Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the scapegoat in my family, am relatively successful career wise and re: the family I created. I was fortunate to have a large extended family that did not buy into the scapegoat dynamics.

My golden child sib is very enmeshed with our narc parents and as an adult is an alcoholic with multiple marriages and estranged kids. It's sad. I have been either low or no contact as an adult.

I have done a lot of therapy and recovery work through ACoA and I think that helped.

What is ACoA?

Anonymous wrote:I was my mother’s scapegoat and my father’s golden child. It was the reverse for one of my brothers. I’m fine today. My brother is not.

Anonymous wrote:Scapegoat (that's me) moved far away to avoid getting drawn into that dynamic, living my best life. Have a somewhat distant but otherwise positive relationship with parents.

Golden child stayed golden until around age 40, when she suddenly realized that she was totally enmeshed with our parents and that the flip side of getting all their love and attention is that she also got all their expectations, meddling, neediness, etc. She basically does not speak to our parents anymore except to demand money (and I mean demand, she feels owed). My parents give it to her because it's the only way they ever see her or her kids. It's messed up.

Sister and I have no relationship at all, I only hear about this second hand from my mom, and when I do I say "I'm sorry to hear that, it sounds hard" but otherwise do not involve myself.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread has been interesting to read. I used to think I was the golden child. After reading this thread, I don't think that described me. Now, I don't think either of us was the GC or scapegoat.

My mother does prefer me, though, but I'm also easier to deal with and visit more often.

Sibling is self-centered and has the same mental issues as our mother, so the two of them fight, react to each other's anxiety and paranoia, and get angry at one another.

Identical twin was the favored child. All American Athlete (NCAA D1). Phi Beta Kappa. Not easy to get along with though - a tough kid who made it on his own. I was almost as successful, but was beaten up far more often than my brother and was deemed fat dumb and lazy constantly. Twins were not expected, and I was the second one born and if my father could have found a way to get rid of me without consequences he would have. My mother went along with the favoritism and abuse - she was an addict and was overwhelmed - and siding with my father in abusing me was a means for her survival. It was fortunate that my father abandoned the family, despite the significant poverty. In irony, my mother, and not my father, had all of the athletic talent and it was our means for escape. I was not a scapegoat - just treated badly far more often.

My father's hatred for me never ceased. My last conversation with him a decade ago was merely another reminder of my fat dumb and lazy status. It was his protection mechanism against really hating to be a father, particularly of a son who reminded him of his hated ex wife who trapped him in a marriage. He died without ever meeting his grandchildren (when I told him my daughter was admitted to Princeton he told me not to call him any longer). A difficult and angry guy who never should have had kids.

I am more easy going and people oriented than my brother by far (I still have a pretty intense achievement record) and as a consequence I gave more quality attention to my mother. I could never get her to lead a responsible adult life, though, and it was difficult for her to work through her guilt over both of her sons, but in particular me. She died because she wanted to - very sad.

The good news is that my brother and I were are quite close - and both respect each other significantly. I think we complement each other and I can keep him rational in a calm way. A smart and often ruthless quant Phd with a virtually unmatched record in finance, he is not easy to deal with at times. He lives to crush my father's memory - not a good thing. Of course, since we raised each other since age 16, we didn't do that good of a job and we do understand our flaws and our faults and wish we could do better. Survival and prosperity have been good to us though. Our high school recently inducted us into is hall of fame. There was no way we could attend - it would have been too difficult to deal with the memories. We do think highly of our classmates and our teammates and have been generous to some life long friends, a saving grace, really. As I say, still lucky to be where we are.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am skeptical of people who call themselves the scapegoat. My sibling would call themselves the scapegoat (my other sibling is probably the golden child), but they are very difficult, demanding, attention-seeking and also mean. There are probably occurrences of totally innocent children made to be scapegoats, but IME, if your family frequently has issues with you, there is a good chance you are contributing to the problem.

If you’re the learning type, you can look this topic up and find out how you are pretty much off target here

+1

But I’m going to hazard a guess and say that pp is not the learning type.

Anonymous wrote:This thread has been interesting to read. I used to think I was the golden child. After reading this thread, I don't think that described me. Now, I don't think either of us was the GC or scapegoat.

My mother does prefer me, though, but I'm also easier to deal with and visit more often.

Sibling is self-centered and has the same mental issues as our mother, so the two of them fight, react to each other's anxiety and paranoia, and get angry at one another.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am skeptical of people who call themselves the scapegoat. My sibling would call themselves the scapegoat (my other sibling is probably the golden child), but they are very difficult, demanding, attention-seeking and also mean. There are probably occurrences of totally innocent children made to be scapegoats, but IME, if your family frequently has issues with you, there is a good chance you are contributing to the problem.

If you’re the learning type, you can look this topic up and find out how you are pretty much off target here

Anonymous wrote:I am skeptical of people who call themselves the scapegoat. My sibling would call themselves the scapegoat (my other sibling is probably the golden child), but they are very difficult, demanding, attention-seeking and also mean. There are probably occurrences of totally innocent children made to be scapegoats, but IME, if your family frequently has issues with you, there is a good chance you are contributing to the problem.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meh. We had a golden child and the scapegoat. I think a lot of scapegoats don’t realize that sometimes it really is something they’re doing. My sibling was an incredibly hard child to raise- wild, didn’t follow rules, they slept little, never did chores. It actually made me into the golden child. It was no fun being the golden child. I have a lot of anxiety and never felt like I could let me parents down. I was always performing and had to be perfect. My parents often cried about my sibling and I had to pickup the slack. I didn’t get much attention. Oh and I had to do all their chores which I’m still bitter about.

I wonder sometimes if my sibling had been more easy going if my life would have been easier too. As it stands I’m still picking up their slack- now just with elder care for our parents.

This is how my mother justified being the Golden Child. In reality there was little difference between her and my aunt other than the fact my aunt challenged family dysfunction.

Golden child in my family is unemployed, has legal battles of her creating, marriage went up in flames due to her cheating and being emotionally abusive, challenging relationship with her child and friendships fall apart often. I am the scapegoat. My mother seemed to think I was the safe place for her rage and my sister even through adulthood would try to find things to blame me for which was strange since we saw eachother maybe once a year at family functions. When my children were being used as pawns and my husband was noticing they were getting worse, we distanced. Healthy choice for us. Mom continues to enable her GC, but now she has to deal directly with her-no unleashing rage on me.