@rainydayy Thanks so much for that link, I have some great ones but found that really good, especially this page https://www.marytoolan.com/blog/how-the-scapegoat-is-gang-bullied-by-their-family
The end of the article hit really hard, I have a cousin who is experiencing the same as me in their family and am thinking hard about whether to send it on or not, it's very powerful.
"When the scapegoat is trauma bonded with the family, they are the lynchpin that keeps everything looking good on the surface. They take a hit for the team. They put on a smile at family events and return home to suffer in silence and shame.
When the scapegoat doesn’t play ball anymore, things get hairy and fall apart at the seams.
In summary, the main perpetrator rules like a dictator. They want power and control. Nobody is allowed think differently than them. They rule by fear. "
So true and so heartbreaking. How many of us have had our lives irrevocably damaged by these dreadful people?
@Hellyaa I expect it wasn't easy for you to start this thread but hope you see you are not alone. Sadly this behaviour is commonplace in too many families, and it is kept behind closed doors so it's hard to understand that it is wrong and that it happens too often. For me, I protected my "mother" for decades because of my special training. I wasn't able to point out the truth to other people as it was ingrained in me to collude in the projection of the perfect family, rather than the truth of the violent alcoholic father and his covert narcissist wife. I didn't even begin to understand how damaging my "mother" was until I was referred for counselling due to an unrelated event.
Of late I have started telling people the truth. I don't need to go into details, but I will use phrases like I am seeing a counsellor for lifelong narcissistic abuse. I might precede this by saying I won't go on about it but would like the friend I'm talking to to have an idea of what's happening in my life. I understand this might be awkward for some people to take on board, so I might say look let's just give this 2 minutes, 5 minutes whatever, I don't want our chat to be all about my difficulties (and indeed I have found it helpful to get a bit off my chest so to speak, but then move on to nice things to talk about). So that way I feel like I'm not putting pressure on my friend to listen to all my woes, or worse still to fix them. If someone were to give me blame back then I would feel it best to step back from having a relationship with them, certainly at this time. But I have been at a few social occasions where I have casually mentioned my situation, and people I have just met have actually opened up quite a lot about experiencing something similar which has been quite eye-opening for me.
So perhaps put your toe in the water when talking to friends, give them a little bit of information as to what you are going through, and see how they respond. It takes a while to find the friends you need in a situation like this, but it's worth persevering.
Your DM is not your "D"M, and you will not get support or validation from her, she is not capable of this. The way she brought you up, putting her needs above yours, is part of the reason you ended up with a waste of space husband who only cares about himself. You were not brought up to feel that you matter. What a terrible way to bring up a child. You did, and do, matter. You need to recognise that you are such an important person in your life and insist on being treated as such. It's hard, but you need to learn to love yourself, to give your children an example of how a caring human being treats their close ones. Having being brought up to put your needs last makes this very difficult, but it's the most important thing you can do. Understanding that you matter will help you act like you do, this in turn will help your children understand that you matter. Your husband is going in the complete opposite direction, and like your "mother" needs to be as far out of your life as you can get him.
You (and I) need to grieve the family we should have had as innocent children and in order to live a peaceful, productive life we need to move on from the things that affected us but weren't our fault. I wish I could give you a magic pill to get you (and me) there, but I can't. But I can tell you we deserve a peaceful life being respected as human beings.