It feels true, and awful

[Lookin 2 B Free]

I wonder if others have experienced this.  If it comes from me it's worthless.  Could be a dinner, a gift, an Easter basket,  a day trip to a fun place. These things used to be appreciated and enjoyed.  That was before the uNPD  joined the family and eventually started devaluing me and casting a pall on anything I was included in.  I participated anyway to help others who were younger and more vulnerable.  Now I'm rethinking this.

Growing up as a scapegoat in a FOO with a pw PD, this is all so familiar.  As a child I had no way of questioning the treatment or not soaking up the feelings of worthlessness and shame.  I don't live there all the time anymore, but it gets triggered, like now.  And the shame and worthlessness feel real.  As if they are my essence. As if the PD's have been right about me.
 
Will I ever heal from this enough to not get triggered around a devaluing pwPD?  I'm in IFS therapy and I'm working on it.
Does this sound familiar to others?  How do you deal with it?

[Rebel13]

Hi Lookin 2 B Free,

I have been actively talking in therapy about what Jay Reid calls the "if I am not productive, I am worthless" false belief of scapegoated children. I'm not sure if that's exactly how you're thinking about it, but those feelings of worthlessness are so hard! I realize I'm not even sure what needs to go into that space of self-worth that I have been trying all my life to fill up with work, self-improvement, tasks, and doing for others.

Would love to hear any thoughts or insights from you or others!

[NarcKiddo]

Your comments about the shame and worthlessness feeling real resonate. I think it is good that you are doing IFS therapy, because to the parts that are feeling the shame it IS real and it IS now. Until they can understand that they do not hold those roles any more you are going to get triggered by this sort of thing. I am not personally doing IFS therapy but I am addressing the issues of various child parts within my therapy and it does help. It takes a long time, and it may be that the trigger never fully goes away. However it is certainly possible to anticipate the trigger, protect yourself before and during and make the whole experience far less intense and draining.

My FOO did not have the standard PD structure (both parents uNPD) because the roles of golden child and scapegoat shifted between myself and my sibling. Sometimes we could even both be golden, but we could never both be the bad one because my M could not cope with two bad children. Because of the constant shifting of position I can now see there was a lot of division and jealousy between the children, because we both knew what it felt like to be the bad one and did not want to be there if at all possible. That said, although I was not a traditional scapegoat I feel that even when I was in golden position it was not real. My sister was praised to the high heavens most of the time and her limitations were certainly not pointed out in the way mine were. Most of my therapy work has been around supporting and valuing myself and being honest about my attributes. Mostly that means recognising what is good or good enough and being kind to myself about my less good points - because the tendency is to think they are awful and terrible, rather than something that is simply less than ideal and could be worked on.

[Lookin 2 B Free]

Rebel, Yes this is a little different from worthless if not productive, more like "everything you touch is sh*t." Though I have some of what you're talking about, too.

NarcKiddo, I too had both roles at different times depending on which parent.   You're right that it feels very present and now and I'm flooded with shame.  I feel like I could use an IFS session 3 X a week.   There's so much stuff to work through from all those years, FOO and then PD partner.

Good luck to both of you!

[Rebel13]

Maybe it's more like "I am defective"?

I was just watching another of Jay Reid's videos where he gives some suggestions on how to handle these kinds of thoughts to "break the scapegoat spell." I thought it might be interesting to ask myself "what function is this thought/feeling serving" instead of believing at face value that it's a true thought/feeling. Like, in my situation recently, the feeling might be serving to keep me from standing up for myself, keeping me from connecting to other people who are similarly affected, etc.

[Call Me Cordelia]

Will I ever heal from this enough to not get triggered around a devaluing pwPD?

Is this a worthy goal? Is it possible you might be shaming yourself for being hurt by behavior intended to hurt you?

I've written about the "healed enough" trap before, and this looks like it to me.

It's worthy to want to help those younger and more vulnerable than yourself, but from my perspective what you are doing is analogous to a combat vet with PTSD going back to the war zone because they are a skilled fighter.

It's possible that you and others may be best served by being honest about the affects these encounters have on you and acting according to your own needs, utilizing that 51% rule that you are just a little bit the most important person to whom you are responsible.

Even if you decide to remain in the family system, I think you can still approach from a place of self-compassion and acceptance of how things are impacting you. You are not defective for reacting. You've understandably developed an allergic reaction to these behaviors over years, so to speak.

[Lookin 2 B Free]

These shares are really helpful -- thanks! 

Cordelia, I see so much truth in what you say.  Yes, we're not meant to stay in harmful situations and not stand up for ourselves.  Thankfully that situation is changing and I will be able to either be more honest or leave the situation.  After years of it, that is such a relief.

Rebel, your Q  about how does this serve me was something explored  in a Dick Schwartz IFS training I attended today.  There are different reasons, some of which are more common.  The one that I found really interesting and perhaps true for me:  Keeping me from feeling too good (I guess in my skin) because if I feel too good, I'll start  taking risks and that could be dangerous (since it was as a child).

Loosening the knot... bit by bit.

[Rebel13]

Keeping me from feeling too good (I guess in my skin) because if I feel too good, I'll start  taking risks and that could be dangerous (since it was as a child).

Oh yes! How many times as kids were we just naturally, exuberantly happy about something only to get the smackdown?!? That fear that if I'm too happy, the other shoe will drop, is SO familiar!

I'm glad you are having some insights. Sometimes that helps me, just to understand the "why" of something.