Read the full transcript of Diane Collins’ talk titled “Family Scapegoat, Prized, Needed And Envied” at TEDxFederalHill 2023 conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
The Scapegoat Story
I first became aware of the scapegoat story when I was about eight years old and I heard it in Sunday school. I thought it was a fun story.
The priest picked out a goat and the goat was to carry the sins of the herd of the family, and then it was sent off into the wilderness and the family was forgiven of their sins, but the goat was gone carrying all the responsibility. If there was someone in the family who had killed someone, the goat was the murderer. If there was someone in the family who lied, the goat was the liar, and now the goat was shunned alone and out in the wilderness.
I would imagine if someone saw the goat, they would see all the sins on it and they wouldn’t be able to see who the goat had been underneath, and I always wondered what was it about that goat that got it selected, because the priest had to look out and see all the other goats and say “that one” and there was something decidedly different. It’s always something but you can’t say exactly what it is.
Personal Realization
Over the years, I’ve heard about scapegoats in politics and all sorts of underhanded things, and people get blamed, but that’s all I knew. Eventually, I did learn more about scapegoats and different things like that and the black sheep of the family, and I started to feel like strange things while I was in my family. I said something is not right, and I started attending therapy. Over the years, I realized that I was a scapegoat, and that explained a lot. It explained a lot.
Understanding Family Dysfunction
Rebecca Mandeville, who wrote “Ridicule, Shamed and Blamed,” said that it is a dysfunctional family that needs a scapegoat and the scapegoat is the tip of the iceberg indicating that something deeper is wrong underneath. Dysfunction comes in many forms, but I’ll be talking about the narcissistic dysfunctional family, which is a very dangerous and complicated system. The dysfunction involves dark and dangerous secrets, pitting one person against the other and not accepting responsibilities for your actions.
At the head of a family with this type of dysfunction, of course, is a narcissist, and that person could either be a parent, a grandparent, or the power person or the one who controls the finances. The narcissist, as described by Psychology Today, is a mental defect, and it could go from the low end because we all have a touch of it to the extreme where you require excessive attention, your emotions are unstable, and you’re easily angered.
The Role of the Narcissist
If you feel like someone’s doing something wrong to you, but the main thing is they cannot handle their emotions and take criticism, and in order to deal with that, they pick a scapegoat. In the family, there’s always certainly going to be one, and that person handles the emotions and gets all of the anger. That scapegoat makes the family look like it’s organized because that’s the one that’s causing the problem – we’re together but there’s a problem over there.
Characteristics of the Scapegoat
The narcissist usually picks the one that is perhaps giving them a feeling of threatening, like they don’t have the skills that person has, or there’s something about that one that just trumps up feelings inside of them. The one thing about the scapegoat is they are always blamed for trying to upset the narcissist, but it’s the other way around. The person who is a narc, even though they may look strong, intelligent, hold high positions, and are charismatic, deep down inside there is a feeling of unworthiness. And they’ve been through some sort of trauma that has not been dealt with that leaves them feeling very vulnerable. If anyone gets near that spot or triggers it, it’s a deadly situation for them.
The scapegoat is usually someone who is empathetic, intuitive, and will be the first person to know that there was something not right. They’ll be the first person to realize that something is not right, and no one in the family is going to come to the scapegoat’s aid because they do not want that position.
Family Dynamics and Control
They’re held in that position by means of triangulation where everybody talks about each other behind the backs, and if they’re siblings, the narcissist does not want the siblings to get along because that is going to form an alliance, and they don’t want to feel that they are left out. So that was done with my sisters almost throughout my life. I can’t say that I know who they are because we would each talk about the other badly behind our backs.
Another way that they do it is the narc holds you together, holds the family united by what they call “flying monkeys.” I’ve heard that term and I thought “is that a real term?” and I started looking it up and it is a real term. It’s taken from “The Wizard of Oz” way back in the 1930s with Judy Garland, and those flying monkeys go around and they do the bidding of the wicked witch, and they’re just as bad as she is, but they’re like extended arms.
And so they get together and hold the scapegoat down for the narcissist and then another way that it’s kept is with projection they put their feelings. If they feel bad about themselves they put it on the scapegoat. It’s a very difficult position to be in; it’s very isolating, and you become invisible. I know my mother passed recently within the last — was the last two years.
Personal Experience with Loss
And one thing that I read is that when a narcissist passes, that’s when you really get to know how much family hate comes out really strong. When she passed, her and I had COVID together.
We were hospitalized the same day together, and she lasted a week, and I was in the hospital for three weeks, and it was such a ghost. So I made it out, and I was blamed for her death, and of course, she had given me instructions that she didn’t give the others, so we each had a different piece.
So I’m doing what she told me to do, and now they said, “Diane stole the jewelry, she stole her pension, she stole this.” It just blossomed into God knows what, and they wanted to press charges, and I had to hire someone to clear my name. Clearing your name is very hard to do when you’re a scapegoat because the word has gone out over the years about you and has gone beyond the family. You don’t know who’s talking about you, and it’s hard to get yourself back.
The therapist I’m seeing was a trauma therapist that deals with scapegoats because now it is being absolutely recognized. There is a scapegoat abuse syndrome, there’s betrayal syndrome, and there’s all sorts of papers being written on it because before it was kept low. Especially when you’re talking about your parents, it’s almost like a taboo, and in the African-American family culture to even speak on something that’s not right about your mom. But if the hand that rocks the cradle is not well, you have to say so because it will just continue.
I was advised to not see the family, it’s like just to restrict my contact with them, and that’s what I’m doing right now.
Observations Through Media
When I watch TV shows, particularly there’s two that I watch, of course by reason that’s very strange but it’s close to me: American Idol and The Voice. I watch those two because of the talent, to see who’s going to get selected, but when they go to the family part and families all together talk about “Yeah, we helped them” and “He was always doing this when he was young” and this and that, I’m saying “Is this for real? Does this really happen?”
So I watch just for those family parts, and my husband will say “I wish they’ll get back to the talent” and I’m saying “No, this is the best part.” The more they talk, the more I love it, and then somebody will touch somebody, and I’m just amazed. That’s what really let me know that something is wrong because I’ve been watching American Idol ever since it started over 20 years ago, just watching the families gather.
Generational Trauma
Moving forward, I know that what is going on in my family is generational. I remember hearing conversations when I was little, and God bless my grandmother, she would be on the phone talking about people. It was never anything positive, and I would say “My God,” and I thought it was a game because it was just so awful.
My grandmother’s history over a hundred years ago, when she was living in Jamaica, she was three years old. Her mother wanted to come to America. Her mother had two children: my grandmother and her sister, her youngest sister who she had by a white man. She didn’t take my grandmother to America because she was too dark, and she felt that she would hinder her chances of moving ahead. So she left her with her family up in the hills. My grandmother was three years old, and she did not get sent for until she was 18, and when she got sent for, she was told that she couldn’t call her mother “mother.”
The Legacy of Colorism
The light-skinned sister had gone off to England, was being educated in boarding schools, and my grandmother was given a place across town Manhattan to live somewhere. She couldn’t call her mother, and she couldn’t come and see her during the day. Then when my mother was born, she couldn’t go see her grandmother because she was too dark, and that continued. We could only visit at night, and then we all came along my grandmother’s side, and we were all darker, and the other side was getting all the attention, all the education.
My mother did very well, she was a professional, but I know that she took that all in. I came across her diary after she passed, and there was one scene where she talked about how she used to go to her grandmother and have to clean at night. She’d be so mad because she couldn’t go during the day that before she left, she would take her grandmother’s glasses and throw them on the subway track and do different things. That was the only way she could get back.
I know that inside she felt that she was not worthy, and this feeling just went down the line even though she did excel. I was born, my sisters, and this continued all the way up until my great-grandmother passed. I was 30 when she passed, and we were still going at night, and the other side was still going during the day, traveling, educated, and having all the privileges and getting left the house, inheriting everything.
When the priest called us up to the front to introduce the family, they were shocked to see this whole line of dark-skinned people and being introduced as the relatives. I mean, they were shocked, and they came hugging us and shaking our hands and things like that.
Breaking the Cycle
So I know that part of what is going on in my family – this envy, this jealousy, this thing – it has just snaked its way down, and I am determined in my own way to put an end to it. My son, it has not touched him. I have done all in my power and just asking God to help me with him, and it has not touched him.
Right now, there are much more articles and things available about scapegoating – it’s not so underneath. I had lost sight of who I was. My writing annoyed them because you never got complimented. My writing annoyed them, my painting annoyed them, and I didn’t really realize all the things I was doing to keep myself hidden until I had my son, and I didn’t want him to see me like this.
Finding Self-Worth
I was pushing him out but I was hiding myself. So what I did coming here, I wore this and I painted all the words on it that described me that I wasn’t able to say in my house and in my family. I’m not a thief, I’m not a liar, I’m not a crook, I’m not mean, I’m not angry, I’m not any of that. I had to sit down and get my paintbrush because I hadn’t painted since my mother passed, and it was very hard to even write these words about myself.
My husband will tell you that I never say anything about myself because that’ll get you in trouble, but for anyone who is experiencing anything like that, there is help out there and there’s books available to read, and there are therapists who are now trained in scapegoat abuse. So I hope this helps someone. Thank you.
