Have you often felt different from everyone else in group settings? Has it seemed like a matter of when, not if others will see you as an outcast? Have you found yourself feeling excluded and unwelcome in your friendships and relationships? If you answered yes to any of these questions and survived narcissistic abuse as a scapegoat then you may …
What a Scapegoat Sacrificed Is What Saves After Narcissistic Abuse
Most scapegoat survivors of narcissistic abuse struggle to know they can safely experience themselves as they actually are. They’ve had to don a costume of being abhorrent to the people who they first met in life and tragically learned how dangerous it was to take off that costume. The crux of recovery from being the scapegoat in a family structured …
Leading a ‘double-life’ in abusive childhoods
“I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.” -Oscar Wilde, The importance of being Earnest Many of my clients grew up in families where they could not be themselves at home. They were coerced to play a family role at great odds with their natural …
Emotional Abuse: The Invisible Trauma
Do any of the following points apply to you? You take care of other people’s emotional needs but don’t expect them to take care of yours You have a difficult time identifying and expressing your own feelings You find yourself in relationships with people who seem self-absorbed You never express anger towards friends or partners You never feel like you …
Don’t Minimize Your Trauma
As an undergraduate, I took a course on African-American Psychology and my professor, Howard C. Stevenson always ended each class with a touching aphorism. The one that remains with me to this day is “Don’t minimize your trauma”. This phrase is especially relevant for racial minorities in a society that privileges whiteness while simultaneously denying the existence of that privileged status. …