I Was Always The Problem, Until I Wasn’t

Breaking Free from the Scapegoat Role in a Dysfunctional Family

For as long as I can remember, I was “the problem.”

If someone was angry, it was because I “provoked” them.

If there was tension, somehow it was my fault.

Even when I tried to be quiet, helpful, or invisible—I still got blamed.

They called me dramatic.

Too sensitive.

Always making things harder than they needed to be.

But the truth? I wasn’t creating the chaos—I was reacting to it. And in a family that refused to name its pain, the one who speaks up always becomes the target.

👣 The Role of the Scapegoat

In toxic or dysfunctional families, there’s often one person who becomes the scapegoat—the person blamed for problems that are actually caused by the system itself.

That scapegoated child is usually the one who’s more emotionally aware.

More honest.

More sensitive to dysfunction.

And because they can’t play along with denial, they become the one everyone turns against.

🧠 Verbal Abuse Isn’t Always Loud

Verbal abuse doesn’t have to be shouting or name-calling.

It can be:

• Constant blame

• Sarcasm that cuts too deep

• Being ignored or excluded

• Gaslighting when you express feelings

These patterns make you doubt your perception of reality. You start to wonder if you’re actually the problem, if maybe you are too much, too needy, too emotional.

But you’re not.

You were just human in a space that didn’t allow it.

⚠️ Why Scapegoating Happens

Many families with unhealed trauma or dysfunction rely on keeping things stable—even if that “stability” is toxic.

When one person starts asking questions, setting boundaries, or expressing emotions, it feels like a threat. So the system unconsciously unites against that person. That’s how the scapegoat is formed.

They’re not the broken one—they’re the mirror. And mirrors make people uncomfortable when they’re not ready to see themselves clearly.

💡 What Changed for Me

My healing started when I stopped trying to make everyone else happy and started trying to make myself whole.

I gave myself permission to feel, to grieve, and to question the messages I’d been taught.

I learned that I was never meant to carry the emotional burden of an entire family.

I wasn’t “too much”—I was just surrounded by people who couldn’t handle emotions.

And I wasn’t bad—I was just different. Honest. Awake.

❤️ A Word to Fellow Scapegoats

If this is hitting close to home, I want you to know:

You are not the problem.

You are not broken.

You are not too much.

You’re just someone who has felt too deeply in a world that told you to stay silent.

You’ve been blamed for what others refused to face.

But you get to stop carrying what never belonged to you.

You can heal.

You can set boundaries.

And you can even love your family—from a safe distance—without losing yourself.

🌱 Healing Isn’t Betrayal

Choosing peace isn’t selfish.

Choosing boundaries isn’t cruelty.

Choosing healing isn’t a betrayal of your family—it’s a commitment to yourself.

Let this be the season where you stop apologizing for existing, and start reclaiming your story.

You are not who they said you were.

You are who you are becoming—and that is more than enough

⸻

📚 Sources & Further Reading:

• Forward, S. (1997). Emotional Blackmail: When the People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation, and Guilt to Manipulate You. HarperCollins.

• Gibson, L. C. (2015). Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. New Harbinger.

• Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and Recovery. Basic Books.

• Engler, L. (2020). It Wasn’t Your Fault: Freeing Yourself from the Shame of Childhood Abuse with the Power of Self-Compassion. New Harbinger.

Healing from Trauma: Don't Minimize Your Trauma

One of the biggest mistakes we make whenever dealing with past trauma is to minimize our feelings about what happened to us or to attempt to shrug off what has happened. All as if we have "over-reacted" or we are "making a big deal out of nothing."

 Nothing could be farther from the truth. If it affected you, still affects you, if it caused you pain or is still causing you pain - anything that has made an impact on and who you are today is, indeed, "something." Don't minimize it.

By minimizing our trauma, we are not allowing ourselves to actually work through the emotions surrounding the trauma or the trauma itself. What this does is invalidate us as a person, as an individual. This has a devastating effect on our mental and emotional health, on our self-esteem. When we minimize our trauma and how it has affected us, we are actually minimizing ourselves.

In a misguided attempt to not allow our trauma to define us, we actually allow it to control us and take away our power. Leading to a never-ending and vicious cycle of minimizing ourselves and our feelings, which, in all reality, leads to further traumas and repeating of negative and abusive cycles.
Yes, by minimizing our trauma, we're allowing ourselves to stay stuck in old patterns and repeat history, over and over again.

While it isn't healthy to dwell in your past or stay overly focused on trauma that we've gone through, it is very much necessary to validate our feelings and what has happened to us. To truly heal from trauma of any kind, you have to acknowledge it, you have to allow yourself to feel the emotions regarding the trauma. You also have to acknowledge that you have EVERY RIGHT to feel the way you do about what has happened to you.

This isn't weakness or selfishness on our part. It is simply a part of the healing process. Minimizing this trauma, the emotions around it, just keep us stuck in a cycle of invalidating ourselves and our feelings. It can lead to questioning whether or not we are crazy, self-doubt, etc. Nothing could be more detrimental to our emotional health and well-being or our emotional growth.

Acknowledge your emotions, acknowledge your trauma and how it has affected you and is still affecting you. Don't minimize. You are a human being and you deserve to be healthy and whole. A huge part of this is the human desire to be loved and accepted, but you don't need to minimize yourself or your experiences to be loved and accepted. The right people will love and accept you even when you are not minimizing. More importantly, you will love yourself more.