The only thing to do as the scapegoat in narcissistic abuse is survive

hi my name is jay reid i'm a psychotherapist in san francisco california and today i'd like to talk about how the only thing to do for the scapegoated victim of narcissistic abuse is survive i wanted to talk today about how the single thing that a scapegoat a victim must do in the face of narcissistic abuse is survive um in an effort to cultivate an attitude of respect and appreciation for how one survived narcissistic abuse when it was occurring and also the sort of meta perspective on one's own efforts in the you know today after the abuse um in recovering from it a common sentiment i i've noticed that survivors of narcissistic abuse particularly those in the role of scapegoat may have towards themselves and their process of recovery is one of frustration impatience even disappointment in themselves for not doing something different either when they were being abused or uh while they were efforting to recover from it the implication is that sort of as they look back there's sort of this um seems like a matter of not if but when they find uh the thing they didn't do enough of or did too much of or just plain did the wrong thing and should have done or known otherwise in thinking about um the ways one survives scapegoated narcissistic abuse some of the common sort of laments towards the self that i've noticed have been something like i should have just stood up to him or her i let them get away with treating me this way i was weak i was a coward my nature is to be passive while others would have stood up and fought you know i think there's a common theme in all this that really point to what is often the the most um sort of insidious effects of being bullied and that is not the uh harsh treatment itself but rather the the per the question afterwards that where the victim asks why me what was it about me that led to this and that is a very common um they call it uh stuck point cognition in um this this style of treatment for ptsd called cognitive processing therapy where when we face this really terrible uh situation just as human beings were disinclined to believe that it was something outside of our control but rather there was something we didn't do or should have done that would have afforded safety that didn't happen because of the thing we didn't do so in essence we have more control than we actually felt in that moment and the truth is is that you know when we're treated traumatically which is what happens in narcissistic abuse i would submit that it's really a product of the narcissists themselves and you know when you think of narcissists in the population they're a very uh small group um unless i don't want to quote statistics i'm not that familiar with but i think it's it's less than a percentage um like but around that type of uh incidence so the the unfortunate part if you've grown up with a narcissistic parent who abused you in a scapegoated manner is you knew that day in and day out sort of longitudinally um so it could very much seem like this is the way the world is um and so these sort of you know complaints about the self like i should have stood up for myself and and so forth it was my fault um they actually can serve the function of saying hey when really bad stuff strikes there's always something you can do and that can afford a sort of a a sense of survivability that's needed when the abuse is ongoing it also i should say can often align with the attitude that's being displaced from the narcissist towards themselves onto the scapegoated victim that is uh that the um the the victim here is deserving of the contempt that not that i would submit the narcissist feels for themselves it cannot bear it and must find it uh in the victim so all this to say too that um you know if a victim has had a narcissistic parent that's been the preponderance of their experience with sort of what other people represent but if we zoom out um you know they've had this experience of a narcissistic person and they are few and far between in the broader population this sort of being the normal distribution or bell curve um so they'd be the narcissists are way out on the tail of the bell curve and so maybe a most accurate portrayal was boy i ran into a narcissist who you don't come across too often in life and they really took me for a ride they i i was um i i had my hands tied behind my back because they were my parent and they had no qualms with um seeing me as the as the source of every problem in their lives and in the family's lives and boy that was rotten and that that's all there was um that sort of conclusion is um kind of what one would get to in the aftermath of a car accident in a car accident um you know it's tremendously scary your survival can be in jeopardy and you know the first thought might be after it's occurred and you survived it might be gosh i just wasn't paying close enough attention to the road and so long as i do that i won't get in a car accident again well the truth is there's always a like small again maybe one percentage risk of getting in a car accident every time we take the wheel so the sort of correct conclusion in essence would be i experienced the one percent risk there and it was just plain awful i'm so glad and fortunate i survived um when i take the wheel tomorrow that one percent risk will still be there i'm saying all this because um you know it just to contextualize both the reason for why these thoughts may occur and um also how they might reflect a sort of post-traumatic effort at coping that may not hopefully to the relief of uh survivors may not actually be accurate in fact i would submit definitely are not accurate about the character the true character of the scapegoated victim so in thinking about um one's process for how they've gone about recovering from this abuse how they tried to live and lead their professional and personal uh and relational lives some some common um sort of laments about themselves can be i think too much about what others think about me i don't let myself succeed as i should i attract bad people to me i should just be able to fill in the blank what is wrong with me and i should have addressed this years ago it's almost too late now so these kinds of appraisals of one's ways of assessing their the manner in which they survive scapegoated abuse and the way they've gone about working to recover from it very much fit into the kind of scapegoated schema that is necessary to adopt to an extent in order to get through that abuse and survive it which again the title of today's is that's all there is to do in scapegoat goated abuse is get through it um by whatever means necessary and um you know just to remind like if you've been scapegoated particularly by a parent and you've been trained at several sort of systemic levels cognitive neural physiological and emotional phys well i said physiological physically to find the self as the problem almost as a fact of life or existence um and despite all this training coercive training by the narcissistic family aimed at i really i think breaking the scapula to victims will to go on being there's this inherent strength in that individual that persists and often knows that this training doesn't reflect a some truer version of the world that the victim knows is meant for him or her i don't know if anyone kind of gets into uh recovery without that kernel of belief and faith that that is held in spite of all this tremendous adversity in the course of the abuse that faith is also often the saving grace for the scapegoated victim that lets them get through it so the scapegoated survivor i think and and during the time of the abuse is in a very um has to negotiate i think this intersection of having hope for themselves and the life that truly meant for and to uh leverage sort of blame or scapegoating of themselves just enough so that it's sort of safe enough to kind of progress in their whole hoped-for uh direction and i'll try to explain a little more about that so you know again you're getting all this sort of like um relentless um blame and derision and undermining in by uh the narcissistic family and and narcissistic parent and in order for the scapegoated victim to harbor any hope for him or herself they would have had to accept the accusations of their supposed wretchedness before it became safe to pursue some attempt to improve their quality of life and i think survivors are familiar with um just how dangerous it would have felt to like brazenly you know show that they were um efforting a course to kind of improve their lot in life or their own subjective quality of life that would have typically put them directly in the crosshairs of the narcissistic parent or perhaps other family members to sort of bring that to the attention of the narcissist because that would not be complying with the role of being the worthless one relative to the false superiority of the narcissistic parent and so there can be this need to sort of and kind of like a trojan horse uh strategy you know shepherd uh one's uh sort of good intentions for oneself with some sense of like this is wrong-headed i'm still defective no matter what i do or how i what i achieve and doing so offers enough um safety from what would um come at the survivor if they just were brazenly showing something uh that they wanted something more for themselves and it lets them achieve the outcomes that they actually in their heart of hearts i think want for themselves so for instance one again purely anonymous anonymous anonymized uh composite client here recalled planning then engaging in rigorous exercise and study routines in high school and college but only after determining that they were like horribly out of shape or terribly behind in their studies and never um going to achieve the the uh the goals that that they had for themselves in in their lives and so um they could then engage in the activities necessary to in this case the goals being to get into good physical shape and to um to get good academic marks they could work towards that only against this backdrop of like if they um don't do this they're gonna slip into this even this terrible terrible place where um nothing will be good uh and they'll be so bad that it that it they won't be even able to tolerate themselves so that that sort of like having to start from less than zero can be a very very effective strategy in um surviving this narcissistic abuse so in this example it was very functional it also you know let them get under the radar of the narcissistic parent but it also kept the person physically healthy and help them make the academic progress they really want to make and ultimately achieve a satisfying career and it was that framework of meaning of well i'm you know i i'm playing from way behind that allowed them to get there that's the only thing i firmly believe and in the treatment was so important of of working to accept that that was the best there was that could have been done and the person did it so i think this sort of uh shepherding effort has uh some import into these ways of criticizing uh the way one survived uh their their abuse and then the the ways they've taken to trying to recover from it um because it really i think can meld well to this strategy of you know efforting to do something but feeling fundamentally flawed in the undertaking of it um and i would submit that sort of even if you notice that happening to just sort of again i understand it may feel quite crummy and and and not good but if there's an uh way to kind of notice the thoughts again invoking the mindfulness tactics and trying to cultivate a sense of huh this is a strategy and at one point in life this was all that was there was to be done and i did it uh it can be something to again over time cultivate and i think that the appreciation for uh that this was all that there was to be done does get to kind of gain traction within the self um as this time uh elapses and the recovery efforts continue which i think individuals who who've suffered this are sort of so oriented and i think strong in their will to recover um so i think it's a very reachable outcome for most survivors and i would say say that one thing that sort of helps in this process is that you know over time more facets of the situation may reveal themselves as one feels safer to know them and become aware of them where this sort of fundamental abandonment of the position that one was put in as the scapegoated victim and then needing to protect themselves you know in the face of that abandonment may grow more clearer which then at a felt in a felt way or experiential way can really kind of undergird this sense that there was nothing else to do but survive what was survived so the point of today's video is not to change anything or say you shouldn't blame yourself or not or or or credit yourself more um i would submit that if that's happening then it's a needed process at this point and there's likely a very i'll be although it wouldn't feel that way of i holy respect but still like a pro uh self or sort of life function wrapped up in that blaming the point of today's video is really to offer a framework for appreciating the utility of this sort of blame process or fault-finding process so that actually in a paradoxical way uh that appreciation may usher in a sense of respect and and credit for what one has had to survive back then uh or a little bit ago and right now in essence is intended as a message of hope but also of tolerance for how things are in in the moment um and that they do sort of reveal themselves i think for the better again over time um and a core part of that can be the sort of coming to the your own conclusion that there was nothing else to do in scapegoated abuse by a narcissistic parent or partner other than survive it well thank you for tuning in this week it's been good to get back and and resume the weekly videos and i look forward to posting again next week uh back on the regular schedule 9 a.m pst on sundays again thank you everyone for your continued engagement with the channel and i look forward to posting again take care

Channel: Jay Reid - Recovery from Bad Childhoods

Views: 37,466

Keywords: surviving narcissistic abuse, recovering from narcissistic abuse, survive, Narcissism, scapegoat, jayreid, scapegoating, gaslighting, covert narcissism, malignant narcissism, Narcissist, triangulation, mental health, counseling, conflict resolution, scapegoated children, family structure, Narcissistic Abuse, Self-Care, recovery, golden child, lost child, narcissistic family, Family roles, narcissistic parents, toxic parents, codependent relationship, toxic shame, toxic family

Id: uWkFpS3rXzA

Length: 16min 57sec (1017 seconds)

Published: Sun May 16 2021