The Scapegoat
I was born into a family of chaos, abuse, abandonment, neglect and turbulence and this experience shaped the complex PTSD I now live with. During my childhood, I remember being the more vocal child, being more “needy” and expressing my desire to be loved more often. This was even documented in the records held about my childhood, when my siblings and I were under the care of social services between 1979 and 1982.
I can remember challenging my mum, at a young age, when she was drunk, asking her to stop, when she went out late, crying until she came home and questioning her whereabouts when she was absent. My siblings managed their emotional needs in ways unique to them, I wouldn’t comment or critique because I haven’t lived in their shoes. We all have a different perspective.
I always felt like I was “trouble”. As a child, I was the one who would be punished if my siblings and I were fighting or bickering. I was blamed and assaulted, either verbally or physically. It was me that was told I might be adopted; it was the love my mum had for me that was questioned. I grew up and realised, I never really lost this “role”, this rank within my family.
I’ve often wondered if it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you are told for so long that you are damaged, or trouble, or naughty, you often become it. I am 51 this year, and yet there are so many times that I still carry the weight of that young girl; the shame that I am wrong, incomplete, unlovable. This can then impact life choices, relationships, boundary setting, emotional regulation.
In the last year I became acutely aware that, unbeknown to me, the role I played as a child really does appear to have followed me into adulthood. I am one of four siblings and until last year I had what I thought was a healthy relationship with all. But something catastrophic happened, which exposed the truth of my value within my family. I had never previously had any real fallouts with my family, except possibly some minor squabbles, all easily resolved.
This all changed when I spoke up about an historical assault, involving a family member, and one which I kept locked away for twenty-five years. I now look back, to the years leading up to the disclosure, to make sense of the timing, and what forced me to speak up after so long. I started therapy in 2021, and over the next three years, my secret, which was wrapped up in self-loathing, blame, shame and disgust, started to leak into conversations with my therapist, until I finally disclosed what had happened.
I then started to lead a double life, where I shared my darkest secrets and wounds with the therapist, while keeping it hidden with everyone else. But like anything which has been suppressed for a long period, a trigger may be all that is needed, for it to erupt. This was exactly what happened. But the fallout was almost worse than the abuse itself. They did not believe it. By the family that grew up with the same abuse that I witnessed, who saw the same predators that I did and who have seen what some people are capable of.
I must stress that my husband and my immediate family have all believed me, but that may be because they listened to me! Like my therapist, they heard the story of my experience. The same cannot be said of my wider family. Not only was I not believed, but I was also silenced. I was sent a letter from a solicitor, advising that I do not contact specific people, and do not talk of them on any platforms. It’s been more than a year, and I have not been given a second of time, to be able to tell the truth.
How can I be labelled a liar, when I haven’t had the chance to explain my experience? How can someone control the narrative so easily, when they have refused to hear anything except the person who holds the truth but denies its existence. Not for the first time, I have been scapegoated. I became the problem. I am a liar, I am unstable, I am mentally unstable.
As my therapist said, I need to become a villain to sustain the illusion that what I experienced is a lie. The truth is too ugly, and it has been rejected. Suddenly, after 49 years, I have been reduced to a collection of names, including liar, hypocrite, unstable, abusive. Yet, I had a stable and happy relationship with the person who described me in these words right up to the day the truth came out.
It takes me back to the concept of scapegoating. It feels like I have been scapegoated and made into the villain because to believe the alternative requires the other person involved to be brought to question. This would disrupt the family even more. Therefore, I have been sacrificed. I have been ostracized, and silenced. However, I won’t be silent, I have the right to express my truth, my experience, to work on my healing.
I must be very careful, because after I reported my experience to the police, and the issue of proof was discussed, I came to realise how difficult what happened to me is, to prove. I also explored this with my therapist, who has been on court many times with other patients, for similar experiences. She echoed what the police said, about proving consent with assault in complex-PTSD. Without proof it is my word against theirs. So, I am very careful not to make public what happened to me, but I will continue to raise awareness of surviving abuse, reporting abuse and showing the world that standing up to perpetrators is the brave and right thing to do.
Less than 4% of women make false accusations of sexual assault to the police. That is understandable given the distress that being interviewed has. I had to relive what happened to me, in a room, with microphones and videos, while the detective asked the most personal and explicit questions. I felt at times, like I was the perpetrator, even though she reassured me that it was just the process.
I want to shed the label I have grown up with and into, scapegoat. In doing so, I can step into who I was all along. I can begin to let go of the emotions that were attached to my past and the trauma, and as I process these, make way for joy and peace. We are coming to the end of 2025, a year that for me has been transformative. I have experienced decades of pain in such a short window of time and processed so many memories, but what has emerged is hope and optimism. I have learned to love myself again, through honesty and self-forgiveness. Let’s see what 2026 has in store!
