For scapegoats who are not aware of the fact that their parent/parents are narcissists, this unawareness can have very damaging after-effects for their health, self-esteem and overall well being. For scapegoat children it is a never ending story to prove their worth to their narcissistic parents who will never acknowledge any of their good qualities (on purpose). This can lead to burn out, break down, health decline and depression of the scapegoat children. As it is impossible to satisfy the narcissistic parents as nothing is good enough for them (in fact, nothing is enough for them), the scapegoat children find themselves in a never ending and nowhere leading attempts to earn the parent´s love, attention and validation wasting their energy, time and resources to only find themselves over and over again depressed, exhausted, broken hearted and invalidated.
In narcissistic families you can observe these two types of scapegoats:
The over-achiever scapegoat:
These are usually people who are compensate their low self-esteem (that has been corroded by the narcissistic parents) with over doing and over achieving on all level in their life. Usually they are very successful and resourceful people. They are the pillar of the family, inner social circle and work place co-dependently trying to satisfy everybody´s needs and wants around them while they do very little to nothing for themselves. They have distorted sense of themselves feeling not worthy, not lovable and not good enough and they wrongly assume that if they will do as much as possible for everybody around them (especially for their narcissists), then people must validate them, love them, see them as worthy. Which unfortunately, never happens. The more work they put in making everybody around them satisfied and happy, the more exhausted and unhappy they become and deep down they feel angry, frustrated and depressed. Everybody around them take an advantage of their talents, skills and hard working attitude. The more they try to prove their worth to their narcissistic parents, narcissistic friends, colleagues, partners, the more hate, sabotage and un-acknowledgment they will receive from their narcissists. The over-achieving scapegoat can´t wrap his head around the fact that even after everything he has done for all the narcissistic disordered individuals in his life, he is still being treated badly and not being acknowledged. In most cases, the scapegoats will end up exhausted, depressed, confused, not accepted and their health will rapidly decline. The scapegoats often suffer from heart attacks in very early age, chronic illnesses and depressions.
The under-achiver scapegoat:
These people have usually strongly self-sabotaging tendencies as the result of the sabotage that came from their narcissistic parents in their childhood. Their self-esteem has been destroyed to the level that they feel too overwhelmed, fearful and exhausted to even start any activity. Their narcissistic parents did "great job" in crushing their souls. Their feeling of not being good enough, not feeling worthy is too overwhelming to the point where they can´t function. They do not even start anything in their life because they fear they would fail. The control and power of the narcissistic individuals in their life is so established in their psyche that they fear to do anything about it. Although, they posses lot of talent, creativity, intelligence, their sense of self has been severely damaged. Sometimes they under achieve on purpose and make themselves smaller just to make the narcissists in their life feel better about themselves.
How to heal over-achiving or under-achiving syndrome:
1.step: Educate yourself on narcissism properly. Once you will be educated, you will understand that the issue was actually never you. It was the narcissist. To satisfy a narcissist is like pouring the water in a holey leaky container. No matter how much water you will pour, it will be never enough. The problem is not the water, but the fact that the container is defected and full of holes.
2. step: Go in no contact with your narcissists. It does not matter who is it. Even if its your own mother of father. Go strict no contact. You can´t heal in an environment where you got sick. Go no contact and stay no contact. People who broke you can´t heal you.
3. step: Develop a new sense of yourself and what is good enough for you. You do not need to be good enough for anybody else, only for yourself. Other people either accept you the way you are or cut them off. You deserve to be respected the exact way you are.
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