The Family Scapegoat

 

It is an unfortunate fact that all around the world in some toxic families, one child is selected to be the family scapegoat.

I am proud to say that in my family I wore that title. It was not a role that I applied for. I never attended an interview. The scapegoat crown was unceremoniously placed upon my head and it made me who I am today. Stronger and more resilient than the masses.

So why was I selected? I was a little different because I questioned everything and was quite smart, always accused of having to have the last word and being full of cheek. I had a phenomenal memory and could remember whole conversations word for word which didn’t always go down well when I could repeat verbatim what had been said. In all of that I made myself a target. I see that now.

My mother always put me down in front of others right from when I was a little child. She couldn’t handle me perhaps taking the limelight away from her. She was a performer after all. I can remember her making me do a dance step in front of all the parents and her students. I had stupidly thought it was because she was proud of me, but when all those people started laughing at me, I realized at that very young age that I was just something to be ridiculed.

Her penchant for putting me down and making me feel worthless drove me into a love affair with books and stories I could escape in. Both my stepfathers joined in her game, blaming me for everything that went wrong, taking out a hard day at work on me, always telling me I was useless, would never be successful at anything and would never amount to much. My second stepfather even held special meetings with my aunts and uncles to tell them how useless I was and they should stop standing up for me and protecting me as I was undeserving of their love.

The heroes and heroines I read about showed me how to be strong. I learned how to crack jokes about myself before others did. The more I was knocked down, the more determined I became to not conform and to forge my own path. I learned to not answer back and instead stare silently at the person shouting at me. 

This never stopped when I became an adult. The verbal and emotional abuse continued until I was in my fifties. That scapegoat crown was mine, and the unfortunate thing is that became the lens some of my siblings would always look at me through, even to this very day. In their eyes I would always be useless, never good enough and any successes I achieved would be downplayed and belittled.

As soon as I could I escaped from that toxic environment and is one of the reasons why I have lived in so many countries. Unfortunately, distance doesn’t make the heart grow fonder, and holidays to visit family usually resulted in some abuse and nasty comments being thrown my way, even in front of my children.

Over the years I’ve been able to forgive this bad behavior but I have never forgotten it. It’s embedded in my very being. I have realized that I made them feel threatened and inferior so they had to step on me to feel greater than. It became a habit for them. Almost a game. The more they tried to put me down the more I would bounce back and I would bounce back smiling. That was the best revenge. They could never win.

Has this left me with emotional scars, of course it has. I take criticism personally and will over analyze it for days. I hate things that are unfair and will brood on it. But in the end I do move on. 

When I was 21 I fell pregnant out of wedlock.  This was apparently confirmation of what a terrible person I was. Instead of supporting me, my mother and stepfather gave me 3 choices. 1) abortion 2) adoption 3) bugger off and make your own way in life.

I’m sure you can guess which option I chose. Option 3 was the best decision I ever made and all the sacrifices that went with it were worth it. 

Sometimes it’s good to look back and reflect on the past to see how far you’ve come and focus on the positives that came out of a bad situation. The resilience, strength and always looking for the positive against all odds are all by-products of being the family scapegoat. You have to see that it wasn’t all bad and something good did come from it. I survived to tell the tale. Isn’t that good?

Your childhood doesn’t just disappear when you become an adult. The trauma and experiences shape you and affects the way you handle certain situations and the choices that you make. I ended up in a very abusive marriage. Only now do I realize that I chose that man to be my husband because I thought I didn’t deserve anyone better and nobody would want me anyway because I was useless and not worth being loved. And more than anything I wanted a father for my child so that she could have a complete family with a mother and a father. I didn’t want her to go through what I went through as a child. 

As the family scapegoat, my family disapproved of my choice of husband and they didn’t bother to hide their displeasure. When we were in danger and my children and I had to flee for our lives, my family refused to help. “You made your bed, so you lie in it!”

And I did. By myself. 

I hit rock bottom, ended up in a Salvation Army Family Crisis Center with the children for a few months. My eldest daughter who was 15 at the time, made many sacrifices to support me. I managed to get a job in an international school and was able to pay a lawyer to get me sole custody of the children and put a great distance between the ex and my children and I.

I have learnt not to ask for help and try and do things by myself. That way the only person to let me down and disappoint me is me.

I have learnt to keep smiling and keep looking for that silver lining when inside I am a mess of anxiety and self doubt.

I have learnt to problem solve and find solutions.

I have learnt that I can survive in adverse circumstances despite the odds.

I have learnt to be strong, not give up and to always have a dream to work towards.

But most of all I have learnt that the toxic people I had in my life were wrong.

I am not useless.

I am not worthless.

I have something to contribute to the world.

My three beautiful children, now all amazing adults are proof of that.

I can make a difference.

I can always be there for people when they need help.

I will still make some bad choices because I am not perfect, and that’s okay because I am resilient. I tend to act from the heart rather than the head.

I’ve got this.

I can do it.

Love

The Family Scapegoat 

You can find Cindy Vine's fiction and non-fiction books on Amazon. Follow Cindy Vine Portugal on Youtube.