Are you familiar with the term “Scapegoat”?

What does it mean to be a Designated Scapegoat? What does it mean to be a scapegoat in the family? When exactly all started?

Scapegoat In The Family

Scapegoats are children who are blamed for all of the issues in dysfunctional houses.
They are common in toxic families. The term “scapegoat” originates from the Bible.

In the book of Leviticus, the Israelites conduct a ceremony in which they direct their sins onto an “escape goat.” After that, they let the goat go in the wilderness to symbolically purify their community from wickedness. As a result, the scapegoat, bears the burden of taking on the sins of a tribe, community, or family.

When children are assigned this role in families, it can have a long-term negative influence on their mental health and emotional well-being.

Furthermore, it leads to a childhood in which the scapegoated child’s fundamental value, worth, and lovableness are ignored. Instead, insults, bullying, neglect, and abuse are considered acceptable or “normal” reality for the child, as he grows.

The Selection of Scapegoats

There is no formula or any specific reason as to why parents or caregivers choose a child to be the scapegoat.

Birth order (the 1st, 2nd, 3rd.. child), appearance, or intelligence can all impact an adult’s decision to blame his child.

For example, the family’s only son may be the beloved or golden child, while the family’s second-born daughter is assigned to be the scapegoat.

Because this conduct is rooted in dysfunction, it is difficult to understand why a parent chooses to blame his child, although we might assume that the reasons might be personal for the parent.

A child who is sensitive, curious, beautiful, and intelligent, for example, and that may be viewed as a danger and can be blamed by a parent who lacks these traits. In other words, the good characteristics in the child can reveal the weaknesses in the parent and therefore the parent might get angry or start blaming the child for it, instead of rejoicing and being happy for having such a wonderful child. This is one way of looking at it.

A narcissistic parent, on the other hand, may choose the child that brings the family the greatest glory while scapegoating the child who does not contribute to the family’s public image.

Also parents may abuse children who resemble or remind them of their ex-partners in some situations. Biological children, for example, may be treated differently in the household than stepchildren or adoptive children.

A parent may choose to scapegoat a child for a variety of reasons, but it is important that we notice that it is never the child’s fault.

When one considers that some parents rotate the position of family scapegoat, it becomes evident how absurd scapegoating is.

For example, perhaps the boy who was the golden child for years, offended the parents in some manner, which lead to causing the long-scapegoated daughter to become the favorite.

Only children of dysfunctional and abusive parents report being the golden child at times and the scapegoat at other times.

We should know it’s never about a child’s inherent worth as a human being whether they’re made a scapegoat or a favorite one in the family.

Parents who scapegoat their children might have been raised in dysfunctional families in which some children were scapegoats and others were golden children. As if it is learned behavior pattern that has been passed down from generation to generation.

These parents might also have personality problems like narcissistic or borderline personality disorder, which causes them to idealize and devalue others or indulge in black-and-white thinking.

Unfortunately, young children lack the life experience necessary to see that it is their parents who has the problem, not them.

They are unaware that caring and mature parents do not categorize their children into “all good” or “all bad“, but rather understand that each child has individual strengths and weaknesses.

The Consequences of Being a Scapegoat

Being marked as a scapegoat clearly harms children. Being robbed of a family’s affection, being labeled as the “bad one” in the house, and having one’s positive qualities ignored can set a child up for a lifetime of emotional and psychological pain.

It can also lead to abusive and unhealthy friendships, love relationships, and work situations for these individuals.

For family scapegoats, dysfunction and abuse might feel “normal,” making it harder for them to recognize harmful individuals and situations before harm is done.

Furthermore, the frequency of emotional manipulation in dysfunctional families makes it difficult for the abused ones to set healthy boundaries and identify when others’ behavior crosses the line.

Family scapegoats may have been told as children that they were overly sensitive or that the abuse they were experiencing was not real!

Parents may have claimed to treat all of their children equally while clearly favoring the golden one and abusing the scapegoat emotionally or physically.

Scapegoats are also at a deficit since they have a tendency to absorb the negative information about themselves because they’ve heard it since infancy or early childhood.

This might lead the child to engage in self-sabotage or self-harm, such as doing poorly in school, disregarding self-care, engaging in dangerous activities or behaviors, and acting out in ways that indicate they deserve the title of the scapegoat (even though no child does).

Other children who are scapegoated may go to the other extreme in some areas of their lives, such as graduating with honors from college, winning prizes in competitions, or pushing for more professional recognition and promotion for higher positions in the workplace as adults. The main goal for them is to seek more and more validation from others.

They can even be attracted to partners who are as unloving and abusing as their parents, struggle with addictions and self-care, or allow themselves to be manipulated or abused.

What Happens If This Problem Exists in a Relationship or Marriage?

When two people marry, neither one of them intends to be the scapegoat for their spouse.

In a relationship with an abusive or manipulative person, the scapegoat is created by the scapegoater.

Most individuals think that there will be good and bad times, and they will work together to overcome any difficulties, even in these cases.

This is understandable; after all, no one is perfect, and life is not without its difficulties.

But if the person marries an abuser, master manipulator, or narcissist, all bets are off.

When this happens, instead of being a true spouse, the person who is scapegoated might end up being the emotionally abused person.

However, the worst part of it, is that the scapegoat person may not notice until years into the relationship. This can be a very unpleasant awakening.

What Role Does a Scapegoat Play in a Relationship?

A scapegoat plays a variety of roles for his/her violent relationship, including:

Takes on projected guilt or shame of the abuser.

It acts as an emotional punching bag for repressed anger.

It makes narcissistic and insecure people feel superior and arrogant, allowing them to avoid examining their own flaws and weaknesses.

It makes the abuser feel better by putting the scapegoat down.

It serves as a container for the fury, disgust, and hatred of the abuser.

People who scapegoat others have a sense of superiority and pride, a strong ego that needs to be maintained, emotions of entitlement and egocentricity, limited personal self-reflection, poor character, self-righteousness, and hypocrisy, to name a few. Did I mention arrogance?

Please keep in mind that this list focuses on general characteristics.

The abuser will always look for weaknesses in the scapegoat and expects the scapegoat to make a mistake so that he or she may be blamed for everything. No matter what a scapegoat does, the abuser, will always make the scapegoat be the only one guilty of ALL sins (even the ones of the abuser or scapegoater).

What Makes a Person Become a Scapegoat?

A person who:

– has a hard time recognizing deception and abuse.

– is easily manipulated.

– has compassion and empathy on the wrong people:
who are those people? People who manipulate for their own egoistic purposes, presenting themselves as victims, in order to be pitied. People who are good at lying, putting a false presentation (having a mask on their faces), those who are good at manipulation can be good actors/actresses, some people with borderline personality disorder can be manipulative on purpose, who want to gain only their egoistic desires without caring for others, who only want to use others, etc.

– someone who forgives the abuser/manipulator easily, despite the fact that they SAW how many times they were abused or harmed/hurt, neglecting their own set of boundaries by allowing the abuser/manipulator to have another chance, and another chance and another chance….

– who is willing to put the abuser/manipulator before themselves, at the cost of who they are, their time, their health, their everything.

– an independent person.

– a resourceful individual.

– a person who has a strong desire to exercise control over things outside of himself (usually those people look to others for validation and recognition).

Is there a way out?

Learning From Your Painful Childhood

For a child, being a scapegoat can be a lonely and terrible experience, but the situation that are in can also lead them to a more successful end in some situations.

For example, scapegoats’ mistreatment in families is often the reason for them to leave their dysfunctional, high-conflict homes.

On the other hand, the golden child usually decides to stay being stuck in a dysfunctional family environment.

To put it in another way, being a scapegoat may allow them to recognize a poisonous family for what it is.

As a result, scapegoats discover within themselves the ability to distance themselves from their original families and seek counseling in order to recover from the trauma they experience.

Moreover, when scapegoats start their own families, they often decide to break the generational cycle of maltreatment, by vowing to never treat their own children as they were treated and that they would be a source of support for the vulnerable ones in the family.

Healing From Childhood Trauma

Attempting to recover from such horrific behaviors can take a lifetime, which is why it’s critical to speak with a mental health professional that specializes in healing from dysfunctional families and childhood trauma before beginning the healing process.

Healing will look different for each individual, but people who have been scapegoated as children will have to decide how to interact with their families as adults, later in life.

Prioritize Your Mental Health
If family members continue to abuse or refuse to get help, those who are scapegoated should put their mental health and emotional well-being first, and decide to have “no contact” or “low contact” with their family. (This can also happen with relatives, and friends). The decision is exactly as it sounds: no contact. It involves cutting off all communication with family members—no phone calls, messages, emails, visits, or social media activity. If there is any kind of impact from relatives, other family members or strangers to change this decision, we should be aware that they are not fully aware of the psychological impact that dysfunctional families or parents with personality disorders, substance abuse problems, or other issues have on their children. That is why it’s important to follow the heart when making a step forward into this recovery process, and not be burdened with guilt when making this decision.

Some people may also get confused by a parent’s public persona when a parent appears to be loving in front of an audience, the idea that this person could be abusive in private may result in cognitive dissonance for the children.

What’s important is that the one who was a “scapegoat” knows what their childhood look like. That’s why they are aware that ceasing contact is in their best interests, if the family members or the parents continue to be abusive in their adulthood.

Some scapegoats might also decide to cut ties with family if they believe the childhood abuse they endured was inexcusable.

Others, may choose to go for limited contact, which means they set strict boundaries on the forms of interaction they’re ready to have with their families.

Limited/low contact might imply just connecting with family by text, email, or phone call.

It might also mean never or rarely visiting relatives in person, or limiting visits to exceptional occasions like holidays, weddings, graduations, births, or funerals.

As an adult, what to do if you realize you are the scapegoat in a relationship?

The first step in any healing process is to become aware of the problem.

Recognize that you are being used as a scapegoat.

Identify the traits that keep you in this role.

Determine how being a scapegoat fails to meet your your needs in the relationship.

Here are some steps to take, to remove the scapegoat mantle from your identity:

Consciously and willingly remove the role of scapegoat from your identity; in other words, don’t let people blame you, manipulate you, treat you unkindly, or abuse you.

Rather than operating from a victim mentality, choose to be a conqueror. Try to get some help to recover from the abuse and traumas.

Treat yourself with dignity. Act with integrity.

Do not take responsibility or blame for other people’s actions, behaviors, moods, or feelings. Everyone answers for their own sins and behavior. We cannot control how others behave but we can change how we think about ourselves and how we react toward others.

Learn to love yourself internally.

Instead of looking to others for validation, learn to look for it within yourself.

Choose to be in relationships with individuals who are compassionate and understanding.

Don’t listen to the negative “noise” within your thoughts or from other people’s mouths.

Walk away from people who do not recognize your value.

Set good healthy boundaries.

Stay away from people who are quick to judge or disqualifying the positive in you.

Do not reveal personal information to everyone without proper discernment. Not everyone will respect your privacy or your problems. In fact, save personal information for trustworthy friends.

Be positive for your situation and your outcome from it. Be hopeful for the future.

Don’t hesitate to seek help from a mental health therapist, because that could be the given hand to get you up from the mud and help you begin your healing.

As Adults, We’re Moving Forward

The one who were scapegoated bear the burden from a childhood full of bullying, put-downs, unequal treatment, and abuse generally. They were denied the opportunity to grow up in a secure, stable environment where their parents or caregivers loved them unconditionally.

Instead, the dysfunctional people in their life marked them out for abuse and matched them up against their siblings or other family members. Remember that as long as you are in this world, you will face the possibility of being someone’s target for blame or negativity.

So, learn to step away from those relationships and love yourself regardless of what anyone else believes about you.

How you move forward is up to you. With a support system, including a mental health provider, you can decide what will serve best for your way to recovery.

We hope that this information will help someone struggling with this issue. We also encourage seeking help to start the recovery process as soon as possible.

We recommend a great therapist and a counselor, so if you are interested to know more please write us via the About Bloogit, with the words: “Hey, I wanna know more about the counselor you are recommending on your site,” and we’ll get back at you as soon as possible.

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