Category: Abuse

Childhood emotional neglect and scapegoating – part 3

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What is scapegoating?

A scapegoat from a therapy viewpoint is the person in a system who gets blamed for things whether they are the cause or not of the issue. I am usually working with a family system but the system can also be for example a work environment, a social group or a team. Other peoples perception of the scapegoat are re-enforced time and again by other members of the system and their voice isn’t heard.

What does that look like for the scapegoat?

The scapegoat may learn that the other people in the system will not support them. Even if they know that the thing they are being blamed for is untrue or being distorted. Therefore they expect very little from the system and often eventually cut themselves off from it as they cannot tolerate the expectations placed on them to take on the guilt.

However, sadly the scapegoat may not learn this lesson, instead they learn to believe what is said about them. These messages become internalised and can take a lifetime to even begin to question.

Alternatively the scapegoat can try and hold both things as true, “I must be the problem because everyone says it, but I also don’t understand what they say I did wrong.” Completely confusing to live this way and may lead to a lot of arguments and disagreements.

How does that relate to attachment styles?

In my experience, there does seem to be some pattern emerging.

For avoidant attachment children, they are more likely to expect less from the system and cut themselves off sooner. Going no contact reduces the stress of trying to defend against the scapegoating behaviour. Where these children have had to develop a lot of self sufficiency it is somewhat easier to do this.

For anxious attachment children, the need to people please and accept the judgments and blaming continues and leads into internalising and believing the scapegoating narrative. Breaking the pattern may not happen until those who are re-enforcing it are no longer in their lives as the need to please is so profound. Any concept of challenging the scapegoating has long been suppressed to try and make life easier.

For disorganised attachment children, the need to have that connection whilst also distrusting it means that the scapegoating may be challenged leading to lots of conflict in the system. In time this may lead to estrangement but there may be lots of repair attempts when the need to be part of the system takes priority. This then can be weaponised and used as examples of why the scapegoating is “correct”. “You always come back as you need us”.

Next time I’ll explore emotional abuse and emotional neglect.

For part 1 and part 2 click links

Childhood emotional neglect and scapegoating – part 2

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Attachment styles

More people now are aware of the concept of attachment styles, but I just wanted to give a quick summary of what it can mean as and adult.

The theory is that as a young baby develops and grows the relationship with their primary caregiver means they then develop an attachment style.  Their attachment style may impact a lot of other things later in their life.

If the child’s needs are predominantly being met in a healthy way, they develop what it’s called a secure attachment style. They know safety and feel a sense of security. They understand that they can try new things and take risks and they will be supported to stop them getting into actual danger and to help pick them up if they fall over. They will be taught to regulate when they do get upset and generally these have really positive impacts in the future.

For adults with a secure attachment style the world feels safer. Other people feel more reliable and there is more trust in relationships.

However, there’ are lot of people who have an insecure attachment style and these get broken down into three different versions.

Anxious attachment

Children who develop an anxious attachment style grow up and find it very difficult in relationships. They may be very needy but are potentially very wary of those relationships. They can need regular reassurance and potentially would tolerate a lot of poor behaviour from other people to stay in those relationships. 

They don’t necessarily trust their own judgement and their own ability to cope so they need other people to be there for them to back them up or to do for them. They hadn’t been taught when young to take risks and try things and explore the world and to develop resilience. 

They don’t necessarily trust their own abilities and can often have low self-confidence. They don’t have a sense of self-worth and that they are a value to others so they can seek reassurance a lot or do a lot of acts of service for people to justify why people are with them in any sort of relationship. They’re very vulnerable to being abused by people who take advantage of their insecurity.

Avoidant attachment

Children with avoidant attachment style have to learn to cope on their own as they don’t get enough support and back up from their primary caregivers. They have to learn their own regulation skills without it being modelled healthfully, they have to learn to do things for themselves too young and this leads to adults who are seen as very independent.

This independence is there but it can also be a mask. If they’ve had to do everything for themselves to achieve anything they will do it but they may not be happy. However, they also don’t know how to trust other people to do things for them. They have learnt not to rely on anyone else. They may believe people are incapable and they’re the only one who can do it or they may acknowledge that others could help them if they wanted to, but believe no one will. 

Asking for help becomes incredibly difficult because They’re so used to not getting it that it’s almost inconceivable that someone would actually give it to them. It’s better not to ask again only be disappointed and just push themselves to do it alone.

This can severely impact intimacy and relationships because there isn’t trust there. It can also lead to severe burnout because they’ve got no backup and even if people have been willing to be their backup, they haven’t been able to allow them into their life close enough to be that back up.

Therefore the mask of competence and even potentially success can also hide deep sadness and loneliness.

Disorganised attachment

This attachment style is believed to be the one most linked to childhood trauma and abuse. Experiencing it directly from the primary caregiver or witnessing the caregiver being abusive to others. 

This leads to constant doubt about what version of the caregiver will show up, one who is present, emotionally absent or one who actively causes harm so the child is growing up with a lot of fear and uncertainty.

This fear will continue into adulthood with other relationships. Whilst craving them and pulling towards them, the fear and distrust can be overwhelming and they will pull away or create and environment that the person they are in a relationship with (whatever form that is) eventually ends it. This them confirms they were right to be fearful, and re-enforces their fear.

The distrust they experience can be very harmful for those on the receiving end as well. Worst case it can be aggressive and controlling as they are needing proof of loyalty. Even without that it can be extremely hurtful to be under frequent suspicion and in the end it drives people away.

Next time I will introduce scapegoating and how that can link to attachment styles which you will find here.

Return to part 1

Childhood emotional neglect and scapegoating – part 1

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On family estrangements

I know over the last week there’s been a lot of speculation and commentary over one particular celebrity family breakdown but as someone who has worked in this field for many years I wanted to give my perspective in general on what these are about. I won’t comment on the celebrities themselves.

  • Never assume it’s easy for anyone being impacted.
  • Never assume you know what someone’s reality has been like from watching it from outside the core family. 
  • Never assume people haven’t tried to fix things before they make a break. 
  • Never assume that people living in the same house have the same experience of people.

The reality is we don’t live other peoples lives and it’s incredibly difficult to fully understand what people are going through because we bring our own prejudice, biases, innocence and naivety into our perspectives.

Sometimes abusive behaviour is overt. I mean that the abuser knows they are being abusive and there is an element where they want to hurt someone in what they do. These people are usually very skilful at hiding that behaviour from everyone else because they have developed a very good mask to show to other people.

The person that they abuse is often disbelieved if they tell their version of event because of the way a skilful abuser has created and crafted a story. This can often include setting up the abused family member as a scapegoat. 

  • They are the problem.
  • They are the one who makes it difficult. 
  • They are the one who we try to help and doesn’t appreciate things, et cetera. 
  • They are ungrateful.
  • They don’t understand I did what I did for their own good.
  • They are the one who then isn’t believed when they try to speak out if they ever do speak out. 

Part of that abuse can be that they actually end up believing the story that’s been crafted about them and it can take a lifetime to realise that it was false. 

In other instances the abuser is not aware that their behaviour is abusive. That their behaviour is causing harm to another person.

This can be for many reasons but often it’s a lack of emotional maturity, the ability to emotionally regulate and maybe they have been raised themselves in a emotionally abusive household so they do not understand what is appropriate.

I think back to the tales of stage mothers as shown in films from the 1930’s, 40’s and 50s. These are mothers usually raised in poverty who want more for their children and push them to work from a really young age and dedicate everything to making their child stars and make money but at what cost?

There’s a lot of films and literature about that system in Hollywood and now it’s acknowledged how abusive it was and how harmful. Those mothers I think in many ways were motivated by their own trauma. They wanted more for their children and then through them more for themselves.

Parents who overshare with their children from a young age and treat them as a confidant can also cause a lot of harm. There children become the support system for the parent and their own needs and support gets neglected.

Absent parents through economic poverty and necessity can also leave a legacy of harm to children. Parents who are never there for their child because they’re working all the time to provide some stability think they’re doing the right thing. However we do know that children need connection with their primary carers to feel emotionally safe and secure and to learn from them. 

They learn how to regulate emotions, learn trust, confidence and to know they are loved. When work takes so much time and energy, even when it’s coming from trying to provide for them, that child may feel unloved, unsafe, unconnected, and ultimately that can also become a form of emotional neglect.

Emotional neglect is one of the most unseen forms of child abuse. Its legacy can be lifelong and hidden, even in the one who experienced it. It can shape and influence all their life choices.

Sadly, if they ever do come to understand what was happening and work on healing themselves it also often gets dismissed and even mocked by those who they share their story with later in life. 

These types of examples can lead to different insecure attachment styles which are covered in part 2.

Sibling Sexual Abuse

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I’ve written about sibling abuse in different forms a number of times.

I believe it is one of the most ignored forms of abuse that happens to children. Whether it is emotional, physical or sexual.

I saw this report of a victim of sibling sexual abuse getting justice after many years and believe it is so important to raising awareness of this issue.

The article also highlights the challenges that go with it. How parents respond when and if they are first told. The family connections that make it harder to avoid your abuser even decades later. The lifelong impact of the abuse.

I can only imagine the courage and persistence it took to seek justice after all this time for the victim and what the process cost them emotionally.

Child sexual abuse

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Ex-school governor who imported child sex doll is jailed

This case really brings home to me how pervasive child abuse is and the ingenuity of the perpetrators.

It has no limits in terms of social economic class and position. Yet there is still I feel a belief amongst some people that it wouldn’t happen in their society or peer group.

In some of the reporting on the allegations against Ted Heath (former PM) one of his friends was quoted as saying something like “I knew him for 50 years and didn’t get a hint of anything like this”. But isn’t that the point! Why would you get a hint if you aren’t part of it?

Abusers are skilled and able manipulator who can hide their crimes from all around them. To assume because you didn’t know about it, then it can’t be true is nonsense.

Abusers do not all fit a stereotype, nor do their victims. Sadly, though by the time the victims do report the damage that has been done to them can make them less credible as witnesses and their lifestyle gets used against them.

I was at a conference a couple of weeks ago which was on trauma and adversity in childhood. Not all relating to abuse admittedly but a great deal of traumatic events children and young people experience are from some sort of abuse. There was a snip-it of info that shocked me, if the adverse experiences were addressed when the victims were young it is estimated that the prison population would be halved and the mental healthcare system would also see a huge reduction in diagnosis.

So when the people do finally disclose what they have suffered why is there a section of the media and our communities so quick to judge them as unreliable? 

It’s time to help them find some healing, not re-traumatise them by attacking them again.

Family estrangement, scapegoating and siblings

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Family estrangement is becoming talked about a lot more which I am very grateful for. I’ve been working with it a long time and have an older blog post here on scapegoating.

Estrangements are complicated and happen for many reasons.

Let’s focus on siblings.

In an ideal world your sibling is probably your first friend and playmate and the one who as you age knows all your history. Once parents pass away, they may be the only people in life that you can remember your childhood with who shared it.

In a lot of cases though things are not ideal. For some reason the sibling relationship doesn’t work well and in adulthood becomes distance.

It can be that the siblings just have very different lives as adults and drift apart, especially when there are no parents left acting as a bond.

In families with more difficult dynamics though it is probably more complicated. 

This can be due to unresolved and unprocessed jealously from childhood which can fester. Children are very good at spotting and remembering injustice and different treatment and this can happen even in health families.

However, if the parents are dealing with unresolved issues these are likely to be passed down to the next generation.

I work with the golden child and scapegoated child dynamic a lot.

One or both parents will have a favoured, golden child who can do no wrong and/or another child who can do no right. This will create long term complications and severely impact the relationship between the siblings.

Contact between the siblings can be limited or non existent in later life due to it which can be a loss to both, but it can also encourage abusive behaviours as well. 

Processing these experiences is painful as it can mean facing into and dismantling what was perceived as a happy family. Breaking the myth of the happy family can meet a lot of resistance; from others within the family unit and also outside observers.

Unacknowledged suffering

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I came across the image below and I found it incredibly powerful.

While it applies to any form of suffering, it is very common for the abuse between siblings to be ignored or dismissed. Society tends to downplay problems between siblings and categorise them as normal family dynamics. They are not always normal though.

Emotional, physical and sexual abuse all have long term impacts on the victim and when people around you act as if nothing bad happened it can be devastating. On top of that you are also expected to remain in a relationship with your abuser by family and friends.

This adds another layer of violence to what has already been suffered.

Domestic Abuse

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Living in a home with domestic violence creates long term problems for all. Its not always as obvious as physical acts of violence; there are other more subtle ways to control and terrorise.

This article about two Brothers whose Father murdered their Mother and Sister describes their experience. What strikes me is that as is often the case the article quotes a neighbour describing the murderer as “a nice guy”. When I  read about these cases I nearly always find quotes like this, as though their behaviour is so out of character.

Whether it is a case that has ended in murder or not, so many people want to make excuses for the abuser. Too often the victim is blamed. Either they are not believed at all or they are deemed as responsible for “provoking” the abuser. Outsiders who haven’t lived in the home feel they have a right to comment in defence.

The reality is domestic abusers are often skilled manipulators. Friends and acquaintances are also being manipulated by them. Its often only those closest to them who may know the real people.

Therefore, don’t be fooled by a stereotype of what you think an abuser looks like. They aren’t all addicts and out of control people brawling in the street. They can be anyone, at any level of society. From the person serving you coffee to the bank manager, to your next door neighbour… to your friend…. to your family. And they won’t always be men either.

Emotional Abuse

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The Christmas period can highlight some of the cracks within family systems and our relationships within them  I’ve been thinking a lot about emotional abuse lately and its impact, not just on the victim but the abuser.

Once the victim of emotional abuse recognises what is happening they often cut off all contact. When this is within families, parent and child or sibling, the abuser may still be left with expectations that are now not being met by the other person.

How often does the abuser recognise that it was their actions that led to the estrangement? In my experience, very rarely. Without that acknowledgement, the situation isn’t going to change. Instead the abuser may fall into a pattern of recrimination and self-pity and end up feeling as though they are the person who is being mistreated and believe that their victim is the one in the wrong.

Until we are able to really take responsibility, its not possible to grow as individuals. Its hard when we have done things that have harmed others but necessary.

Not such a great time of the year

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There is a lot of celebrating going on around us at this time of year, but what if you aren’t part of that?

There are many reasons that you may be finding the festivities hard to cope with. One of those is bereavement, either a recent one or one that happened at this time of year in the past. Cruse have put together the graphic at the bottom of the page which you may find useful.

But there are other reasons; you may be suffering from an illness that makes it hard to feel like celebrating. This could be a mental health illness or one that gives you physical pain.

You might be estranged from family members and all the talk of family gatherings make it hard for you to join in the happiness because of your own emotions.

Your children may not be spending Christmas with you as they are with their other parent or your family is in another country.

You may be lonely and feel you don’t have anyone to spend the holiday with.

There are always organisations open to offer you crisis help if you need it, the most well know is the Samaritans who are there to talk if you need it.

Maybe what you need is to plan to change something longer term and are thinking about therapy. This might be the time to initiate that, please feel free to contact me if that is the case.

To all those people who are finding it tough this year I hope you find some solace and find some peace despite what is going on for you.