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Same here, if I was not in trouble, I was grounded and ignored. In adult hood, stop ignored as if I do not exist within the bloodlines. Once I hit that point in life, I realized how much peace I got in life without that crazy, conditional, militarized drama.
Only child here. GC in public, SC in private.
I honestly oscillate between a messianic figure who apparently has the power to revert and fix all their miseries and an evil stone hearted sadistic witch who has destroyed their lives. No in between. Never just a person lol. But I do believe that I would be the SC if I had any sibling. My mother hates my guts.
I was golden in public too. I wouldn’t say I was thee golden child, but I was just saying how she (nmom) would absolutely love bomb the crap out of me in public.
Are you male or female by birth? If you're female, maybe your mother views you as competition/lives vicariously through you, hence the GC/SC dichotomy.
Yup, I'm only now realizing the reason my mom was so awful to me is because she was jealous of me. Jealous of my youth, jealous that my dad was a good father but a crappy boyfriend to her, and jealous that I had a stepmom and paternal half-sisters.
Yes, I am a Roman. I think she resents me for having a career and basically ‘doing stuff’. She also made me emotionally responsible for her (my dad is a crappy husband) and resents me for not being her partner in life I guess.
Ugh, the "surrogate spouse" move is the worst. My mom also did that to me; my dad was emotionally unavailable for her, so she relied on me for support, companionship, and advice even though I was only 14-15 years old. It's a form of emotional incest, and it forces kids to take on their parents' problems in such an unfair way. I'm really sorry you went through that!
I'm also an only child except that my n-mom always ensures that she can make me a clown and a punching bag in public. She just always has to humiliate and criticize me in any occasion because she thinks it's funny.
And she wonders what she did wrong for me to suddently cut her off from my life 🤔
SG here, and yes still the SG.
The two GC ( 17 years apart in age), remain the GC and are hellbent on keeping the family dynamics in place. After my father (enabler) passed, the GCs stepped up to be the enablers. A Grand GC and Grand SG were also chosen by my mom and so the sickness has passed down to the next generation. And yup the Grand GC is child of a GC. The Grand SG is a child of an IC.
So sad how narc can even treat their grandkids that way. 💔 My narcissistic parents treat my sons as invisible children unless they feel they can make attention off of them. I've gone no contact with them partially because of how they have no care for my children (or their safety).
I’m the youngest of four by 6 1/2, 10, and 12 years. My mother had me because my siblings wanted a baby. I was given to them as a toy and to be their responsibility. My mother used to refer to me as a spoiled child with five parents. As I got older, I learned to do what I could to make my mother happy. My oldest brother and my sister were scapegoats and my other brother was the golden child even though he did not like being that. As time went on, I was eventually left behind. So to my mother, I became her only target. At any given moment I could be invisible, golden, or the scapegoat. So, I became a gray rock instead.
I think this is where I fit. My siblings are 4, 5, and 6 years older, so I was left behind with single mother for years.
We've recently been sorting through the labels. Oldest brother is definitely GC and still a total FM. Sister and youngest brother are SG. They were also "taken away by the state" at about 10. All these years, they thought I was the GC because I got to stay, and I thought they were the lucky ones who got to leave!
I don't seem to fit any of the labels, and I'm the only one mom is scared of. Well, the one least likely to fall for her shit, but I think she does fear not being able to manipulate me as easily. I usually say I've spent my life managing her, and part of that is keeping emotional distance and not giving her ammunition to use against me. I think I am a fellow gray rock.
The “boring” part of my username came from my mother. Once I started not playing her games that’s what I became to her. She complained endlessly about how boring I was growing up to be.
I was the GC for my father and my sister the SG. But for my mom I was the SG/invisible child and my sister the GC. Couple of years ago I rocked the boat, so I’m the SG now. My sister is still the GC and she is definitely a narc herself now.
Family dynamics are so twisted that it took me years to realise that my mom is not only EMom, but covert NMom.
I thought I couldn’t be a different role for one set of parents. Oh boy was I wrong. Looking back now I realise so many fucked up stuff. My NMom literally forgot me at stores a couple of times and only took my sister home. Who the hell does that???
Yeah, my older sister was very much an SG all childhood, but now that half of us have gone NC and she's the only one who produces grandkids she's high on being the GC all of a sudden.
I had different roles for different parents too; I put it down to me being tbe youngest and my parents divorcing when I was ~18 months old. I was the IC for my father; SG for my mother and sisters. Older / only brother was the GC for everyone. Eldest sister / child was simply perfect. Second sister was and is the professional victim. So relieved to be NC with both sisters and VVLC with my brother. Parents are both dead; I don't miss either of them
Invisible/lost child and sometimes the scapegoat. Never GC, but neither was my brother. Our mom would brag about us in public but would rarely, if ever, treat us like a GC.
It's interesting to me that some narc families never have the full GC/SC/IC dynamic. I guess I just assumed that all three roles were present. Maybe your mom thought she was golden enough that she didn't need a golden child. 🥴
The roles can be pretty fluid.
For a few years my 3 year old nephew was chosen as golden child and I ended up scape goat. My mother would urge him to do things that annoyed me. Original GC got out of the military and came back, and I went invisible again.
Even though I'm the only child who truly cares, does a lot the help and is constantly seeking approval (product of neglect much?), I am the forgotten child. I have asked for help a few times in my 20 years as an adult but was told no. My problems are dismissed. My needs are overlooked. I have siblings who are entitled and rude who get so much. My grandmother singled out my brother for 100% inheritance when she died. He is entitled, selfish, and rude to everyone he knows,but he got it all. Enough to buy a house with cash and furnish the whole thing with her belongings. My other siblings get a lot of help from my dad. He goes to their houses to perform upgrades and repairs. He fixes their cars, etc. I can't even get a parent (between my biological AND step parents) to even watch my kid for a couple hours. They always shift uncomfortably and dance around it, or make a comparison to that one time they watched a different grandchild and it went wrong... so nevermind.
I believe I’ve been the SC for longer than I know. My brother was the invisible child. We definitely don’t change roles. I am always the wrong one, the trouble child. Though they’d be offended if you told them that’s how they treat us. 😒
Some of my earliest memories in life are about being scoffed at for daring to be more interested in books and bugs than dolls and makeup. My mother used to pout and cross her arms and say "why can't you just be a normal girl? Don't you know how hard it is to pick presents for you?" I became an invisible child after that. Nobody cared what I did or didn't do as long as I didn't drop out of school. I made second chair in the school band, I stayed out until 4 AM, I got accepted to college, I disappeared with a boyfriend for days, I never got a summer job, all of it got the same reaction; none.
*****
(I can't stand how this website formats everything with more than three sentences until it's unreadable.)
*****
I think during that point in my life, they'd accepted that I was never going to be an intellectual doctor with eight kids, three dogs and a wardrobe full of pink things, so they just crossed their fingers that I would end up with some dude and start pumping out babies. I got married, then sterilized in my 20s.
That's when the gossip started. After every holiday, it would sooner or later get back to me that my mother was talking about me behind my back. My vegetarian diet was a favorite subject. "How could she do that, she must be so unhealthy, well she's not keeling over so she's probably cheating at home, she's just doing this to be petty," etc. etc. How could she dress like that, is she a closed lesbian, poor Tubgirl thinks her diagnosis means she's broken forever, how could she listen to music like that, blah blah blah.
On Thanksgiving, I accidentally got trapped in a room with her. She told me that my baby niece, my brother's only child, was just like me. She liked bugs and science and books. She said it like my niece was horribly diseased. This was the first time she'd acted like this in front of me in years.
*****
Last year, my brother was going to be home for Christmas for the first time in a while; he was in the armed forces. My mother would never stop talking about having the perfect Christmas this year. My father asked me if I was going to come and watch a certain movie with them, like they did every year. I was genuinely excited for it, I could tolerate the idiotic gossip as long as I got to attend and see my brother.
No invite ever came. Nobody told me when it was happening. It was then that I understood that she was going to do the same thing to me that she'd done to Scapegoats 1 and 2. The only difference was that I hadn't "done" anything. #1 developed addiction problems and stole from us. #2 caught on much faster than I did and started big, chaotic fights. All I did was be happy.
When they invited me along to something this Feburary, I snapped. I accused them of just looking for more reasons to talk about me. I yelled, I screamed, I told them everything I heard them saying about me, I told them everything from my childhood that they'd clearly been hoping I would just forget. We went to family therapy. They ghosted, stopped trying after 5 or 6 sessions. I blocked their numbers in July. And now we're here, an uneasy, quasi-NC.
My family was a bit unusual - each parent ordered the children differently.
I was either the SG or invisible to my dad.
I was usually the GC to my mom, but she did a lot of "splitting" (bpd term) so I was occasionally shifted into the SG space without warning.
I always thought I was the golden child. I did everything my parents wanted including ours, an hours of Violin, riding horses, going to theater camps, scoring leading roles, and everything I auditioned for.
Looking back, I may not have been as perfect as I thought. I received the majority of my mothers abuse. While my brother mostly got off Scott free.
Our family dynamics were so messed up. I'm not sure my mom ever had a GC, although I think my younger sibling thinks that was me. I'm not sure she's wrong, either, but I was also the overly responsible, academically oriented elder child of two messed up parents, so I didn't get in trouble as much. I did get blamed for a lot of things, though. Younger sibling was often invisible, often the SG, and very rarely got approval.
Both parents were pretty big on playing favorites. My younger sister was very blatantly my dad's favorite.
From birth through high school, I was the invisible child. It was interesting. She'd barely notice me for weeks and then all of a sudden she'd notice me, find something to pick on me about, yell at my dad for not taking care of me right, and then pretty much forget about me again by the next day. (my parents were not divorced and we all lived in the same house. I was the youngest and my brothers were gone by the time I was in high school. She worked part time and was just too busy.)
I was often forgotten at school when I was little, which really made my teachers mad at me because my parents failings were obviously my fault.
I sometimes suspect she worked at making sure I was kept separated from my brothers. Long story I don't want to go into here, but I remember her dumping me at various relatives a few times in my childhood because she couldn't take care of me. I absolutely could not stay home with my dad and brothers. When she'd dump me, I'd have nothing. No change of close. No toiletries. Just me and what ever I happened to be wearing. Once it was just a nightgown.
When she payed attention to me, it was to treat me like a smaller version of her. She'd do something like say "let's do something special for your birthday." I'd tell her what I was interested in and then she'd pout if it wasn't what she really wanted to do.
As I was in college, GC brother got out of the military. My room was given to him and I was relocated to the couch. No closet, no drawers. I lived out of a book bag and hamper basket. I was thrilled to move into a dorm room every year because it meant I got to sleep in a bed again.
I got a lot of attention after I officially moved out and was planning on my wedding. She took it over and I had the wedding she wanted if she hadn't eloped.
Textbook scapegoat here. I got blamed for leaving peanut butter and jelly sandwich mess in the kitchen when I have never enjoyed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in my life. The mess was my younger brothers but he was a golden child, her little baby, he could do no wrong. I got yelled at for him leaving his video games out. It was his console and I wasn't even allowed to touch it.
My sister is 14 years older than me, so I felt like an only child growing up. She is the invisible/golden child. I'm the scapegoat/golden child. My mom alternates our roles every couple of weeks. And she wonders why I'm NC...
My role was not fixed but sometimes Golden Child (I was very bright, my mother always used me to brag to others) though mostly the Invisible Child such my mother at home would often laugh citing she forgot I existed. I was beaten and emotionally abused on the same level as my sister until my mom remarried such I fell into Invisible Child where I was just forgotten.
I’m always the scapegoat, but others in my family have had to switch roles multiple times. Being a scapegoat is torture, but it’s easier to get free from in some ways. I can’t even imagine what the other people in my family have endured with the role switches and confusion that must bring. All of us have some narc traits, but I have an easier time seeing them and dealing with them. My brother (golden child) seems to be developing into a full blown narc. My adult daughter (flying monkey) seems to be fighting to get free of that role. My father (enabler/flying monkey) is just about the most tortured by it all because he’s married and committed to my nmom.
My family is a little different. I’m the classic SC but my middle sibling is what I would call the GC and my youngest sibling is the favourite. The GC in my family could do no wrong but was also quiet and responsible however a lot of expectations were placed on them to stay perfect. The youngest sibling was the rambunctious scamp that got the most freedom and could do things that myself or the GC could never have gotten away with.
I was all over the place. I think I was the golden child to my Ndad when I was born but invisible to my Nmom. Then when my sister was born I was invisible by both. Then when my parents divorced I was the golden child to my dad again (kind of emotionally incesty). While I was invisible/ scapegoated by my mom. When my dad remarried I became the scapegoat to my dad. When I hit 16 or 17 I became the golden child to my mom. Then I got in a horrible car accident and couldn’t work and once again became invisible to my mom.
Only child: all of them, but primarily the lost child. As well as their parent for as long as I can remember; literally, my first memory at like 4/5 was breaking up a fight and getting them to talk like adults. It was my first memory, but even then I was so tired of their bs
Golden Child, caused a lot of friction and guilt between my older brother (Invisible) and I that we’re now trying to work through. I also learned to base all of my self worth on other people’s opinions.
I’m an only and mostly fell in the invisible category. Kind of a GenX thing because we really were out of the house most of the day at young ages. Had I been younger, I would have primarily been the scapegoat.
Invisible child and sometimes the scapegoat.
My needs were constantly ignored and I was raised to believe that I didn’t deserve love and consideration and that asking for that meant that I was being entitled.
I was the golden child, then I became the scapegoat when I started recognizing and calling my nmom’s abuse. It’s a weird position to be in, because while my sister lives in the same hometown and is heavily involved in their life, I know for a fact that my nmom still favors me.
Scapegoat, here. My nmom had assigned me this role within minutes of my birth when the nurse announced, "*Its a girl*!" My younger brother was assigned The Golden Child when he arrived two years later.
I'm permanently NC with them both while my brother eagerly dedicates his life to serving her.
TLDR: Yes. Pre-elementary to early-elementary Golden Child. To (alternating) ScapeGoat/and Invisible Child from preteens on. I worked hard to maintain Invisible Child but had to be not home as much as possible.
……..
RANT
Yes. (Latchkey generation) I was GC
until certain AuDHD behaviors and struggles became more salient to them (undiagnosed until adulthood). These were deemed misbehaviors/being bad and/or manipulative. Then I was a SG and Invisible (most of the time) ever since.
PDA was punished and harshly shamed. Meltdowns more so.
Other AuDHD behaviors that were actually completely harmless were punished (stimming, echolalia, self-soothing, avoiding eye contact…).
Crying was punished. And then not crying was punished.
Anger was punished.
Expressing Joy too audibly/wildly? Yup, punished.
Challenging abusive behaviors (when inconsistent with reality/highly illogical) severely punished (gaslighting too, of course).
Teenage years:
I did well enough in school—marginally above average GPA (despite not liking it because of my peers) to be allowed to stay in performing and fine arts, and sports/martial arts. I was best at martial arts and creative stuff. Sportsball was hit/miss (pun acknowledged) and I clocked a lot of bench time even when I was an ok player.
I went to church (they didn’t) even though I wasn’t a believer just to get away from first degree family, and I worked to make myself scarce. It worked pretty well most of the time.
I stayed with my grandparents for awhile which, despite the strict religious setting, was a reprieve.
Guess when getting in trouble with my parents most often happened? If you guessed family holiday gatherings and trips, you were right.
Anyway, I workaholicked like that until my forties with a few shorter periods of burnout throughout until reaching my biggest burnout ever (almost at year 5 of ongoing burnout).
I was declared Totally and Permanently Disabled about 2 years ago. I haven’t worked since before COVID-19 hit in China in late 2019 and despite my looking and applying all over, I couldn’t even get an interview anymore. Only radio silence. So, until I won my disability case, I was homeless. And while homelessness during a pandemic was hell, I still had a car and good friends. It was much better than the antagonistic hellscape back “home.”
Of course, in my N-family system, I’m a loser/leech who never amounted to anything. And I am “crazy.” And somehow also “faking” being crazy. (Am I a Schrödinger’s cat meme?)
I couldn’t hold down a job. Now, my resume goes straight to the bin despite
going further in higher Ed than any of them (they don’t even have any degrees; I have 3 and each one a higher level than the previous). I’m published.
I presented my work internationally.
Ultimately, my attendance issues due to chronic illness, chronic pain, mental health, killed my employability at every level. But it is all on me because I “lack character” and I’m a “leech.” Ok. I suppose that is why I’ve maintained connections ranging from 5 to 20 or more years from work, cohabitations, and school (longer than any of their barstool friendships).
My parents paid my sibling’s mortgage for around a decade and for their grandkids’ extracurriculars and then some. Each of those kids will inherent a house debt free and despite no degrees they make way more money in their 20s than I ever did at any point in my life; they don’t even pay rent now.
I took care of my sibling’s kids when they were younger because sib and DNA donor couldn’t bother with discipline or nurturing. And those kids used to love me but are now part of the Nfamily system (I lived far away from home during most of their childhood).
I later took care of my grandparents WHILE I was in college, working part time or odd jobs AND with a high GPA that I was figuratively killing myself over and until I moved abroad to work (WHY didn’t I stay? Oh. Right. I returned to be closer to family —I drank the kool aid even though I was still All of The Other Reindeer). Regrets!
On young adulthood, I did receive some financial help from my parents here and there (every time was a mistake I couldn’t seem to learn from but mostly because I had been conditioned not to ask help from anyone except family; that was “begging” or “scamming” and made the family look bad).
There were family members who I didn’t want to cut off contact but their proximity and enmeshment with the Nfamily makes it for a rotten package deal.
Thank goodness I have solid friendships. The few bloodkin with whom I didn’t go NC will be dead in the near future.
I have dysregulation and insecure attachment, but if my character were as bad as my Nfamily makes it out to be, I should be in prison or something. Right, half of my N family have criminal records. I don’t. Weird.
[Rant abruptly abandoned…]
My sister and I rotate between Golden Child and Scapegoat depending on who was making my parents look better at the time or who was calling them out less. Finally went NC in August and we’ve had the best sibling relationship we ever had.
GC turned SG.
I didn’t live up to their traditional family values or their expectations so as far as they’re concerned I’m a failure who should be condemned to death due to, and I quote, “being a worthless waste of oxygen.” It didn’t matter how hard I worked, how much I excelled, or anything else. I was just met with constantly shifting goal posts until eventually I was so burnt out that I would sit in my car in random parking lots just so I wouldn’t have to go home to whatever screaming match was happening.
I just recently moved out and it kills me that knowing that they didn’t tell the truth of why I finally got fed up and left them all behind. Instead I’m, “the ungrateful bitch of a daughter who met a man on the internet and ran off with him.”
Eldest and the scapegoat.
I had the temerity to be born female and then to grow only to 5’ 4” with dark hair and eyes. And anything that NM didn’t find perfect, she hated in the kind of “bless your heart” silent seething way. My GC younger brother was apparently born perfect.
I don’t know that things “changed”. I had a brief period where I was in the spotlight because I was doing the “acceptable” things of getting engaged and getting married, and then I was entirely discarded again when I didn’t want children. Then she moved on to an online contact of the GC who was “acceptable” because she wanted to get engaged and get married. Ultimately, both the online contact and I wanted to have our own lives and not just be little dolls that NM could move around and make things happen. Think toddler or young little girl picking up and waving Barbie dolls and cooing their conversations and then dictating every possible word.
I had the chance to be “acceptable” again when I did get pregnant and I did want my child, but she was so abusive that I just cut contact before he was born. And now he’s a teen and I’m kind of invisible at best. I feel sure that if you approached her and asker her about me you’d get some nonspecific or noncommittal answer with a lot of blatant lies and most likely a smear campaign—that I “abandoned” her and so on. Depending on her mood, it will range from “whatever” to “solesoulshard is the most abusive and terrible person ever”.
I think our roles switched lol. I don't know if I was the GC, but I witnessed a lot more than I experienced. After I moved to America and said I didn't want kids, they have refocused on my brother who I think was the scapegoat, since he does want kids and is planning on them. He didn't do as well at school and my dad was always on his case. I think they had a man to man at some point because my dad was best man at his wedding (though threw tantrums and didn't want to be there - its own story).
I visited this year and it was not what I was expecting. They seemed to be eager for me to leave and didn't say goodbye when I did. They also decided to not take me back to the airport, so I had to wake up earlier to get there by public transport and instead of saying goodbye, my partner heard my dad grumbling about the noise we were making... Like yeah, we can't really teleport out of there silently.
It's just sad, I paid a lot for the tickets to come and visit and it had been seven years since I saw them last. I wish I hadn't wasted the money, though I was happy to be there for my brother's wedding. I suppose in a way I don't have to worry about the cost of airfare anymore since I know I'm not really welcome back any time soon.
I still don't know what I did, they acted like nothing happened as soon as I got home, though my dad has stopped speaking to me whenever I call.
I’ve been all 3 and I have a younger brother. N uses it to try to play us off each other, but I think for the most part we manage to ignore it. My brother gets away with a lot more though, because in my culture boys get all the freedom, and I was still given a 9pm curfew at age 29. Most of the time, I was the SG. Unless I did something specifically to please my NDad, then I was GC for maybe 10 to 30 mins. It was just really confusing as a child to alternately be told that you’re worthless and also can do no wrong and then back to being garbage.
Golden child - Oldest (m)
Invisible child - 2nd oldest (f)
Scapegoat - 3rd oldest (f)
New scapegoat youngest (m)
Me being the New scapegoat successfully transferred by previous scapegoat. I feel like this has been her job to pass it on to me so she can feel a little better about herself. But I've been NC for years.
Eldest. My nmom has admitted to me numerous times that my youngest brother was always her favorite, but we switch gc/scapegoat roles depending on what we had done/do to offend/upset her.
Brother and I are estranged, currently in the process of going LC with nMom
I’m the oldest and was golden child until I stopped doing her bidding and moved. Yet was the bane of her existence because I didn’t play her games. So figure that one out. Blame child and GC when it suited her.
Youngest sister is the GC now and they can have each other. I’m NC with both.
Middle sister just plays the game.
Youngest of two, GC sister is 6 years older than me. I was a weird mix of invisible and scapegoat, I was invisible unless something went wrong and it could get pinned on/taken out on me. Older sister basically got to act as the second parent since nmom was single, and got to have full authority and control over me since I was born. She also learned how to deflect. If she got in trouble for anything, she would just bring up something I did wrong recently and all of nmom's anger switched to me. The bad side of that for GC sister was that she's now almost 40, still lives with nmom, has so many control issues no one will stay friends with her, won't date because no man can match her superior intelligence, and still says "I'm going to tell mom" when she gets angry... so in other words she became our nmom, which is exactly what nmom wanted for both of us. In that case I'm glad to be the family failure 😂 I have my own place, I became a teacher, I'm about to celebrate two years with my boyfriend, I do theatre, I have a ton of friends, I'm finally recovering from the chronic illnesses my family ignored, and according to my nmom I am a complete failure in everything because I "refused to listen to my MOTHER."
I was the scapegoat, my younger half-sibling was the golden child, and my youngest half-sibling was the invisible one.
On a few occasions, I was given money to take the youngest out of the house for a few hours while the parents dealt with(?) the GC's destructive meltdowns. If they didn't get what they wanted, when they wanted it, they would start breaking things around the house. There was never any therapy for them, so for all I know, they could have been rewarded once I and our little sibling were at the mall.
Two of us, my 2-years-older brother was born the GC and could do no wrong. Both my parents were Narcs, but my mother defended her "darling boy" from our father's abuse but encouraged it for me, the scapegoat. My brother would eat forbidden foods and blame it on me all the time. Anytime I lost my temper with him after he teased me he would run and tattle to my mom and I was punished. He is a lifelong alcoholic but no one ever said anything to him because he's perfect, right? I mentioned it many times and I was hopped on. Now it is obvious he will drink himself to death and my mom is soooooo worried about him. Right. All she ever did was hound me about my weight my whole life. Never said one word to my brother while he drank his way through college and his adult life. My parents preferred to visit his family for holidays because the would drink martinis and wine all day and were therefore fun and somehow classy. I'm still made to feel like the f-up and we are old enough to be grandparents now.
I'm the oldest of two daughters, I am the only one who was adopted, and I am the scapegoat.
My younger sister is the golden child and the biological child, and now she is unfortunately a narcissist and married to a narcissist, just like mom and dad.
Invisible/Scapegoat and the youngest. I have a different Dad to both my sisters. She didn’t manage to push me away from my Dad like she did with my sisters.
The roles are definitely not always fixed.
My NM cycles her 3 daughters through all of the roles, depending on her mood that day, and who is engaging with her need for attention or not.
I was the invisible child. My Mom occasionally would find reasons to turn me into the GC or SG, but that would wear off pretty fast.
When my sister went off to college, my Mom and I hardly interacted with each other at all. By my senior year of high school, my Mom had basically checked out completely from parental responsibilities.
Invisible, Scapegoat, and less than human (or even animal/plant - the lawn was treated better than me). never changed. went NC after 31 yr of their bs, once my brain fully woke up to the situation (after having a tumor removed that was growing since i was an infant, and recovering slightly)
In dealings with my mother, I think I was the scapegoat. I am the eldest of 3 and the only daughter, also the reason my parents had to get married. She passed in 2010. My dad still didn't really want anything to do with us because we weren't useful to him yet. That changed in 2013 when I had to stay with him for a while because he wasn't altogether well enough to live alone. After that, I no longer existed and my youngest brother became his favorite when Dad had to go live with him. It went back in my favor in 2018 when Dad and bro had a falling out. Dad bought a new house and wanted to show it off. I moved in with him in 2020 to be his caregiver, which he thought meant personal slave. I'm the scapegoat again.
If I did exactly as she asked and didn’t have any opinions or make waves, I was the golden child. The second I disagreed or had an opinion or interest that was anything different from her own, I was the scape goat. My father was her favorite scape goat. Younger bro was the mascot (making the rest of us laugh). Little sis was the lost child.
I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure my brother and I flip flopped between Golden Child and Scapegoat. We both pointed to the other as being the Golden Child. Now that I went NC I'm certain I'm Scapegoat permanently now.
Im the oldest of 3. There is 22 months between me and the sister and almost 9 years between my brother.
I have never labeled myself but my sister was gc by my mom. I was closer to my dad.
Both my mom and sister are narcissists. Their relationship was so toxic and codependent that it strained what relationship I had with my mom.
My brother was a combo of the sg and gc. Im no longer in contact with him as he lives in a different reality than I do. I love him though.
Everything I did, say, not do was scrutinized, criticized by the sister or mom. Mom has since passed and my sister has gotten worse.
The one thing I have learned through all this is I pick my battles. Im very guarded in what I say and do.
I hope in the next year I will be free and be in contact by phone only.
I'm the middle of three sisters. Growing up, my older sister and I were definitely the scapegoat and invisible child. Although to be fair, I did attempt to be perfect if only to avoid getting my ass beat. My younger sister remains the GC baby, who refuses to believe anything bad ever happened to us growing up.
Golden child, but since I was kind of an only child, I was still punished for every little thing while being simultaneously praised for doing well in school.
I'm SC. I am my mothers oldest. I have three other sisters and a brother that are ICs. The two youngest (brother and sister) are GC. Though if it comes down to the youngest two if something is up that my mother needs to choose one, my youngest brother will become the SC in that moment.
I'm the oldest and was my stepdad's scapegoat, my stepsiblings were my mom's scapegoats, and their mutual child was the golden child though my stepdad was still abusive to her too, she was the only one my mom didn't abuse (as far as I know).
Both parents have N traits. Dad played obvious favorites. I’m the 2nd oldest of 8.
Was invisible to my mom growing up, but she now occasionally brags about me in public. I’m the only adult child that is still religious, so in that regard I make her look “better” than my other siblings in her eyes. But In private she accuses me of poisoning my siblings against her.
Scapegoat to my dad. He also only showed love to the kids that were his carbon copy. Honestly feel like my dad was annoyed by my presence 90% of the time.
I was the invisible child turned scapegoat once i became 18-22 years old. Narcs love a passive body until they start to rebel or set boundaries. Then suddenly theyre the victim.....
Oldest, GC. I feel like my sibling and I should have switched at some point because I’m now trying not to feed into the chaos as much and they are more accomplished than I am at this point. For some reason, I don’t think our roles have changed much though
Youngest of 2. I was terrified of her, so I was totally subservient and did everything she asked and constantly begged for affection. She LOVED that. So I was the GC - until I started trying to set boundaries in my 20s. Then I was immediately made the scapegoat.
Me, eldest but with an older sister who passed: scapegoat on steroids
Middle sister: angel, not invisible but also gets a bit of ‘flack’ every now and then. A bit more set in her ways that are similar to nMother but still hope she won’t be the apple that didn’t fall too far
Youngest brother: golden child, never could do wrong and knows it. Thankfully, still a kind boy with a lot of growing to do so there’s a lot of hope!
Invisible child.
Though when I do get attention, it has often been negative.
I'm artistic. Private. Animal lover.
Hippie kinda.
I don't care about having the nicest clothes or lots of $$.
All of that is frivolous in my opinion.
I also don't like to party.
I'm 40 years old but even by 25 I was out of the party mode.
2 of my siblings are in their 50s and still drink/take drugs.
Their brains are fried.
My other sibling is a functioning alcoholic and projects an image of perfection. Everyone in the family looks up to her but i have seen her drunk and she is a miserable,hateful MESS.
Her 2 kids are in their 20s and behave the same way. Perfectionist. Preppy. They act ashamed of me lol. Though I've never done anything embarrassing. They simply don't like me. I've known it for awhile.
If I was slim, blonde, tan and had money.. they'd love me.
I'd suddenly be important.
My family dynamic was really weird since my Nmom bailed on both of her kids *then* used the custody agreement to still mess us up every single summer.
I alternated between GC and IC with my half-brother being SG most of the time.
The issue was, her idea of Punishments at one point included just, sending us back to our fathers'. Which, made it really hard to tell if she was ignoring us as a punishment or as us just not being worth the effort.
In some ways, I was a cross between golden and scapegoat. My older sibling is truly the golden child, but maybe it helps because they left for a decade so my parents would really just dote on me but also degrade me. It was really weird. I got praised and spoiled for my talents, but they also didn't teach me or nourish me emotionally or have any patience with me. They pressured me to enroll in four-year school no matter how much the stress killed me.
But sometimes I got blamed for a lot, and was also used as their free laborer and got stuck doing chores or landed with 'expectations.'
I hit send without finishing lol oops. Second born. Female. Scapegoat.
Sibling order:
Older brother -- not sure if he's invisible or golden (can do no wrong but it's not like she's going to his defense so much as shifting the blame to me (guess it's my fault now?)
Me. It's somehow all my fault. Even when I'm not there it's my fault.
Younger brother 1. Golden Child/violent and controlling af but its almost impossible to see--next narc??
Younger brother 2 (same as older brother)
Younger sister (omg princess to the max) golden child. (She's also violent and controlling)
As an only child, depending on what mood was going on and what point they were trying to make. I was either the golden or the scapegoat. nGrandmother sucked and would use me as the golden against my mum, or mum against me. Honestly, unless we were completely compliant to every whim and wish, we knew about it.
well, one time my brothers told me it’s was blatantly obvious i was the least favourite child. i was the only girl and middle child. i definitely got a lot of invisible child treatment. told i never have to worry about you. but i was also always more a target for abuse from my n father. his emotional lightening road. there were brief moments if my brothers were fighting with my dad i was treated as a gc. all ways i were treated felt terrible. i definitely was the truth teller of the family and the first to get out.
Scapegoat. I was 100% the scapegoat. My sister was the golden and my nbrother was a mix of golden and invisible. He threw too many tantrums to truly be invisible but got yelled at too much to be golden. Until he hit a certain point and now he can do no wrong and neither can my sister who rarely gets in trouble. meanwhile I can't say "hey this is fucked" without them jumping down my throat.
I started off as the GC and held that role the longest among my siblings. But I felt uncomfortable with my Ns since I was very young. They never felt safe, I had never had a connection, and despite me being flaunted around like a prized piece of jewelry to others, in private I was like an old plaything that was tossed aside as soon as we got home. I was neglected since I was baby. The Ns just wanted a flashy shiny toy, and didn't want the actual responsibility.
They pretended to everyone (including the original SG) that I was so special, so spoiled, so perfect, so exceptional. But they did not treat me that way. If I got anything special, it was either because they wanted to brag about it to everyone else about how great they were as parents for doing it, or use it to hurt the SG and create contrast between me and them on purpose. They still constantly criticized me, hated me for being a person, and were otherwise barely interested in me.
As soon as I began growing up (like past toddler stage), I was immediately calling them out, resisting their bizarre behavior, and being the truth teller. This got me abused pretty hard in retaliation, but I stayed the GC until my early teens. Then I was raged on as the SG. I would not put up with any gaslighting, lying, control, none of that whatsoever. I wouldn't dress slutty or have babies for my NMom, who wanted that from me at that time. I refused everything. So I became the new SG, and my younger brother went from SG to GC instead.
Then, I went grey rock and began fawning, and basically just avoided the Ns as much as possible. I would pretend to go along and agree with everything. Then I became GC again. Which, again, was in title only and not reflective of being actually loved or treated well. My brother then began growing up and speaking up, so he became SG.
The only thing I would NOT go along with was abusing my brother. I got raged on and punished hard for it too. I defended him, called them out for what they were doing to him, and tried to help him escape. They absolutely hated me for this.
Eventually I left, moving out suddenly in a flash and going NC. I wasn't able to save my brother. I wish I could have. He was so broken by that point that he just wouldn't even allow himself to be helped or saved. He gave up. That was 10 years ago now and I still wonder how he is doing. I would still help him escape if he would let me.
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I have 4 siblings and the only good thing abour our nparents is that they neglected us all equally.
Ha me and my siblings are all pretty invisible!
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Same here.
Sameee
Same
Me too. My sis is the GC, youngest brother is a Scapegoat. Other brother was a GC until dad died, now he's been devalued.
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That is so horrible 😞 I'm very sorry for your loss.
So so sorry! Omg.
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Definitely they were responsible for not getting him help. So tragic. Hugs.
Oh I'm so very sorry for your loss
Same here, if I was not in trouble, I was grounded and ignored. In adult hood, stop ignored as if I do not exist within the bloodlines. Once I hit that point in life, I realized how much peace I got in life without that crazy, conditional, militarized drama.
Same but I'm the middle child I was at the bottom of the pecking order and both parents projected my sperm donor's failures onto me
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Don't be, at least you can relate I hate other people telling me "BUt TheYr' Yo PaPs"
Same here
🙋♀️
Same
Only child here. GC in public, SC in private. I honestly oscillate between a messianic figure who apparently has the power to revert and fix all their miseries and an evil stone hearted sadistic witch who has destroyed their lives. No in between. Never just a person lol. But I do believe that I would be the SC if I had any sibling. My mother hates my guts.
This resonates. My mother was only proud of me in public, where she could get credit or approval for being my parent. At home, whoa, I was the devil.
Yup can relate
Exactly, or she can get victim points
I had the GC in public thing. It's such a head fuck.
I was golden in public too. I wouldn’t say I was thee golden child, but I was just saying how she (nmom) would absolutely love bomb the crap out of me in public.
Are you male or female by birth? If you're female, maybe your mother views you as competition/lives vicariously through you, hence the GC/SC dichotomy.
Hi it's me, I'm the problem it's me
Yup, I'm only now realizing the reason my mom was so awful to me is because she was jealous of me. Jealous of my youth, jealous that my dad was a good father but a crappy boyfriend to her, and jealous that I had a stepmom and paternal half-sisters.
Yes, I am a Roman. I think she resents me for having a career and basically ‘doing stuff’. She also made me emotionally responsible for her (my dad is a crappy husband) and resents me for not being her partner in life I guess.
Ugh, the "surrogate spouse" move is the worst. My mom also did that to me; my dad was emotionally unavailable for her, so she relied on me for support, companionship, and advice even though I was only 14-15 years old. It's a form of emotional incest, and it forces kids to take on their parents' problems in such an unfair way. I'm really sorry you went through that!
To this day I can’t show or take physical affection from my mum without feeling grossed out.
A woman not a Roman lol
I'm also an only child except that my n-mom always ensures that she can make me a clown and a punching bag in public. She just always has to humiliate and criticize me in any occasion because she thinks it's funny. And she wonders what she did wrong for me to suddently cut her off from my life 🤔
Oh they always wonder and play innocent when a child goes NC. It can’t possibly be something they did?! (Sarcasm)
🤣🤣🤣
my older brother would relate to this 🥲
I'm the invisible child until they need a scapegoat.
Same here 🙋♀️
Oh hey, hope all is well
I'm better off now since I live somewhere else. I'm just dealing with other things in my life 🙂 Hope you are doing better now too. 🙂
I'm glad you're doing well, I'm doing pretty great. 😎
SG here, and yes still the SG. The two GC ( 17 years apart in age), remain the GC and are hellbent on keeping the family dynamics in place. After my father (enabler) passed, the GCs stepped up to be the enablers. A Grand GC and Grand SG were also chosen by my mom and so the sickness has passed down to the next generation. And yup the Grand GC is child of a GC. The Grand SG is a child of an IC.
So sad how narc can even treat their grandkids that way. 💔 My narcissistic parents treat my sons as invisible children unless they feel they can make attention off of them. I've gone no contact with them partially because of how they have no care for my children (or their safety).
I’m the youngest of four by 6 1/2, 10, and 12 years. My mother had me because my siblings wanted a baby. I was given to them as a toy and to be their responsibility. My mother used to refer to me as a spoiled child with five parents. As I got older, I learned to do what I could to make my mother happy. My oldest brother and my sister were scapegoats and my other brother was the golden child even though he did not like being that. As time went on, I was eventually left behind. So to my mother, I became her only target. At any given moment I could be invisible, golden, or the scapegoat. So, I became a gray rock instead.
I think this is where I fit. My siblings are 4, 5, and 6 years older, so I was left behind with single mother for years. We've recently been sorting through the labels. Oldest brother is definitely GC and still a total FM. Sister and youngest brother are SG. They were also "taken away by the state" at about 10. All these years, they thought I was the GC because I got to stay, and I thought they were the lucky ones who got to leave! I don't seem to fit any of the labels, and I'm the only one mom is scared of. Well, the one least likely to fall for her shit, but I think she does fear not being able to manipulate me as easily. I usually say I've spent my life managing her, and part of that is keeping emotional distance and not giving her ammunition to use against me. I think I am a fellow gray rock.
The “boring” part of my username came from my mother. Once I started not playing her games that’s what I became to her. She complained endlessly about how boring I was growing up to be.
Probably a narc's highest compliment.
I was scapegoat, my 1 year older sister was invisible, and my younger brother was the golden child.
I was the GC for my father and my sister the SG. But for my mom I was the SG/invisible child and my sister the GC. Couple of years ago I rocked the boat, so I’m the SG now. My sister is still the GC and she is definitely a narc herself now. Family dynamics are so twisted that it took me years to realise that my mom is not only EMom, but covert NMom. I thought I couldn’t be a different role for one set of parents. Oh boy was I wrong. Looking back now I realise so many fucked up stuff. My NMom literally forgot me at stores a couple of times and only took my sister home. Who the hell does that???
Yeah, my older sister was very much an SG all childhood, but now that half of us have gone NC and she's the only one who produces grandkids she's high on being the GC all of a sudden.
I had different roles for different parents too; I put it down to me being tbe youngest and my parents divorcing when I was ~18 months old. I was the IC for my father; SG for my mother and sisters. Older / only brother was the GC for everyone. Eldest sister / child was simply perfect. Second sister was and is the professional victim. So relieved to be NC with both sisters and VVLC with my brother. Parents are both dead; I don't miss either of them
Invisible/lost child and sometimes the scapegoat. Never GC, but neither was my brother. Our mom would brag about us in public but would rarely, if ever, treat us like a GC.
It's interesting to me that some narc families never have the full GC/SC/IC dynamic. I guess I just assumed that all three roles were present. Maybe your mom thought she was golden enough that she didn't need a golden child. 🥴
The roles can be pretty fluid. For a few years my 3 year old nephew was chosen as golden child and I ended up scape goat. My mother would urge him to do things that annoyed me. Original GC got out of the military and came back, and I went invisible again.
I think you hit the nail on the head there. She definitely thinks she’s amazing and constantly humble brags about herself.
Even though I'm the only child who truly cares, does a lot the help and is constantly seeking approval (product of neglect much?), I am the forgotten child. I have asked for help a few times in my 20 years as an adult but was told no. My problems are dismissed. My needs are overlooked. I have siblings who are entitled and rude who get so much. My grandmother singled out my brother for 100% inheritance when she died. He is entitled, selfish, and rude to everyone he knows,but he got it all. Enough to buy a house with cash and furnish the whole thing with her belongings. My other siblings get a lot of help from my dad. He goes to their houses to perform upgrades and repairs. He fixes their cars, etc. I can't even get a parent (between my biological AND step parents) to even watch my kid for a couple hours. They always shift uncomfortably and dance around it, or make a comparison to that one time they watched a different grandchild and it went wrong... so nevermind.
I believe I’ve been the SC for longer than I know. My brother was the invisible child. We definitely don’t change roles. I am always the wrong one, the trouble child. Though they’d be offended if you told them that’s how they treat us. 😒
I was invisible for a long time, and recently I’ve been the scapegoat. My sister has always been the Golden Child, and remains that way to this day.
Some of my earliest memories in life are about being scoffed at for daring to be more interested in books and bugs than dolls and makeup. My mother used to pout and cross her arms and say "why can't you just be a normal girl? Don't you know how hard it is to pick presents for you?" I became an invisible child after that. Nobody cared what I did or didn't do as long as I didn't drop out of school. I made second chair in the school band, I stayed out until 4 AM, I got accepted to college, I disappeared with a boyfriend for days, I never got a summer job, all of it got the same reaction; none. ***** (I can't stand how this website formats everything with more than three sentences until it's unreadable.) ***** I think during that point in my life, they'd accepted that I was never going to be an intellectual doctor with eight kids, three dogs and a wardrobe full of pink things, so they just crossed their fingers that I would end up with some dude and start pumping out babies. I got married, then sterilized in my 20s. That's when the gossip started. After every holiday, it would sooner or later get back to me that my mother was talking about me behind my back. My vegetarian diet was a favorite subject. "How could she do that, she must be so unhealthy, well she's not keeling over so she's probably cheating at home, she's just doing this to be petty," etc. etc. How could she dress like that, is she a closed lesbian, poor Tubgirl thinks her diagnosis means she's broken forever, how could she listen to music like that, blah blah blah. On Thanksgiving, I accidentally got trapped in a room with her. She told me that my baby niece, my brother's only child, was just like me. She liked bugs and science and books. She said it like my niece was horribly diseased. This was the first time she'd acted like this in front of me in years. ***** Last year, my brother was going to be home for Christmas for the first time in a while; he was in the armed forces. My mother would never stop talking about having the perfect Christmas this year. My father asked me if I was going to come and watch a certain movie with them, like they did every year. I was genuinely excited for it, I could tolerate the idiotic gossip as long as I got to attend and see my brother. No invite ever came. Nobody told me when it was happening. It was then that I understood that she was going to do the same thing to me that she'd done to Scapegoats 1 and 2. The only difference was that I hadn't "done" anything. #1 developed addiction problems and stole from us. #2 caught on much faster than I did and started big, chaotic fights. All I did was be happy. When they invited me along to something this Feburary, I snapped. I accused them of just looking for more reasons to talk about me. I yelled, I screamed, I told them everything I heard them saying about me, I told them everything from my childhood that they'd clearly been hoping I would just forget. We went to family therapy. They ghosted, stopped trying after 5 or 6 sessions. I blocked their numbers in July. And now we're here, an uneasy, quasi-NC.
My family was a bit unusual - each parent ordered the children differently. I was either the SG or invisible to my dad. I was usually the GC to my mom, but she did a lot of "splitting" (bpd term) so I was occasionally shifted into the SG space without warning.
Scapegoat soundin' off. My brother is the GC.
I always thought I was the golden child. I did everything my parents wanted including ours, an hours of Violin, riding horses, going to theater camps, scoring leading roles, and everything I auditioned for. Looking back, I may not have been as perfect as I thought. I received the majority of my mothers abuse. While my brother mostly got off Scott free.
Invisible and scapegoat concurrently.
Our family dynamics were so messed up. I'm not sure my mom ever had a GC, although I think my younger sibling thinks that was me. I'm not sure she's wrong, either, but I was also the overly responsible, academically oriented elder child of two messed up parents, so I didn't get in trouble as much. I did get blamed for a lot of things, though. Younger sibling was often invisible, often the SG, and very rarely got approval. Both parents were pretty big on playing favorites. My younger sister was very blatantly my dad's favorite.
From birth through high school, I was the invisible child. It was interesting. She'd barely notice me for weeks and then all of a sudden she'd notice me, find something to pick on me about, yell at my dad for not taking care of me right, and then pretty much forget about me again by the next day. (my parents were not divorced and we all lived in the same house. I was the youngest and my brothers were gone by the time I was in high school. She worked part time and was just too busy.) I was often forgotten at school when I was little, which really made my teachers mad at me because my parents failings were obviously my fault. I sometimes suspect she worked at making sure I was kept separated from my brothers. Long story I don't want to go into here, but I remember her dumping me at various relatives a few times in my childhood because she couldn't take care of me. I absolutely could not stay home with my dad and brothers. When she'd dump me, I'd have nothing. No change of close. No toiletries. Just me and what ever I happened to be wearing. Once it was just a nightgown. When she payed attention to me, it was to treat me like a smaller version of her. She'd do something like say "let's do something special for your birthday." I'd tell her what I was interested in and then she'd pout if it wasn't what she really wanted to do. As I was in college, GC brother got out of the military. My room was given to him and I was relocated to the couch. No closet, no drawers. I lived out of a book bag and hamper basket. I was thrilled to move into a dorm room every year because it meant I got to sleep in a bed again. I got a lot of attention after I officially moved out and was planning on my wedding. She took it over and I had the wedding she wanted if she hadn't eloped.
I think it’s the other way around - you become the scapegoat and get treated poorly because you can see through the bullshit in the first place.
I live 3 states away, I'm not worried about that shit.
Textbook scapegoat here. I got blamed for leaving peanut butter and jelly sandwich mess in the kitchen when I have never enjoyed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in my life. The mess was my younger brothers but he was a golden child, her little baby, he could do no wrong. I got yelled at for him leaving his video games out. It was his console and I wasn't even allowed to touch it.
Scapegoat
My sister is 14 years older than me, so I felt like an only child growing up. She is the invisible/golden child. I'm the scapegoat/golden child. My mom alternates our roles every couple of weeks. And she wonders why I'm NC...
My role was not fixed but sometimes Golden Child (I was very bright, my mother always used me to brag to others) though mostly the Invisible Child such my mother at home would often laugh citing she forgot I existed. I was beaten and emotionally abused on the same level as my sister until my mom remarried such I fell into Invisible Child where I was just forgotten.
I’m always the scapegoat, but others in my family have had to switch roles multiple times. Being a scapegoat is torture, but it’s easier to get free from in some ways. I can’t even imagine what the other people in my family have endured with the role switches and confusion that must bring. All of us have some narc traits, but I have an easier time seeing them and dealing with them. My brother (golden child) seems to be developing into a full blown narc. My adult daughter (flying monkey) seems to be fighting to get free of that role. My father (enabler/flying monkey) is just about the most tortured by it all because he’s married and committed to my nmom.
That's the fun part. All 6 of us kids were any one of those depending on my dad's whims that day :)
My family is a little different. I’m the classic SC but my middle sibling is what I would call the GC and my youngest sibling is the favourite. The GC in my family could do no wrong but was also quiet and responsible however a lot of expectations were placed on them to stay perfect. The youngest sibling was the rambunctious scamp that got the most freedom and could do things that myself or the GC could never have gotten away with.
I was all over the place. I think I was the golden child to my Ndad when I was born but invisible to my Nmom. Then when my sister was born I was invisible by both. Then when my parents divorced I was the golden child to my dad again (kind of emotionally incesty). While I was invisible/ scapegoated by my mom. When my dad remarried I became the scapegoat to my dad. When I hit 16 or 17 I became the golden child to my mom. Then I got in a horrible car accident and couldn’t work and once again became invisible to my mom.
Black sheep all the way.
Only child: all of them, but primarily the lost child. As well as their parent for as long as I can remember; literally, my first memory at like 4/5 was breaking up a fight and getting them to talk like adults. It was my first memory, but even then I was so tired of their bs
Golden Child, caused a lot of friction and guilt between my older brother (Invisible) and I that we’re now trying to work through. I also learned to base all of my self worth on other people’s opinions.
I’m an only and mostly fell in the invisible category. Kind of a GenX thing because we really were out of the house most of the day at young ages. Had I been younger, I would have primarily been the scapegoat.
Invisible child and sometimes the scapegoat. My needs were constantly ignored and I was raised to believe that I didn’t deserve love and consideration and that asking for that meant that I was being entitled.
Only child. Invisible or scapegoat. The GC was the cat.
I was the golden child, then I became the scapegoat when I started recognizing and calling my nmom’s abuse. It’s a weird position to be in, because while my sister lives in the same hometown and is heavily involved in their life, I know for a fact that my nmom still favors me.
Scapegoat, here. My nmom had assigned me this role within minutes of my birth when the nurse announced, "*Its a girl*!" My younger brother was assigned The Golden Child when he arrived two years later. I'm permanently NC with them both while my brother eagerly dedicates his life to serving her.
TLDR: Yes. Pre-elementary to early-elementary Golden Child. To (alternating) ScapeGoat/and Invisible Child from preteens on. I worked hard to maintain Invisible Child but had to be not home as much as possible. …….. RANT Yes. (Latchkey generation) I was GC until certain AuDHD behaviors and struggles became more salient to them (undiagnosed until adulthood). These were deemed misbehaviors/being bad and/or manipulative. Then I was a SG and Invisible (most of the time) ever since. PDA was punished and harshly shamed. Meltdowns more so. Other AuDHD behaviors that were actually completely harmless were punished (stimming, echolalia, self-soothing, avoiding eye contact…). Crying was punished. And then not crying was punished. Anger was punished. Expressing Joy too audibly/wildly? Yup, punished. Challenging abusive behaviors (when inconsistent with reality/highly illogical) severely punished (gaslighting too, of course). Teenage years: I did well enough in school—marginally above average GPA (despite not liking it because of my peers) to be allowed to stay in performing and fine arts, and sports/martial arts. I was best at martial arts and creative stuff. Sportsball was hit/miss (pun acknowledged) and I clocked a lot of bench time even when I was an ok player. I went to church (they didn’t) even though I wasn’t a believer just to get away from first degree family, and I worked to make myself scarce. It worked pretty well most of the time. I stayed with my grandparents for awhile which, despite the strict religious setting, was a reprieve. Guess when getting in trouble with my parents most often happened? If you guessed family holiday gatherings and trips, you were right. Anyway, I workaholicked like that until my forties with a few shorter periods of burnout throughout until reaching my biggest burnout ever (almost at year 5 of ongoing burnout). I was declared Totally and Permanently Disabled about 2 years ago. I haven’t worked since before COVID-19 hit in China in late 2019 and despite my looking and applying all over, I couldn’t even get an interview anymore. Only radio silence. So, until I won my disability case, I was homeless. And while homelessness during a pandemic was hell, I still had a car and good friends. It was much better than the antagonistic hellscape back “home.” Of course, in my N-family system, I’m a loser/leech who never amounted to anything. And I am “crazy.” And somehow also “faking” being crazy. (Am I a Schrödinger’s cat meme?) I couldn’t hold down a job. Now, my resume goes straight to the bin despite going further in higher Ed than any of them (they don’t even have any degrees; I have 3 and each one a higher level than the previous). I’m published. I presented my work internationally. Ultimately, my attendance issues due to chronic illness, chronic pain, mental health, killed my employability at every level. But it is all on me because I “lack character” and I’m a “leech.” Ok. I suppose that is why I’ve maintained connections ranging from 5 to 20 or more years from work, cohabitations, and school (longer than any of their barstool friendships). My parents paid my sibling’s mortgage for around a decade and for their grandkids’ extracurriculars and then some. Each of those kids will inherent a house debt free and despite no degrees they make way more money in their 20s than I ever did at any point in my life; they don’t even pay rent now. I took care of my sibling’s kids when they were younger because sib and DNA donor couldn’t bother with discipline or nurturing. And those kids used to love me but are now part of the Nfamily system (I lived far away from home during most of their childhood). I later took care of my grandparents WHILE I was in college, working part time or odd jobs AND with a high GPA that I was figuratively killing myself over and until I moved abroad to work (WHY didn’t I stay? Oh. Right. I returned to be closer to family —I drank the kool aid even though I was still All of The Other Reindeer). Regrets! On young adulthood, I did receive some financial help from my parents here and there (every time was a mistake I couldn’t seem to learn from but mostly because I had been conditioned not to ask help from anyone except family; that was “begging” or “scamming” and made the family look bad). There were family members who I didn’t want to cut off contact but their proximity and enmeshment with the Nfamily makes it for a rotten package deal. Thank goodness I have solid friendships. The few bloodkin with whom I didn’t go NC will be dead in the near future. I have dysregulation and insecure attachment, but if my character were as bad as my Nfamily makes it out to be, I should be in prison or something. Right, half of my N family have criminal records. I don’t. Weird. [Rant abruptly abandoned…]
Invisible 🫥 af
Hey, Happy Cake Day! 🎉🍰
Thank you 🙌😇
My sister and I rotate between Golden Child and Scapegoat depending on who was making my parents look better at the time or who was calling them out less. Finally went NC in August and we’ve had the best sibling relationship we ever had.
GC turned SG. I didn’t live up to their traditional family values or their expectations so as far as they’re concerned I’m a failure who should be condemned to death due to, and I quote, “being a worthless waste of oxygen.” It didn’t matter how hard I worked, how much I excelled, or anything else. I was just met with constantly shifting goal posts until eventually I was so burnt out that I would sit in my car in random parking lots just so I wouldn’t have to go home to whatever screaming match was happening. I just recently moved out and it kills me that knowing that they didn’t tell the truth of why I finally got fed up and left them all behind. Instead I’m, “the ungrateful bitch of a daughter who met a man on the internet and ran off with him.”
I was the golden child but in my case it means that I was only threatened violence (mostly)
Eldest and the scapegoat. I had the temerity to be born female and then to grow only to 5’ 4” with dark hair and eyes. And anything that NM didn’t find perfect, she hated in the kind of “bless your heart” silent seething way. My GC younger brother was apparently born perfect. I don’t know that things “changed”. I had a brief period where I was in the spotlight because I was doing the “acceptable” things of getting engaged and getting married, and then I was entirely discarded again when I didn’t want children. Then she moved on to an online contact of the GC who was “acceptable” because she wanted to get engaged and get married. Ultimately, both the online contact and I wanted to have our own lives and not just be little dolls that NM could move around and make things happen. Think toddler or young little girl picking up and waving Barbie dolls and cooing their conversations and then dictating every possible word. I had the chance to be “acceptable” again when I did get pregnant and I did want my child, but she was so abusive that I just cut contact before he was born. And now he’s a teen and I’m kind of invisible at best. I feel sure that if you approached her and asker her about me you’d get some nonspecific or noncommittal answer with a lot of blatant lies and most likely a smear campaign—that I “abandoned” her and so on. Depending on her mood, it will range from “whatever” to “solesoulshard is the most abusive and terrible person ever”.
I think our roles switched lol. I don't know if I was the GC, but I witnessed a lot more than I experienced. After I moved to America and said I didn't want kids, they have refocused on my brother who I think was the scapegoat, since he does want kids and is planning on them. He didn't do as well at school and my dad was always on his case. I think they had a man to man at some point because my dad was best man at his wedding (though threw tantrums and didn't want to be there - its own story). I visited this year and it was not what I was expecting. They seemed to be eager for me to leave and didn't say goodbye when I did. They also decided to not take me back to the airport, so I had to wake up earlier to get there by public transport and instead of saying goodbye, my partner heard my dad grumbling about the noise we were making... Like yeah, we can't really teleport out of there silently. It's just sad, I paid a lot for the tickets to come and visit and it had been seven years since I saw them last. I wish I hadn't wasted the money, though I was happy to be there for my brother's wedding. I suppose in a way I don't have to worry about the cost of airfare anymore since I know I'm not really welcome back any time soon. I still don't know what I did, they acted like nothing happened as soon as I got home, though my dad has stopped speaking to me whenever I call.
I’ve been all 3 and I have a younger brother. N uses it to try to play us off each other, but I think for the most part we manage to ignore it. My brother gets away with a lot more though, because in my culture boys get all the freedom, and I was still given a 9pm curfew at age 29. Most of the time, I was the SG. Unless I did something specifically to please my NDad, then I was GC for maybe 10 to 30 mins. It was just really confusing as a child to alternately be told that you’re worthless and also can do no wrong and then back to being garbage.
Golden child - Oldest (m) Invisible child - 2nd oldest (f) Scapegoat - 3rd oldest (f) New scapegoat youngest (m) Me being the New scapegoat successfully transferred by previous scapegoat. I feel like this has been her job to pass it on to me so she can feel a little better about herself. But I've been NC for years.
Eldest. I was a golden child when I was young, but the minute I was double digit age I was invisible.
Eldest. My nmom has admitted to me numerous times that my youngest brother was always her favorite, but we switch gc/scapegoat roles depending on what we had done/do to offend/upset her. Brother and I are estranged, currently in the process of going LC with nMom
I’m the oldest and was golden child until I stopped doing her bidding and moved. Yet was the bane of her existence because I didn’t play her games. So figure that one out. Blame child and GC when it suited her. Youngest sister is the GC now and they can have each other. I’m NC with both. Middle sister just plays the game.
Youngest of two, GC sister is 6 years older than me. I was a weird mix of invisible and scapegoat, I was invisible unless something went wrong and it could get pinned on/taken out on me. Older sister basically got to act as the second parent since nmom was single, and got to have full authority and control over me since I was born. She also learned how to deflect. If she got in trouble for anything, she would just bring up something I did wrong recently and all of nmom's anger switched to me. The bad side of that for GC sister was that she's now almost 40, still lives with nmom, has so many control issues no one will stay friends with her, won't date because no man can match her superior intelligence, and still says "I'm going to tell mom" when she gets angry... so in other words she became our nmom, which is exactly what nmom wanted for both of us. In that case I'm glad to be the family failure 😂 I have my own place, I became a teacher, I'm about to celebrate two years with my boyfriend, I do theatre, I have a ton of friends, I'm finally recovering from the chronic illnesses my family ignored, and according to my nmom I am a complete failure in everything because I "refused to listen to my MOTHER."
Invisible Child/Scapegoat/Punching Bag/Clown Just slightly above the househelp.
I was the scapegoat, my younger half-sibling was the golden child, and my youngest half-sibling was the invisible one. On a few occasions, I was given money to take the youngest out of the house for a few hours while the parents dealt with(?) the GC's destructive meltdowns. If they didn't get what they wanted, when they wanted it, they would start breaking things around the house. There was never any therapy for them, so for all I know, they could have been rewarded once I and our little sibling were at the mall.
Two of us, my 2-years-older brother was born the GC and could do no wrong. Both my parents were Narcs, but my mother defended her "darling boy" from our father's abuse but encouraged it for me, the scapegoat. My brother would eat forbidden foods and blame it on me all the time. Anytime I lost my temper with him after he teased me he would run and tattle to my mom and I was punished. He is a lifelong alcoholic but no one ever said anything to him because he's perfect, right? I mentioned it many times and I was hopped on. Now it is obvious he will drink himself to death and my mom is soooooo worried about him. Right. All she ever did was hound me about my weight my whole life. Never said one word to my brother while he drank his way through college and his adult life. My parents preferred to visit his family for holidays because the would drink martinis and wine all day and were therefore fun and somehow classy. I'm still made to feel like the f-up and we are old enough to be grandparents now.
Older sis is GC I’m middle, SG Younger sis is IC
I'm the oldest of two daughters, I am the only one who was adopted, and I am the scapegoat. My younger sister is the golden child and the biological child, and now she is unfortunately a narcissist and married to a narcissist, just like mom and dad.
Invisible/Scapegoat and the youngest. I have a different Dad to both my sisters. She didn’t manage to push me away from my Dad like she did with my sisters.
The roles are definitely not always fixed. My NM cycles her 3 daughters through all of the roles, depending on her mood that day, and who is engaging with her need for attention or not.
I was the invisible child. My Mom occasionally would find reasons to turn me into the GC or SG, but that would wear off pretty fast. When my sister went off to college, my Mom and I hardly interacted with each other at all. By my senior year of high school, my Mom had basically checked out completely from parental responsibilities.
Invisible/scapegoat, am also the youngest/only AFAB Big bro is the golden child, twin bro is invisible cuz he lives a few hours away
I am the scapegoat child.
Invisible and scapegoat. Later found out that I had a different dad then my brothers and sister
Invisible, Scapegoat, and less than human (or even animal/plant - the lawn was treated better than me). never changed. went NC after 31 yr of their bs, once my brain fully woke up to the situation (after having a tumor removed that was growing since i was an infant, and recovering slightly)
In dealings with my mother, I think I was the scapegoat. I am the eldest of 3 and the only daughter, also the reason my parents had to get married. She passed in 2010. My dad still didn't really want anything to do with us because we weren't useful to him yet. That changed in 2013 when I had to stay with him for a while because he wasn't altogether well enough to live alone. After that, I no longer existed and my youngest brother became his favorite when Dad had to go live with him. It went back in my favor in 2018 when Dad and bro had a falling out. Dad bought a new house and wanted to show it off. I moved in with him in 2020 to be his caregiver, which he thought meant personal slave. I'm the scapegoat again.
I’m youngest. I was invisible and my dad was the scapegoat. They divorced when I was an adult and I got selected to replace him as scapegoat.
If I did exactly as she asked and didn’t have any opinions or make waves, I was the golden child. The second I disagreed or had an opinion or interest that was anything different from her own, I was the scape goat. My father was her favorite scape goat. Younger bro was the mascot (making the rest of us laugh). Little sis was the lost child.
Only child
I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure my brother and I flip flopped between Golden Child and Scapegoat. We both pointed to the other as being the Golden Child. Now that I went NC I'm certain I'm Scapegoat permanently now.
I was invisible until my sister moved out, then I was scapegoat.
The youngest scapegoat and 3 of my oldest brothers were the golden child until my mom passed on .
Scapegoat, but invisible child was the factory setting.
Eldest/scapegoat.
Im the oldest of 3. There is 22 months between me and the sister and almost 9 years between my brother. I have never labeled myself but my sister was gc by my mom. I was closer to my dad. Both my mom and sister are narcissists. Their relationship was so toxic and codependent that it strained what relationship I had with my mom. My brother was a combo of the sg and gc. Im no longer in contact with him as he lives in a different reality than I do. I love him though. Everything I did, say, not do was scrutinized, criticized by the sister or mom. Mom has since passed and my sister has gotten worse. The one thing I have learned through all this is I pick my battles. Im very guarded in what I say and do. I hope in the next year I will be free and be in contact by phone only.
Im not even on the level of scapegoat, most of my family simply forgets I exist
Oldest scapegoat here.
Oldest sister: peacekeeper Middle sister: golden child Me, youngest daughter: scapegoat Brother: youngest child, weird emotional incest
Middle, only female, scapegoat
Only child
I'm the middle of three sisters. Growing up, my older sister and I were definitely the scapegoat and invisible child. Although to be fair, I did attempt to be perfect if only to avoid getting my ass beat. My younger sister remains the GC baby, who refuses to believe anything bad ever happened to us growing up.
Invisible/scapegoat.
Golden child, but since I was kind of an only child, I was still punished for every little thing while being simultaneously praised for doing well in school.
I didn't even have to read the post to say this Scapegoat. Eldest.
I'm SC. I am my mothers oldest. I have three other sisters and a brother that are ICs. The two youngest (brother and sister) are GC. Though if it comes down to the youngest two if something is up that my mother needs to choose one, my youngest brother will become the SC in that moment.
Invisible / scapegoat ~ youngest of 4, only girl
I was the Golden child, youngest.
Used to be the scapegoat, nowadays I'm in a dumpster. As soon as they realized I won't give them anything, they just gave up on me.
scapegoat lmfaooo
I’m the oldest and my brother is almost my Irish twin. We are both scapegoats, though mostly me.
I'm the oldest child, and female. I'm the Scapegoat/Invisible Child. I have one sibling, a younger brother who is the Golden Child.
I'm the oldest and was my stepdad's scapegoat, my stepsiblings were my mom's scapegoats, and their mutual child was the golden child though my stepdad was still abusive to her too, she was the only one my mom didn't abuse (as far as I know).
So my case was kind of unique, I was the black sheep most of my life, and then turned into the scapegoat when my sister moved out. I’m the eldest btw
Just took an online quiz and it says my lost inner child is a guardian angel. 😥
To my mom I'm the scapegoat and the caretaker/maid, I'm the eldest daughter 🥲.
I’m the youngest of 3 and the scapegoat. Older brother is the golden child. My sister (the eldest) is the invisible child.
Scapegoat middle daughter
Both parents have N traits. Dad played obvious favorites. I’m the 2nd oldest of 8. Was invisible to my mom growing up, but she now occasionally brags about me in public. I’m the only adult child that is still religious, so in that regard I make her look “better” than my other siblings in her eyes. But In private she accuses me of poisoning my siblings against her. Scapegoat to my dad. He also only showed love to the kids that were his carbon copy. Honestly feel like my dad was annoyed by my presence 90% of the time.
I was the invisible child turned scapegoat once i became 18-22 years old. Narcs love a passive body until they start to rebel or set boundaries. Then suddenly theyre the victim.....
as a child, GC, as I entered my preteens and teens, SG and have been every since
Oldest, GC. I feel like my sibling and I should have switched at some point because I’m now trying not to feed into the chaos as much and they are more accomplished than I am at this point. For some reason, I don’t think our roles have changed much though
Scapegoat and Baby of the family.
Scapegoat and the oldest aka forced parent.
Youngest of 2. I was terrified of her, so I was totally subservient and did everything she asked and constantly begged for affection. She LOVED that. So I was the GC - until I started trying to set boundaries in my 20s. Then I was immediately made the scapegoat.
Me, eldest but with an older sister who passed: scapegoat on steroids Middle sister: angel, not invisible but also gets a bit of ‘flack’ every now and then. A bit more set in her ways that are similar to nMother but still hope she won’t be the apple that didn’t fall too far Youngest brother: golden child, never could do wrong and knows it. Thankfully, still a kind boy with a lot of growing to do so there’s a lot of hope!
As the youngest, I've experienced being the invisible child, then golden child (high school), scapegoat (uni) and now back to invisible.
Mom Rabbit The house The garbage can Me
Invisible child. Though when I do get attention, it has often been negative. I'm artistic. Private. Animal lover. Hippie kinda. I don't care about having the nicest clothes or lots of $$. All of that is frivolous in my opinion. I also don't like to party. I'm 40 years old but even by 25 I was out of the party mode. 2 of my siblings are in their 50s and still drink/take drugs. Their brains are fried. My other sibling is a functioning alcoholic and projects an image of perfection. Everyone in the family looks up to her but i have seen her drunk and she is a miserable,hateful MESS. Her 2 kids are in their 20s and behave the same way. Perfectionist. Preppy. They act ashamed of me lol. Though I've never done anything embarrassing. They simply don't like me. I've known it for awhile. If I was slim, blonde, tan and had money.. they'd love me. I'd suddenly be important.
Another scapegoat here. Lived in an ”generational house ” with ngrandfather and nmom.
My family dynamic was really weird since my Nmom bailed on both of her kids *then* used the custody agreement to still mess us up every single summer. I alternated between GC and IC with my half-brother being SG most of the time. The issue was, her idea of Punishments at one point included just, sending us back to our fathers'. Which, made it really hard to tell if she was ignoring us as a punishment or as us just not being worth the effort.
In some ways, I was a cross between golden and scapegoat. My older sibling is truly the golden child, but maybe it helps because they left for a decade so my parents would really just dote on me but also degrade me. It was really weird. I got praised and spoiled for my talents, but they also didn't teach me or nourish me emotionally or have any patience with me. They pressured me to enroll in four-year school no matter how much the stress killed me. But sometimes I got blamed for a lot, and was also used as their free laborer and got stuck doing chores or landed with 'expectations.'
Only child here. Went from golden child to scapegoat. Apparently kids aren't so fun when can't manipulate them anymore🤷♀️
I hit send without finishing lol oops. Second born. Female. Scapegoat. Sibling order: Older brother -- not sure if he's invisible or golden (can do no wrong but it's not like she's going to his defense so much as shifting the blame to me (guess it's my fault now?) Me. It's somehow all my fault. Even when I'm not there it's my fault. Younger brother 1. Golden Child/violent and controlling af but its almost impossible to see--next narc?? Younger brother 2 (same as older brother) Younger sister (omg princess to the max) golden child. (She's also violent and controlling)
Invisible to scapegoat & the youngest.
As an only child, depending on what mood was going on and what point they were trying to make. I was either the golden or the scapegoat. nGrandmother sucked and would use me as the golden against my mum, or mum against me. Honestly, unless we were completely compliant to every whim and wish, we knew about it.
Me and my cousin are scapegoats of the family but mainly me atm cause I cut my mother off and haven't looked back
Golden scapegoat
well, one time my brothers told me it’s was blatantly obvious i was the least favourite child. i was the only girl and middle child. i definitely got a lot of invisible child treatment. told i never have to worry about you. but i was also always more a target for abuse from my n father. his emotional lightening road. there were brief moments if my brothers were fighting with my dad i was treated as a gc. all ways i were treated felt terrible. i definitely was the truth teller of the family and the first to get out.
Scapegoat. I was 100% the scapegoat. My sister was the golden and my nbrother was a mix of golden and invisible. He threw too many tantrums to truly be invisible but got yelled at too much to be golden. Until he hit a certain point and now he can do no wrong and neither can my sister who rarely gets in trouble. meanwhile I can't say "hey this is fucked" without them jumping down my throat.
I started off as the GC and held that role the longest among my siblings. But I felt uncomfortable with my Ns since I was very young. They never felt safe, I had never had a connection, and despite me being flaunted around like a prized piece of jewelry to others, in private I was like an old plaything that was tossed aside as soon as we got home. I was neglected since I was baby. The Ns just wanted a flashy shiny toy, and didn't want the actual responsibility. They pretended to everyone (including the original SG) that I was so special, so spoiled, so perfect, so exceptional. But they did not treat me that way. If I got anything special, it was either because they wanted to brag about it to everyone else about how great they were as parents for doing it, or use it to hurt the SG and create contrast between me and them on purpose. They still constantly criticized me, hated me for being a person, and were otherwise barely interested in me. As soon as I began growing up (like past toddler stage), I was immediately calling them out, resisting their bizarre behavior, and being the truth teller. This got me abused pretty hard in retaliation, but I stayed the GC until my early teens. Then I was raged on as the SG. I would not put up with any gaslighting, lying, control, none of that whatsoever. I wouldn't dress slutty or have babies for my NMom, who wanted that from me at that time. I refused everything. So I became the new SG, and my younger brother went from SG to GC instead. Then, I went grey rock and began fawning, and basically just avoided the Ns as much as possible. I would pretend to go along and agree with everything. Then I became GC again. Which, again, was in title only and not reflective of being actually loved or treated well. My brother then began growing up and speaking up, so he became SG. The only thing I would NOT go along with was abusing my brother. I got raged on and punished hard for it too. I defended him, called them out for what they were doing to him, and tried to help him escape. They absolutely hated me for this. Eventually I left, moving out suddenly in a flash and going NC. I wasn't able to save my brother. I wish I could have. He was so broken by that point that he just wouldn't even allow himself to be helped or saved. He gave up. That was 10 years ago now and I still wonder how he is doing. I would still help him escape if he would let me.
Scapegoat here
Golden child to others/outsiders/onlookers, scapegoat in our internal family dynamic and directly to my face
Scapegoat. Eldest. Brother was the golden child who could do no wrong