The Challenge of Mother’s Day for Family Scapegoating Abuse Survivors
Societal expectations around Mother’s Day and the pain of FSA
This is a PUBLIC article.
Mother's Day, a day dedicated to celebrating the women who brought us into the world, can be a complex and painful occasion for many.
On a day when expressions of gratitude and appreciation for mothers seem to be everywhere, for adult survivors of Family Scapegoating Abuse (FSA), it can serve as a reminder of the deep wounds inflicted by familial dynamics gone awry.
Why Mother's Day Can Be Difficult for FSA Adult Survivors
Family scapegoating abuse is a pattern of behavior where one family member is unjustly targeted, blamed, and ostracized within the family unit. Often, this role falls upon a child, who becomes a human repository, of sorts, for the family's dysfunction via the pathological Family Projective identification Process,
The targeted child (who, per my original FSA research is often the family Empath or Highly Sensitive Person aka HSP) will then unconsciously carry the burden of 'blame and shame' for the entire family's…