At the time, I learned a lot about the mindset of people who are attracted to one another in unhealthy ways that ultimately become an intention to damage, defame, and destroy a targeted person. It's called scapegoating, and it's a human group dynamic that has been observed throughout history, and as far back as biblical times.
As I read about scapegoating--which I did because I can readily identify times throughout my life when I was targeted as the scapegoat by people I loved--I came to understand that many people who experience being scapegoated were first targeted as a familial role in childhood. Such experiences shape a young person; lead to feelings of isolation and distrust. In conjunction with my childhood experiences of scapegoating, I can recall instances of emotional abuse as well. My mother, far more than my father, had an insidious abuse signature that included abandonment, favoring my sister over myself, (my parent) playing the victim and blaming me, and invalidating my struggles.
I was an independent child, even as shy as I was with people I didn't know. This frustrated my mother, I think. She used scapegoating as the last resort to control me when other methods failed her, and she needed to pull in the other members of my family.; my father and my sister. I believe my father was a target as a scapegoat in his childhood, too, as he was tortured mercilessly in British and Canadian boarding schools from age nine through his last year in high school. So, although it's not right, it might have been why my father was prepared to participate in scapegoating against me.
The effects of scapegoating compound the effects of other emotional abuse, and lead to stressors in adult life. In my adult life--even in my teen years--the experience made it more challenging to form new relationships with friends and even romantic partners. I recognize now, after many years of self-counsel and professional support as well, that I undervalued myself; often choosing people who would not ultimately be loyal and kind people in a friendship with me. In my younger years, I struggled to manage my emotions in certain instances. I often felt isolated and alone.
I write now about this experience because, as life has shown me, scapegoating is a theme in my life, and it has come up again. And, it's not a fact lost on me that some of the people targeting me this time are friends who've confided that they, themselves, have been the victim of scapegoating. The scholarly words on this phenomenon say that the perceived communal benefits of scapegoating in a group of people are that the perpetrators are able to ignore their own "sins" and pile all complaints and criticisms onto the scapegoat, thus essentially "cleansing" themselves of their own transgressions. What I know is this. Each and every time that I've been the victim of scapegoating, the perpetrators themselves were in a state of emotional chaos, and most likely were losing their own way. In some cases, I was also struggling. In other instances, I was not.
Nonetheless, I stood in their view as somebody who would most likely not fight them for what they were choosing to do to me. Somebody who would potentially be more forgiving of their abuse, even though they would be gone from my life. They perceived that they could convince each other to make me the clear target of their own anger while protecting their own self-esteem.
And this time, each of them had issues that made them feel powerless. "Elle" with her on-going financial woes and failure at love, surrounded by toxic relationships of her own making; "Vee" also with major financial fears and a recent DUI, as well as a looming divorce; and "Kay", who simply spent every day of her life angry at most of the world for slights registered days, weeks, or months before, and unresolved anger at a dead mother--a wound she'd never heal.
This time, I think for the first time, I know what I am seeing when scapegoating starts to happen. I may not be able to do anything to stop it, but I can see the evidence of the game afoot and know that I am merely the chosen scapegoat again. I could not stop these friends from cancelling me, but I could choose how I reacted, and I could reflect on my own actions and understanding of why I was chosen for sacrifice.
And, in a full-circle twist of the knife, my emotionally abusing mother has decided to choose the perpetrators over me. My mother, who relies on me now for financial support; for financial management; for being her medical advocate and for driving her to doctor appointments. In my entire adult life, my mother has been unwilling to stand up for me when people who've betrayed me have sought to claim her as theirs. But they sought her because she had been signaling this willingness to betray me all along.
And as much as I want to insist she stand up for me--she's already refused--she's allowing me to simply stop supporting her. So, I am giving up all the jobs I undertook to make her life easier. I pointed out that she might want to keep the betrayers as her friends (even though they were really mine), and that she needed me to do many things for her, and that maybe we should come to an agreement.
Upshot: Just as my sister has done with my father, who she feels was emotionally abusive to her in childhood, I will remove myself from my mother's life to the extent possible, while keeping my obligations. To keep myself safe, I will keep in the forefront of my mind the memories of the gaslighting, the stories she told my friends behind my back casting herself as the victim, and the many, many acts of betrayal, great and small.
Comments