What Happens When the Scapegoat Leaves the Family
In biblical lore, Aaron selected a goat on behalf of the entire tribe, cast upon it the sins of all members, then banished it alone to the wild. The members of the tribe were and so at dandy ease, having been freed from their cast-off sins—whatever those sins may accept been.
Everyone felt ameliorate, though they had neither identified their specific sins nor atoned for them. They had simply agreed to hang them on the goat. If this spurious logic was obvious to anyone, information technology was non discussed. Why question an agreed-upon ways of making everyone experience better?
Now about that caprine animal. It was selected from the herd and sent forth into the wilderness for reasons having to do with the sins of others. The goat had done nada to merit banishment. But one time the ashes were common cold on the rituals of dispatching it, the caprine animal found itself solitary in the wilderness, isolated from its herd, in unknown territory, suddenly forced to fend for itself. It faced dangers from predators; difficulty finding food, sustenance, and shelter; and it lived the constantly woeful insecurity of a herd creature without a herd.
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This is the story of the scapegoat.
In dysfunctional families, for reasons similar to those Aaron devised, in that location can also be a designated person selected for the office of scapegoat. In a family unit organization, the selection process is less overt than Aaron's. Information technology is done more than by consensual and habitual shunning that becomes an unspoken lawmaking of beliefs: 1 person is chosen to bear the brunt of any psychological discomfort experienced by the family unit every bit a whole. It is justified by repeating the stories that create and then reinforce the image of the scapegoat as beingness a person who is worthy of disdain and disparagement.
Similar the strong goat Aaron selected, the target of family scapegoating is also oftentimes the strongest and healthiest member of the family. At first blush, this may sound counterintuitive. Only think near it a footling more. In Aaron's example, at that place would be no group pleasure derived from banishing a weak animal who might hands dice anyway, considering that would not appease the needs of the tribe to send off their sins on a robust vehicle, a strong goat who was upwardly to the task of bearing the burden. So it is in families: the targeted individual is often the most accomplished. She—and for the purposes of narrative cohesion, our scapegoat is a female here—must be strong enough to withstand the weight of the shunning voices which might easily and quickly topple a weaker person. The scapegoating would neglect if the weight of the sins killed the goat before it could even get chased out of town. Catharsis is the goal. The goat needs to be potent plenty to endure in order that the tribe members do not.
Just as the goat was blameless despite being sent to its lonely death, so is the human scapegoat innocent of all charges. She may not be a perfect man, but she is no unlike from anyone else in her range of faults. It is not her character or her deportment that accept directly caused her adjournment. Information technology is the style her character and her actions, and ofttimes her accomplishments, have been experienced by the dysfunctional family members, who for their ain unexamined reasons demand to dispel this person from the family realm in order to avoid looking into their own consciences. They need to punish the scapegoat for provoking by her very existence the discomfort family members are feeling that is actually a result of their own unresolved issues.
If you lot are being scapegoated in your family, please seek professional help. You lot are not likely to be able to intervene in a dysfunctional system that treats one of its own members in this way. You may go on to feel the futile attempts at explaining yourself. You may fail to understand the manner you are being treated. You may begin to doubt your own version of your life story. The price is besides high.
Tin can a homo scapegoat die similar the goat of yore? Maybe. If not physically, certainly emotionally. It is difficult for the scapegoat to believe that her family would care for her in this unconscionable style if she were not guilty of some grave sin. She wracks her brain and her centre to sympathise, but she cannot. The reasons she is given for existence mistreated seem shallow, piffling, and incomplete. It is difficult for her to believe these small transgressions could warrant such heavy condemnation.
She begins to doubt her own version of reality, since consensus in her own family unit supports a narrative unlike from her own near who she is and what she does or has done. She learns that if she tries to sort this out, she will exist accused of "playing the victim" or being selfish, or being a "drama queen." She is able to hold to her knowledge that this assessment and treatment are not right, until 1 day, utterly discouraged, she gives upward. The full weight of the banishment settles upon her. She is alone. She doesn't try to understand or explain anything anymore. She has moved into accepting a fate that makes no sense to her.
Proficient mental wellness at this signal suggests she make her peace with leaving behind the family unit that fails her so completely. And if she is strong and well-supported with friends, she may be able to do this. She will pay a lifelong cost for sins she did non commit, even so, because information technology is difficult and painful to extract oneself from 1's family. It is counter to the most basic of homo needs for dwelling, shelter, affiliation. It is a cruel and inexcusable undertaking for a family to scapegoat a member.
If you await at the research regarding the fate of individuals who have been relentlessly bullied, you tin can draw conclusions about what happens to scapegoated family unit members, for scapegoating is bullying with focused and long-term intensity. Some bullied children go along to become bullies themselves. Some develop social skills to divert and challenge bullying, though the scars of having been bullied may insert themselves into their lives in many ways for many years to come. Others, nonetheless, do non survive, driven to suicide.
If y'all are being scapegoated in your family unit, please seek professional aid. You are not likely to be able to intervene in a dysfunctional system that treats ane of its own members in this way. You may go on to experience the futile attempts at explaining yourself. You may fail to sympathise the mode y'all are being treated. Y'all may begin to dubiety your own version of your life story. The price is too high. Delight detect a advisor who can help you unravel the fictions that subvert the truth about your life and about who you are. Good counseling back up can help free you from the bounden ties of pain, guilt, and shame that you did not create and which are not justified.
Y'all were not born to bear the sins of others any more than than Aaron's goat was born for such a fate.
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Source: https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/blameless-burden-scapegoating-in-dysfunctional-families-0130174
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