The Scapegoat role is a role that you learn in your family of origin. If you don’t recognize that you are locked into that role, you will replicate it in every interaction you have – your relationships, your marriage, your own family, your work, your friends. It has the potential to totally destroy your life.
What is the Scapegoat role? How did you inherit it? How do you get out of it?
It is important to know the Legend of the Scapegoat. The Scapegoat is an ancient Hebrew custom. In the days before meteorology and biology, ancient peoples who experienced plagues, famine or drought often believed that God was punishing them for a sin. But they did not know who among them had committed the sin. So they performed an ancient ritual. A goat was brought into the center of the community.
A ritual was performed which allowed each member of the community to heap their individual sins upon the goat. The goat was then driven out into the desert, away from the community. The hope was that the goat would remove the sins from the community in order to glean favor from God and have the punishment lifted.
The metaphorical Scapegoat works the same way in a family system. (It is important to realize that what I am about to describe is a subconscious process that is passed down from generation to generation. The family does not consciously realize they are doing this at any point.)
The family heaps their collective sins on the Scapegoat of the family, then drives them away from them. They can then point at the “black sheep” in the family and proudly proclaim that they are not like them. This serves the purpose of allowing the family to look very good to outsiders, by making the Scapegoat look completely bad. The Scapegoat is sacrificed for the good of the family.
How is the Family Scapegoat chosen? Please pay attention if you are your family’s Scapegoat. This is important. (Again, this process is totally subconscious on the part of the family.) The Scapegoat must have 2 characteristics in order to be able to perform their function:
1) They must be the strongest. The Scapegoat has to bear the sins of the entire family. They have to survive, alone, in the “desert” without the comfort or support of the family. So they must be strong in order to carry the burden.
2) They must be the most loving. The Scapegoat sacrifices him or herself for the benefit of the family. Again, this is somewhat subconscious, but only some level they know they are doing this. They give up themselves so the family may appear to be “OK”.
How do you get out of this role?
Second, you have to realize that you may have been cast in this role by your family, but you are now acting it out in your own life. There is something you are doing which causes other groups of people to cast you in that role.
The Scapegoat
by William Holman Hunt, 1854.
Etymology
The word "scapegoat" is a mistranslation of the word Azazel (In Hebrew: עזאזל). The Septuagint, an early Greek translation of the Old Testament, had incorrectly translated Azazel as ez ozel – literally, "the goat that departs" – and translated the word as tragos apopompaios, meaning "goat sent out". The error was further promulgated in the Latin Vulgate, which rendered the word as caper emissarius, or "emissary goat". William Tyndale rendered the Latin as "(e)scape goat" in his 1530 Bible. This translation was later appropriated in the King James Version of the Bible (Leviticus chapter 16) in 1611.[2] as per Wikipedia.
I was a real live girl, with very real dreams.
"You enthroned a sanctified, privileged lie, a lie believed by everyone to be the truth. That is the seed of the most dangerous delusion. A lie to be known as a half-truth, a lie that an intellectual person accepts as fact, the lie that has been inculcated upon me by you, this lie, your lie, is the most dangerous to contend against." K.A.P.
An Insidious Family Pattern of Blame and Shame on One Family Member
by Lynne Namka, Ed.D.
There are different reasons one child is singled out to be scapegoated. Perhaps the child is vulnerable. Or the child is hyperactive, noncompliant or acts out. Sometimes the scapegoated child is viewed as weak who cannot defend himself. At times the parent heaps on the blame because he cannot stand the child who has traits and characteristics that are similar to the his own! Sometimes the child has personality traits that are similar to a disliked relative (She reminds me of my aunt Tillie who I never liked.) Other children in the family can pick up the scapegoating pattern and join in taunting and hurting the scapegoated child. In extremely dysfunctional families, the parent may goad the other children to pick on the disfavored one.
Sometimes one child is favored and given special status by the parent. This child can do no wrong according to the parent when they are growing up, but being the favorite backfires on them. Children who are favored often develop their own form of pathology in that they grow up feeling special and entitled. One woman said, "For years I resented my sister who my moved adored. I wished I had been special to my mother. Now I see how messed up my sister is and I'm glad I was not the chosen one of a very sick mother."
All members of the family are affected. Children who are scapegoated often feel insecure and develop a victim mentality. They learn that they are at the bottom of the pecking order in the family and often automatically gravitate to that role at school or at work. This dynamic of making one child "good" and another child "bad" in the family is a vicious generational theme learned and passed down from parents to children.
Often an insecure parent will be aggressive with one of the children to vent his own sense of frustration at not doing well in life. Aggression in families creates decrease in self-esteem in the children. Aggression, the use of force against another human being, is always present in scapegoating. As Elizabeth A. Kaspar says, "The aggressive person is one who tries to dominate others. Aggressiveness, too, can take several forms. The aggressive person is frequently rude and humiliating, (e.g., "What do you mean, you aren't going to do it?"), or the aggressive person can become self-righteous (e.g., "I am only insisting on this for your own good."), or she/he can resort to being manipulative (e.g., "If you refuse, what will everyone think of you?")."
Bullying is always scapegoating. Abuse is always scapegoating.
Scapegoating is a huge social problem contributing to the hate that exists in the world. There is scapegoating of whole groups of people happening when there is prejudice or stereotyping. Unfortunately, in a larger sense, some Jewish people or other ethnic groups and minorities have been scapegoated by the less conscious members of their own culture.
Surprisingly there is not much research on scapegoating for all the damage that is does to families and to society. Here are some ideas from The Scapegoat Society, Forest Row, East Sussex, RH18 5JF, England. www.scapegoat.demon.co.uk
"Scapegoating is a hostile social - psychological discrediting routine by which people move blame and responsibility away from themselves and towards a target person or group. It is also a practice by which angry feelings and feelings of hostility may be projected, via inappropriate accusation, towards others. The target feels wrongly persecuted and receives misplaced vilification, blame and criticism; he is likely to suffer rejection from those who the perpetrator seeks to influence. Scapegoating has a wide range of focus: from "approved" enemies of very large groups of people down to the scapegoating of individuals by other individuals. Distortion is always a feature.
In scapegoating, feelings of guilt, aggression, blame and suffering are transferred away from a person or group so as to fulfill an unconscious drive to resolve or avoid such bad feelings. This is done by the displacement of responsibility and blame to another who serves as a target for blame both for the scapegoater and his supporters. The scapegoating process can be understood as an example of the Drama Triangle concept [Karpman, 1968].
The perpetrator's drive to displace and transfer responsibility away from himself may not be experienced with full consciousness - self-deception is often a feature. The target's knowledge that he is being scapegoated builds slowly and follows events. The scapegoater's target experiences exclusion, ostracism or even expulsion.
In so far as the process is unconscious it is more likely to be denied by the perpetrator. In such cases, any bad feelings - such as the perpetrator's own shame and guilt - are also likely to be denied. Scapegoating frees the perpetrator from some self-dissatisfaction and provides some narcissistic gratification to him. It enables the self-righteous discharge of aggression. Scapegoaters tend to have extra-punitive characteristics [Kraupl-Taylor, 1953]. On another view, scapegoaters are insecure people driven to raise their own status by lowering the status of their target."
What Should You Do if You Are or Were Mean to One of your Children?
Understand the dynamics and deal with your anger. Examine family patterns of favoritism and placing the blame on one child. Apologize to the mistreated child and stop playing favorites. Get into therapy and learn to live with yourself and family members in more productive ways.
What Should You Do if You Were Mistreated?
If you recognize that certain people in your family or workplace always take the brunt of what is going, it is probably scapegoating. If this is your dynamic, you can learn what you do to perpetuate unconsciously to keep yourself a victim. Do whatever it takes to change this role of being blamed. If you were designated the black sheep of the family, then studying this dynamic is the way to release yourself from its poison. Learn to recognize the negative family patterns of blame and shame and vow to stop doing them in this generation!
Stop trying to win the favor of a parent who did not like you when you were growing up. A parent who rejects their child has some severe personality disturbance and is not likely to change. The best you can do is understand the underlying dynamic of your parent and try to come to peace with this on your own. Don't expect the parent to "own" up to their mistreatment. Most likely, they will only deny and blame you again for being ungrateful. Some children who were scapegoated have as little to do with the abusive parent as they can when they grow up.
Do some reading to explore how scapegoating may have affected not only your own personality, but also others in your family. Do a web search on assertive behavior to learn to challenge others putting you down. Take an assertive class and learn to set boundaries to other's inappropriate behavior.
If you know a child who suffers from scapegoating, show him or her some extra attention and be reassuring that the rest of the world does not see him as "bad." Act as a positive role model so that he can learn to see himself as a valuable person in his own right. Some children from dysfunctional families seek out more positive people to learn from. Do not let him accept the identity of being a bad person simply because a family member was a dysfunctional bully.
Here is a bill or rights from an anonymous source for the meek and mild who have grown up allowing others to be mean to them:
I AM MY OWN AUTHORITY
Anonymous
I must give myself the right to be me to function as I see fit. It is impossible to have a sound self-concept until I am true to myself and accept full responsibility for my own individual life, my own need fulfillment. At any instant I can start a new life.
I ALLOW MYSELF THE FREEDOM I DEMAND OF MYSELF THE RIGHT:
To recognize myself as the most important and interesting person in the world a unique and precious part of life.
To feel warm and happy, kind and living toward myself.
To realize that at my divine center I am no better or worse, or more or less important, than anyone else in the entire world.
To be different, to make mistakes, to be "wrong," to be inadequate.
To take the time and effort to fulfill my own needs.
To be happy and free to be harmonious and effective to succeed.
To be open and kind, loving and lovable compassionate and helpful.
To be keenly sensitive and aware radiantly healthy and energetic.
To do less than perfect to be inefficient, to procrastinate, to "goof off," to kill time.
To perceive myself as an absolute "nothing" unworthy and unneeded.
To have "unacceptable" thoughts, images, desire and experiences.
To allow others to make mistakes, to be "wrong" to be ignorant, to be "screwed-up."
To act spontaneously, to resist, to change my mind, to be stubborn.
To be emotional to love, to cry, to be angry, to be selfish and uncaring.
To drop all masks and images to not fulfill other's expectations and images of me.
To be criticized condemned, disapproved, disliked and unwanted.
To fail and to learn from it.
To be loyal, courageous, and exceptional in both my person and my work.
To accept my own authority to follow my own "knowing."
I allow myself complete freedom and I recognize that I am inescapably responsible for all my decisions and actions. For I must inevitably pay the price incurred. I profit or suffer, learn and grow according to the "nature and consequences" of my act. I realize that "good and evil," right and wrong," are but intellectual concepts, for there is only wisdom and unwisdom, only wise and unwise acts.
Therefore, prior to serious decisions I ask myself, "Is this act wise? (i.e., will it injure myself or others will it contribute to my basic needs is it in alignment with the laws and forces of life?) What is the total price involved? Can I afford to pay it? And, am I willing to accept the consequences?"
I know that in the final analysis I need answer only to myself and that I have all the time there is for my total unfoldment that at worst I can only postpone my ultimate reunion with the Infinite. However, wisdom and love, freedom and joy beckon me onward and I choose to proceed as rapidly as my prevailing perception and wisdom allow."