Not Holding People Accountable: A Pattern of Scapegoats of Narcissistic Parents

Are you the scapegoat survivor to a narcissistic parent? Have you found yourself in a holding pattern with someone who repeatedly violates a boundary or multiple boundaries? Perhaps you consciously know that you are not okay with this pattern continuing and maybe you have had discussions with this person only for the same transgression(s) to eventually happen again. Feeling 'stuck' is a sign that your subconscious mind and conscious mind are not in alignment. Being the scapegoat to narcissistic parents comes with unique challenges in many situations later in life. In this post, I will discuss the dilemma of having to hold someone accountable after repeated boundary violations from the viewpoint of a scapegoat survivor. I do a deep dive into the multitude of reasons this can present challenges and then exactly what to do to heal this and change this situation! At the end of this post, you will find my YouTube video Not Holding People Accountable: A Pattern of Scapegoats of Narcissistic Parents

So we are going to deep dive into this topic today: the pattern of not holding people accountable as the scapegoat survivor of a narcissistic parent. This is something that could be subconscious until you really examine it. What this could potentially look like is let’s say that someone you are in a relationship with crosses a boundary that you have communicated or commits a transgression in the relationship and maybe this is a repetitive violation. You may find yourself getting really upset about it and realizing that you need to communicate in some way how this is not okay for you or even, in fact, something that is a ‘dealbreaker’ for you. You may find yourself getting really upset in the moment and directly after, but you find yourself just letting it go only for the cycle to continue over time. This can be accompanied with a feeling of self-abandonment and confusion. 

The first thing to talk about here is the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is the part of our mind that is ultimately responsible for the actions that we take. Now real quick - what is the ‘subconscious mind’? Well, you have the conscious mind, the subconscious mind, and the unconscious mind. The conscious mind is the part of our mind that we actually think from with our own thoughts and reasoning. The subconscious mind is the part of our mind that can be known as the ‘autopilot’ part of our mind. The key thing to remember about our subconscious mind is that it is programmed by repetition and emotion,  significantly in childhood. The subconscious mind can process about ONE BILLION bits of data every second while the conscious mind can process a mere 40 to 60 bits per second in comparison. This illustrates how much more powerful the subconscious mind is than the conscious mind. This is why, for example, we might consciously KNOW that a negative belief is ridiculous, but we still have it anyway. Let’s look at a common core wound formed from narcissistic abuse, the ‘I am physically disgusting’ core wound. A person with the core wound ‘I am physically disgusting’ might look in the mirror and even see and acknowledge that they are actually, in fact, an attractive person, but at the exact same time have many times of FEELING ugly or physically disgusting and still emoting to this core wound. It doesn’t make sense, but it is there in their subconscious and they are experiencing life from that internal compass in the world. The conscious mind is entirely ‘conscious’, active, deliberate thought. It is where we dream and make our plans in life. The subconscious mind determines if we follow through and if we have limiting beliefs, i.e. core wounds, this can really hold us back from what we want in life. To examine the autopilot subconscious (‘sub’, BELOW conscious), it takes a little effort and focus, but what is there is retrievable. The subconscious mind is mostly programmed in childhood, but also by very emotion-laden life experiences and repetitive life experiences. These principles are what we can use with our conscious mind to reprogram and thus live from a place of our choosing in life and not from any trauma we experienced. 

So when looking at the pattern of not holding people accountable, specifically related to narcissistic abuse, we can take a look at the repetitive experiences in childhood. Often, as the child of a narcissistic parent, you become accustom to really having no choice but to get past sometimes, or frequently, pretty big boundary violations. Being able to move past this is almost cemented into the subconscious with survival. It is not just because of one repetitive outcome of this dilemma either - it is often many. A narcissistic parent will simply EXPECT their children to move past their actions because they feel ENTITLED to treat their children the way they do to begin with. Narcissists and people with narcissistic traits also have issues accepting responsibility for their actions. Confronting the narcissist is often met with negative or disappointing outcomes such as rage, blame-shifting, and/or gaslighting. 

So remember, we said repetition plus emotion is what programs the subconscious. While the subconscious is programmed that there will be a price to pay with attempts at holding the narcissist accountable, something else is also going on. The scapegoat to a narcissistic parent realizes pretty early on that if they cannot move past the things that their narcissistic parent does, they will effectively be pretty miserable. The reality is that the one thing they can count on is the fact that the same things will likely continue to happen. It is a defense to their happiness to recover quickly and this can form positive associations to this. The mind also gets needs met in memories of the past and fantasies of the future if it cannot get needs met in the present. Hope becomes an important factor and dreaming of the future and positivity towards the hope, dreams, and plans meets a lot of needs. Optimism is a survival strategy oftentimes. 

Another reason that you may find yourself not holding people accountable if you are the scapegoat child to a narcissistic parent is emotional calluses. You may find your threshold for emotional pain too high and you move on from things that consciously you may know you shouldn’t just let go, only later to feel self-abandonment. In a nutshell, you basically are used to unacceptable behavior. The fact that it was ever a ‘norm’ means that it won’t throw up the same red flag for you that it would had you not experienced narcissistic abuse. 

Another reason you may find that you are not holding people accountable if you are the scapegoat survivor is you may gaslight yourself. The narcissist often uses gaslighting. Later in life, the scapegoat child of a narcissist can struggle with trusting their own assessment of situations. They can gaslight themselves and second-guess their original assessment, especially if an unhealthy individual minimizes, blame-shifts, or gaslights as their narcissistic parent once did. 

So how do we CHANGE this? What does it mean to hold someone accountable? Holding people accountable means effectively setting boundaries. Now, the reason why this can be a struggle for the scapegoat child to a narcissistic parent is because there can be various struggles throughout the whole PROCESS of setting a boundary. First and foremost, if you grew up in this type of household, you often start off not even knowing what boundaries even are and then when you learn about them, you realize you sometimes, or often, weren’t really allowed to have boundaries. The first step of holding people accountable is being able to be connected to yourself and tuned in and to feel your feelings, determine what they are in a given situation, and hold onto your reality. The second step is making your feelings IMPORTANT and WORTHY of MATTERING. This second step can be a struggle for the scapegoat survivor because they can struggle with 2 common core wounds of narcissistic abuse: the ‘I Don’t Matter/I Am Disrespected/I Am Unimportant’ core wound and the ‘I AM Not Worthy’ core wound. If you find yourself saying things to yourself like ‘I’m being too sensitive’ or ‘This is stupid’ or ‘They will think this sounds crazy’, there are core wounds at play. Our feelings are there to ASSIST us. Making your feelings matter and worthy of action is one behavior-based reprogramming tool to help heal this. You do this by effectively communicating and setting a boundary. Now what do you do if this boundary is crossed or repeatedly crossed? This is where holding people accountable comes in. And I do want to add in here, if this is a boundary violation that is harming you, such as physical abuse, the boundary you would want to set is a hard boundary with that PERSON, not the situation, obviously get out of that situation immediately. Now, how do we hold people accountable? If someone is repeatedly crossing a boundary, we have to establish consequences. A consequence is not a threat. It’s not like, for example, you asked a friend not to repeatedly call you if you don’t pick up in the moment and you say ‘hey you called me too many times in a row after I asked you not to and if you do it again, we are not friends anymore.’ +You could say something like ‘I’ve noticed that after communicating this boundary to you that you’re not really respecting it and I don’t really feel seen and heard in this relationship. If it continues, I’m going to have to pull away and participate less in this relationship.’ We don’t have to be threatening or dramatic. We just communicate that there are natural consequences that inevitably happen. We want to clearly communicate and be specific about what we need and then specific about what will inevitably happen if we continue to go unseen and unheard. 

Now, if the boundary is STILL disregarded then that is when we set a boundary with the PERSON instead of the SITUATION. Because at the end of the day, there is naturally nothing left that you can do and you have done your part in the relationship. This is when you implement taking a step back from the relationship. This is the way that you self-protect. Because boundaries are there to effectively protect us in the world. If we don’t have boundaries, we are really at other peoples’ and situations’ mercy. If you are doing what you need to do to advocate for yourself and it is to no avail, it might be time to realize that this is really not a healthy situation to stay in if you can’t communicate and navigate anything with this person. It is incredibly important to find ‘safe’ people to have in your life after narcissistic abuse and this would effectively be an unsafe situation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9jtlkoPHGA