and police. You will be accused of things you never did, because you expect it. It is that you are being a misunderstood person, who is bad/wrong and deserves punishment, so what you attract is people in authority that play out that misunderstanding.
And this can be life destroying. Like, you are the young adult, in the group, that doesn't smoke pot, but all your friends ran away when the cops showed up, leaving you with the bag. And you don't know enough to run away too. In your heart, you are wrong and you need to be punished. In your mind, you are confused.
So, your mother scapegoating you is the gift that keeps on destroying your life. It is not enough that you always feel not-good-enough, but you also take the punishment that was never your fault.
It is these reasons that when you find out that you have been scapegoated, that you need to really work on healing this.
Your mother REALLY does not love you
After you figure out you were scapegoated, the immediate reaction is to run back to mother/family and work this out logically and rationally.
And, what you will find is that mother does not want to work these things out with you, she wants you as the scapegoat. You will never see your mother more angry or irrational then at this time where you try to talk to her about this "simple misunderstanding".
What you do not realize is that your mother's entire self image is built upon (on top of) you being the scapegoat, and by golly, you are going to remain in that role.
When i say "never see your mother more angry" i mean that you should be afraid for your life. No, really. It will not be a conversation. It is one insane person who will do ANYTHING to keep those hurt feelings repressed. If mother admitted to even one of those blow-ups having been wrong, then all those emotions come crashing back up, and she cannot survive that.
So, you either have to accept your continued role as the scapegoat, whenever you deal with the family, or you need to understand that they do not love you, and to break ties with your family. (you can get good enough at never reacting to their taunts and put downs, and pretending to be the scapegoat, so that you can see your family once in a while, but it is a serious hardship you will be putting yourself through. Make sure you have an appointment with your therapist or life coach soon after)
No child should ever go through the trauma of being a scapegoat.
Of course the mother was probably traumatized. You do not become a borderline for no reason. However, that does not give them the right to destroy their child just so they feel better. They should do everything they can to heal before having a child.
If we lived in such a way that we had multiple parent figures, like living in a tribe, then this trauma may be able to be nipped in the bud. If the child has a person that can see that they are not misunderstood, that it is the mother who is wrong, then they can deal with mother being sometimes-insane (borderline insane)
The problem with this idea is when father (or mother) is a narcissist, they like to triangulate. Getting other people to believe that the child is wrong/bad, and so they are all on the father's side, and so the child has no one else to turn to. (and this is why we need to recognized narcissists and remove them from any position of power)
To all the scapegoats out there, i am really sorry for the destruction that was done to your life. I wish you can find the path to heal your wounds and fix your perception of the world. It is really a pain living a life where you feel the world is against you.