Hi,

I'm just finding the information needed to continue in my quest to become the full me, begun with my divorce 7ish years ago. I had heard the term scapegoat child a long time ago and it resonated.

I was born not only the wrong sex, but also defective. I had to have surgery at 6 weeks. This is something that happened to my mother. It was very wrong of me to do this to her. I believe that everyone on this site knows the rest. I stopped talking to her completely about 6 years ago, and I must say that I had much more value to her as a source of angst than I ever did as a daughter. (I'm 48 1/2).

My life is much more peaceful, so am I now. I don't talk to any member of my family except my Dad, and without anyone to hide behind, his actions and words and attitudes toward me are identical to Mother's. He was abusive when my mother left my older sister and I with  him before they divorced, 45 years ago. My sister was old enough to talk, I wasn't. You all know where that goes, too.

Once we were back with my mother and he moved on to another wife, he could be the martyr to my mother's attitudes again. And just all manner of helpless.

But now, he's been divorced from my mother for decades, and his second wife died several years ago.  He has a new source of stress in his life, and he's getting that nasty edge with me.  I know now that he was repeating to the rest of the family, negatively, everything that I said and did that he knew about. He helped out my husband during my divorce. After all, they both expected me to fail on my own, and 'come to my senses' and do the crawling back thing. I wasn't supposed to know this. He's been covering. Now his 3rd fiancee is not behaving at all well, and he wants to take it out on someone.

Which means that the only course of action that can help me refuse to get sucked back onto the Titanic of family relations is to cut off relations with Dad. I am so glad that I chose to live 2,500 miles, 4,000 kilometers, away from my family.

So, all I need to do is get past the reluctance I feel to break the last contact with family, and discover what, specifically, I'm doing to put myself into the scapegoat role elsewhere.

This is me, and this is where I'm at.

Input would be greatly appreciated

There is another dimension to the scapegoating. The fam cannot get along with each other, but they need to keep up the illusion  of a happy fam. So if there is a problem, or even annoyance they create a reason to focus all negativity on one person.

The thing is~~~ I only have so much time, attention & energy. It is MY decision how to spend it. I have to remember that all of the time. I'm still forgetting.

For me, changing how I live my life is an ongoing, ever-vigilant exercise: I was raised from the smallest child to perceive myself and my world a certain way. I must be very consistent in changing how I think. I live by the motto 'Bring your @~~, your mind will follow.' It means I cannot think my way into right action, but I can act my way into right thinking. I try to act as though I was taught to love and respect and cherish myself, even if my feelings tell a different story. Eventually, my feelings catch up with my actions. And when I do this imperfectly (and, yes, of course I do, because I am imperfect), I give myself permission to be human, to be imperfect, to make mistakes. I remind myself that I am not my yesterdays.

lol at "it was very wrong of me to do that to her," regarding your surgery at 6 weeks. I, too, was a bad baby. The absurdity!

Sounds like you're good with being bad. Me too.