Do you have trouble trusting people? Even trusting yourself? This is a common issue with the scapegoat children of narcissists. Have you ever wondered why that is? Well, for one thing, it is almost impossible to have an NParent and not be the victim of gaslighting…and one of the consequences of being gaslighted throughout your formative years is that “…gaslighting, when effective, will actually damage your trust in yourself and your experience of reality.”
When we acknowledge that we have been gaslighted,
triangulated, hoovered, and otherwise manipulated by our Ns, when we look at
the aftermath, like our difficulty in choosing emotionally healthy partners and
friends, our inability to trust people…including ourselves…our constant state
of feeling anxiety and/or guilt, it is difficult to believe we were not
deliberately targeted and attacked. And yet, for most of us, this is actually
the case: there was nothing truly personal in it.
Hard to accept? How many times have you asked yourself “why
does she hate me?” or “Why me?” or “What did I do to deserve this?” How often
have you searched your memory for something you might have said or done…or
assumed something you said or did…that provoked her to dislike you, to not love
you, to punish you. Because you assume it is your fault, you take on guilt, you
feel like you are a bad person, even if you can’t figure out why. All of this
is based on your assumption that her negative actions and/or attitudes against
you are somehow justified and for them to be justified, you would have had to do or say something wrong, even if you don’t
remember what that was.
Maybe, like many ACoNs, you have holes in your memory,
periods of time that you cannot remember. When your N gaslights and accuses you
of being mean to her or of having said or done something that upset her and you
can’t recall ever having said or done it, it is natural to think you may have
done it but can’t remember. “Losing spots in your memory makes it very
plausible when someone tells you that they cannot trust your memory. It makes
it very plausible when they tell you that you are abusive.” This is a common
way be begin to think we are crazy, because our memory of our experiences and
reality do not match with what our NParents report.
When they call in the
flying monkeys, it can get even worse. Flying monkeys accept the N’s version of
things uncritically, so the next thing you know, your N has an army of
supporters and you are but a lonely voice crying in the wilderness. “It’s hard
to stand firm when one person is trying to replace your experience, but when
they have a chorus of supporters, it is nearly impossible. There is a reason
why cult abuse can lead to a complete breakdown of someone’s personality…Group manipulation and abuse is devastatingly effective.”
So how can this not be personal?
The first thing you have to realize is that Ns do not see
other people the way we see them. We have a habit of ascribing to others our
own feelings, beliefs, motivations and, in general, we will be roughly accurate
as long as we are dealing with people of the same general culture and background.
If we come from a culture in which mothers are expected to love their children
and put them first, to take an interest in each of them individually and treat
them as individuals, with love and respect, we will expect that of all mothers
in our culture, including our own. We have expectations.
But narcissists are outliers. We base our expectations on
our societal norms and our narcissistic parents do not meet those norms, even
though some of them may attempt to appear to meet them. We expect our parents
to care for us and put our needs ahead of their wants because that is what our
society expects as well. And if they don’t, because the society assumes that
they are fulfilling their ordained roles as parents, it is we who are suspected of causing the problem. We even suspect
ourselves, wondering what we did, what we didn’t do, what is wrong with us,
that our mothers and/or fathers do not love us in the way we expect. It is we who think it is personal.
For narcissists, I don’t think it is that complex. We are
not people to narcissists in the way that we are people to others. We are
objects. That can be difficult to wrap your head around. Think of it this way:
if you have three empty trash receptacles in your kitchen, a pink one, a yellow
one, and a silver one, which one do you throw the empty soup can into? It
doesn’t matter, does it? What if they are different shapes? Say round, square,
and rectangular openings. Still doesn’t matter, does it? Suppose they are
different sizes: medium, large, and huge. You only have one can to throw away
and all of the receptacles are empty…
So, what DOES matter? What criteria do you consider when you
choose which one to throw the can into? The specific characteristics of each
bin…its personality, if you will…is immaterial. All that matters is your need, and you are going to choose
the nearest one to where you are standing with that empty can in your hand. It
is all about you and your needs, and the looks, size, and shape of the bins are
immaterial.
Over time, things may evolve. You may find yourself
unconsciously sorting your refuse: tins into the pink one, plastic into the
yellow one, paper into the silver one. You habituate this such that even if the
position of the bins is swapped, you now will take three extra steps to put the
tin in the pink bin because that is where the tins belong. Over time, the pink
bin becomes the one for tins, not because of anything inherent in the bin or
its position that makes it more suitable or deserving of the tins but because,
in the beginning, it was the closest to you when you were throwing tins away
and you habituated it. If the pink bin has a rubber liner, so that the goo from
inside the tins doesn’t ooze out into the metal of the tin, or out through the
mesh of the silver tin that you use for paper, and it has a lid that closes to
keep the flies out, then you have even more reason to use it for the tins, don’t
you?
I suspect the scapegoat child is chosen in much the same
way. It is nothing personal against you, it is simply that 1) you are there at
the time your N feels a need to lay blame on someone other than herself and 2)
you are vulnerable to accepting this blame. If there was another child present
at the same time who was more vulnerable than you, it is possible that child
would be chosen. If you were not there at all, definitely another child would
be chosen. It wasn’t you…the essential personhood of yourself, s/he who resides
inside the body…who was chosen, it was the person nearest and most vulnerable
to being responsive to the narcissist’s manipulations.
Over time I have noticed that first children, especially
first girls, seem to be disproportionately singled out for scapegoat status. We
are someone upon whom our NMs can dump their responsibilities. Culturally,
girls are still the caretakers and the people who do the bulk of the domestic
chores, so it is natural that narcissistic parents will task the first
available person (the oldest child), and in particular the oldest girl, to take
over responsibility. You are there…and you were there first. Sometimes,
however, that first child is not malleable enough but a subsequent child is
more easily manipulated or frightened into the role. The narcissist does not
choose you based on who you are and what you might have said or done, the
narcissist simply chooses the most available and most vulnerable, regardless of
other factors like personality or actions.
Once you are identified as the scapegoat person, the choice
needs to be rationalize or justified. In a normal environment, your actions are
the justification for how you are treated: break curfew, get grounded, for example.
With the narcissistic parent, the choice is made first, then the justifications
for the choice are found. These can range from actual events (you did run out into the street after the
ball and nearly get hit by a car), to real events twisted to have new meanings
(you were trying to give the cat a bath, not drown him), to outright lies (you
didn’t call your mother a bitch, even though you might have been thinking it).
The reasons you are the one who gets dumped on can sound rational, like you
didn’t finish your chores so you can’t go skating with your friends (even
though your chores consist of doing her
housework) and they can absolutely absurd (you ruined her life by being born,
so now she is blaming you for her ruined figure and poor job prospects). But
what they all have in common is this: it has nothing to do with you, personally. It has to do with her
agenda, her perceptions, her refusal to take responsibility for herself and her
life.
If you had not been born, if you had born at a different
point in her life, if you had been born to another mother, this person would
still have a scapegoat. It had nothing to do with YOU.
Sources:
10 Things
I’ve Learned About Gaslighting As An Abuse Tactic http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/08/things-wish-known-gaslighting/
