More of my experiences
I do not know if all scapegoats experience all or just some of these things in their life,
but I know I experienced all of it at some point or another growing up.
And after much research, it appears that these experiences are extremely common within other scapegoats.
The emotional and psychological pain and confusion that I experienced was never understood or believed by anyone when I was going through it,
and so I tried to hide it from the world at the time.
I tried to suppress everything I felt with alcohol and other addictions such as drugs, sex, cigarettes,
and anything else that made me feel a sense of relief from self-harm to other risk-taking behaviors.
From the outside world, I was judged and attacked for my behaviors that I felt I had no control over.
Every emotion I experienced, felt like it was magnified by a hundred fold.
And feelings of peace somehow disturbed me back then.
It made life feel even more difficult to navigate,
and I found myself self-sabotaging many opportunities due to my deep fears and lack of confidence and full emotional control at the time.
I constantly felt that I was never good enough for certain opportunities or relationships.
I always felt a deep sense of extreme loneliness and anxiety, even when I had beautiful friends around me.
Growing up with my narcissistic family members, my emotions were never validated and only used against me.
So, as I grew up, I had to learn to understand my emotions, and how to regulate and control them at a later stage in life compared to my peers around me.
I felt like I was living in a constant state of shame, insignificance, and fear of repercussions for anything I did.
If I didn’t feel okay, it felt like nobody believed me and only judged me.
It felt much safer for me to fake a smile and pretend I was happy and deny the abuse I was experiencing.
How could I prove psychological and emotional abuse anyway?
I didn’t even know it was a thing back then and I would sometimes consider that it could possibly be me that was going insane.
That there was something was wrong with me but I didn’t know what that thing was.
If I was happy and feeling proud and confident,
the narcissistic family members would gossip about me behind my back.
They would go out of their way to destroy my reputation, lying to others and denying or minimizing my achievements.
And saying that I was up myself.
The only reason I would ever find out that this was even happening behind my back,
is because I have one family member that I love and trust whole heartedly,
who would always tell me all the things that were said by them when I wasn’t around.
The only times my mother would act proud of me is if other people were proud of me.
This contradiction of her behaviors really messed with my head at the time
Because when no one else was around, she would always act like she was annoyed and deliberately dismissed anything I said.
She would also act proud if I had not seen her for a couple of years, I learned that it was her way of love bombing me back into the relationship.
Once she gained back my trust, she would ask things from me and I began to see the lies, the contradictions,
the empty promises, the projections and all the other hurtful behaviors all over again.
It seemed that everything positive my toxic family members ever did, was all an act.
Simply tactics to get what they wanted.
Their acts were so covert that even the mention of it caused me to be judged by flying monkeys,
making me appear like I was being pessimistic or that I was the one being the bully and causing drama.
As I grew older my close friends when I was in my mid 20s could see through my family’s behaviors,
and for the first time in my life, I found people that made me feel safe to be myself around.
I finally felt that I had genuine support and understanding of my experiences and behaviors.
And that was when my life began to take a positive turn, and I began my journey of self healing and self discovery for the first time.
Until somebody becomes the target of narcissistic abuse,
they will never truly understand, see or feel the trauma,
the confusion, the lies, the fear and the true hate that is aimed only towards the victim.
