Scapegoats of a Narcissistic Parent: 3 Struggles

Being the scapegoat to a narcissistic parent in the narcissistic family system is not an easily understood experience unless you have gone through it and can manifest unique struggles later on. I explain 3 common resulting struggles for the scapegoat survivor that I help my clients understand and heal in my one-on-one coaching practice. I will be discussing 3 common things that the scapegoat to a narcissistic parent may struggle with.  Below this post, you can find my YouTube video Scapegoats of a Narcissistic Parent: 3 Struggles.

Number one: You may not be holding people accountable. Now what does this potentially look like? Maybe you have a holding pattern in one or multiple relationships in which someone is continuously crossing a boundary you have set. And maybe you get angry and get really serious and attempt to have the boundary stick, but it gets crossed over and over again later and you just feel kind of STUCK in this pattern with this person or people. Now why might this happen? During childhood, when the brain is more programmable due to being in theta brain waves a predominant amount of the time, a child is highly programmed by what happens in their life and home environment. The brain is highly suggestible in theta and this is why we are so affected by childhood trauma or neglect. Theta and alpha brain waves are what hypnotherapists often take clients to the cusp of. Childhood is when we develop the baseline for how we see the world and our belief system and internal compass of what ‘is’. The developing brain of the child of a narcissist, exposed to narcissistic abuse and unnatural expectations, forms many limiting beliefs that are adaptable to their environment at the time, but extremely damaging later on. The scapegoat child of a narcissist is often in a situation in which they HAVE to continuously roll with the punches of their situation in order to survive. This forms a subconscious comfort zone and programs this behavior into the subconscious. I deep dive into this struggle of the pattern of not holding people accountable in my last video. The true definition of holding people accountable is if they cannot respect your boundaries again and again and you do not have a voice in the relationship, you would want to set a boundary with the person instead of the situation and give yourself a voice. This can be a struggle for scapegoat survivors of narcissistic parents for many reasons all along the boundary-setting process and I cover that in my last video in depth.  

Number two: Self-abandonment. The setup of the parent-child relationship between a narcissistic parent and their child is unnatural. Children are egocentric and unable to see the world any differently, yet the narcissist will expect that their child prop their fragile ego and reflect back to them at all times their ‘specialness’. In this fragile arrangement, a child simply being a child can (and will) cause narcissistic injury eventually and can be punished for merely existing. The child of a narcissist is expected to orbit their parent and not the other way around. Having needs is learned to be unacceptable and through experience, it is learned that the needs of the parent are what matters. This stunts or makes much more difficult the necessary safety, beliefs, and boundaries to form a self-identity. Self-abandonment is taught and programmed from an early age in the narcissistic family system. 

Number three: The belief of “People do not have my best interest at heart.” This one can be especially prevalent for a scapegoat survivor of narcissistic abuse that has experienced jealousy and sabotage from their narcissistic parent. It can manifest as suspicion and distrust in relationships and/or an avoidance of ‘good things’ for oneself or achievements for concern of consequences to follow them. This is an important one to reprogram because when we are faced with a difficult or confusing situation in our relationships, the mind fills in blanks based on our beliefs. For example, if you have the belief that people do not have your best interest at heart, an honest conversation can feel like sabotage or an attack. The part of our brain known as the R.A.S. (or reticular activating system) is always looking to validate us. If it is on our radar, we will see it. We can look at our belief system as our radar. A common example is knowing someone very close to you with a certain kind of car. You might see cars like this all over the road because it is on your radar and this is a small example of the R.A.S. at play. Another pivotal reason why this is so important to program is that, if this belief is kept, the scapegoat survivor of narcissistic abuse just ends up picking up where their narcissistic parent left off and sabotaging THEMSELVES. This is how narcissistic abuse trauma works. The narcissistic parent gets the scapegoat child to identify with the parent’s core sense of worthlessness and adopt the beliefs that make it easy to scapegoat the child, such as ‘I am Unimportant’ or ‘I Am Unworthy’ and it makes the job easier to have somewhere to dump this part of themselves that they must vehemently deny and replace with their artificial belief of always being ‘more special’ than others. The most devastating part of this is that the scapegoat child may gain complete physical distance from their narcissistic parent, but if this belief system, i. e. core wounds, is not reprogrammed, it is as if they are still living in a world of the abusive narcissistic family system.