The 5 Stages of the Scapegoat: From Family Shadow to Radical Acceptance
If you have identified as the scapegoat in a narcissistic family system, you know that this role is not static—it is a journey. In my 14 years of collective experience as a Registered Social Worker and therapist, I have observed that breaking free from this dynamic follows a specific trajectory.
Drawing on the "Theory of Change" model, Robert Kegan’s developmental psychology, and Murray Bowen’s family systems theory, I want to map out the territory of the scapegoat. Understanding these five stages can help you locate where you are on your path to healing and deprogramming from the "cult-like" family system.
Stage 1: Naivety and Embeddedness (Pre-Contemplation)
In the first stage, you are in what Robert Kegan describes as being "Subject" to your experience. When you are a child, the family is your universe; their dysfunction is the air you breathe. You cannot see the dysfunction clearly because you are in it.
In this stage, you are likely the "Identified Patient." The narcissistic parent, unable to own their own psychological material or shadow, projects it onto you. This is often an unconscious process known as Projective Identification.
- The Container of the Shadow: You become the carrier of the family’s anxiety. If there is a parent who is "extra crazy," the family emotional unit fuses together to manage that stress, often by selecting one child to blame.
- Normalization: You might have insecurities or behavioral outbursts, but you repress the reality of the abuse. You want to see the good in your parents. You normalize the chaos because you have no other frame of reference.
You are innocent, observing the projection of the parents, but you lack the capacity for rational self-reflection to understand that you are not the problem.
Stage 2: The Awareness Gap and The Geographic Cure (Contemplation)
As you age—typically around 18 or 20—you enter the contemplation stage. You might physically leave the home to go to university or move to a new city. This is what we call the Geographic Cure: trying to fix an internal problem by changing your external location.
You have some awareness that the dynamic is off, but you likely still internalize the blame. You might struggle with anxiety or relationship difficulties and think, "If I just communicate better, they will understand."
The Cycle of Hope and Disappointment
You may visit home for holidays, hoping things have changed.
- Idealization: Things go well for a few days.
- The Trigger: A parent or sibling baits you, or a "narcissistic injury" occurs.
- Devaluation: An outburst happens. The family gaslights you, denying reality or blaming your reaction.
- The Shame Spiral: You leave feeling dysregulated, thinking, "I knew this was going to happen. Why is there always drama?"
Even though you are physically separate, you are emotionally roped back in. You notice the issue, but you still believe the distortions of the family narrative.
Stage 3: Repetition Compulsion and The Crisis (Preparation)
In this stage, you start to see the patterns of your family reflected in the wider world. Sigmund Freud termed this Repetition Compulsion—subconsciously seeking out familiar dynamics (like emotionally unavailable partners or toxic bosses) to try to "fix" the original trauma.
The Crisis Point
Often, this stage is marked by a personal crisis—a job loss, a breakup, or a health scare. You turn to your family for support, but instead of empathy, you are met with:
- Mockery: They belittle your pain.
- Indifference: They treat your crisis as an inconvenience to their superficial lives.
- Toxic "Tough Love": They kick you when you are down.
This is the turning point. You realize that their love is conditional. You are only valuable when you are serving their image or agenda. You begin to see the Pseudo-Mutuality (fake closeness) of the family and realize you are in a competition you can never win.
Stage 4: Taking Action and The Narcissistic Injury (Action)
This is where you stop playing the game. You set hard boundaries, often moving to Low Contact or No Contact.
However, this is also where the Cognitive Dissonance hits the hardest. Intellectually, you know they are toxic. Emotionally, the "child part" of you still misses the fantasy of having a loving family. You have to grieve not just the parents you have, but the parents you never had.
The Narcissist’s Reaction
When you pull away, you cause a narcissistic injury. The system will fight back to get you back into your role:
- Hoovering: They switch to "nice mode," offering shallow apologies, gifts, or warmth to suck you back in.
- Intermittent Reinforcement: Like a slot machine, they give you "breadcrumbs" of love to keep you addicted.
- The Smear Campaign: If hoovering fails, they switch to victimization. They will tell relatives and "Flying Monkeys" that you are unstable, cruel, or the one causing all the problems.
In this stage, you realize that if you re-engage, you are simply providing them with supply—whether positive or negative.
Stage 5: Maintenance and Radical Acceptance
The final stage is Maintenance. You have survived the hoovering attempts, you have weathered the smear campaign, and you are no longer engaging in the drama.
You move from viewing the family as a "Subject" (something you are fused with) to an "Object" (something you can observe from a distance). You can look at their behavior and predict it like a weather forecast without being emotionally destroyed by it.
- Radical Acceptance: You accept that you cannot reason with someone whose reality testing is off. You accept that they may never change.
- Differentiation: You ground yourself in your own reality. You stop outsourcing your self-worth to a "shared fantasy."
- The Logical Family: You build a support system of friends, partners, and professionals who actually honor your growth hierarchy rather than a dominance hierarchy.
Healing is not a linear journey. You may slide back into contemplation or struggle with guilt. That is okay. It takes time to deprogram yourself from a cult-like family system. But as you integrate your inner parts and unburden yourself from the family shadow, you reclaim your life.
Are you ready to stop the cycle and reclaim your reality?
I have created a comprehensive resource to help you navigate this journey, including frameworks to handle the smear campaign and rebuild your sense of self.
