That smacks of narcissism or even malignant narcissism, which I know you already know, which would only exacerbate splitting and scapegoating abuse behaviors in such a family system.
Yes, this type of favoritism and 'splitting' of the sibling subsystem puts (in the sibling's mind) the 'favored' child in the 'Golden Child' role - without the supposed attendant 'benefits'.
Classic 'abuse cycle'. It doesn't just happen between spouses and romantic partners. It happens in families as well. Society needs to wake up to this fact and do more to protect children from these forms of 'invisible' abuse.
Oh, that is hideous, Kelly. I am so sorry this happened to you / the little girl you were. And here we are, busy healing, mending, and integrating what was split many moons ago - while helping others to do the same. Grateful to have met you here.
Hi Ellen, just a heads up that this is a public post so your comment is public. Do feel free to remove it if you don't want it to be picked up by search engines. Regarding your sharing here: I often say to clients, "Follow the wisdom of your nervous system." Sounds like you did - to good effect.
Hi Lynn, just a heads up that this is a public post so your comment is public. If you are a paid subscriber, I can put this question out to the community in a private chat and answer you there. I can also delete your comment here if you like (or you can). Let me know what works best for you. If you want me to comment publicly I can as well - the dynamics you are referencing would be viewed as 'covert', for example, versus 'overt' in regard to scapegoating.
Thank you so much for your kind concern Rebecca. And again - thank you for being a voice for those of us who have no one else who can understand. And Ellen I appreciate your affirmation.
If everyone doesn't want *everyone* to be included in family decision making, then it really isn't a "family," but just a political system with winners and losers. Realizing that makes it a lot easier to leave it all behind.
Hi! In my personal view, I don't see winners and losers in these situations, unfortunately, at least from my experience. Sometimes it's just really complex, too many layers.
I think it depends on the specific FSA cult and whether combined with generational severe SA trauma narcissist “survivor” controlling and perpetuating. My family was very much Winner vs Loser dynamic. I was an only child of the narc parent and my “siblings” were her sister and family. All scapegoated me as instructed by my mother. Mobbing anytime, discarding me or severely trying to punish me in other ways if i didn’t uphold my Role and label. At the end - it’s all it was - WINNERS VS LOSER. Fortunately, they think they won and my mother had passed. So they will be busy reshuffling their dynamic and roles because there is no one else left “over here”. They win to continue carrying on the FSA and they think I’m the loser. I lost the lies and betrayals, a history of what i thought was family and love, but wasn’t and WON the truth and my own authentic self and intact ability to love, clear mind and awareness.
However it gets more complex adding siblings, in laws, and the age where the dynamics really begin to punish. layers to the onion.
Exactly. I think It's really like a clan, where rituals are fixed, critics only between the members of the clan. I think I could write a novel on it, only from my experience:/.
Also, if it's intergenerational trauma (I believe so in my experience), there are really very rigid roles needed (even when a family member dies, as you well mention), to keep the homeostasis, so it's not really an option, if you can't choose to do otherwise, I guess..
You are spot on. Did you already read my introductory book on FSA where I discuss these dysfunctional dynamics (Rejected, Shamed, and Blamed)? I also think you would appreciate this video here: https://youtu.be/IfpqW3328HA
Thank you for another very insightful and validating article. Your work feels like a puzzle to me, it connects so many dots. There is much I would like to share about this, I will get back when I can subscribe to the private chat. One thing I would like to ask, often on sibling strangement I read about adult estrangement, but rarely about strangement in early years (early teens). Very good work, thank you!
Thank you, Mariana, I look forward to seeing you sometime in our private chat area. Do you mean when siblings become estranged from each other as teens or...?
I didn’t know what was happening to me but an image of me on the ground in a fetal position and my entire family kicking me over and over again played like a tape in my mind. That image haunted me for many years until it stopped and i finally forgot about it. At 58 yrs old I read Rebecca’s book and everything made sense to me. I also remembered that horrible image of my family. When I doubt myself and think maybe it wasn’t so bad, i remember that image of being kicked by them and realized none of it was in my mind and it was that bad. We can do the best we can to heal and I believe I am healing.
Oh, that is a terrible and also terribly apt image for 'family mobbing', which I have a video on. I plan to do a Livestream on the theme of "Was it really that bad?" SO many FSA survivors ask themselves this. And the answer usually is "Yes" - and often it was worse than we like to think or acknowledge. Family mobbing video here: https://youtu.be/6gb_dDqWLiQ
I had to end all contact with my malignant narc mom and 3 siblings, all sisters. Even as a young child, I was excluded and ostracized. They all would walk to school, and I would walk to school separately by myself. When I moved out, my mom didn't want me to move out yet, for no good reason. (I was 23 years old) She screamed and yelled at me the entire day, while I completely gray rocked her, and didn't respond. Yet, she executed a massive smear campaign to the entire family that "I had moved out on bad terms", and therefore I was the problem - to my siblings, grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. When I got married, my husband and I were paying for it, as we were 25, and both had good jobs. Yet because we got married how we wanted to, and not how she wanted us to (big, traditional catholic wedding), her sister flew to the midwest from the east coast, and helped her coerce my sisters into not going to our wedding. No one from the family came, and no one spoke to us for over a year after that. Can you say family mobbing? This was incredibly hurtful to me, and to my husband. Then, in 2020, during the lockdown, golden child sibling swoops into town to take control of my aging and infirm mother, and seizes power, becoming the new family power hold and matriarch, controlling both our mother and the finances, all under the guise of "I'm the one helping and taking care of mom". In the meantime, the other 2 siblings are just enabling this and going along with it. I've been suffering with a chronic illness myself for over 8 years, and there has been no help or support at all. I tried to have a relationship with 2 of the 3 siblings, but all they did was commence covert emotional abuse, and trying to hoover me back into the family system. The whole thing is so twisted, ugly, and dark. I'm extremely grateful for Rebecca's work in bringing all this to light. I hope that we can raise awareness in the public about this phenomenon.
That smacks of narcissism or even malignant narcissism, which I know you already know, which would only exacerbate splitting and scapegoating abuse behaviors in such a family system.
Yes, this type of favoritism and 'splitting' of the sibling subsystem puts (in the sibling's mind) the 'favored' child in the 'Golden Child' role - without the supposed attendant 'benefits'.
Classic 'abuse cycle'. It doesn't just happen between spouses and romantic partners. It happens in families as well. Society needs to wake up to this fact and do more to protect children from these forms of 'invisible' abuse.
Oh, that is hideous, Kelly. I am so sorry this happened to you / the little girl you were. And here we are, busy healing, mending, and integrating what was split many moons ago - while helping others to do the same. Grateful to have met you here.
Hi Ellen, just a heads up that this is a public post so your comment is public. Do feel free to remove it if you don't want it to be picked up by search engines. Regarding your sharing here: I often say to clients, "Follow the wisdom of your nervous system." Sounds like you did - to good effect.
That is the universe! X
Hi Lynn, just a heads up that this is a public post so your comment is public. If you are a paid subscriber, I can put this question out to the community in a private chat and answer you there. I can also delete your comment here if you like (or you can). Let me know what works best for you. If you want me to comment publicly I can as well - the dynamics you are referencing would be viewed as 'covert', for example, versus 'overt' in regard to scapegoating.
Thank you so much for your kind concern Rebecca. And again - thank you for being a voice for those of us who have no one else who can understand. And Ellen I appreciate your affirmation.
You’re very welcome, Lynn, so very glad you’re here!
If everyone doesn't want *everyone* to be included in family decision making, then it really isn't a "family," but just a political system with winners and losers. Realizing that makes it a lot easier to leave it all behind.
Brilliant!
Hi! In my personal view, I don't see winners and losers in these situations, unfortunately, at least from my experience. Sometimes it's just really complex, too many layers.
Agree.
I think it depends on the specific FSA cult and whether combined with generational severe SA trauma narcissist “survivor” controlling and perpetuating. My family was very much Winner vs Loser dynamic. I was an only child of the narc parent and my “siblings” were her sister and family. All scapegoated me as instructed by my mother. Mobbing anytime, discarding me or severely trying to punish me in other ways if i didn’t uphold my Role and label. At the end - it’s all it was - WINNERS VS LOSER. Fortunately, they think they won and my mother had passed. So they will be busy reshuffling their dynamic and roles because there is no one else left “over here”. They win to continue carrying on the FSA and they think I’m the loser. I lost the lies and betrayals, a history of what i thought was family and love, but wasn’t and WON the truth and my own authentic self and intact ability to love, clear mind and awareness.
However it gets more complex adding siblings, in laws, and the age where the dynamics really begin to punish. layers to the onion.
A political system… and sometimes a ‘cult’ system (which has been validated via research on dysfunctional family systems).
Exactly. I think It's really like a clan, where rituals are fixed, critics only between the members of the clan. I think I could write a novel on it, only from my experience:/.
Also, if it's intergenerational trauma (I believe so in my experience), there are really very rigid roles needed (even when a family member dies, as you well mention), to keep the homeostasis, so it's not really an option, if you can't choose to do otherwise, I guess..
You are spot on. Did you already read my introductory book on FSA where I discuss these dysfunctional dynamics (Rejected, Shamed, and Blamed)? I also think you would appreciate this video here: https://youtu.be/IfpqW3328HA
I finally started reading! Will check the video, thank you for sharing.
Thank you for another very insightful and validating article. Your work feels like a puzzle to me, it connects so many dots. There is much I would like to share about this, I will get back when I can subscribe to the private chat. One thing I would like to ask, often on sibling strangement I read about adult estrangement, but rarely about strangement in early years (early teens). Very good work, thank you!
Thank you, Mariana, I look forward to seeing you sometime in our private chat area. Do you mean when siblings become estranged from each other as teens or...?
Yes, not as adults. (Sorry, I meant years, not ears)
I didn’t know what was happening to me but an image of me on the ground in a fetal position and my entire family kicking me over and over again played like a tape in my mind. That image haunted me for many years until it stopped and i finally forgot about it. At 58 yrs old I read Rebecca’s book and everything made sense to me. I also remembered that horrible image of my family. When I doubt myself and think maybe it wasn’t so bad, i remember that image of being kicked by them and realized none of it was in my mind and it was that bad. We can do the best we can to heal and I believe I am healing.
Oh, that is a terrible and also terribly apt image for 'family mobbing', which I have a video on. I plan to do a Livestream on the theme of "Was it really that bad?" SO many FSA survivors ask themselves this. And the answer usually is "Yes" - and often it was worse than we like to think or acknowledge. Family mobbing video here: https://youtu.be/6gb_dDqWLiQ
I had to end all contact with my malignant narc mom and 3 siblings, all sisters. Even as a young child, I was excluded and ostracized. They all would walk to school, and I would walk to school separately by myself. When I moved out, my mom didn't want me to move out yet, for no good reason. (I was 23 years old) She screamed and yelled at me the entire day, while I completely gray rocked her, and didn't respond. Yet, she executed a massive smear campaign to the entire family that "I had moved out on bad terms", and therefore I was the problem - to my siblings, grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. When I got married, my husband and I were paying for it, as we were 25, and both had good jobs. Yet because we got married how we wanted to, and not how she wanted us to (big, traditional catholic wedding), her sister flew to the midwest from the east coast, and helped her coerce my sisters into not going to our wedding. No one from the family came, and no one spoke to us for over a year after that. Can you say family mobbing? This was incredibly hurtful to me, and to my husband. Then, in 2020, during the lockdown, golden child sibling swoops into town to take control of my aging and infirm mother, and seizes power, becoming the new family power hold and matriarch, controlling both our mother and the finances, all under the guise of "I'm the one helping and taking care of mom". In the meantime, the other 2 siblings are just enabling this and going along with it. I've been suffering with a chronic illness myself for over 8 years, and there has been no help or support at all. I tried to have a relationship with 2 of the 3 siblings, but all they did was commence covert emotional abuse, and trying to hoover me back into the family system. The whole thing is so twisted, ugly, and dark. I'm extremely grateful for Rebecca's work in bringing all this to light. I hope that we can raise awareness in the public about this phenomenon.