(This is a 40 minute read. If you’d prefer, scroll all the way to the bottom and listen to the audio file)
Dedicated to: Sam Vaknin, Jeffrey Kaye and Chris Hedges. And a special shout out to my husband who always encourages me to *keep* *writing*!
– Julie Collins
Our country was founded on genocide. Some inherited the genocidal gene. Some did not. Since genocide or murder is illegal, we scapegoat people. Scapegoats often suffer from life threatening illnesses, commit suicide, or die slow deaths through alcohol abuse, drug abuse or even overeating. Scapegoating is murder, death by one thousand cuts.
The only way to escape this slow death is to go no contact and it is a bold choice. It means “I’m aware of everything now. The favoritism toward my sibling. The disdain you have for me. The disrespect and its deeper meanings. You’re an abuser and your flawed upbringing has shaped our relationship. Your refusal to address this is one reason why I’m removing myself from this relationship.” As long as you continue to invest in a relationship with an abuser, or narcissist, you remain on hand as their supply. They will use you as someone to blame, and they have someone to pick on and focus their toxic agenda on. You’ll always be the scapegoat, kept on the hook through false platitudes and fake emotional investment.
Paul’s father died when Paul was a teenager. So, Paul was coddled by his older brother and his surviving parent and as an old man Paul is impetuous, selfish, small minded, drives recklessly and acts childish. It’s cute up to a point. But once you see the lack of accountability and lack of remorse in how this selfish behavior affects everyone, it becomes toxic and difficult and dangerous to be around.
We are instructed since birth to believe that we have to accept disrespect from family for the sake of family unity. This is a conditioning mechanism meant to disempower us and keep us from reaching our potential. For if we do ever reach our potential, we are a threat to the establishment. We are a threat to the family dynamic. Who will be the scapegoat to blame for everything? How will the games and manipulation continue if it’s ever discovered that an abused sibling or child can just walk away from the abuse?
In response to these underlying fears, a fake Americanized utopian fantasy about the nuclear family is built up in society. We see it through the media, when images of small town American families attending a parade represents patriotism and strength, for example. We see it in marketing and products. There is this constant consumer based push of propaganda that forces us back into the falseness of family unity. It is not meant to uplift the purity of values or true family unity (which would legitimately address dysfunction), it’s meant to propagate a sugar coated, unrealistic version of family unity, and of course its main goal is to maintain the cycle of scapegoating so new generations of scapegoats can be created. We see it in social media with a nauseatingly high amount of postings that show happy family gatherings and cliched family connections where daughter and mother may publicly announce to each other how they’re the best. I find it interesting that there are far less father/son self congratulating posts than there are of the mother/daughter kind.
One of the first things I did when I moved into my new house was rip down this peel away sticker that the previous occupants had put on the wall. It said “Family is precious.” Or something like that. I borrowed a ladder from a neighbor and climbed up and peeled it off. Having discovered I was a scapegoat in my family in October, 2017 this was incredibly cathartic and satisfying. Continued physical acts of separation, no matter how small, can embolden when deciding to go no contact. Making a concerted effort to walk away from social media accounts that perpetuate this fantasy of utopian family unity is the healthiest thing you can do. I deleted my Facebook account.
One way we discovered we were scapegoats was the hypocrisy exhibited by the abusive parents. Helping out at food pantries yet never helping me, the child, is hypocritical. The abuser is showing false piety to convince the world that they are a good person, and yet once safely behind their own front door their disdain for their own child, and their disrespect for that child and lack of interest for the child is all they show. Abusers often portray themselves to the world as false versions of themselves. Some abusers convince the world they are martyrs in an ungrateful family. Others convince the world they are saints.
Abusers often explain away their abuse to the scapegoat by claiming that an authority figure, or a perceived higher power, gave them permission to abuse. For instance, when I was a child I was beaten. Later in life I confronted my mother over the beatings and showed her evidence from many psychological reports that conclude that corporal punishment actually has an adverse effect on children in the long run. Her response was to claim she had a higher authority which gave her permission to hit me. This higher authority was the doctors at Stanford Children’s Hospital who first diagnosed my autoimmune illness and were treating me. She explained to me that they told her it was perfectly acceptable to continue the beatings. Just because I was in frail health didn’t mean I would avoid corporal punishment. This was a complete lie but something she convinced herself was true over time. She could never admit to doing it on her own. She needed someone else to essentially scapegoat and blame as I was confronting her over being an abused child. Abusers will scapegoat anyone and everyone, just so long as they never have to look within and address their own bad behavior. And especially when confronted by their scapegoated offspring, this desperate reach to blame someone else collapses into the absurd.
The secretive meetings between golden child (favored child) and parent are often done without the scapegoat’s knowledge. The abused scapegoat is always kept out of the loop of these secretive meetings. Secrecy is the key when scapegoating a child, or a society.
Relieved that the scapegoat lived thousands of miles away, secret deals between golden child and parent could continue. However, once the scapegoat moved to the same time zone, abusive parents felt threatened by the close proximity. Even though the scapegoated child still had no idea of the secret agenda, the abuser and the golden child would automatically become defensive and do or say things out of context to give the scapegoat a false sense of security in the relationship. Or, conversely they would lash at scapegoat or bait a reaction out of scapegoat.
For instance, when the golden child suddenly, out of character, offered to help move his scapegoated brother across country, I knew instinctively this wasn’t an altruistic act of sincere help. This was a controlling move so that the golden child could have access to the scapegoat’s whereabouts and ascertain if he would truly be a threat to the secretive plans between parent and golden child.
Golden child will allow himself to be perceived as someone who is making a sacrifice by helping scapegoat, but when looking at it plainly scapegoat (often unemployed and in financial strain) paid for an all expenses vacation road trip for the golden child, for no other reason than for the golden child to spy on him. If the golden child truly wanted to help, he would have offered to pay for his own travel costs or knowing his scapegoated brother was under financial strain, would have offered to pay for a portion of moving expenses. It never ceases to amaze yet flummox me that the very people who go on about the importance of family solidarity and sticking together, often ignore some very basic rules of mutual aid.
The golden child then acted as a flying monkey (spy) and relayed to other family members about the new house, its condition, its location and any other pertinent information that the abusers and their cohorts may find useful to them. The golden child had no interest in venturing out to learn about the scapegoats’ new town or dwelling and when he did venture out, his disdain for politely accepting the invitation to explore the new city was transparent. He was sullen, contemptuous of his surroundings, and disrespectful. His behavior was similar to how a teenager would act when forced to go somewhere he doesn’t want to.
When I mentioned something fairly innocuous and innocent to the golden child about the placement of boxes in our new home, his smug sullenness suddenly shifted and he erupted in anger at me, spitting his venom all over me. As a scapegoat I knew that my husband’s brother, the golden child, had an agenda when he offered to help him move across country. And it wasn’t to lend a helping hand.
Abusers and narcissists often present false promises, or a false sense of concern. “I’ll come to your wedding. Sure. Of course I’ll help with preparations.” “I’ll come to your house and help out with some projects.” Then these false platitudes never seem to manifest. Politicians are classic abusers and narcissists in this sense.“Sure I’ll raise the federal minimum wage.” We hear this promise every four years don’t we?
Abusers interchange their roles causing confusion. Some days one might be “sabotage” and the other “control”, the next day they’ll switch roles. The abused scapegoats are constantly scrambling to figure out who’s the one to trust. The confusion is exhausting and disorienting. This is the plan, to always keep the scapegoat guessing so they’ll never look at the true nature of his role as the scapegoat.
It’s not until one goes no contact and creates a wide expanse of distance that the abused scapegoat can see the games clearly. Transparency is key and without the distance, things are clouded. The abuser creates distractions, and flying monkeys are constantly swarming to intimidate and distract. It’s impossible to look at things in real time when you’re in the middle of this nightmare. You may not even recognize it as a nightmare.
The abusive games are so deeply codified into our American behavioral patterns that what seems calculated and orchestrated is just a normal way of life. It’s as natural and systemic as saying “bless you” when someone sneezes. The games and toying with a scapegoat’s life are done subconsciously, which is why when the scapegoat calls out the game playing the abuser becomes irate and defensive and tells the scapegoat they are a “pain in the ass” or “just causing problems.”
When a scapegoat plainly diagnoses the dysfunction and the unfair treatment, this creates a flurry of emotion in the abusers and they set out to sabotage and provoke the scapegoat. They announce, “You’re not welcome in my home.” “You’re cut out of the will.” What the abuser is really saying is “Your diagnosis of my abuse to you is making me look bad and I’ve spent a lifetime creating an image of you that you’re the bad one.” Once the scapegoat genuinely diagnoses his abuser there is usually one very toxic outburst and then no contact begins. In every situation I’ve had with going no contact with abusers and every story I’ve ever read about scapegoats going no contact, it always culminates after an explosive event that breaks the connection. It’s a self destruct button that your abusers installed at birth. They’ve simply been waiting for you to press it.
Genocide and murder is in our cultural DNA. Parents view certain offspring the same way genocidal founders looked at native Americans. “They are obstructing what we want. They are obstructing our happiness. They are obstructing our desire for a better future. They are obstructing, or squatting on, land we want for ourselves. They are different than us with their strange ways. They must be removed.” My own parents treated me as their indentured servant my entire life. “This is my home. Be happy we won’t charge you rent until you’re 16.” “Go fill my iced tea glass.” “Make yourself useful. You have to work for the privilege of living here rent free.” I was a slave in the household: babysitter, housecleaner, laundry folder, server. And of course I was always instructed on how I could have done better at whatever chore they had tasked me with.
Since murder is outlawed and parents cannot remove their savage obstructions, aka their offspring, they scapegoat them and murder their reputation. They murder perceptions of them to the outside world and to other members of the family through gossip, lies and sabotage. They chip away at the offspring’s autonomy and sense of self worth.
If a parent could murder their offspring obstruction (scapegoated child) in the same way the founders murdered the Native American obstructions, they would. And so they cut them out of inheritances, show favoritism to other siblings and provoke the scapegoat to self destruct in order to fulfill that American cultural historical DNA that encompasses the very founding of the land we live on.
Often times in divorce, there is a need for the victim in the divorce proceedings to create close ties with scapegoats of society. If the husband has filed for divorce, for example, then the wife is ultimately rejected. She may find solace and power by forging close relationships with those in society who have been scapegoated. For example, although heterosexual, a rejected wife may find solidarity with those members of the LGBTQ community who’ve been scapegoated and shunned. She may find compassion for being rejected, from this community, since it was once a rejected and marginalized part of society itself, for example.
In the normal family dynamic holidays represent a time to get together and enjoy each other’s company and share a bounty. When the empath/scapegoat brings a bounty of goodwill, the abusive parent considers it an invasion. They feel as if the scapegoated child is trying to take over and all legitimate gestures of goodwill are interpreted as invasions of personal space, and innocent comments are construed as attacks on everything, from the parent’s cooking to their taste in dinnerware.
The abusive parent, often times a narcissist, doesn’t want to make memories with their scapegoated children. If there is a new house, the parents will only arrive to find flaws with the house so they can feel satisfied that the house doesn’t meet their standards. When asked, for instance, if my husband’s abusers wanted to do some sightseeing in our new town, they at first showed interest then backtracked and made an excuse that it wouldn’t be a good idea. When I told my abuser (narcissistic mother) I was getting married, she at first feigned excitement. Then after 11 months of not hearing whether she was going to make the 3,000 mile trip to see her only daughter married, I asked her what her plans were since the wedding was one month away. Her response was to fedex me a birthday card with two sentences. “I will not be attending your wedding. Wishing you the best.”
Some years ago a former friend of mine told me she was homeless. Feeling compassion and concern, I opened my home to her. Once she was in my home, she and my roommate decided that she would replace me. Ultimately, they would not allow me to enter into my own home, which was against the law. Prior to this, the former friend had always been keen on trying new restaurants with me, seeing interesting movies or making meaningful lasting memories. Her last interaction with me, before she ultimately targeted me as her scapegoat, was to insist I go see a particular movie with her. She wanted to see this movie at full price so she could get the points on her movie card. I paid full price for my ticket and went to the movie with her. The movie was a disgusting, pornographic piece of trash. I actually felt physically ill after seeing it. When it was over, she looked at me with nothing but contempt and had a satisfied look on her face, as if she had broken any bond that we may have had. As an empath, this was truly a toxic experience. I was in shock and I vomited in the restroom. This is an extreme example of an abuser taking back any memories they may have created.
Another example of an abuser wanting to sever all memories with the scapegoat happened about 14 years ago. When I traveled to visit my mother after my father had died, I started leafing through photo albums. It was something I enjoyed doing, seeing old photographs of my parents, grandparents and myself as a child. I noticed that all my photographs had been removed. There was no trace of me on horseback, at the beach, with friends, at parties, nothing. I had simply vanished. There were holes where my photos once were. I asked my mother where all my photographs were and she shrunk into the back of the house, her back to me, shrugging her shoulders. “I don’t know…” and her voice trailed off.
Not only do abusers and narcissists want to sever any trace of your past, but they have no interest in investing in meaningful events or outings or experiences that may create a new memory with you. They want to remain distant so that the image of you as a failure or a problem child or someone they can feel justified in disrespecting – in their mind – will never be challenged. We’ve all experienced these rejections from various people in our lives throughout our lifetime. Now that we know what the agenda is when it comes to the opportunity to make meaningful memories or connections, we can react to these rejections differently, with the full understanding of what their agenda truly is.
And that agenda, to be clear, is to never ever have their preconceived notion of the scapegoat challenged or proven wrong. For instance, as long as the abuser never sees the spectacular view of the new city, or opportunity the scapegoat might have in the new city, or the work the scapegoat has done on the house then the abuser can maintain that stigmatized flawed version of the scapegoat in their mind.
If the abuser were to meet people that would lift up the scapegoat, thus challenging the abuser’s idea that the scapegoat doesn’t deserve respect, that captured image of the scapegoat as a failure will remain embedded in their mind. As long as my mother never attended my wedding, for example, her preconceived notion that I was a failure or a problem child, or a person no one liked, would never be challenged. Had she attended my wedding she’d have been made wrong. In being wrong, she would have been forced to self evaluate and ask herself why it’s so important for her to think so badly about me. And self evaluation is anathema to an abuser or a narcissist.
Investing without a return seems to be a constant characteristic of a scapegoat. Investing emotionally and monetarily when traveling the distance to see family at holidays only to travel back home after the holidays feeling anxious, empty or wondering what you said or did to feel like a second class citizen around your own family is a feeling often ignored. Because scapegoats ignore this gnawing feeling, this investment is repeated for years. They convince themselves their uneasy feelings don’t matter. They keep repeating the bad investment, all in the interest of family unity. This can go on for years. Over the course of about 25 years I spent thousands of dollars to trek myself across the country to visit family that always left me feeling as if I wasn’t wanted or appreciated. Once, I brought a former boyfriend. Out of the blue he said to me, “You realize your family doesn’t like you, right? They don’t treat you like a daughter or a sister. They treat you with polite disdain.” At the time, I wasn’t ready to acknowledge the truth about my role as the scapegoat, but I often refer back to his words when I feel I want to break my no contact rule, and reach out.
Each investment that is made chips away at your financial and emotional retirement. When it’s gone, you have nothing stable to show for your investment. If you’re not receiving respect, admiration, or support or even an inheritance from the family after all the money and time and emotional energy you’ve put into them, then you’re willing yourself into unhappiness, low self esteem and poverty.
By going no contact you can shore up your savings and say “This is the year I don’t have to spend the money to be treated as if I don’t matter, to be blamed for some fantasy lie they have concocted to make me look bad. This is the year I will not be the designated scapegoat, and I won’t have to watch my siblings be treated better than me. I don’t have to deal with being ignored, or abused or treated with disdain.” You’ve saved your resources for something that will help you grow and thrive.
We are taught in American society that it’s impolite to talk about money. Yet, capitalism governs every facet of our lives. If we start treating ourselves as a commodity and looking at our emotions as our investment into ourselves we will start investing into things that give back to us. Right now, we see very little return when we pay taxes. We have a stagnated minimum wage and the cost of living keeps going up for example but we are legally obligated to still pay our taxes. There is no need to transmit this legal obligation into your family dynamic.
If you’re paying emotional or financial “taxes” in the form of airline tickets to travel to see your family and seeing nothing of value returned to you, then stop paying into it. Redirect your transportation cost which would have been reserved to see them at Christmas, for example, not to mention the gifts you would purchase which they would never show gratitude for anyway, into something for yourself: a trip you’ve always wanted to take, a class that would give you an extra layer of knowledge about something you are passionate about or even just the simple act of taking yourself to see a movie or watch some live music. This investment back into yourself is wholesome and can stabilize your future, calm your mind and help you gain back your agency.
When going “no contact” with your abuser, all scapegoats immediately want to unleash a torrent of examples, and facts, that confirm lifelong suspicions. Unfortunately, if you attempt to share these discoveries with your abusers, all efforts will be downplayed, criticized and waved away. The scapegoat may just open himself up for ridicule or more condemnation.
For instance, when many underclasses in the 2016 election announced their disgust with income inequality, then President Barack Obama’s response was to scapegoat the underclasses and look down on them by saying “shut up and take your half loaves.” When an adult child of an abuser pushes back against their abusive parent the parent responds with “Oh shut up. At least I didn’t beat you or starve you,” The abuser is flat out refusing to take responsibility for their abusive behavior while simultaneously diminishing the trauma the scapegoat has had to carry around with them for years. Abusers will never look within. No matter how painstakingly you prove through evidence and facts, you will never see justice. Abusers will never make up for lost time or make it up to you.
On Christmas Day, my husband suffered a slight injury at his parent’s house. My husband’s abusers showed little concern to my husband and instead criticized him for causing his own injury. This slight disregard for his feelings and physical welfare, unleashed an explosive response from him. This explosion was a result of a deep revelation he had been in denial about his entire life: his parents had been dismissive of and disdainful of him for a good many years. This, combined with his brothers (golden child) strange behavior regarding a secret document that was given to him by his mother earlier that day, was the straw that broke it.
Years ago, my husband’s parents let it slip that they had purchased a home for his brother and his brother’s wife. They had kept this information from him and for years the knowledge of this obvious act of favoritism ate away at him. So, naturally, he wondered if these secret documents his brother was so anxious to hide away from us on Christmas Day, were perhaps a second house they had deeded to him. A culmination of revelations and epiphanies and, after being criticized by his parents for injuring himself, forced a confrontation and he demanded an apology for being disrespected. The response to this demand was for the abusers to tell him “Leave my house!” and to say “I have nothing to say to you.”
When I turned to my husband and said, “None of this is your fault. They simply don’t like you. It’s time to accept that and go,” we both assumed his abusers would say “Now that’s just not true.” I was willing to scapegoat myself in that instance because the pain from my husband was palpable and I wanted to relieve his agony. I wanted his parents to tell me, an in-law who was new to the family (my husband and I just passed our one year wedding anniversary), to be quiet, that I was wrong and how dare I say something like that. But they didn’t argue. I slowly ate the food on my plate, waiting for them to say anything at all, giving them plenty of time to come to their own defense. After all I had just told my husband, right in front of his parents, that they didn’t like him at all. To a normal family, this would have been insulting and they would have stood up for themselves. But his parents sat in stony silence, never arguing with my statement. All too familiar with being frozen out, I went into robotic mode, instructing my husband what to pack and how. He was in a state of shock and could barely function, so I had to take the reins.
When leaving a toxic and dysfunctional situation it’s important to go “gray rock.” If the abusers speak to you, don’t respond. Go into robotic mode. This was a challenging and time consuming task on Christmas Day. When my husband’s parents had originally invited us over for the Christmas holiday they insisted we bring our cat. We also brought a lot of food, a few gifts and four days worth of clothing and toiletries. We had a lot of packing up to do. And when leaving, nothing can be left behind, not even your trash. They were perfectly happy to shove the few gifts we had brought back into my arms and couldn’t get rid of us fast enough. We packed up everything as hastily as we could. The abusers said something to me and I didn’t respond. Luckily, my husband took my cue and also kept quiet and went “gray rock.” Keeping your cool when leaving a toxic environment or encounter is always the best tactic.
The next day his abuser mailed us a small cat toy and a tea steeper we had accidentally left behind. She put it in a box that my husband used to give a gift to her, from a past Christmas. Using this box was done intentionally and further confirmed the knowledge that they want nothing in their life to indicate they have a son. Seeing that his abuser chose this particular box was reminiscent of my mother fedex-ing me a birthday card with a picture of our wedding-themed flower on the birthday card, announcing she wouldn’t be attending our wedding. Never underestimate the care and precision of how low the abuser will go. They often use symbols and imagery and signs to covertly shove the knife in deeper.
The golden child showed up on Christmas Day for one purpose: to retrieve this secret document from his parent. When he was holding the document in his hand, I knew something was up, so I stopped him as he was making a mad dash to the car. I started making small talk, enjoying every second of him sweating bullets and dancing from one foot to the next. His eagerness to hide this document from us confirmed all our suspicions about him being the favored sibling. Sometime later, the golden child’s wife and her sister showed up disgustingly drunk. Clearly this Christmas was meant to end in disaster.
Processing what it means to go no contact with an abuser often causes a circling back into the abuse, through talking about it, dissecting it, and coming to hypotheses and conclusions about it. As humans it’s natural for us to want to find evidence and facts that support our conclusions. I see this happening in the podcast community as many intelligent broadcasters, authors and pundits reveal the underhanded and devious machinations of our completely derailed and corrupt political system.
This process of investigation can often bind us to the trauma. Sometimes the best course of getting distance from your abusers is to understand two simple facts: (1) it’s not your fault and (2) sometimes abusive people target you because they have a history that shaped their abusive personalities. This history took place long before you came along. It’s not your job to try to fix them. If they aren’t capable of recognizing on their own how their history made them so toxic and abusive to you in the first place, then you’re not going to be able to reveal it to them and change anything about them, or the system.
Many people understand the no contact rule. They understand it means that all future bad investments will finally end. They understand it’s a protective stance in order to shield future scapegoating and abuse. They understand that chaos that is created by the abusers in order to distract from seeing clear agendas has now shifted into tranquil transparency, thanks to going no contact.
But there is also another facet of going no contact that is rarely talked about. It’s the detoxification process. Revelations of being a victim and scapegoat in your own family, where their overt abuse or their covert disinterest has caused years of pain and failures, can be a particularly hard blow to the self. Through denial, the scapegoat keeps this toxic revelation at bay. But once the scapegoat allows himself to reveal to himself and the world this difficult and toxic fact, the toxicity floods into the self.
Our bodies are organic mass that process our emotional floodgates in physical ways. For instance, on Christmas Day 2018, my husband came to the full understanding that his parents had never had any real respect for him, had placed him as the designated scapegoat in the family dynamic and their lackluster interest and complete lack of guidance had set him on a path to be scapegoated in his career and relationships, and other important junctures in life.
The full throttle of this knowledge knocked him on his back, literally. When we were finally home, he suddenly came down with a debilitating stomach virus. Then, the man who needs very little sleep to function, rides his bike in sub-freezing temperatures to go to work, and who swims laps in his downtime, was suddenly exhausted and sleeping more and more. Going no contact is literally surgically removing malignant cancerous cells, that happen to be in the form of people, out of your life. And after surgery there is a hole left where the malignancy once lived. That vulnerability can cause all sorts of reactions from the body. Don’t think you can just bounce and be strong after a process like going no contact. Drink lots of water, get lots of rest, try to eat healthy foods, curtail your social media and replace it with books that inspire or procedurals (mysteries) that use logic and facts to come to conclusions. Keep your interactions with people simple and even. Too much emotion can trigger a set back.
A surge of scapegoats have recently emerged, publicly outing their abusers and publicly acknowledging their role as designated scapegoat in their family dynamic. There are whole generations of human beings across the globe that no longer believe the lie that they have to remain in contact with the people they are related to just for the sake of family unity. This act of emboldening transparency will shift and change the paradigm of our very existence politically, socially, culturally and economically. We no longer believe the lie that just because someone gave birth to us or has children with us or is married to us means that they automatically love, respect, cherish or even like us. What this has done is given power to the marginalized who once had to hide from society. Through this acknowledgment, intersectionality, for example, has now become more widely accepted. The truth about how the most scapegoated in modern society, our African American community, actually built our country from the ground up is historical fact that is illuminating young minds. The transparency of capitalist-backed legislation and how it has scapegoated the entire middle class out of American existence is now at the forefront of every voters conversation during election seasons.
A generation of scapegoats have expanded worldwide and gone public with these systemic truths about abuse and narcissism in the family dynamic. They understand that they cannot change the cultural DNA subconsciously embedded. So they branch out, create safe meeting spaces and work diligently within their sphere, which includes other empaths and scapegoats, to take back their agency. They don’t hold on to the fantasy that the parent abusers will change, grow, self reflect, feel guilt or even apologize. They muster the courage to create a stable environment for themselves. Musicians, creatives, risk takers, athletes are all scapegoats, just to give a few examples. They know not to react to orchestrated drama, rather they’ve become very adept at leaving it. Some emancipate themselves from their family, and even the United States, and live in other countries. Some emancipate themselves by following the no contact rule and block all manner of social media contact, even creating other social media identities to stay hidden from parental abusers and siblings.
This phenomena that scapegoats are identifying and calling out their abusers publicly removes them from the classic role as “victim.” In the past scapegoats were nothing more than victims of society, and blamed for their own victimization. In present society, scapegoats are recognizing their power. They have keen insight into liars, and can spot a liar and call them out publicly. In the political realm, it was the scapegoats of society who asked how is it possible for a politician whose salary caps out at $180,000 per year to have a net worth of $11 billion? It’s the scapegoats who encourage empathy of marginalized communities. Scapegoats are no longer the silent unseen victims of society, they are the emboldened empaths, the risk takers, and the truth tellers. After all, if scapegoats were powerless and had no effect on society, why would the social media propaganda algorithm makers constantly shut them down, accusing them of the very things the scapegoats are calling out: abuse.
It is my sincerest belief that scapegoats will make an even stronger impact this year and years to come. They’ll reveal the abuse, the psychological tactics of hubris, and the absurdity of staying close to a narcissist and an abuser. They’ll help everyone grow up a little and as we all go no contact with our abusers we will forge stronger relationships with each other.
A society that maintains closeness with authoritarianism, false platitudes, games, distractions, psychological manipulation, blame, control and abuse in the form of neglect or fear mongering, is not a society at all. It’s a self imposed prison sentence made up primarily of scapegoats in denial. It’s time to kick that family, or that society, to the curb and break out of that prison, go no contact, and take all the scapegoats with you into 2019.
(This is a 40 minute read. If you’d prefer, scroll all the way to the bottom and listen to the audio file)
Dedicated to: Sam Vaknin, Jeffrey Kaye and Chris Hedges. And a special shout out to my husband who always encourages me to *keep* *writing*!
– Julie Collins
Our country was founded on genocide. Some inherited the genocidal gene. Some did not. Since genocide or murder is illegal, we scapegoat people. Scapegoats often suffer from life threatening illnesses, commit suicide, or die slow deaths through alcohol abuse, drug abuse or even overeating. Scapegoating is murder, death by one thousand cuts.
The only way to escape this slow death is to go no contact and it is a bold choice. It means “I’m aware of everything now. The favoritism toward my sibling. The disdain you have for me. The disrespect and its deeper meanings. You’re an abuser and your flawed upbringing has shaped our relationship. Your refusal to address this is one reason why I’m removing myself from this relationship.” As long as you continue to invest in a relationship with an abuser, or narcissist, you remain on hand as their supply. They will use you as someone to blame, and they have someone to pick on and focus their toxic agenda on. You’ll always be the scapegoat, kept on the hook through false platitudes and fake emotional investment.
Paul’s father died when Paul was a teenager. So, Paul was coddled by his older brother and his surviving parent and as an old man Paul is impetuous, selfish, small minded, drives recklessly and acts childish. It’s cute up to a point. But once you see the lack of accountability and lack of remorse in how this selfish behavior affects everyone, it becomes toxic and difficult and dangerous to be around.
We are instructed since birth to believe that we have to accept disrespect from family for the sake of family unity. This is a conditioning mechanism meant to disempower us and keep us from reaching our potential. For if we do ever reach our potential, we are a threat to the establishment. We are a threat to the family dynamic. Who will be the scapegoat to blame for everything? How will the games and manipulation continue if it’s ever discovered that an abused sibling or child can just walk away from the abuse?
In response to these underlying fears, a fake Americanized utopian fantasy about the nuclear family is built up in society. We see it through the media, when images of small town American families attending a parade represents patriotism and strength, for example. We see it in marketing and products. There is this constant consumer based push of propaganda that forces us back into the falseness of family unity. It is not meant to uplift the purity of values or true family unity (which would legitimately address dysfunction), it’s meant to propagate a sugar coated, unrealistic version of family unity, and of course its main goal is to maintain the cycle of scapegoating so new generations of scapegoats can be created. We see it in social media with a nauseatingly high amount of postings that show happy family gatherings and cliched family connections where daughter and mother may publicly announce to each other how they’re the best. I find it interesting that there are far less father/son self congratulating posts than there are of the mother/daughter kind.
One of the first things I did when I moved into my new house was rip down this peel away sticker that the previous occupants had put on the wall. It said “Family is precious.” Or something like that. I borrowed a ladder from a neighbor and climbed up and peeled it off. Having discovered I was a scapegoat in my family in October, 2017 this was incredibly cathartic and satisfying. Continued physical acts of separation, no matter how small, can embolden when deciding to go no contact. Making a concerted effort to walk away from social media accounts that perpetuate this fantasy of utopian family unity is the healthiest thing you can do. I deleted my Facebook account.
One way we discovered we were scapegoats was the hypocrisy exhibited by the abusive parents. Helping out at food pantries yet never helping me, the child, is hypocritical. The abuser is showing false piety to convince the world that they are a good person, and yet once safely behind their own front door their disdain for their own child, and their disrespect for that child and lack of interest for the child is all they show. Abusers often portray themselves to the world as false versions of themselves. Some abusers convince the world they are martyrs in an ungrateful family. Others convince the world they are saints.
Abusers often explain away their abuse to the scapegoat by claiming that an authority figure, or a perceived higher power, gave them permission to abuse. For instance, when I was a child I was beaten. Later in life I confronted my mother over the beatings and showed her evidence from many psychological reports that conclude that corporal punishment actually has an adverse effect on children in the long run. Her response was to claim she had a higher authority which gave her permission to hit me. This higher authority was the doctors at Stanford Children’s Hospital who first diagnosed my autoimmune illness and were treating me. She explained to me that they told her it was perfectly acceptable to continue the beatings. Just because I was in frail health didn’t mean I would avoid corporal punishment. This was a complete lie but something she convinced herself was true over time. She could never admit to doing it on her own. She needed someone else to essentially scapegoat and blame as I was confronting her over being an abused child. Abusers will scapegoat anyone and everyone, just so long as they never have to look within and address their own bad behavior. And especially when confronted by their scapegoated offspring, this desperate reach to blame someone else collapses into the absurd.
The secretive meetings between golden child (favored child) and parent are often done without the scapegoat’s knowledge. The abused scapegoat is always kept out of the loop of these secretive meetings. Secrecy is the key when scapegoating a child, or a society.
Relieved that the scapegoat lived thousands of miles away, secret deals between golden child and parent could continue. However, once the scapegoat moved to the same time zone, abusive parents felt threatened by the close proximity. Even though the scapegoated child still had no idea of the secret agenda, the abuser and the golden child would automatically become defensive and do or say things out of context to give the scapegoat a false sense of security in the relationship. Or, conversely they would lash at scapegoat or bait a reaction out of scapegoat.
For instance, when the golden child suddenly, out of character, offered to help move his scapegoated brother across country, I knew instinctively this wasn’t an altruistic act of sincere help. This was a controlling move so that the golden child could have access to the scapegoat’s whereabouts and ascertain if he would truly be a threat to the secretive plans between parent and golden child.
Golden child will allow himself to be perceived as someone who is making a sacrifice by helping scapegoat, but when looking at it plainly scapegoat (often unemployed and in financial strain) paid for an all expenses vacation road trip for the golden child, for no other reason than for the golden child to spy on him. If the golden child truly wanted to help, he would have offered to pay for his own travel costs or knowing his scapegoated brother was under financial strain, would have offered to pay for a portion of moving expenses. It never ceases to amaze yet flummox me that the very people who go on about the importance of family solidarity and sticking together, often ignore some very basic rules of mutual aid.
The golden child then acted as a flying monkey (spy) and relayed to other family members about the new house, its condition, its location and any other pertinent information that the abusers and their cohorts may find useful to them. The golden child had no interest in venturing out to learn about the scapegoats’ new town or dwelling and when he did venture out, his disdain for politely accepting the invitation to explore the new city was transparent. He was sullen, contemptuous of his surroundings, and disrespectful. His behavior was similar to how a teenager would act when forced to go somewhere he doesn’t want to.
When I mentioned something fairly innocuous and innocent to the golden child about the placement of boxes in our new home, his smug sullenness suddenly shifted and he erupted in anger at me, spitting his venom all over me. As a scapegoat I knew that my husband’s brother, the golden child, had an agenda when he offered to help him move across country. And it wasn’t to lend a helping hand.
Abusers and narcissists often present false promises, or a false sense of concern. “I’ll come to your wedding. Sure. Of course I’ll help with preparations.” “I’ll come to your house and help out with some projects.” Then these false platitudes never seem to manifest. Politicians are classic abusers and narcissists in this sense.“Sure I’ll raise the federal minimum wage.” We hear this promise every four years don’t we?
Abusers interchange their roles causing confusion. Some days one might be “sabotage” and the other “control”, the next day they’ll switch roles. The abused scapegoats are constantly scrambling to figure out who’s the one to trust. The confusion is exhausting and disorienting. This is the plan, to always keep the scapegoat guessing so they’ll never look at the true nature of his role as the scapegoat.
It’s not until one goes no contact and creates a wide expanse of distance that the abused scapegoat can see the games clearly. Transparency is key and without the distance, things are clouded. The abuser creates distractions, and flying monkeys are constantly swarming to intimidate and distract. It’s impossible to look at things in real time when you’re in the middle of this nightmare. You may not even recognize it as a nightmare.
The abusive games are so deeply codified into our American behavioral patterns that what seems calculated and orchestrated is just a normal way of life. It’s as natural and systemic as saying “bless you” when someone sneezes. The games and toying with a scapegoat’s life are done subconsciously, which is why when the scapegoat calls out the game playing the abuser becomes irate and defensive and tells the scapegoat they are a “pain in the ass” or “just causing problems.”
When a scapegoat plainly diagnoses the dysfunction and the unfair treatment, this creates a flurry of emotion in the abusers and they set out to sabotage and provoke the scapegoat. They announce, “You’re not welcome in my home.” “You’re cut out of the will.” What the abuser is really saying is “Your diagnosis of my abuse to you is making me look bad and I’ve spent a lifetime creating an image of you that you’re the bad one.” Once the scapegoat genuinely diagnoses his abuser there is usually one very toxic outburst and then no contact begins. In every situation I’ve had with going no contact with abusers and every story I’ve ever read about scapegoats going no contact, it always culminates after an explosive event that breaks the connection. It’s a self destruct button that your abusers installed at birth. They’ve simply been waiting for you to press it.
Genocide and murder is in our cultural DNA. Parents view certain offspring the same way genocidal founders looked at native Americans. “They are obstructing what we want. They are obstructing our happiness. They are obstructing our desire for a better future. They are obstructing, or squatting on, land we want for ourselves. They are different than us with their strange ways. They must be removed.” My own parents treated me as their indentured servant my entire life. “This is my home. Be happy we won’t charge you rent until you’re 16.” “Go fill my iced tea glass.” “Make yourself useful. You have to work for the privilege of living here rent free.” I was a slave in the household: babysitter, housecleaner, laundry folder, server. And of course I was always instructed on how I could have done better at whatever chore they had tasked me with.
Since murder is outlawed and parents cannot remove their savage obstructions, aka their offspring, they scapegoat them and murder their reputation. They murder perceptions of them to the outside world and to other members of the family through gossip, lies and sabotage. They chip away at the offspring’s autonomy and sense of self worth.
If a parent could murder their offspring obstruction (scapegoated child) in the same way the founders murdered the Native American obstructions, they would. And so they cut them out of inheritances, show favoritism to other siblings and provoke the scapegoat to self destruct in order to fulfill that American cultural historical DNA that encompasses the very founding of the land we live on.
Often times in divorce, there is a need for the victim in the divorce proceedings to create close ties with scapegoats of society. If the husband has filed for divorce, for example, then the wife is ultimately rejected. She may find solace and power by forging close relationships with those in society who have been scapegoated. For example, although heterosexual, a rejected wife may find solidarity with those members of the LGBTQ community who’ve been scapegoated and shunned. She may find compassion for being rejected, from this community, since it was once a rejected and marginalized part of society itself, for example.
In the normal family dynamic holidays represent a time to get together and enjoy each other’s company and share a bounty. When the empath/scapegoat brings a bounty of goodwill, the abusive parent considers it an invasion. They feel as if the scapegoated child is trying to take over and all legitimate gestures of goodwill are interpreted as invasions of personal space, and innocent comments are construed as attacks on everything, from the parent’s cooking to their taste in dinnerware.
The abusive parent, often times a narcissist, doesn’t want to make memories with their scapegoated children. If there is a new house, the parents will only arrive to find flaws with the house so they can feel satisfied that the house doesn’t meet their standards. When asked, for instance, if my husband’s abusers wanted to do some sightseeing in our new town, they at first showed interest then backtracked and made an excuse that it wouldn’t be a good idea. When I told my abuser (narcissistic mother) I was getting married, she at first feigned excitement. Then after 11 months of not hearing whether she was going to make the 3,000 mile trip to see her only daughter married, I asked her what her plans were since the wedding was one month away. Her response was to fedex me a birthday card with two sentences. “I will not be attending your wedding. Wishing you the best.”
Some years ago a former friend of mine told me she was homeless. Feeling compassion and concern, I opened my home to her. Once she was in my home, she and my roommate decided that she would replace me. Ultimately, they would not allow me to enter into my own home, which was against the law. Prior to this, the former friend had always been keen on trying new restaurants with me, seeing interesting movies or making meaningful lasting memories. Her last interaction with me, before she ultimately targeted me as her scapegoat, was to insist I go see a particular movie with her. She wanted to see this movie at full price so she could get the points on her movie card. I paid full price for my ticket and went to the movie with her. The movie was a disgusting, pornographic piece of trash. I actually felt physically ill after seeing it. When it was over, she looked at me with nothing but contempt and had a satisfied look on her face, as if she had broken any bond that we may have had. As an empath, this was truly a toxic experience. I was in shock and I vomited in the restroom. This is an extreme example of an abuser taking back any memories they may have created.
Another example of an abuser wanting to sever all memories with the scapegoat happened about 14 years ago. When I traveled to visit my mother after my father had died, I started leafing through photo albums. It was something I enjoyed doing, seeing old photographs of my parents, grandparents and myself as a child. I noticed that all my photographs had been removed. There was no trace of me on horseback, at the beach, with friends, at parties, nothing. I had simply vanished. There were holes where my photos once were. I asked my mother where all my photographs were and she shrunk into the back of the house, her back to me, shrugging her shoulders. “I don’t know…” and her voice trailed off.
Not only do abusers and narcissists want to sever any trace of your past, but they have no interest in investing in meaningful events or outings or experiences that may create a new memory with you. They want to remain distant so that the image of you as a failure or a problem child or someone they can feel justified in disrespecting – in their mind – will never be challenged. We’ve all experienced these rejections from various people in our lives throughout our lifetime. Now that we know what the agenda is when it comes to the opportunity to make meaningful memories or connections, we can react to these rejections differently, with the full understanding of what their agenda truly is.
And that agenda, to be clear, is to never ever have their preconceived notion of the scapegoat challenged or proven wrong. For instance, as long as the abuser never sees the spectacular view of the new city, or opportunity the scapegoat might have in the new city, or the work the scapegoat has done on the house then the abuser can maintain that stigmatized flawed version of the scapegoat in their mind.
If the abuser were to meet people that would lift up the scapegoat, thus challenging the abuser’s idea that the scapegoat doesn’t deserve respect, that captured image of the scapegoat as a failure will remain embedded in their mind. As long as my mother never attended my wedding, for example, her preconceived notion that I was a failure or a problem child, or a person no one liked, would never be challenged. Had she attended my wedding she’d have been made wrong. In being wrong, she would have been forced to self evaluate and ask herself why it’s so important for her to think so badly about me. And self evaluation is anathema to an abuser or a narcissist.
Investing without a return seems to be a constant characteristic of a scapegoat. Investing emotionally and monetarily when traveling the distance to see family at holidays only to travel back home after the holidays feeling anxious, empty or wondering what you said or did to feel like a second class citizen around your own family is a feeling often ignored. Because scapegoats ignore this gnawing feeling, this investment is repeated for years. They convince themselves their uneasy feelings don’t matter. They keep repeating the bad investment, all in the interest of family unity. This can go on for years. Over the course of about 25 years I spent thousands of dollars to trek myself across the country to visit family that always left me feeling as if I wasn’t wanted or appreciated. Once, I brought a former boyfriend. Out of the blue he said to me, “You realize your family doesn’t like you, right? They don’t treat you like a daughter or a sister. They treat you with polite disdain.” At the time, I wasn’t ready to acknowledge the truth about my role as the scapegoat, but I often refer back to his words when I feel I want to break my no contact rule, and reach out.
Each investment that is made chips away at your financial and emotional retirement. When it’s gone, you have nothing stable to show for your investment. If you’re not receiving respect, admiration, or support or even an inheritance from the family after all the money and time and emotional energy you’ve put into them, then you’re willing yourself into unhappiness, low self esteem and poverty.
By going no contact you can shore up your savings and say “This is the year I don’t have to spend the money to be treated as if I don’t matter, to be blamed for some fantasy lie they have concocted to make me look bad. This is the year I will not be the designated scapegoat, and I won’t have to watch my siblings be treated better than me. I don’t have to deal with being ignored, or abused or treated with disdain.” You’ve saved your resources for something that will help you grow and thrive.
We are taught in American society that it’s impolite to talk about money. Yet, capitalism governs every facet of our lives. If we start treating ourselves as a commodity and looking at our emotions as our investment into ourselves we will start investing into things that give back to us. Right now, we see very little return when we pay taxes. We have a stagnated minimum wage and the cost of living keeps going up for example but we are legally obligated to still pay our taxes. There is no need to transmit this legal obligation into your family dynamic.
If you’re paying emotional or financial “taxes” in the form of airline tickets to travel to see your family and seeing nothing of value returned to you, then stop paying into it. Redirect your transportation cost which would have been reserved to see them at Christmas, for example, not to mention the gifts you would purchase which they would never show gratitude for anyway, into something for yourself: a trip you’ve always wanted to take, a class that would give you an extra layer of knowledge about something you are passionate about or even just the simple act of taking yourself to see a movie or watch some live music. This investment back into yourself is wholesome and can stabilize your future, calm your mind and help you gain back your agency.
When going “no contact” with your abuser, all scapegoats immediately want to unleash a torrent of examples, and facts, that confirm lifelong suspicions. Unfortunately, if you attempt to share these discoveries with your abusers, all efforts will be downplayed, criticized and waved away. The scapegoat may just open himself up for ridicule or more condemnation.
For instance, when many underclasses in the 2016 election announced their disgust with income inequality, then President Barack Obama’s response was to scapegoat the underclasses and look down on them by saying “shut up and take your half loaves.” When an adult child of an abuser pushes back against their abusive parent the parent responds with “Oh shut up. At least I didn’t beat you or starve you,” The abuser is flat out refusing to take responsibility for their abusive behavior while simultaneously diminishing the trauma the scapegoat has had to carry around with them for years. Abusers will never look within. No matter how painstakingly you prove through evidence and facts, you will never see justice. Abusers will never make up for lost time or make it up to you.
On Christmas Day, my husband suffered a slight injury at his parent’s house. My husband’s abusers showed little concern to my husband and instead criticized him for causing his own injury. This slight disregard for his feelings and physical welfare, unleashed an explosive response from him. This explosion was a result of a deep revelation he had been in denial about his entire life: his parents had been dismissive of and disdainful of him for a good many years. This, combined with his brothers (golden child) strange behavior regarding a secret document that was given to him by his mother earlier that day, was the straw that broke it.
Years ago, my husband’s parents let it slip that they had purchased a home for his brother and his brother’s wife. They had kept this information from him and for years the knowledge of this obvious act of favoritism ate away at him. So, naturally, he wondered if these secret documents his brother was so anxious to hide away from us on Christmas Day, were perhaps a second house they had deeded to him. A culmination of revelations and epiphanies and, after being criticized by his parents for injuring himself, forced a confrontation and he demanded an apology for being disrespected. The response to this demand was for the abusers to tell him “Leave my house!” and to say “I have nothing to say to you.”
When I turned to my husband and said, “None of this is your fault. They simply don’t like you. It’s time to accept that and go,” we both assumed his abusers would say “Now that’s just not true.” I was willing to scapegoat myself in that instance because the pain from my husband was palpable and I wanted to relieve his agony. I wanted his parents to tell me, an in-law who was new to the family (my husband and I just passed our one year wedding anniversary), to be quiet, that I was wrong and how dare I say something like that. But they didn’t argue. I slowly ate the food on my plate, waiting for them to say anything at all, giving them plenty of time to come to their own defense. After all I had just told my husband, right in front of his parents, that they didn’t like him at all. To a normal family, this would have been insulting and they would have stood up for themselves. But his parents sat in stony silence, never arguing with my statement. All too familiar with being frozen out, I went into robotic mode, instructing my husband what to pack and how. He was in a state of shock and could barely function, so I had to take the reins.
When leaving a toxic and dysfunctional situation it’s important to go “gray rock.” If the abusers speak to you, don’t respond. Go into robotic mode. This was a challenging and time consuming task on Christmas Day. When my husband’s parents had originally invited us over for the Christmas holiday they insisted we bring our cat. We also brought a lot of food, a few gifts and four days worth of clothing and toiletries. We had a lot of packing up to do. And when leaving, nothing can be left behind, not even your trash. They were perfectly happy to shove the few gifts we had brought back into my arms and couldn’t get rid of us fast enough. We packed up everything as hastily as we could. The abusers said something to me and I didn’t respond. Luckily, my husband took my cue and also kept quiet and went “gray rock.” Keeping your cool when leaving a toxic environment or encounter is always the best tactic.
The next day his abuser mailed us a small cat toy and a tea steeper we had accidentally left behind. She put it in a box that my husband used to give a gift to her, from a past Christmas. Using this box was done intentionally and further confirmed the knowledge that they want nothing in their life to indicate they have a son. Seeing that his abuser chose this particular box was reminiscent of my mother fedex-ing me a birthday card with a picture of our wedding-themed flower on the birthday card, announcing she wouldn’t be attending our wedding. Never underestimate the care and precision of how low the abuser will go. They often use symbols and imagery and signs to covertly shove the knife in deeper.
The golden child showed up on Christmas Day for one purpose: to retrieve this secret document from his parent. When he was holding the document in his hand, I knew something was up, so I stopped him as he was making a mad dash to the car. I started making small talk, enjoying every second of him sweating bullets and dancing from one foot to the next. His eagerness to hide this document from us confirmed all our suspicions about him being the favored sibling. Sometime later, the golden child’s wife and her sister showed up disgustingly drunk. Clearly this Christmas was meant to end in disaster.
Processing what it means to go no contact with an abuser often causes a circling back into the abuse, through talking about it, dissecting it, and coming to hypotheses and conclusions about it. As humans it’s natural for us to want to find evidence and facts that support our conclusions. I see this happening in the podcast community as many intelligent broadcasters, authors and pundits reveal the underhanded and devious machinations of our completely derailed and corrupt political system.
This process of investigation can often bind us to the trauma. Sometimes the best course of getting distance from your abusers is to understand two simple facts: (1) it’s not your fault and (2) sometimes abusive people target you because they have a history that shaped their abusive personalities. This history took place long before you came along. It’s not your job to try to fix them. If they aren’t capable of recognizing on their own how their history made them so toxic and abusive to you in the first place, then you’re not going to be able to reveal it to them and change anything about them, or the system.
Many people understand the no contact rule. They understand it means that all future bad investments will finally end. They understand it’s a protective stance in order to shield future scapegoating and abuse. They understand that chaos that is created by the abusers in order to distract from seeing clear agendas has now shifted into tranquil transparency, thanks to going no contact.
But there is also another facet of going no contact that is rarely talked about. It’s the detoxification process. Revelations of being a victim and scapegoat in your own family, where their overt abuse or their covert disinterest has caused years of pain and failures, can be a particularly hard blow to the self. Through denial, the scapegoat keeps this toxic revelation at bay. But once the scapegoat allows himself to reveal to himself and the world this difficult and toxic fact, the toxicity floods into the self.
Our bodies are organic mass that process our emotional floodgates in physical ways. For instance, on Christmas Day 2018, my husband came to the full understanding that his parents had never had any real respect for him, had placed him as the designated scapegoat in the family dynamic and their lackluster interest and complete lack of guidance had set him on a path to be scapegoated in his career and relationships, and other important junctures in life.
The full throttle of this knowledge knocked him on his back, literally. When we were finally home, he suddenly came down with a debilitating stomach virus. Then, the man who needs very little sleep to function, rides his bike in sub-freezing temperatures to go to work, and who swims laps in his downtime, was suddenly exhausted and sleeping more and more. Going no contact is literally surgically removing malignant cancerous cells, that happen to be in the form of people, out of your life. And after surgery there is a hole left where the malignancy once lived. That vulnerability can cause all sorts of reactions from the body. Don’t think you can just bounce and be strong after a process like going no contact. Drink lots of water, get lots of rest, try to eat healthy foods, curtail your social media and replace it with books that inspire or procedurals (mysteries) that use logic and facts to come to conclusions. Keep your interactions with people simple and even. Too much emotion can trigger a set back.
A surge of scapegoats have recently emerged, publicly outing their abusers and publicly acknowledging their role as designated scapegoat in their family dynamic. There are whole generations of human beings across the globe that no longer believe the lie that they have to remain in contact with the people they are related to just for the sake of family unity. This act of emboldening transparency will shift and change the paradigm of our very existence politically, socially, culturally and economically. We no longer believe the lie that just because someone gave birth to us or has children with us or is married to us means that they automatically love, respect, cherish or even like us. What this has done is given power to the marginalized who once had to hide from society. Through this acknowledgment, intersectionality, for example, has now become more widely accepted. The truth about how the most scapegoated in modern society, our African American community, actually built our country from the ground up is historical fact that is illuminating young minds. The transparency of capitalist-backed legislation and how it has scapegoated the entire middle class out of American existence is now at the forefront of every voters conversation during election seasons.
A generation of scapegoats have expanded worldwide and gone public with these systemic truths about abuse and narcissism in the family dynamic. They understand that they cannot change the cultural DNA subconsciously embedded. So they branch out, create safe meeting spaces and work diligently within their sphere, which includes other empaths and scapegoats, to take back their agency. They don’t hold on to the fantasy that the parent abusers will change, grow, self reflect, feel guilt or even apologize. They muster the courage to create a stable environment for themselves. Musicians, creatives, risk takers, athletes are all scapegoats, just to give a few examples. They know not to react to orchestrated drama, rather they’ve become very adept at leaving it. Some emancipate themselves from their family, and even the United States, and live in other countries. Some emancipate themselves by following the no contact rule and block all manner of social media contact, even creating other social media identities to stay hidden from parental abusers and siblings.
This phenomena that scapegoats are identifying and calling out their abusers publicly removes them from the classic role as “victim.” In the past scapegoats were nothing more than victims of society, and blamed for their own victimization. In present society, scapegoats are recognizing their power. They have keen insight into liars, and can spot a liar and call them out publicly. In the political realm, it was the scapegoats of society who asked how is it possible for a politician whose salary caps out at $180,000 per year to have a net worth of $11 billion? It’s the scapegoats who encourage empathy of marginalized communities. Scapegoats are no longer the silent unseen victims of society, they are the emboldened empaths, the risk takers, and the truth tellers. After all, if scapegoats were powerless and had no effect on society, why would the social media propaganda algorithm makers constantly shut them down, accusing them of the very things the scapegoats are calling out: abuse.
It is my sincerest belief that scapegoats will make an even stronger impact this year and years to come. They’ll reveal the abuse, the psychological tactics of hubris, and the absurdity of staying close to a narcissist and an abuser. They’ll help everyone grow up a little and as we all go no contact with our abusers we will forge stronger relationships with each other.
A society that maintains closeness with authoritarianism, false platitudes, games, distractions, psychological manipulation, blame, control and abuse in the form of neglect or fear mongering, is not a society at all. It’s a self imposed prison sentence made up primarily of scapegoats in denial. It’s time to kick that family, or that society, to the curb and break out of that prison, go no contact, and take all the scapegoats with you into 2019.
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2018, Scapegoated