Family Scapegoat Asks ‘What’s With the Rejection & Manipulation’ – Glynis Sherwood MEd

By Glynis Sherwood MEd, Trauma Therapist & Coach

Question

I am the family scapegoat with a very narcissistic mother, enabling father and golden child narcissistic sister.

My ex husband walked out Christmas 2021 due to an affair and terrible addiction problems, plus years of lying and psychological abuse.  We had been No Contact with my family for four years at the time. 

When my ex husband walked out, a friend suggested I call my parents for help. They were angry and hostile, but eventually agreed to see my 17 year old daughter and I.  All went well but my daughter started seeing a lot of them.  My mother has divided and conquered the family and split me and my sister apart. When my daughter was staying at my parent’s house, they snuck my sister in behind my back to see my daughter and told her to keep it a secret. 

I then began once again asking my mother for all the family to be reunited. This was via message. They defended my ex husband relentlessly and concocted a story saying they didn’t want me speaking negatively of them and then blocked me on every platform when I tried to defend myself. 

My parents told my daughter she is welcome in the family but I am not. They also tried to turn my daughter against me which worked for awhile.

My daughter has told me my parents are having a lot to do with my ex husband. They bought him a lovely birthday gift recently and he had them over to see his new house. He has lots of his own family but now is spending a lot of time with mine while I am kicked out. My ex husband has also been fully engaged in Parental Alienation against me.

I can’t get my head around all of this. My daughter now sees her own mother not allowed in the family and yet she is….. and now also my ex husband, her father, is welcome in my family whereas I am not.

To top it all off, I have been confiding in a friend from the UK I’ve had since age 4, but this week she sent me a nasty message telling me it’s all my fault I apparently ‘fell out’ with my family again and she remembers my parents to be ‘good people’. She told me that the relationship breakdown is all my fault and not theirs.  After so many years of friendship…. She has now cut me off too.

I can’t cope with all this trauma and rejection. And mind games. My family and ex husband all live in the same town as me which makes it even worse.

Any insight you could give me on this head wrecking situation would be hugely appreciated.

Answer

Thank you for your questions.  You’ve been through a lot of difficulty and hurt with multiple losses and betrayals, all within a fairly short time span.  This must be very hard for you.  Dealing with separation and divorce is challenging at the best of times, but it sounds like your marriage ended under drawn out traumatic circumstances, making things even more fraught with difficulty for you.  

Even though you are aware that your narcissistically abusive family can be like a minefield, it’s still natural to want to turn to family for comfort at times of loss of this magnitude.  Unfortunately it seems like they have just compounded your difficulties by deliberately alienating and retraumatizing you. 

I’m wondering if your first clue that you were in for trouble with your family of origin was when they responded to your bids for support, after your husband left, with anger and hostility?  Many folks who grow up in abusive scapegoating families go into ‘Freeze’ mode – ie emotional blunting / numbing – when mistreated, which can interfere with self protective instincts and judgment regarding safety.  Abusive dynamics can also be ‘normalized’ in survivors who don’t see the behavior for the red flag it is.  Sometimes false hope regarding family can kick in when we are most at risk emotionally and needing family support.  This is often the terrain of the ‘Wounded Child’ within.  Do you remember experiencing any of these triggers that might have made it harder to maintain safer boundaries with your family when you were at your most vulnerable? 

It must have been terribly disillusioning for you to witness your mother’s attempts to get your daughter to align with her against you, especially at such a vulnerable time.  As this is a painful reminder of the hurtful dynamic she instigated with your sister, that continues to wound you to this day, I can see how this would be very difficult for you.

Your good intentions regarding family reunification seem understandable as that’s what would be most beneficial for any family.  However, as I know you have unfortunately experienced first hand, family coming together without any honesty and a commitment to repair work is likely doomed to repeat the same destructive patterns you have been subjected to.  Unlike you, it seems that your family is both unwilling and unable to acknowledge the dysfunction that undermines the family system, and continues to ostracize you unfairly as the scapegoat.  

Narcissistically disordered people lack the psychological capacity to be accountable for the interpersonal damage they create.  They are too insecure to see themselves through anything but the distorted lens of grandiosity and entitlement.  So when discord happens with a family member, even if they caused it, they feel uncomfortable and then tend to go into full defensive mode by assigning false blame, often to the scapegoat, thereby absolving themselves of any responsibility for the quality of their relationships.  

In essence, a Narcissistically disordered person is too fragile to accommodate the adult responsibilities of managing relationships in a mature and accountable way. This requires empathy for the other person, especially their own child.  Narcissistic individuals are in a state of arrested development, reflected in self centered behavior and attitudes more typical, and appropriate, for a very young child.  This reflects their own wounding, which is tragic, but without insight, these damaged folks are a hazard to others.

It must be hurtful to know your parents have aligned with your ex-husband against you, especially since he appears to have harmed you on multiple fronts.  It’s galling that your parents give their support to a man who has abused their own daughter.  The absence of loyalty from your family members, though typical of narcissistic families, is still a harsh and wounding betrayal.

Sadly, in narcissistic family systems, there is a lack of a moral compass, reflected in the inability of these families to act from an ethical core.  Family dynamics tend to be black and white, as it’s all about power, domination, one upmanship and control.  Loyalties are repeatedly betrayed and forgotten, depending on the emotional demands for ‘Supply’ (1) by the most powerful narcissistic family members.  It can be devastatingly confusing being in a family dynamic typified by this kind of moral ‘slippage’, where rules and rights change according to heavy handed neediness, bullying and / or a tenuous grasp of reality by narcissistic family members.

I’m so sorry to hear your UK friend has rejected you in such a painful fashion.  It seems like you have been trying to navigate the loss of one betrayal after another by people who should have your back.  I often find that people who have been scapegoated can be vulnerable to choosing other narcissistic or unavailable people as friends or life partners.  I call this ‘choosing the devil you know’, in other words, being programmed to choose people who aren’t there for you.  This is the result of negative conditioning, but can also be due to not valuing oneself enough, or not possessing a template of what healthy boundaries, and relationships, should look like.

I can appreciate how overwhelming this trauma, rejection and loss has been for you.  And I am here to remind you that it is not your fault that your family, ex-spouse or friend are neglecting or mistreating you.  No one has the right to treat you in this heartless fashion, especially when you have good intentions and are motivated by family reunification.  

However, I would also encourage you to have a close look at your own psychological vulnerabilities so you can protect yourself better.  You may have been conditioned to gravitate towards Trauma Bonds  where abuse and love are intertwined.  Your sense of self worth may have been damaged, leading to false shame and blame, or over-responsibility.  You may need to learn how to define and protect your boundaries more effectively.  You may have been unrealistically hopeful about family reunification given your history with their limitations.

In short, it sounds like you have been traumatically reinjured and, for better or worse, need to take the lead in protecting yourself going forward so you can support your own healing.  I get the impression that No Contact may be your best option for now, given the ongoing toxic nature of your family dynamics.  It can be lonely being on your own after such betrayals, but it’s important that you not betray or abandon yourself.  It will likely take a fair amount of practice to do this.  You are not alone.  You are important as a human being and a mother, and deserving of love, respect and dignity.

I would encourage you to focus on finding a support group with people who are actively committed to healing from narcissistic abuse.  There are groups on FaceBook and Adult Survivors of Child Abuse (ASCA) comes highly recommended by several of my clients.

You may benefit from therapy or coaching for relationship trauma – aka complex trauma.   In the meantime, I wish you the peace of mind you deserve.  All the best.

Photo:  Pixabay

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Notes

1. Narcissistic Supply:  This terms comes from psychoanalytic theory, which focuses on unconscious mental processes that control mood, attitude and behavior. Narcissistic supply is a pathological and addictive need for constant attention, validation or admiration from others, that disregards the feelings, opinions or preferences of other people. In this respect, Narcissistically disordered individuals use others as objects to boost their ego, manage their emotions, and maintain a sense of self worth. When a narcissitic parent uses their child as a source of supply, the child tends to develop an insecure attachment adaptation to others, based on low self worth and false shame that stems from being unloved or cared for during critical early childhood developmental stages.  (For more info, check out this Article at Psych Central)