Most families in India aren’t healthy families, but they project an image of a perfect family. Many such families, without a doubt, have one scapegoat; the life of a scapegoat isn’t the easiest, but let’s find out if it’s worth the fight.
Let’s take the example of Lance’s family.
Here, Lance is the first child, and he has a sibling, Lucy; his mother is an enabling spouse, and his father is a narcissistic control freak. We can see that the father seems to take the central role in the entire situation.
Being a control freak, he controls all decisions and events in the family. The enabling spouse or mother always tries to keep the family together and tries hard to fix the father’s attitude. She gives all her emotional support to her spouse, leaving the children or mostly the scapegoat/rebel child emotionally neglected.
In this situation, let’s say that Lucy is the golden child, the perfect child, who always listens to her parents or, more so, to her narcissistic father and helps with the family chores. Lucy receives as much emotional appreciation as her family can supply. Thus, she is an exemplary child who will always remain her parents’ personal favorite.
Now, moving over to Lance, he remains the rebel/scapegoat of the family.
The one who can never do anything right, filled with self-hate, is an underachiever and has grown up believing that he is always doing something wrong. In this case, Lance requires an enormous amount of emotional attention than his sibling Lucy, which his parents can’t give him. This, in turn, leads to a whole lot of self-hate and internal turmoil.
Now, are you wondering which of these two are you?
It’s simple,
- Do you have unexplainable anger in you?
- Are you in constant inner turmoil?
- Do you feel emotionally neglected at home?
- Does your relationship with your parents prevent you from sharing anything with them?
- Do you hate yourself for being just you?
- Are you always trying to please your parents for some appreciation?
- Do you envy your siblings for their achievements?
- Over the years, have you started to doubt your capabilities?
If most of these answers are in the affirmative, you, my friend, are the family’s scapegoat. But fret not. This issue, like all the issues out there, has a cure. However, it’s not going to change overnight, and you won’t wake up tomorrow with all your problems thrown out the window. It is a process and will take time.
The key to this problem is YOU. Only you are the answer, solution, cure, whatever you want to call it. You’re in a dysfunctional family, but unless you start loving yourself, learning to get in touch with yourself, and understanding that pleasing others is not the goal but keeping yourself happy is, you will not be able to overcome this problem.
If you’ve satisfied yourself, then you’ve done a perfect job! If not, work on it! You need to know your worth before someone else comes to know and sabotages what’s there in you.
Waged war with my soul,
Sold it to the devil.
Stabbed it with a knife.
Bled black blood.
All that remained was a flaw.
A flaw I hated,
My soul was now a flaw.
But then he came and made me realize,
Imperfection is true perfection.
We search too much for perfection,
Even though it’s right in front of our eyes,
Within our grasps.
We are what I should call imperfectly perfect.
We are what we make ourselves.
It is no good; there is no bad.
But there’s just you.
And you are perfect, trust me.
You don’t need another person to show you how to love yourself.
The emotional Turmoil in your heart is because of these complications we’ve created.
Promise me; you’ll never sell yourself short,
Because someone doesn’t believe in you.
Promise me; you’ll never look into the mirror hating your flaws.
Because these flaws make you, YOU.
Promise me; you’ll always see the brighter side when you wake up tomorrow.
Cause even during the darkest night, either the moon or the stars come out to shine.
Free yourself from the shackles of yesterday,
Breathe in the freedom of today,
And believe that tomorrow is a gift.
If you are a scapegoat, remember that there is a way out. Things will get better. There is light behind this door. Prepare yourself to leave the turmoil, the angst, and the darkness behind. Walk past that door into the light and a better future for yourself.
Last Updated on by Himani Rawat
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