Halifax (Glynis Sherwood MEd) – Family Scapegoat Asks, Will I Be A Target Forever?
Question
If a family scapegoat continually gets scapegoated in the real world,
can anything really change that dynamic?
I am 58 years old, and have lost several jobs to bullying. I even had a neighbor threaten my life before I even formally met him, and I’m a very kind person. People say bullying stops, but it never stopped for me. I can’t seem to cope well in the real world, and it doesn’t feel like anything will ever change that.
I’ve lost job after job in such a bizarre, yet consistent way, it’s baffling. This included a coworker who confided in me that she tortures her dog, and then started sabotaging my work so I lost my job; a boss who told me she “despised me” because I was “a bleeding heart liberal” even though politics never came into the job. I even went to a depression workshop where the facilitator told me he “didn’t like me because I was easy to manipulate and made people feel bad about themselves.” That one was a good lesson, but he treated me horribly and I paid a lot of money for the workshop, so I was heartbroken yet again.
I have so many stories like this. The only person who has made some sense of this for me (outside of my readings about scapegoating) was a psychic who told me “You are a mirror out in the world. If people have bad things in them that they don’t want to see, they see it in you and attack you.”
So I found myself at home taking care of my handicapped mother due to all of these job losses and then slowly realized the bullying originated in my home. I was around the age of 50 when I first found the term “family scapegoat”. My family always discounted anything I said, told people in front of me that I was crazy and to be ignored. I realized at a neighborhood reunion that my siblings were telling people I was making up the fact I had a paper route (like all my siblings had) when, in fact, I had a paper route. I remember it clearly and I’m sure my customers remember me. I remember getting up every morning and rolling the papers together, delivering them, going collecting, paying the office, etc. I remember how wonderful Halloween and Christmas were especially nice because our customers would remember us and do things for us. I couldn’t understand why my siblings would change my own history in other people’s eyes. This was horrifying to me. What else were they changing?
My childhood had its own horrors of being slapped awake every morning by my father, and my father telling my siblings to ignore me whenever I cried. I remember spending days in a room by myself just crying. Being the youngest I was also told by several people including my siblings that I was pampered and spoiled. That just seemed to sum up my childhood. I don’t remember much else.
But my parents weren’t horrible people. They fed me and kept me alive and I know they loved me and they did all they could while having 4 other children and jobs to deal with. I had birthday cakes and presents and my mom even sewed several outfits for me. Just because “I love you” was never said, it was clearly there.
My mother eventually needed help after a childhood back injury got much worse, so my father and I did the best we could to take care of her broken back. But he suddenly died in 2005 and I was stuck taking care of her because my siblings said that it wasn’t true about her back. They said she was lying, despite her endless visits to neurologists and neurosurgeons to try to get some relief from her pain. They all told us the injury was too old to fix and to just keep my mother sedated. She ended up on pain pills the rest of her life and did the best to distract herself from the pain, by becoming a painter and an avid reader.
But she would also tell my siblings to ignore me and that I was making mountains out of nothing. She would then, conversely, confide in me of how much pain she was in. She would cry. It was horrible. Now that she has passed away at 94, I’m left trying to find a job while knowing this scapegoat pattern hasn’t changed. I still have the neighbor who threatened my life to deal with. He has not suddenly become friendly. I can hold onto Jesus, tell myself these people are simply acting out their own pain, I’m just a mirror, and pray for their healing. I do all of that, and do my best to walk away or avoid people who are trouble, but will I finally find a job that I won’t lose? Maybe it’s become a belief that I simply have to change. I don’t know.
