How did you get so good at dreaming? Scapegoating

The other night my partner and I were talking. He said how did you get so good at dreaming?

And I realized…

That when I was a kid, I was scapegoated and trapped. But I could dream. So I dreamed as hard as I could. 

How do you know if you were scapegoated?

I listened to the Back from the Borderline podcast, and got some answers in a 3 part series that Molly Adler did.

Questions to see if you were a scapegoat in your family:

1. Was you not truly nurtured?
2. Addicts, neglect in your family?
3. Parent neglected and abused you?
4. YOU are the cause of all the drama
5. Fantasize about running away? Didn’t belong, wanted to escape?
6. Gaslighting? Feelings denied or shoved off or attacked?
7. Drift off into fantasies wishing someone would rescue you? Real parents?
8. Did you feel like your parents were invalidating of your needs and emotions?
9. Did you feel like parents singled you out and treated you differently?
10. Did you fantasize about being able to disappear so you could no longer be subject to their disdain?
11. Did you feel like one of your parents didn’t like you? Couldn’t stand having you around?
12. Toxically shamed like you just weren’t good enough?
13. Did my parent tell you that you were bad or too much?
14. If only you would do XYZ, if you could change to be different, then you could be deserving of their love?
15. Did you have to tiptoe around the explosive emotions of your parents? Did you have to diminish the sensitive, boisterous creative child that you were? Tone down who you were?
16. Were you regularly bullied in school?
17. Was the parent scapegoated?
18. Did your siblings consistently speak negatively about you and repeat the scapegoated narratives from my parents?
19. When you attempted to talk with your parents and express your needs, did they instead of listening of you, did they respond that you were too much, did they gaslight you and turn it around on you as a means to cover up their own projected abuse?
20. Suffering parent narrative? Suffering, Wounded Victim Party dealing with a difficult kid

 

 

At the age of 8 I realized I would have to live 10 more years with this scapegoat situation, and I decided I was going to get out, and simply LIVE. I was going to talk with my friends on the phone. I was going to have my own clean, quiet place where no one could come in.

Dreaming was all I had.

Now I’m scapegoated and free.

My family still blames me for the unhappiness of a person I haven’t seen in years. Most do not understand why I had to cut off contact. There’s a lot of “just forgive!” thrown around.

The thing is, being a scapegoat, it was an incredibly hard path. But I know who I am, outside of them. I’m free now.

I’m also able to notice scapegoating where it happens in other places.

It’s a big relief, to be able to go do what I’ve dreamed of doing.

Living on the west coast, living in a beautiful place, self-determination, space for clarity, love and healing.

All I dreamed about was being able to live away from them. There isn’t a lot of love in that house. Just shame, guilt, blame. No thanks.

Dreaming became my superpower, because I was so tightly controlled there was not a lot else I could do.

I couldn’t have friends over. I couldn’t have freedom of movement.

So I sat there, and I wrote, and I tranced out, and I dreamed.

I felt my freedom in my heart before I ever felt it in my body.

 

If you feel trapped now, you are not alone. I hope you can take this strength tarot card that helped me when I was little, and feel freedom in one place in your life.

Being scapegoated still affects me. It might still affect you, too, if you resonated with any of the above.

Are you, now, as an adult, suffering from the aftereffects of being placed in this scapegoat role?

1. Do you ever feel like you’re not present in your body? Living in your head?
2. Do you feel completely disconnected from your emotions until they explode on you?
3. Do you struggle with mental health disorders? Anxiety and depression?
4. Is it difficult to maintain intimate connections?
5. Contemplating suicide? Contemplating death and you don’t see the point?
6. Do you feel a sense of betrayal from your family?
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness, impossible to grasp meaning and purpose?
8. Pervasive feeling of toxic shame? Guilty, or that you’re to BLAME for something?
9. Do you have a hard time trusting your own thoughts? Your own view of reality?
10. Do you sense that even with groups of people, when people meld into groups, that feels very alien to you? Do you feel different and outcast?
11. Do you feel like you can’t get OVER your mother or father relationship or both?
12. Do you feel like you OWE something to the people who raised you?
13. Do you still feel intimidated and scared of one of your caregivers?
14. Do you hold onto this magical thinking that one day that your parents will wake up and realize what they’ve done and call you and give you the validation that you wanted?
15. Do you find that in your current relationships that you can never feel quite secure? That you’re always thinking they will hurt you, betray you?
16. Do you isolate and withdraw from others?
17. Do you have to go no-contact with one of your parents?
18. Do you find it difficult to stand up for yourself or express healthy anger? Withdrawing and fawning?
19. Do you have fantasies of getting revenge on someone in your family?
20. Do you overshare and try to get validation from others? If I don’t get validation do I not exist?
21. Do you suffer from imposter syndrome?

 

Feel free to copy these questions and sit with them. Write your thoughts or speak them. Hard answers, deep answers, come with time.

You may also want to check out Back from the Borderline’s third part of the series on disenfrancised grief from scapegoating abuse, or the toxic shame episode.

Why am I sharing this now?

Because we’ve seen increasing xenophobia, increasing tribalism, since 2020, globally. In the US, we’ve seen a rightward shift by Democrats and Republicans, it’s not about polarization! It’s about genocide!  For the last year, we’ve seen a genocide on an incredible scale.

We’ve seen people divided into black and white categories, FOR US or AGAINST US and a lot of fallout. A lot of shaming, and a lot of scapegoating.

Dr Devon Price, who is trained as a political psychologist and has done campaign work, writes, “Opposing queer rights, blaming poverty on drug use and “low” morals, invading other countries to plunder their resources — these were the normative political positions of their time. It was not political “polarization” that created these problems at all. Looking at how the United States’ government actually behaves, I see that the parties are overwhelmingly aligned — they move together to procure oil, money, and land, while the majority of everyday people stand on the sidelines, unable to weigh in on anything except the color of the banners that get flown. If most Americans do hold lofty values like “benevolence” and “conservation,” then those values are incapable of being expressed within our political system.

There is no sensible, moderate position on matters like genocide. There’s no middle ground between destroying the Appalachian mountains for fossil fuel (as both Harris & Trump wish to do) and seeing those 480-million-year-old lands preserved. Either you believe the present state of affairs is irredeemable and wish to see it ended, or you take steps to silence the people who do fight for such a change, deeming them “extremists” who refuse to “compromise.”

For a scapegoat, being ignored, feeling like an alien is nothing new. You’ve already survived this. And you know what to do. You mask up. You find your people. You dream and work towards the world you want.

And pretty soon, there’s going to be a new president, and a lot more people are going to die, and a lot more people are going to be scapegoated. LGBTQIA people. Houseless people. Black people, Asian people, Immigrants, Muslims. Fat people. Disabled people. People with Long Covid. Socialists. Women. It’s already happening. And it’s BEEN happening, that’s the thing.

I’m not going to tell you that it’s all going to be ok, because it won’t be. Things are going to get worse, for most of us.

But I wanted you to know that you’re not alone. If you’ve been scapegoated, I am here, and feel that grief too. You’re not crazy. It’s really happening.

I want you to know what scapegoating is, so you can notice if it happens to you. I want you to see it, and be able to speak against it. Nothing shatters a fascist illusion quite like speaking truth directly (if you can!).