Transcript
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You have a family
where you have somebody, a parent,
who nowadays is pretty pretty common to
call them a narcissist.
Somebody who is self-consumed and a
perfectionist and can never be wrong.
Can never be wrong.
And
then you have a
a spouse to that parent
who's what you might call the
narcissistic enabler.
Meaning covering up for
the parent who
can never be wrong.
And usually that
that spouse is a very broken person,
which
wouldn't really shock you
um because if you're married to somebody
who has zero compassion, empathy,
humility,
you you would be exhausted, too. So,
that that person ends up being a very
very sad and broken person.
Um a shell.
And then you have the kids.
So, the kids
are all handed
a rulebook
for how to survive in this home. But,
the rulebook is all in code. It's all a
hint. It's all with a wink.
Uh it's not explicitly stated anywhere,
but people learn these rules so that
they don't
become the object of the narcissistic
wrath.
And basically, the rulebook
there's really one major rule, which is
that the the self-consumed immature
parent can never be wrong. Ever. Can
never be wrong.
And then
the the siblings,
the kids,
what happens is
very often
there's a there's a
a child who's chosen.
And why is this child chosen?
You know, you could form theories about
it. Other times it's hard to say why why
that child. But, this this is the child
who's singled out as the scapegoat. And
by scapegoat, I mean literally
um
they play the role
that
the actual You know what the actual
scapegoat is? I mean So, oh, I am a
rabbi. So, this I can actually speak
with authority about. The scapegoat uh
in the times of the Holy Temple in
Jerusalem
on Yom Kippur on the Day of Atonement.
So, part of the ritual was that there
was a lottery which randomly selected a
goat.
One goat was a sin offering, but the
other goat would be the scapegoat. And
they would take him out outside of the
city to a cliff
and they would toss him off a cliff, and
that was part of the atonement of the
people.
I'm not going to get into a whole
discussion about whether that seems
barbaric to you and
um probably
most of us today have a hard time
automatically relating to animal animal
sacrifice to begin with.
Um that that's not my point here, and I
don't want you to get distracted uh by
that. But,
the metaphor is what's important here.
That just like there was a scapegoat in
the Holy Temple that would carry the
guilt of the people,
so, too, there's this
child who carries the guilt of the
family. More specifically,
the
the shame of the shameless parent.
Meaning there's a parent who's acting
shamelessly, but will not own up to
their shameless behavior. Somebody has
to bear that guilt. It is transferred
onto that child. Why that child? I don't
know. Much like the scapegoat in the
temple was chosen at random. Sometimes
this selection seems to be pretty
random. In other words, it has nothing
to do with the child's behavior. It's
not like the child did anything
that they would be more worthy of blame
in the family than anyone else.
It just becomes this is the person
who is the go-to object of blame.
To the point where that becomes the in
joke. You know, who broke it? Oh,
so-and-so. Oh, who didn't put
such-and-such away? So-and-so. Oh, who
parked the car wrong? Oh, so-and-so. Who
didn't clean the dishes properly?
So-and-so. It's always that's the person
who got everything wrong. Why are we
late? Who made us late? Oh, so-and-so.
Um the siblings, obviously,
are living in terror
of becoming the scapegoat. So, it's kind
of hard to really blame them, especially
when they're children,
uh for being complicit in this sick
pattern. But, they are going along with
it because they're relieved it's not
them.
To make matters worse, sometimes you
even see that one of the other children
has been selected for another role that
sometimes they call uh the golden child,
the child who can do no wrong. So, then
you have the child in one family who can
do no right, literally is always at
fault. And then you have the child who
can do no wrong,
who's always good.
The the child who can do no right not
only can do no right, but if they ever
exper- express any type of pride
or satisfaction in their
accomplishments, they will be torn apart
to pieces.
Like they come home with a good report
card and they just want to show it
to their parents and be like, "Hey, I
worked really hard this semester. I got
good grades." They will be thoroughly
punished for that. Why? Because they're
messing up the whole scapegoat system
because you need to be the one who's
full of shame and blame in order that
the narcissistic parent can be spotless
and flawless and completely without
guilt. So, when this scapegoat child
has any sense of
accomplishment or self-esteem, that's
going to be totally demolished
immediately, without mercy.
And of course, you you could understand
why somebody who grows up that way would
have a really hard time having any sen-
sense of
self-worth.
Um you could also understand why someone
who grows up that way would have a
really hard time
uh trusting people.
Uh you could also even understand why
when they do form bonds, very often they
look for, perhaps unconsciously, that
which is familiar,
and they are attracted to really
abusive, humiliating relationships
often.
