Painting by Bea Jones
The short answer is yes. So often I read about adoptees who have been psychologically abused, usually by a narcissistic adoptive mother but it could just as easily be a narcissistic adoptive father.
There is so much to learn about scapegoating, when one goes looking. I read that the concept of a scapegoat has a very long history, some of it religious. It has even been an animal, a literal goat, upon which a community would place the blame for all of it’s sins. Then the goat was sent away.
One male adoptee wrote an essay for Severance magazine – LINK>I Am More Than My Fathers by David Sanchez Brown. He notes “I was not the dream son my adoptive parents envisioned I’d be. I was a clumsy, overweight kid with Coke-bottle thick glasses and learning disabilities who couldn’t seem to do anything right . . .” He later writes “I never connected my feelings about myself with having been adopted. I thought I was a failure and unworthy of unconditional love.” He also notes the common plight of many adoptees – “I didn’t look or act like anyone else in the family. I stuck out like a sore thumb and I became the family scapegoat.”
My interest in looking at this concept was triggered when I read this from a Facebook acquaintance – “I was a scapegoat. I knew I got blamed for things and then I learned it’s called scapegoating. And, I knew I had been scapegoated.” Then she notes – “I am now a recovering scapegoat.” Yet, owns this – “I’m just saying I find claiming what I can change empowering. I’m a scapegoat who is a massive people pleaser.” And many adoptees do become people pleasers in an effort to find acceptance.
Dr Elvira Aletta has some suggestions in her LINK>”10 Tips to Survive Being the Scapegoat at Home.” She ends this piece with “If you’re just beginning to understand how scapegoated you are, take it easy. Once your eyes are opened you might begin to see it everywhere.” Yes, it does seem to be rather common, sadly.
I end this blog today with some thoughts from the Daily Guide in the Science of Mind magazine – “You ae whole and also part of larger and larger circles of wholeness you may not even know about. You are never alone. and you already belong. You belong to life. You belong to this moment, this breath.” ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn
And this one might apply especially to adoptees – “All human endeavor is an attempt to get back to first principles, to find such an inward wholeness that all sense of fear, doubt and uncertainty vanishes.” ~ Ernest Holmes, The Art of Life pg 9
The truth for every human being is that we are neither bad nor broken. We have the absolute ability to become clear, confident, aware and certain. We can chose wholeness over limitation. We can understand that there have been no mistakes but only opportunities for us to learn about ourselves and our world. We grow in wholeness as we learn to be vigilant, not assigning fault or blame to ourselves – or to others. Better to see everything that has happened or that happens, even the things we do not like, as a piece that fits in the fabric of what is our actual lived experience. It is ours to define.
Missing Mom 