I was a scapegoated parent. My narcissist husband had very little interest in the children and really didn't seem to even like them. He was a tough task master as they grew older. When I finally made the decision to leave him, he put enormous amounts of effort to portray me as destroying the family, that he was their only safe parent, and he cried in front of them to manipulate them to feel sorry for him. I saw how he used the children's neediness for his attention as a weapon and it was hard to watch. I later found out after the divorce that he had waged a smear campaign against me behind my back with the children that I was always going to leave the family and was unreliable. I was their main care-taker throughout the marriage, but he portrayed me to them as basically a maid, cook, and babysitter while he was the only real parent. I was the parent who went to school, sat next to them in hospital, made them Halloween costumes, and cuddled with them. It was heartbreaking to watch as my children bought into the father's distorted re-writing of history. My children are now adults. My son has been no contact from his father for the past 5 years and my daughter has been low contact. It took a long time to undo the damage their father did to them. It took the children a long time to gain enough distance to see how he had used, abused, and manipulated them. I have a close relationship with both children at this point, but there were many years of my children treating me with contempt before that changed. For all the children with scapegoated parents, I hope you can repair your relationship with that parent.

Both my parents are sick. When I look back on my adolescence, I realize they both had some form of the cluster b personality disorders. I was scapegoated by the both of them especially my mother.

My parents were both nasty towards us kids, dad is narcissist abuser and mom possibly borderline. Growing up with them was a nightmare on repeat- always hearing them fighting.

You just explained my childhood exactly. Narcissistic mom who scapegoated my father and then me. I used to think I had to hate him and my twisted mother rewarded me for it. Surprise, surprise when I realised and spoke up when I grew older she scapegoated me like she did my father. Nasty piece of work, these people are mentally ill and the more education such as the videos Jay puts out the better. God bless the internet for without I don’t know where I’d be without such information available to make sense of the emotional abuse and further gaslighting from supposed ‘family’ members post being scapegoated. Thank you Jay and God bless all who have gone through such abuse, it is because we are empathetic and kind we are targeted. The narcissist is envies us. Dr Childress is the best on ‘Parental Alienation’ and a true expert btw. Love to all reading this.

My father took his own life, but I'm not sure he was a scapegoat. He was frightened of her, no doubt. My feelings towards him are... complicated. Angry. I had a breakthrough in therapy lately where I realised (by way of a dream) that my father had used me the same way a hero in a film will use a stone to distract a monster. He used me to distract her from himself. And I was already her scapegoat. He wasn't a narcissist, but he wasn't normal. He wasn't "good enough".

i am a scapegoated patent and i have not seen my daughters since 2016 when I divorced their father. I grew up as the family scapegoat and my sister the golden child is abusing me as well. I so struggle with loneliness and feeling like the odd one… I am 55 and have done a lot of work on recovery including plant medicine but still struggle. Than you so much for your content it is very helpful to me.

Thank you for your content and this video. My dad was scapegoated by my narcissistic mom in a more subtle way. She trained him to be subservient to her and conform to her wishes and be the authoritarian punisher of anything that she deamed wrong. His favorite saying: "If I were you, I wouldn't want your mama as my mama." He lived to please her without question. They were both sick sociapathic humans with no real empathy or capacity to feel the pain of others. I'm not proud to say that- it has no redeeming echo or quality. When he died, his clothes were gone the next day. After the memorial service she made it clear to me that I was not welcome in their- now her- home if I ever came to town. I decided that my only visit to my home town where she lived would be to place my cut-off letter in her casket or deliver a brief comment at her memorial that was the quote from my father then walk out never to return.

In the past year I’ve learned how toxic my mother is, her own self loathing and childhood wounds she’s TRIED to put on me. Just learned not to argue back💯💯

Jay you’ve been instrumental in my healing. I bought your book and also watched many of your videos. I woke up from the psychological spell last week. There is still a lot of work to do ahead of me but the spell is broken and I’m beginning to trust myself again. Since my father passed away early last year, subsequent traumatic betrayals from my family ensued, which led me to cut off all contact (the most difficult experience I have gone through). I later cut off contact from any and all toxic people too. Wish I had done this sooner. I was the over achieving and truth seeing scapegoat who came from a blended dysfunctional family riddled with repressed emotions, all kinds of addictions, and all kinds of abuse. The youngest, most outspoken, and achieved more in my lifetime than all my siblings and psychopathic covert narcissist mother put together. I believed until I cut off contact that I am an inferior and undistinguished person when in fact I am professionally designated, have a degree, ran a startup that amounted to 6-fig revenue in its 2nd fiscal year, owned rental properties by age 33, and appointed VP for a startup streaming company owned by board members of a major telecom company in my country. All this hard work and achievement in a span of 10 years and yet I’m still the butt of jokes, they don’t believe I was ever VP, they downplayed my thousands of customers that led to said revenue, downplayed my designation, and completely ignored and overtly ostracized me when my financial independence was obvious. I was taught to never flaunt and so I never did but it wasn’t because of moral standing, it’s because my mere natural talents outshines my mothers and older siblings. I came to the family much later in their life, hence was an accident, yet because of this I never truly got indoctrinated and partly because I grew up in a different circumstance than they and that I likely have a brain designed to ask questions. I am naturally curious and conscientious, as well as naturally charismatic and intelligent. I can never exist as myself except to act like a kid. Imagine if Jeff Bezos’ family of origin still saw him as an incompetent buffoon that knows nothing about business or finance. The delusion is palpable in my family. Truly sad and truly miraculous that I made it out, alive and free, free to be me.

My mom treated her birthday like it was a national holiday and we were not allowed to celebrate my dad’s birthday. My parents are still married

So true, oh my so true! It took me 40 years! And more than 10 afterwards to process it. I am sad now and try to explore the reverse of a wasted life. I don't believe death is the end of it and I know everything happens for a reason. Know also I am a survivor and this is my treasure, not everybody survive and not like me, that's more than enough for now. Thank you for your videos!❤

I like when Jay talks about living in "defiance" of narcissistic rules cause since my early 20' I felt I have those rules imposed on me from various people and groups and thought have to live against it. There's always a little bit of fear that I do something wrong, but no, it's just against my social conditioning. Glad that someone named it so I know it's not just in my head.

Thank you again for this second video. I am the scapegoated parent. My children all adults and on their own. I treated still with contemporary. The pain is unbearable. I worry for them and my grands. As their father is still the “good” parent to them I don’t think this will ever change after all these years. Much love to any scapegoated parent whose children can’t see😓

Thank you Jay. Yes this was my situation growing up. I was taught to hate my Father, RIP even until death by my covert/borderline mother. Everything you've said here is true. I started hating and abusing myself for decades. I finally went no contact after 5 decades. My life now is so much better. God has shown me how to love me and in turn, i love and help others to heal from covert narcissistic abuse. I have a new family now. Im an example of not giving up on oneself looks like. Please be encouraged. Life can be better. Much love on your journeys ❤

I only realized that my father was the scapegoated parent a few years ago. He passed away before I had worked out how unfairly he was treated. My issue is that I feel such regret that I treated him with contempt while he was alive. I don't know how I can possibly make amends.

Mum was hard to convince I couldn't understand why me being picked on as a child. It ruined me growing up I didn't know I was a scapegoat. My emotional abuse now I know was not my fault. 😢

Great video, Jay. I never heard the term “scapegoated parent” before. All I’ve ever heard in regards to parents is “narcissists & enablers”.

Such a beautiful subject. Not yet watched but validation of my late father helps me to stand tall. ❤ After hating him for so many years, understanding, remembering my father and our bond without any disruption was a milestone for me in my ongoing journey to break the cycle, which enhanced my emasculated being.

Oops, at first I thought this was about finding compassion for the parents who scapegoated us! Now I see it's about a parent who was a scaoegoat.

Dear Jay, you've nailed it again. My quiet Dad, 1 of my brothers and myself were all terrified of my mother. She has always been a smouldering malevolence, with a look that can practically cut you dead. She never raged or hit. She didn't need to. Her disdain, endless shaming and guilting are all she's ever needed. Yet I still have some weird programming that I have to 'baby' and protect her. She's 89 and I just long for this to end, if I can live that long. Thank you Jay, your words are such a blessing of clarity and calm 🥰

Thank you for this Jay, it is profoundly healing, putting something into words from a very complex situation, especially when they were both narcissistic.

So many awesome points ❤- of finding someone who is unconditionally supportive in my family. A survivor may figure it out by the behavior of others while healing & uncover even more with new insight & truth. No one in my family is worth my time.🎉

Hi Jay, I love your work. I especially appreciated your last two videos on when the narcissistic parent scapegoats the other parent. It would be great if you could do a follow up video on what a scapegoated parent, now in healing and recovery, can do to assist the young adult child in this system to work through the moral injury they are dealing with. - Christina

My father was born to narcissistic parents. His father was an alcoholic and his mother an enabler. My father and his brothers were all alcoholics, which destroyed them, and they had ZERO respect for women. He also mistreated his dogs. He was on a mission to kill my narcissistic mother before she left him. I first caught him strangling her and then he tried to hit her in the temple with his fist. Three years after she left him, he committed suicide. My father should have divorced his parents and my mother and moved away. My scapegoated sister poisoned my mother after she changed her will leaving her the house. She's still living in the house, and got away with murder. You need to realize that not all scapegoats are wonderful. There are a lot of suicides and mental illness in my family from narcissistic abuse. If there's life after death, then they're much happier than being here. Life's a B, then you die, is what a military drill instructor that I knew used to say to his trainees, and it's the truth! There's a much better home awaitin'!

Certainly, Sir!

Jay, what can we do when we feel compassion and suffer from it? I can tell that my enabler father was actually unable to protect me because he’s part of the generation of children of war whose own emotions were completely neglected, who just had to function and react quickly to save themselves or little brothers and sisters from bombs and later from starving. In Germany where my father grew up as a little boy they were refugees who were chased from what is now Poland to the Northwest of Germany where the rural population treated them badly because they had to be given shelter and food. My father watched people get shot in front of his eyes when he was only 6 or 7 years old, he watched his mother nearly getting raped and shot, lost his mother through separation for a while and had to survive alone with his little brother and only one year older sister. Then he wasn’t allowed higher education because he needed to help his parents. And then he met my mother (who was born after the war) and who is a covert narcissist. She doesn’t rage. She cries. She twists the truth, she blames. She is obsessively controlling but covers it up as care. She talks badly about others and covers it up as care when you make a remark on the nastiness of her judgement. She is much younger than my father and can play the role of the innocent little girl who just cares too much to perfection. She triangulates so that others do the dirty work of scapegoating for her. My father defends her always and his main argument is that she cannot have meant it or that I’m being too sensitive or just getting things wrong. He looks away or actually leaves the room when I need him to speak up/needed his protection as a child. He wouldn’t ever divorce her because he’s that generation and I suspect that the thought alone would provoke anxiety in him. I totally get the desperate place he is coming from. To me, he looks depressed. I’m the truthteller in my family and hence the scapegoat. My brother and sister scapegoat me relentlessly, my brother gets rageful, my sister plaintive like our mother. My father usually flees the room to avoid being alone with me because I have often tried to make him listen and understand and help me when I got him alone. It’s impossible to even talk to him when my mother is by because she will interrupt him and answer for him. She will gaslight and cry. No clarifying talk is possible at all, she will cry and then he will blame me and stop it. And my brother and sister will come at me like harpies afterwards, blaming me for my mother’s tears. She’s a master manipulator. She’s often dissociated when she personally carries out her attacks. It’s the weirdest experience ever. She will blame and criticize completely innocent things I do and I can tell that she just needs an outlet for her anger and I’m her lightening rod. My father is afraid of being her lightening rod. I don’t know how to protect him from his own shame - I don’t know if it’s just my wrong interpretation or expecting him to feel as I would if I was him but I could swear that he isn’t only depressed because she subdues his whole being, his whole personality, but also because he knows he was/is too scared to protect me and it is that which made me go into depression and suicidal ideation when I was a young girl. My depression became chronic and my whole family calls me a burden because of it. But my father once said (when he was alone on the phone with me): Do you think I’m made from stone? And then he cried. And those words have haunted me ever since. I was sometimes angry with him, but I mostly just felt lost and wished I could save HIM. But every time I defend him or show care towards him she will be extremely jealous and I have noticed that she punishes him for it. When he had Corona last year, aged 86, and I asked him how he was and tried to prevent him from exerting himself she would send him to fetch things from the cellar on purpose afterwards (pretending that she was sooo very tired and needed his help 🙄) although he had fever and felt dizzy and nearly fell because of it. He’s 87 now and I feel that he feels that he sacrificed his life to my mother. I can tell that he feels that that is his duty. And it’s that which nearly suffocates me. I’m angry with my mother and will never forgive her for exploiting my father. On the other hand I’m so afraid of my father dying soon and us never (apart from that moment on the phone) having had a real father-daughter time where we were close. He has fled from my presence all the time since I grew into a thinking being. I can only remember close moments with him from when I was a little girl. In my teenage years when my mother’s scapegoating of me started this connection was gone. What he did was putting gas into my car secretly so that I didn’t have to do it. Or he helped me with works in my flat (under the jealous eagle eyes of my mother so that no talk was possible). How can I deal with all these conflicting emotions in my soul? I feel my father blames me for not shutting up. And at the same time I feel that he is ashamed.

It's often both parents who were the problem.. often we like to see one parent as the good one and one as the bad.. but often scapegoating happens to child because the "good parent" turns a blind eye

I'd also love to hear your perspective on how we can bring self-compassion to our persistent anxiety. I don't see much said about this topic when it comes to scapegoating trauma.

That's really informative and helpful Jay thank you for sharing

The scapegoat child knows on some level that their narcissistic parent is wrong about them and the enabler scapegoat parent. The scapegoat child tries to have a relationship with both parents and is punished by the narcissistic parent. The scapegoat parent will have a relationship with the scapegoat child but will most likely not protect them from the narcissistic parent. The head golden child interacts with the scapegoat parent for the provision of goods and services and for triangulation with the narcissistic parent. The echo golden child interacts with the scapegoat parent for the provision of goods and services and engages in a limited, measured style of relating that does not involve a specific outcome. The scapegoat child has borne the brunt of the narcissistic parent's abuse of the children. The scapegoat child has also witnessed the narcissistic parent's abuse of the scapegoat parent and is confused. The scapegoat parent has not protected themselves; is this why they haven't protected the scapegoat child? The scapegoat child has not believed the narcissistic parent's lies about the scapegoat parent. If the scapegoat child does pull back slightly from the scapegoat parent, it is precipitated by the feeling that they have not been protected by the scapegoat parent. This action is made all too easy by the promise of a fleeting reward bestowed by the narcissistic parent. However, the scapegoat child most likely has a moral compass and a conscience, so that any pulling away from the enabler scapegoat parent will be short-lived.

Adoption of children is much harder than it used to be and so parents are being scapegoated a lot more often not always done while a parent is still going through a divorce.

I have never had that support or grounding relationship or therapist yet. I feel so unbalanced that i cant even function that well. I need a therapist to heal from the multiple narcissists targetting me in life, it is not just my parents and family, it is alot more. Erodong my mental health slowly if i let my guard down.

Hijacking is the worst! Domineering and disturbing and a psychological torment. It is so horrible. There is no way to hold a healthy attachment to a narcissist without detaching from self somehow

Thank you.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the so-called Cry for Help trauma response of scapegoating survivors.

Recently I have been learning about Reconsolidation of memory therapy for folks with ptsd. I think it would make a good accompaniment to yiur work. (Fellow psychologist)😅

this is exactly what my mom did to me and it ruined my life. it killed my dad and my brother and I am not kidding

I feel so bad for my Dad. But he was in a position to be the head of the family and right the wrong. He sold his ethics to save himself. Does he see it, now?

Awesome video - thank you for covering Parental Alienation. I’m a scapegoated child who then was scapegoated and alienated by my narcissistic ex. It’s super painful. I focus on my healing and reunion with my children everyday. Thanks for the validation, clarity and hope ❤️‍🩹🙏

Hey Jay, great content, would recommend a microphone!

🤘🐺 Respect ❤️‍🩹

can someone please send me the link to the first video in this series... (I have looked...) Thank you!

Im continuing watching several videos of yours a day, im wondering if there is guidance about feeling compassion toward the narcissist in correct and unmanipulated way. Not necessarily reestablishing contact but being able to see them rightly and no longer carry the wounds. I feel even when i 'break'the narcissists rules that they were contradictory in the first place in order to create a paradox. I dont want to hate my narcissistic mother because that is what she wanted so that she could claim to be the victim of 'my' hate or even my indifference. Regarsless of not having contact with this person i feel it is an aspect of the moral injury. Basically the scapegiat mentality became a narcissistic tendency in my mother where she would compel adoration but would settle for still being feared through hatred or indifference. I am 8 years of no contact but the poor moral training ruined my ability to relate to others.

Thank you Jay can I ask you my Grandaughter was taken away from us when she was five years old. It broke us as a family my daughter was slaughtered with her coersive manipulating father the courts let us down and we now are let down my daughter as had a lot of abuse from him and his wife as emotionally terrorised my daughter now they have stopped contact through phone. Seeing her police have failed now my daughter never sees her daughter we haven't seen our Grandaughter now is nine years old love her to the moon and back my other Grandson who's nine to was brought up together is broken a part as gone. 😢

how is possible we participated in such a Truman s show.I m still so confused.

Do you mean the enabler is a scapegoat?