FSA Recovery Affirmation: Validating the Reality of FSA (and a Celebratory Note...)
An affirmation for scapegoated adult survivors, inspired by the publication of the first quantitative study on Family Scapegoating Abuse (FSA) - Includes Public Preview
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A Special Note to the FSA Education Subscriber Community
This affirmation was inspired by the publication of the first quantitative study on Family Scapegoating Abuse (FSA) in a peer-reviewed journal (my solo FSA studies have been qualitative in nature, focusing specifically on the lived experience of study respondents who identify as being in the ‘family scapegoat’ role). I am indebted to my co-author Dr. Kartheek R. Balapala (Doctoral Research Scholar) for reaching out to me to join him in this impactful and enlightening study on Zambian University students, FSA, and Mental Health.
I will be sharing the full study soon (the first page is attached above). This is a huge step forward in further legitimizing the clinical reality of FSA and its effects on child victims and adult survivors - truly something to celebrate.
Although I will continue to offer affirmations read by me on occasion, research indicates that reading affirmations in your own voice can be more effective than listening to an affirmation being read by someone else. I therefore encourage you to find a private, quiet place and read the below affirmation out loud while playing the below audio clip featuring music by Liborio Conti, who generously provides his work royalty and copyright free.
"I acknowledge that my experience of Family Scapegoating Abuse is real. The wounds I carry are not imagined. The pain I feel is not self-inflicted. The confusion I've endured is not a symptom of my inherent 'flaws.'
Today, I am able to recognize the systematic dismantling of my worth, the projection of the family's collective shadow onto me, the gaslighting that distorted real events, and the smear campaigns that unfairly and unjustly twisted perceptions others had of me. These experiences - and more - resulted in an erasure of the truth of what happened to me in my family-of-origin.
The truth of these events are not figments of a fragile mind or compromised mental or emotional state. I now know that these painful and abusive realities are the hallmark signs of Family Scapegoating Abuse - a dysfunctional and devastatingly insidious systemic process I did not cause, can’t control, and cannot cure.