How to cope with sibling dynamics when you’re the family scapegoat

hello in this video we are looking at siblings relationships with your siblings when you're the family scapegoat and my name is Mary toolin I'm a scapegoat child recovery specialist and all my content does come with a trigger warning so please be mindful of that as you listen to this video uh some of the things may be upsetting and triggering if they're ringing true for you so what we're covering today is coping with the sibling sibling Dynamics we're going to be understanding the setup why it's so confusing why sometimes they're nice will they change what happens when the parents die and how to deal with all of this so when you're the family scapegoat first of all it's important to understand the severity of the abuse if you're the family Escape ghost you're being ostracized by the parents and of course the siblings as well everybody is in on the ACT um this scapegoat must be ostracized from the family units and that means not having any allies so it is important for us when we're coming into our recovery not to minimize the severity of that because if we are minimizing the severity of the abuse then we're in a place where we think we should be able to speak to siblings and have siblings in our life and we're not understanding that that's not possible because we're the family scapegoat the family scapegoat must be ostracized rejected the family scapegoat is bad the family scapegoat is the cause of all the problems in the family they must be viewed with contempt treated with hatred ostracized because they're so bad so the family unit suffers Insanity suffers from delusions where the family scapegoat we have not done anything wrong uh we were a child we were not out to hurt the parents or anything like that so just if you are in contact with siblings and dealing with the confusion like I don't understand I haven't done anything wrong I'm nice to my siblings I want to get on well with them I bend over backwards to make sure that I'm in their lives and maybe your siblings have children and you enjoy being an aunt or Uncle to your nephews and nieces so there's a lot to it and there's a lot at stake as well so yeah on that it's understanding the setup is that it's a very very toxic setup and we've been subjected to Decades of abuse so their siblings are trained and programmed by the parents to do the Dirty Work of the parents the parents need to reject this child as a young child we were a liability in the family units because the scapegoat is a truth teller and a truth seeker and we're honest and we call it as it is and we named the elephant in the room we were an innocent child we didn't understand what the problem was with that but as an adult we can understand that it was a big problem because all the dysfunction in a dysfunctional family unit needs to be kept Under Wraps they need the status quo they don't want to change they're happy as they are so if you're struggling with trying to understand uh relationships with siblings um it might help to step into their shoes for a minute in some families the scapegoaters always the scapegoat from day dos in other families the roles can fluctuate slightly if you were like me and you were the scapegoat all the time uh if you think about your siblings your siblings witnessed from a very young age all through their childhood your parents bullying you your parents hurting you and they were just standing there observing this taking it all in that's very terrifying for a child to witness their parents hurting their sibling to be powerless with that um if we think about loyalty and Allegiance for a child who are they going to be loyal and pledge their allegiance to is it going to be either five-year-old sibling or is it going to be their 40 year olds parents who is putting food on the table and is helping them survive without those parents that child wouldn't be able to survive so just to be aware of the deeper ramifications that our siblings are in a their nervous system is in a life and death situation with that as ours has been as well and the abuse that takes place in a dysfunctional family is severe and and it's very has a lot of impact on us as you know um so why it can be so confusing is that we're just uh still have layers of denial around that which is very valid um I certainly did for many many decades of my life my system was not prepared to see the full truth of the situation I was very much trauma bonded with the family system um so so yeah sometimes the siblings are nice and then sometimes they're not sometimes we feel we have an ally in the siblings and we cling to that for dear life um and then other times they turn their back on us and they pull the rug this is very very common in dysfunctional families it's about smoke and mirrors it's about disorientating the victim keeping the victim Bamboozled so they don't know which way is up I'm sure you're very aware of the term gaslighting there's a lot of gaslighting for the family scapegoat there's a lot of manipulation there's a lot of lying and there's a lot of gossiping behind the scenes [Music] the difficulty when the siblings are nice is that it doesn't last very long and they pull the rug from under our feet sooner or later so if we are in that situation if we have that situation in our life at the moment to put it bluntly we're in an abusive relationship we know that we can't assert our basic human rights we know we can't name us because then we're subjected to reactive abuse this sibling gets very angry The Sibling immediately turns the tables and turns us into the perpetrator and we walk on thin ice with these relationships it's an abusive relationship so it's difficult for our psychology to get around this perhaps sometimes we can really have come to terms with the fact that the parents have been very abusive and there's kind of no hope to have a healthy relationship with them and then sometimes our subconscious will just shift that over then to the siblings and it's like the inner child can say okay well I know Mom and Dad are out of the picture but I'm going to have a sense of belonging and connection and a sense of family with my siblings and this is just a continuation of the fantasy that we had to build up in our mind from childhood to protect our psychology but now that we're adults we might just be able to let go of some of those layers of denial it's very very painful for us when we're in denial because we're in an abusive relationship and we're being on the receiving end of that bullying and that toxic behavior and that cruelty from the siblings who feel very entitled to treat us in that way and then the alternative can be very painful for us as well that we know if we try to assert our boundaries and our basic human rights they're not going to be respected so where does that leave us kind of leaves us out in the cold they're just going to say well bye bye then or good riddance or it's all your fault you you're the one that's walked away on your family [Music] um so that's painful as well so one of the things that might keep us hooked in is that we're trauma bonded with family members we can be trauma bonded with siblings that like this is our only family member this is we thought this person was an ally they are nice to me they're not a bad person and we're just telling ourselves a story we're creating a fantasy so we can have some sense of belonging for a human being Maslow's hierarchy of needs belonging is a really deep core need and perhaps your parents are deceased as well perhaps you're in your 50s 60s 70s or Beyond and just to have that family member that person that knows you you grew up with you've got so much in common same DNA um the prospect of not having them in your life can be very very difficult and what I can say about that is the difficulty lies with the inner child um that's to do with the trauma bonding so the inner child which is the younger part of our psychology can feel I won't survive not having any family in my life and then that puts us in a precarious situation because we know these people are abusive we know they're hurting us we know we're coming away feeling devastated and it's impacting our mental health negatively it's impacting our physical health negatively and our emotional well-being but we can't seem to get clarity with that situation and we don't know what the solution is and perhaps we're trying and trying to fix the situation and it's just a parallel of what we were trying to do with our parents we were trying to get them to accept us we were trying to get them to stop hurting us and stop bullying us and we taught the solution was for us to come up with where we can see now that if a parent is hurting their child that's a problem for the parents the parent is very very unwell and it's not safe for that parent to be around children because they're inflicting harm and they're not going to stop inflicting harm so we can definitely have a lot of fear and Terror in our system at the prospect of standing up to the bully siblings or there's a few bully siblings um because we know that um standing up to them there's going to be severe consequences it's going to rock the boat the sleeping volcano is going to erupt so it feels safer to just take the abuse on the chin what is very very familiar to us for decades and decades and the uncertainty of well what would things look like if I actually had the strength and courage to stand up for myself and I'm not saying that you're not strong or you're not courageous if you are in that situation because I know how difficult it is um and what we can do is build up to us we can build the mental strength and mental capacity to withstand the uncertainty of what would happen if we asked for boundaries to be respected that's an oxymoron There Is No Boundaries in a dysfunctional family this is part of the problem and we will have known that we will have many times tried to ask to be respected asked to be treated with kindness and they just laugh you out of it you know they're not going to do that they have a certain entitlement within them because they've been programmed from the parents that they've been also given the green light from the parents it's okay to treat your sibling like this I give you brownie points if you do my dirty work for me and Bully this family member and that's to do with the insanity in the dysfunctional family system where they ostracize one family member and kick them out of the family unit so it's just knowing and understanding that the fear is valid like what will happen if I stand up to my sibling we're going to lose them they're they're not going to be in our life anymore perhaps you have a connection with nephews and nieces so there's a big Fallout that happens with this and a question we can ask ourselves is what is it costing me so we're adults now we're not children anymore we're not teenagers anymore we're adults now and we get to choose how we are treated by others in a way if others are not treating us with respect if others are bullying us if other people are unsafe we do have a choice whether to stay in that situation or not and I know there's a huge consequence to us for that it means that we're going to lose our family because there's the chances of them respecting our boundaries are slim to none um so that's what I mean about developing the mental capacity and thinking ahead what will happen if I am not willing to tolerate this bad behavior from my siblings anymore Alice to just um be mentally preparing for that and building the capacity in your system there's some grieving work to be done with that and letting go of the fantasy just letting that fantasy disintegrate um grieving what we thought we had grieving what we wished we had grieving what we thought it could be in the future and letting go of the fantasy which is very very difficult so question I get quite a bit is will the parents change my answer to that is no and I've worked with family scapegoats since 2019 I have worked with hundreds of people and I can say that I have never had a client that had a healthy relationship with their sibling in a way that they were for example meeting them for coffee once a month catching up with them and that it was uh smooth sailing and they didn't feel any anxiety and there wasn't any undercurrents there I haven't had any clients like that and I've been working with family scapegoats since 2019 and perhaps maybe it's not always the case but um it's best to proceed on the basis that they will not change and to help you a little bit more with that understanding you can ask yourself how long have they been behaving badly towards you how long have they been bullying you and being cruel to you and what would it take for them to change do they want to change generally the answer is no they don't want to change they're happy out some people ask do they know um if they're hurting me and I've done a video on that one and they lack yeah they just they just um think very differently to we do one of the mistakes we can make is well if I was them I would be devastated to think that I was hurting my sibling and they were suffering really with their mental health because of all this bullying in the family system they don't think in that way at all so the family members that we have that hurt us are very very cruel they lack empathy and a person who doesn't have capacity for empathy is a dangerous and unsafe individual so for us it's about protecting ourselves protecting our mental health and maybe just ease back a little bit on taking on the full responsibility for the success of the relationship and just doing maybe a bit of an inventory about the siblings how long have they been treating me like this do they want to change what would it take for them to change do they have access to really good trauma therapy and how long would that process take and just think about how long you've been in therapy and how many decades of your life that you have been in recovery and ask yourself what your family members are doing about their recovery and how many how much time have they spent in recovery so just to help you understand what is at stake here and what would it really take for your dream of your sibling to turn around what would you want them to say to you would it be oh I see things so clearly now I've taken off the glasses and I can see the truth of everything and oh my goodness we've been treating you so terribly and I really want things to change and I'm really sorry about that and things will be different and I'm starting therapy tomorrow that is a little bit of a pipe dream so what happens when the parents die is things get worse so I would just say to bear in mind uh and mentally prepare it's best to err on the side of caution that things get worse when the parents and the main perpetrators are out of the picture we're talking about intergenerational trauma so it just flows down to the Next Generation with great accuracy uh sometimes I get the question what do we do when we have nephews and nieces and we see that they are being subjected to the intergenerational trauma this is a very tricky one um we can just heal ourselves we're just responsible for ourselves and if we focus on our healing we can be a role model for our nephews and nieces they might understand it now they might be too young but hopefully further down the line they will see and of course if they ever reach out to you at that point um you would be able to communicate with them when they're an adult um there's not much we can do in that regard um unless you want to contact Child Protection Services or something which is outside the scope of what I can assist you with um so yeah it's just about putting on our own oxygen mask first and yeah so how for us how to deal with it is I want to impart the message to you today to really protect yourself ask yourself what am I tolerating with my relationship with my siblings what am I no longer willing to tolerate what is it costing me what is it costing my mental health what is it costing my physical health and my emotional well-being and just allow another layer or two of the denial to disintegrate um knowledge is power so it's painful when we're being abused by them it's also painful to know the truth um but at least with knowing the truth we can move forward with it if we're being abused by them and not allowing ourselves understand the full scope of the truth we're stuck in a bit of a loop with that so either way it's painful it's painful to know the truth so we may as well start moving out into the truth and of course we do need support with that we need help and we need Resources with that and hopefully my videos provide a little bit of help in that regard wising up to how they're abusing you and the toxic Behavior understanding that if you really have the confusion around that it's understanding that there could very well be a trauma Bond there so that's with the inner child is trauma bonded with the Dynamics the Dynamics are very very complicated and the inner child or our nervous system is in a life and death situation that's the reason it's so difficult to extract ourselves from the trauma because our nervous system is viewing it is feeling it as a life and death situation our nervous system is saying I will die if I don't have this relationship in my life I won't be able to survive with without any family I won't be able to survive when I'm all alone with no family members what I can say to you by that if that resonates for you that's the inner child that's the voice of the inner child it was very true when you were age five you couldn't survive without your family members is it true now hopefully it's not hopefully you live away from them hopefully you have some Financial Independence and your own life and some independence with all of that um and I can say from personal experience that it's possible to survive without them I went no contact in 2018 from my parents from my two siblings from extended family from some friends as well and I am here today to tell the story I'm very happy um granted I have done Trojan healing work um but it is humanly possible to survive without family of origin even though they are walking the planet as we are is very very possible to have a happy life I can say I'm very happy so just to give you a little piece of Hope there healing is possible and you may have been brainwashed to believe that you won't survive without us that's a big one for dysfunctional families for the scapegoat child um they try to brainwash you with that belief to keep you hooked in and so they have a trash can to continue to bully and try to destroy for their entertainment um but it's uh it's not true that you you can survive without them and the psychology can survive the uh humans were very resilient especially the family scapegoat were very very resilient and our psychology can survive yes there is some grieving work to do yes there is a lot of letting go to do almost letting go of an identity of who we thought we were um but it is doable it is possible and I wish you that empowerment as well so let me see what else I have to say about this yeah setting boundaries I think I mentioned that that there are no boundaries in a dysfunctional family the scapegoat will not be afforded boundary so that's out of the question uh you probably know that already some people do ask like how can I set boundaries how can I stick to my boundaries with my siblings the answer to that is uh you could you can put in boundaries such as like um like don't well you can put in boundaries when you're going no contact or low contact and you can say like please don't phone me please don't um visit me and then if they break that you can you can just block them or you don't have to answer your front door if they ring the doorbell um so you can just adhere to your boundaries that you set if it's a case that you're saying like please don't say those cruel things to me please don't lie about me they're not going to respect those boundaries because there are No Boundaries in a dysfunctional family that is about all I have to say there um on siblings I hope it's giving you some food for thought and the main thing for us as the family scapegoat is to wise up to what's happening and they are pulling the wool over our eyes because they want us hooked in they we the scapegoat does serve a very big benefit in the family unit and it's just knowing what would happen if we asserted ourselves and stood up for our basic human rights it's just unders playing that scenario out in your head and your choice than as to how to proceed with that but knowledge is power so that's why I wanted to share that with you today thanks very much for watching and if you did want any further help with this for recovery for scapego child abuse I do run a monthly membership and you're very very welcome to join that I support people from all around the world to heal from the role of the family scapegoat and you'll get the link to that in the description below thank you [Music]

Channel: Mary Toolan

Views: 27,487

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Id: hSXe7K6pr6g

Length: 31min 42sec (1902 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 14 2022