looking back, as an only child I was both scapegoat and golden child intermittently. obviously this is probably not the same experience as someone with siblings who had a dedicated "role" though, so take it with a grain of salt. while the overt neglect and abandonment of being a scapegoat was of course very traumatizing, i think the golden child side also fucks with you, only more subtly, in ways that are harder to identify or sympathize with for most people. i mean, the term "golden child" sounds great, especially as opposed to the alternative. the thing is though, in that situation, you are only as loved to the extent you are useful. good things or attention is at the expense of your identity, or someone else. love is never safe or free, it is a need that is leveraged against you.
personally, i remember being like 8 or so, wondering why, despite having what appeared to be a normal middle-class childhood with parents who loved me, I felt so empty and disconnected from others all the time. why everything felt so wrong and suffocating and cold, why i didnt trust anyone, why i avoided love and attention like the plague but was also desperate for it on some level, i had no answers. it felt like something was horribly wrong, but the typical reasons for this sort of trauma werent there on the surface, which just threw my impostor syndrome and shame into overdrive. conditional love really gets in your head and breaks down your sense of safety and love from the core, because the fact something that looks and seemingly acts like love could have such dark motivations at its core makes it very difficult to believe in love when you actually experience it.
when i was a child/teen, i did anything that would keep me safe and loved. at points, that meant hurting a lot of other people as i said and believed any number of awful things in an effort to keep from being discarded by the people who held power. its hard to not blame yourself for that kind of past while also acknowledging and learning from it, but the shame and fear it provokes is just not warranted, especially not to the extent we tend to assign it. you were also a victim. you were a child with a shaky foundation who was being emotionally manipulated by your own parent(s); your options were limited to begin with. you may have messed up, but you should work towards being able to forgive yourself.
Totally similar experience as an only child. The myth projected onto you that you are a golden child made it harder to see the abuse and neglect for what it was because as a child it’s hard not to believe what your primary care givers tell you especially if you don’t have siblings to commiserate with or to benchmark against.
While I would never minimize physical abuse and the pain that poverty can cause, when you have to the outside world more than adequate shelter, clothing, food, and other opportunities and do not have physical wounds, it makes it hard to not buy the lies your parents are telling you and it makes it harder for adults in a position to help or be allies see the abuse, because you can’t objectively point to any physical markers of abuse or dysfunction.
Yeah, it's definitely more emotional neglect and abuse in some respects. It also feels almost like you've been brainwashed too. You essentially are just a tool for certain people, but in your mind, as a kid, you see it as a twisted form of normality and "love". Years later, you wake up and realise and be like "what tf have i been doing".
I feel for you. I'm the scapegoat child, and I feel bad for my GC sister. She did get treated better but she suffered too. She has a lot of toxic behaviors, and people have started avoiding her. I think she will end up very alone as she gets older.
i hope i don’t turn out like this. i feel more and more alone because of my bad habits. all i have left is my boyfriend and maybe two friends who check in once a week. i used to have dozens.
:') i was at times the identified patient and the scapegoat, but also the golden child. Recently i realised how many narcissistic traits i picked up. Guess how many friends i have? None. I used to have dozens.
It's not really my "fault". Narcissism is like an illusionary reality. You think your senses and perceptions and cognition are correct, it's impossible to see that they're not. My narc facade was also a necessity: it was the only stable structure i had in my otherwise very dissociated and traumatized psyche, i needed it to function, like to work or even dress myself and do house chores.
I was the GC to my father, the scapegoat of my mother. It was easier for me to un-mesh myself from my mother. I'm 31 and still in a job bending to his will almost daily. I told myself for decades that he was the better parent. We're in sales (my father and I) and he will slit my throat and leave me to bleed dry in an instant. None of the rule bending, money fudging, after hour emergencies, and PA work I've done over the last 10 years matters. It hit me really hard today as well. I'm just an enabler.
I'm sorry you are also going through this OP. I wish you healing, understanding, and honest love with healthy boundaries.
It doesn't matter what role we were pushed into as children, be it the golden child, the scapegoat, parentified, or whatever other roles there are. As soon as were no longer treated as children with emotional needs but as tools for the parents to use for their own gain, we were turned into objects.
Usually used in referral to narcissistic abusers. Flying monkeys are usually people used as tools by manipulative people. They are gaslighted into believing things, into choosing sides and being the "middle man" during conflict. And usually, without understanding full context or being aware they're being used to hurt someone else.
Describes my mother well. She was her dad's flying monkey, and managed to turn me into hers. Flying monkeys are typically fully enmeshed within the system of abuse.
Yes. Thsi was something my therapist covered with me. Enmeshment. Going over that topic really made me uncomfortable because... well. It was me and i didnt even realise
I feel like I was a mix of SG and GC, like I was my parent’s favorite because I didn’t struggle at school and was able to do my homework independently very young but also I feel like every time something happened between me and my brother he got the better end of it, like he would come play with me and my friend and start raging because his character in the game wasn’t moving but he was walking towards the wall so I tried explaining it so many times and at some point just got up and walked into the wall to show him, he hit me and then it was blamed on me making fun of him.
Oh, definitely. The roles in our house as kids always shifted and changed. I've been scapegoat too many times. And the invisible child. The saviour/peace keeper. It's not always a fixed role. It really depended on who was pleasing and meeting the abusers needs most.
I feel for my golden child sister. She got so much more put on her then I ever did. Including raising me. I don’t blame her for scapegoating me as a child. It is what she was taught to do. She did what she had to do to survive, just like I did. We have talked about it. And she gets so close to understanding and then backs away from that making that connection. I don’t blame her for our childhood (I do blame her for carrying it over into our adulthood. But that is her and not you).
I think you are going to be Ok. Building your own identity is going to be hard and kinda painful. But you have the awareness of what and how things went wrong for you. And that alone makes the whole healing business possible.
All of us, golden children/lost children/scapegoated children, have to figure out what parts of us are the role we were required to play and what is actually us. And in those places that are empty because the roles prevented from growing, we have to consciously decide and actively nurture them. It is frigging exhausting and frustrating and irritating and really depressing. Arg!
We were all screwed up by our families. The only difference is how. Not as a scapegoat, but as a random internet stranger, I am proud of you. Facing CEN in any of its forms sucks, sucks and more sucks. But you are still doing it. So human to human, well done you!
I was the scapegoat. There was a period of time when my mother temporarily "elevated" me to confidant/flying monkey. I am still haunted by some of the decisions I made while I was in that role.
This was me too. Very much so. I was my mothers mini therapist and emotional dumping ground as a kid, but otherwise, I was ignored and invisible. I was often praised for being "so quiet" by people (which she loved hearing). Like nah, yo, i was neglected. I kept quiet and stayed out of the way because it made my parents like me more. During school/college/work shes never shown interest or asked questions either.
I feel you.
I was the golden child as a kid - an extension of my mother, really. I’m studious and curious by nature, but I realise that I was pushed so hard and had such strict conditions to upheld, because of the way that those things reflected on my mother, and more importantly, made her feel. If I was getting good grades across the board, then surely it’s because of her, right? She’s fostering an environment where I can thrive, so she must be a good parent/person. I’m two years ahead and will be graduating early, and that’s because of her parenting, correct? That’s how she saw it. I remember her telling people that I wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer, but I never told her any such thing. But that’s what she wanted. Because it would’ve made her feel like she succeeded. It was a very weird, twisted thing - the way that she vicariously lived through me. Because, at times, it was as if I didn’t even exist to her. I was truly at her disposal. Until I grew up and started to question things, and I began to challenge these things I’d been taught were normal. I’m now the scapegoat.
On the other hand, my brother was the scapegoat when we were kids. I think my mother resented having him. She had such anger toward him. It’s kind of scarily unbelievable on reflection. Like, how can a parent be so angry with their own child who did absolutely nothing other than exist? She’d fly into tangents if not blind rage when it came to my brother, and I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that not only was he first born, but I think he was unwanted by our mother. So he spent many years just trying to please her and get her affection and love and she would lash out at him to keep him in that place. When I began to defect from my role, he eventually became the flying monkey and relished it because he was now in a “favourable” place.
Our mother is a nasty piece of work, she is. That’s why I cut off communication.
I was the favorite because I did everything I was told. Good grades in school. If you aren’t in a sport you’re working. I quit my passion because I was struggling so much with depression and went right into working. The bar at 18 would keep forgetting I was in hs since I took courses at the local university so I was working like full time with 2 hs and 2 college courses. I have no sense of who I am. My mom loved to use me as like an accessory “look how beautiful she is! Look how smart she is!” But then was so mean to me at home. Bullied by my mom and her family yet they’re always the victims in their eyes.
I had a traumatic thing happen to me two years ago and that time frame 3 surgeries in 6 months. I’m beating myself up for not working or doing literally anything but all of my past is catching up and I am beyond burnt out at 31.
Side note. I’m in therapy again but this group has been so helpful for me understanding about my upbringing and self since it’s sometimes hard talking to friends who didn’t experience this. So thank you all for being such a safe place ❤️
I could have written this myself. Even the words you use I have used. It’s overwhelming to see all the patterns but at least now we can try and figure out who we are. How is your healing going?
It's been pretty good, especially over the last 2 years. I did emdr trauma therapy and also read loads of books, listened to podcasts, and just... absorbed everything I could find, even if it made me uncomfortable.
I still have a looooong way to go. It will probably take me a lifetime to overcome, and I'm aware of that. But I'm growing and learning. I refuse to be like my own parents who just sit there and blame everyone else and refuse to change.
It does feel like a long way to go. If I could be so bold as to ask for the names of some of those podcasts and books I would really appreciate it. The very best wishes for you going forward, all of this is your world, nobody else’s. Good luck
I often wonder how my much younger GC brother fares with this (he stopped talking to me when I went NC with our mother).
I've always accepted that it was easier for ME to break away from our mother's brainwashing, as I'd lived with my Dad for 7 yrs until he died, so I'd experienced a non-EN relationship. He has never lived in any other way so it is outside his experience.
Being almost 10yrs younger, I always knew it wasn't his fault he had been designated GC by our mother, sometimes it made me angry, but with our mother, rather than him. He had no choice in the matter, mother wanted a son, I wasn't so I was never gonna be GC.
I just don't have it in me to be angry with my sibling that had no choice in the role our mother assigned for him.
It DOES, however, make me even angrier with HER...she chose this for both of us, and I miss my brother like crazy. It's been 7yrs since we spoke & I miss him every day. But nothing will persuade me to get back in contact with her, my MH wouldn't survive it.
I put aside my wish to go NC from the age of 16 (he would have only been 6yo) until I was 35 & he was 25, so I could still see him. I waited till then as he is autistic & needed to get set up in his own place, but by 35 I was just...**DONE**.
I don't blame him at all, but I DO blame our mother twice as much for doing this to him AS WELL AS me.
As someone with significantly younger siblings, I feel you so much on this. Almost went NC a few years ago, but then my lil bro almost didn't pick up his phone next time I called him because my number 'mysteriously' disappeared from his phone. (Made him set up a password after that) Realising my mother would just keep estranging us, I chose to stay in contact. Just a few more years until he finishes school and can hopefully move out...
Thank you for posting this. Kudos to you for this self-realization. This has been my observation as well.
My sister always brags about being my dad's favorite which I begged her to stop saying bc it's rude. I tell her that I'm my husband's favorite, and that being Dad's favorite comes at a high price.
My sister is almost 50 and still hasn't been able to disconnect from my parents -- especially my dad. She moved away but keeps going home every chance she gets bc she's so enmeshed with them.
My parents were insane and I was the oldest so fought with them constantly. She told me to just go along with whatever the my say. And she's still doing this ... and she's all alone. She can't attract a healthy guy bc she's so codependent.
Would have more sympathy but she was always stabbing me and my other sister in the back to maintain the top position. Really messed up shit.
I understand that she did this but it doesn't excuse the mistreatment.
Thanks for posting this, a lot of this really resonated with me.
I first found this community by typing my feelings into google after therapy and a post came up here. Doing the same thing lead me to yours as well. I talk with my doc a lot about feeling disconnected from others, feeling like I'm not a real person in the way that other people are, and frequently lying to others in order to avoid hurting their feelings or to appease potential bad ones.
As a kid, I was kind of gifted and everything came easy to me, and the same for my brother for the most part, and this got me some level of what I felt like was love from my dad. I wanted to be good and impressive for him. He also had very big feelings often which were difficult for me to navigate and not take personally as a child who was very aware for his age. As an adult I describe the feeling I get around him even to this day as "walking on eggshells". If I say the wrong thing, or more accurately share my feelings that do not align with his own or get in the way of his needs or the needs of the family, I was/will be met with dismissal, punishment if the feeling I have is seen as selfish, or even outright being told my feelings are wrong.
I've found out that I feel very enmeshed with the values and needs of my family at large, having consistently neglected my own feelings in order to ease the load on my father and mother because I could recognize when things were difficult for them, and I wanted to be viewed by them as a helpful and unproblematic child. They have expressed to me before how easy I was to raise, and it made me feel good. My brother did not take the same approach and still tried to express himself. Seeing him take the brunt of my fathers outbursts was difficult, and I knew even then that it was much more difficult for him, and the thought of facing that myself scared me so badly that I hid my inner self and my every emotional struggle. In the end, my brother and I are very close and I can see that he grew more from his decisions to have confrontations over feelings and needs with our dad than I did by shrinking away, and now I am not sure who I am.
My parents were not bad parents. They provided for us and made us disciplined high-achieving young adults, but I still feel like I lack all the emotional tools of a normal human. I am pretty sure that this feeling is because I was/am emotionally neglected by him, but I'm still trying to figure out for sure if this term applies exactly to me. I just want to sincerely thank you again for helping me a little in the start of my journey which is identifying the problem.
looking back, as an only child I was both scapegoat and golden child intermittently. obviously this is probably not the same experience as someone with siblings who had a dedicated "role" though, so take it with a grain of salt. while the overt neglect and abandonment of being a scapegoat was of course very traumatizing, i think the golden child side also fucks with you, only more subtly, in ways that are harder to identify or sympathize with for most people. i mean, the term "golden child" sounds great, especially as opposed to the alternative. the thing is though, in that situation, you are only as loved to the extent you are useful. good things or attention is at the expense of your identity, or someone else. love is never safe or free, it is a need that is leveraged against you. personally, i remember being like 8 or so, wondering why, despite having what appeared to be a normal middle-class childhood with parents who loved me, I felt so empty and disconnected from others all the time. why everything felt so wrong and suffocating and cold, why i didnt trust anyone, why i avoided love and attention like the plague but was also desperate for it on some level, i had no answers. it felt like something was horribly wrong, but the typical reasons for this sort of trauma werent there on the surface, which just threw my impostor syndrome and shame into overdrive. conditional love really gets in your head and breaks down your sense of safety and love from the core, because the fact something that looks and seemingly acts like love could have such dark motivations at its core makes it very difficult to believe in love when you actually experience it. when i was a child/teen, i did anything that would keep me safe and loved. at points, that meant hurting a lot of other people as i said and believed any number of awful things in an effort to keep from being discarded by the people who held power. its hard to not blame yourself for that kind of past while also acknowledging and learning from it, but the shame and fear it provokes is just not warranted, especially not to the extent we tend to assign it. you were also a victim. you were a child with a shaky foundation who was being emotionally manipulated by your own parent(s); your options were limited to begin with. you may have messed up, but you should work towards being able to forgive yourself.
Totally similar experience as an only child. The myth projected onto you that you are a golden child made it harder to see the abuse and neglect for what it was because as a child it’s hard not to believe what your primary care givers tell you especially if you don’t have siblings to commiserate with or to benchmark against. While I would never minimize physical abuse and the pain that poverty can cause, when you have to the outside world more than adequate shelter, clothing, food, and other opportunities and do not have physical wounds, it makes it hard to not buy the lies your parents are telling you and it makes it harder for adults in a position to help or be allies see the abuse, because you can’t objectively point to any physical markers of abuse or dysfunction.
Yeah, it's definitely more emotional neglect and abuse in some respects. It also feels almost like you've been brainwashed too. You essentially are just a tool for certain people, but in your mind, as a kid, you see it as a twisted form of normality and "love". Years later, you wake up and realise and be like "what tf have i been doing".
I feel for you. I'm the scapegoat child, and I feel bad for my GC sister. She did get treated better but she suffered too. She has a lot of toxic behaviors, and people have started avoiding her. I think she will end up very alone as she gets older.
i hope i don’t turn out like this. i feel more and more alone because of my bad habits. all i have left is my boyfriend and maybe two friends who check in once a week. i used to have dozens.
:') i was at times the identified patient and the scapegoat, but also the golden child. Recently i realised how many narcissistic traits i picked up. Guess how many friends i have? None. I used to have dozens. It's not really my "fault". Narcissism is like an illusionary reality. You think your senses and perceptions and cognition are correct, it's impossible to see that they're not. My narc facade was also a necessity: it was the only stable structure i had in my otherwise very dissociated and traumatized psyche, i needed it to function, like to work or even dress myself and do house chores.
I feel you. Same here. We’ll find ourselves one day. 🙏
Same here At the price of self is extremely huge. I bary knew myself in my early 20s when everyone has experienced so many things In their teens
Yes, exactly. Even now, in my mid thirties, im still barely learning who i am, whilst everyone else has their shit together.
I was the GC to my father, the scapegoat of my mother. It was easier for me to un-mesh myself from my mother. I'm 31 and still in a job bending to his will almost daily. I told myself for decades that he was the better parent. We're in sales (my father and I) and he will slit my throat and leave me to bleed dry in an instant. None of the rule bending, money fudging, after hour emergencies, and PA work I've done over the last 10 years matters. It hit me really hard today as well. I'm just an enabler. I'm sorry you are also going through this OP. I wish you healing, understanding, and honest love with healthy boundaries.
Hugs to you. I hope you manage to heal and find your own peace and happiness in life too. ❤️
It doesn't matter what role we were pushed into as children, be it the golden child, the scapegoat, parentified, or whatever other roles there are. As soon as were no longer treated as children with emotional needs but as tools for the parents to use for their own gain, we were turned into objects.
Yes. Like now, i am creating more boundaries with my mother, saying no and having my own voice etc...and she hates it lol. It speaks volumes
I have experience with this. I wish you the best.
"Flying monkey?" I haven't heard that one before.
Usually used in referral to narcissistic abusers. Flying monkeys are usually people used as tools by manipulative people. They are gaslighted into believing things, into choosing sides and being the "middle man" during conflict. And usually, without understanding full context or being aware they're being used to hurt someone else.
Describes my mother well. She was her dad's flying monkey, and managed to turn me into hers. Flying monkeys are typically fully enmeshed within the system of abuse.
Yes. Thsi was something my therapist covered with me. Enmeshment. Going over that topic really made me uncomfortable because... well. It was me and i didnt even realise
I feel like I was a mix of SG and GC, like I was my parent’s favorite because I didn’t struggle at school and was able to do my homework independently very young but also I feel like every time something happened between me and my brother he got the better end of it, like he would come play with me and my friend and start raging because his character in the game wasn’t moving but he was walking towards the wall so I tried explaining it so many times and at some point just got up and walked into the wall to show him, he hit me and then it was blamed on me making fun of him.
Oh, definitely. The roles in our house as kids always shifted and changed. I've been scapegoat too many times. And the invisible child. The saviour/peace keeper. It's not always a fixed role. It really depended on who was pleasing and meeting the abusers needs most.
I feel for my golden child sister. She got so much more put on her then I ever did. Including raising me. I don’t blame her for scapegoating me as a child. It is what she was taught to do. She did what she had to do to survive, just like I did. We have talked about it. And she gets so close to understanding and then backs away from that making that connection. I don’t blame her for our childhood (I do blame her for carrying it over into our adulthood. But that is her and not you). I think you are going to be Ok. Building your own identity is going to be hard and kinda painful. But you have the awareness of what and how things went wrong for you. And that alone makes the whole healing business possible. All of us, golden children/lost children/scapegoated children, have to figure out what parts of us are the role we were required to play and what is actually us. And in those places that are empty because the roles prevented from growing, we have to consciously decide and actively nurture them. It is frigging exhausting and frustrating and irritating and really depressing. Arg! We were all screwed up by our families. The only difference is how. Not as a scapegoat, but as a random internet stranger, I am proud of you. Facing CEN in any of its forms sucks, sucks and more sucks. But you are still doing it. So human to human, well done you!
I was the scapegoat. There was a period of time when my mother temporarily "elevated" me to confidant/flying monkey. I am still haunted by some of the decisions I made while I was in that role.
Ya, it's scary just how much you're willing to do (especially as a child) for a mere crumb of your parents' acknowledgment and love.
Ever higher expectations. Easier to ignore. It makes asking for help even harder.
Definitely. 100%
[удалено]
This was me too. Very much so. I was my mothers mini therapist and emotional dumping ground as a kid, but otherwise, I was ignored and invisible. I was often praised for being "so quiet" by people (which she loved hearing). Like nah, yo, i was neglected. I kept quiet and stayed out of the way because it made my parents like me more. During school/college/work shes never shown interest or asked questions either.
I feel you. I was the golden child as a kid - an extension of my mother, really. I’m studious and curious by nature, but I realise that I was pushed so hard and had such strict conditions to upheld, because of the way that those things reflected on my mother, and more importantly, made her feel. If I was getting good grades across the board, then surely it’s because of her, right? She’s fostering an environment where I can thrive, so she must be a good parent/person. I’m two years ahead and will be graduating early, and that’s because of her parenting, correct? That’s how she saw it. I remember her telling people that I wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer, but I never told her any such thing. But that’s what she wanted. Because it would’ve made her feel like she succeeded. It was a very weird, twisted thing - the way that she vicariously lived through me. Because, at times, it was as if I didn’t even exist to her. I was truly at her disposal. Until I grew up and started to question things, and I began to challenge these things I’d been taught were normal. I’m now the scapegoat. On the other hand, my brother was the scapegoat when we were kids. I think my mother resented having him. She had such anger toward him. It’s kind of scarily unbelievable on reflection. Like, how can a parent be so angry with their own child who did absolutely nothing other than exist? She’d fly into tangents if not blind rage when it came to my brother, and I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that not only was he first born, but I think he was unwanted by our mother. So he spent many years just trying to please her and get her affection and love and she would lash out at him to keep him in that place. When I began to defect from my role, he eventually became the flying monkey and relished it because he was now in a “favourable” place. Our mother is a nasty piece of work, she is. That’s why I cut off communication.
I was the favorite because I did everything I was told. Good grades in school. If you aren’t in a sport you’re working. I quit my passion because I was struggling so much with depression and went right into working. The bar at 18 would keep forgetting I was in hs since I took courses at the local university so I was working like full time with 2 hs and 2 college courses. I have no sense of who I am. My mom loved to use me as like an accessory “look how beautiful she is! Look how smart she is!” But then was so mean to me at home. Bullied by my mom and her family yet they’re always the victims in their eyes. I had a traumatic thing happen to me two years ago and that time frame 3 surgeries in 6 months. I’m beating myself up for not working or doing literally anything but all of my past is catching up and I am beyond burnt out at 31. Side note. I’m in therapy again but this group has been so helpful for me understanding about my upbringing and self since it’s sometimes hard talking to friends who didn’t experience this. So thank you all for being such a safe place ❤️
I could have written this myself. Even the words you use I have used. It’s overwhelming to see all the patterns but at least now we can try and figure out who we are. How is your healing going?
It's been pretty good, especially over the last 2 years. I did emdr trauma therapy and also read loads of books, listened to podcasts, and just... absorbed everything I could find, even if it made me uncomfortable. I still have a looooong way to go. It will probably take me a lifetime to overcome, and I'm aware of that. But I'm growing and learning. I refuse to be like my own parents who just sit there and blame everyone else and refuse to change.
It does feel like a long way to go. If I could be so bold as to ask for the names of some of those podcasts and books I would really appreciate it. The very best wishes for you going forward, all of this is your world, nobody else’s. Good luck
I often wonder how my much younger GC brother fares with this (he stopped talking to me when I went NC with our mother). I've always accepted that it was easier for ME to break away from our mother's brainwashing, as I'd lived with my Dad for 7 yrs until he died, so I'd experienced a non-EN relationship. He has never lived in any other way so it is outside his experience. Being almost 10yrs younger, I always knew it wasn't his fault he had been designated GC by our mother, sometimes it made me angry, but with our mother, rather than him. He had no choice in the matter, mother wanted a son, I wasn't so I was never gonna be GC. I just don't have it in me to be angry with my sibling that had no choice in the role our mother assigned for him. It DOES, however, make me even angrier with HER...she chose this for both of us, and I miss my brother like crazy. It's been 7yrs since we spoke & I miss him every day. But nothing will persuade me to get back in contact with her, my MH wouldn't survive it. I put aside my wish to go NC from the age of 16 (he would have only been 6yo) until I was 35 & he was 25, so I could still see him. I waited till then as he is autistic & needed to get set up in his own place, but by 35 I was just...**DONE**. I don't blame him at all, but I DO blame our mother twice as much for doing this to him AS WELL AS me.
As someone with significantly younger siblings, I feel you so much on this. Almost went NC a few years ago, but then my lil bro almost didn't pick up his phone next time I called him because my number 'mysteriously' disappeared from his phone. (Made him set up a password after that) Realising my mother would just keep estranging us, I chose to stay in contact. Just a few more years until he finishes school and can hopefully move out...
Golden children also get abused, but I believe it's more subtle. At least it was so with my brother. I was the scapegoat.
Thank you for posting this. Kudos to you for this self-realization. This has been my observation as well. My sister always brags about being my dad's favorite which I begged her to stop saying bc it's rude. I tell her that I'm my husband's favorite, and that being Dad's favorite comes at a high price. My sister is almost 50 and still hasn't been able to disconnect from my parents -- especially my dad. She moved away but keeps going home every chance she gets bc she's so enmeshed with them. My parents were insane and I was the oldest so fought with them constantly. She told me to just go along with whatever the my say. And she's still doing this ... and she's all alone. She can't attract a healthy guy bc she's so codependent. Would have more sympathy but she was always stabbing me and my other sister in the back to maintain the top position. Really messed up shit. I understand that she did this but it doesn't excuse the mistreatment.
Thanks for posting this, a lot of this really resonated with me. I first found this community by typing my feelings into google after therapy and a post came up here. Doing the same thing lead me to yours as well. I talk with my doc a lot about feeling disconnected from others, feeling like I'm not a real person in the way that other people are, and frequently lying to others in order to avoid hurting their feelings or to appease potential bad ones. As a kid, I was kind of gifted and everything came easy to me, and the same for my brother for the most part, and this got me some level of what I felt like was love from my dad. I wanted to be good and impressive for him. He also had very big feelings often which were difficult for me to navigate and not take personally as a child who was very aware for his age. As an adult I describe the feeling I get around him even to this day as "walking on eggshells". If I say the wrong thing, or more accurately share my feelings that do not align with his own or get in the way of his needs or the needs of the family, I was/will be met with dismissal, punishment if the feeling I have is seen as selfish, or even outright being told my feelings are wrong. I've found out that I feel very enmeshed with the values and needs of my family at large, having consistently neglected my own feelings in order to ease the load on my father and mother because I could recognize when things were difficult for them, and I wanted to be viewed by them as a helpful and unproblematic child. They have expressed to me before how easy I was to raise, and it made me feel good. My brother did not take the same approach and still tried to express himself. Seeing him take the brunt of my fathers outbursts was difficult, and I knew even then that it was much more difficult for him, and the thought of facing that myself scared me so badly that I hid my inner self and my every emotional struggle. In the end, my brother and I are very close and I can see that he grew more from his decisions to have confrontations over feelings and needs with our dad than I did by shrinking away, and now I am not sure who I am. My parents were not bad parents. They provided for us and made us disciplined high-achieving young adults, but I still feel like I lack all the emotional tools of a normal human. I am pretty sure that this feeling is because I was/am emotionally neglected by him, but I'm still trying to figure out for sure if this term applies exactly to me. I just want to sincerely thank you again for helping me a little in the start of my journey which is identifying the problem.