What about a family where all siblings and parents compartmentalize? Any tips? They don't discuss anything controversial, all avoid conflict to the point of no closeness or true caring no matter how much one tries.
Also, I'm curious as to how much experience anyone has had with abusive family systems in which two or more siblings seemingly miraculously develop a close, healthy, intimate relationship in the midst of all of that toxicity. One example would be Gilbert and his oldest sister Amy, and also Gilbert and his younger brother Arnie, in the novel What's Eating Gilbert Grape. The novel is what focuses on the relationship between Gilbert and Amy--the movie skims over that. Also, Gilbert and Arnie's relationship is definitely not perfect because it's quite tainted by ableism (Arnie is intellectually disabled and chronically ill). An even better example would be Celie and her younger sister Nettie in the novel The Color Purple. The girls's stepfather--whom they believe is their biological father until they learn differently as adults--got Celie pregnant twice when she was in her teens. There is a scene where Celie catches him looking at Nettie and so she seduces her stepfather to protect Nettie. That scene was used to establish just how close the sisters were.
@@bonnie_wood6782 I think every toxic family that isn’t called out compartmentalizes and hides away their abusive, toxic sh@t and gets away with it when no one is there (beyond the one person) to speak up.
@@messinalyle4030 What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is one of my favorite movies because of how much I could see my family in it. However, I don’t think it’s a close sibling relationship, it is parentification in the worst way. Gilber has no choice, it’s his family role to keep shit together. In The Color Purple, also a favorite, I felt like either girl could have turned on her sister over a guy at any point of tension because of their desperation to be loved and accepted, but that could totally be my sibling dynamics talking.
You are unfortunately so right. It is a vicious circle. And if you try to give them advice and say to them, seek for help and professional advice, they hate you more and more and do not believe that you just want to help the family to get a better life. They can not imagine that they really are loved from the sibling, that they attack. It is always on a competition level and no together. If you are successful they are in rage and try everything to destroy your good life and your success. It is endless suffering and has the potential to kill very lovely adorable persons, that try everything to do the best for others. When an empath meets an narcisst, the empath is the looser. And nobody prepares children for this stuff. Nobody warns you about this! You understand everything, when it is to late and your life ist completely down and broken. Some siblings live in the end alone, poor and really sick and isolated. It is really very important, to look at this point and help the siblings that get "friendly fire" and toxic shot day by day and nobody believes them. Nobody understands, that this are potentionally can kill you, because you find a exit, expect commiting sucide. Take care for yourself and for others, that do not know about this issues and stand alone and do not know, how they can become happy. In the end it is sometimes the only solution, to go and let them do, what ever they want. You tried everything, everything failed and there is nothing more you can do, just leaving the scene. And this is heartbreaking to loose the family members, one by one and you can not stop this program.
@@cc1k435They actually do. My mother was a teacher, but she would compare me to my older sister, even though we both respected her... As adults sadly we didn't leave the house entirely, but at least we didn't let her harsh words get entirely the best of us.
Absolutely. 2 out if 5 of us kids moved very far away. 2 have continued the cycle feeling entitled and very arrogant in their belief that committing disgusting abuse on their targeted sibling/s is not only acceptable but it is ‘normal’. And certainly justified to do it to the siblings own kids, even before that sibling calls out the toxic dysfunction of the narcissists in the family. Yeah, when my CN sister, who had been wearing a mask as soon as she got engaged at 22, and at 55 years old went straight for my own family members as soon as our mother died, I realized she is truly sick in the head. She was violent and abusive and unsafe to be around unless fully supervised until she was 22, and at 55 she is the same. My husband heard her ‘true ugly’ in our last phone call 2 years ago. My bff saw her ‘true ugly’ growing up and did not like her. Always encouraged me to not go near her. My bff is very smart.👍🏼. It’s unfortunate my older brothers are still being deceived by this pos. At least my kids know she is a pos and will have nothing to do with her as she is once again unhinged and unsafe to be around.
Absolutely!!! My oldest sister and brother were mine..my much older brother even being physically abusive without consequence. How often I wonder ppl ignore sibling abuse..
Yup! I agree with what Patrick said about the dynamic between siblings being more devastating than the relationship with the parents because you feel like you're supposed to be on the same team. And your sibling is usually your first friend in life. Your first peer. And you're part of the same generation.
Yes! My brother was the WORST! And my mother never believed me. He was always the favorite. Now as an adult he's always in trouble for domestic violence
@@carris2scents57 It's terrible! My mom still caters to my brother and he's mentally abusing her. Excuses. Always excuses. He's put his hands on my throat so many times as a teenager and she yelled at him and grabbed him but there was NEVER repercussion. Didn't get kicked out, no cops, nothing. "Let it go, he's your brother and loves you." 😵 NOT LOVE!!! He's not allowed in my life anymore.
I am the youngest, and while I was the "good girl" and "golden child", I also identify as the scapegoat when I started to call out the toxicity in the family, and therefore become the "problem".
I was the opposite... Despite being the youngest, I was the scapegoat and got told how lazy, selfish or irresponsible I was. My older sister was viewed as the golden child in the family. Had the good qualities I never had.
Same here!!!! Younger me was the “golden child” but now that I’m older I’m the “bossy , know it all , controlling, cold hearted, self centered bitch” None of which is accurate even when I was young. I literally supported each brother and attempted to be a positive female tole model since our mother wasn’t interested in doing so.
I can relate 💯! My little brother has been off of the chain when my dad died. Narcissistic mom lets him do anything. He's a recovering heroin addict and my mom took him and my sister to Las Vegas when my little brother turned 30. I didn't do anything for my 40th. My little brother did tell me though that I'm a waste of money. He traumatize my child so much on Christmas that he pooped his pants. He told my son "running from me is not an option" so I stood between he and my son so that my son would know that I will be there to protect him and I won't let him ever put his hands on him or talk that way. I don't want my child to be traumatized like I was with nobody sticking up for me.
My sister gets a good high after finding out she’s hurt me. She will bring up a toy having been thrown at her 40 years ago after trying to ruin any relationship i have.
Same, she sides with my parents, it’s really painful when you feel them all against you..I’m trying to move far away, to another country, so they don’t have me to attack anymore..wish I could watch from afar what’s going to happen
I have issues right now in my life but they’re the only issues in the family, that’s scapegoating right? Heaven forbid someone else has problems and we focus on there’s. The best thing I can do is leave, my brother and sister can take care of my mom when she gets older, I’m not doing any of it
I struggle with being the eldest and therefore the one that remembers my parents' abuse the most. I'm also the only one currently trying to heal from it, and it hurts to see my sister still having a completely normal relationship with my parents as though they didn't destroy literal years of my life. It's hard not to feel betrayed by her behavior as well at times. Thank you again for an incredibly timely video ♥️
I can so relate. I realize now that my sisters protect the abuser and hold me in the same contempt as our Narc father. I was the target of his anger so he could put on a happy face for the rest of the world. I am the only one who has sought therapy for the craziness we grew up with.
@@dnk4559 exactly. I was the scapegoat of both my neglectful narc mother and malignant narcissist father, and my siblings view me as the evil bad older sister for cutting off my parents, so they have all circled the wagon and cut me off.
As a younger sibling that's dealing with an older sister that feels like you do, I can tell you it's heartbreaking from this side too. I'm unable to speak of what happened to my sister and I, but that doesn't mean I don't remember, or that I don't care, or that I'm dismissing what the oldest went through. It doesn't mean that I don't see it, we're just doing what we can to survive. I hope you can heal. I hope all of us viewers can heal, we deserve it.
Same. My brother quit speaking to me 4 years ago. Out of the blue he contacted me via text telling me he once abused my son and liked it. He was apologising and I told him that I have let go of everything in the past and loved him deeply but that he has to find his own healing because I'm doing good to care for me and my kids. I had tried to coach him many times. Well, I blocked him after he reached out this last time and 2 weeks later I heard he'd hung himself on a nature trail near where he worked as a river tour guide. He could not overcome our father's abuse. One of the other last things he told me is that he cannot let go that of the fact that our father never apologized. My heart is broken. I still see him as a little boy. He was so talented.
@@noshame5791oh God. I'm sorry for all of your losses... I also lost my brother to self departure (don't want to be deleted) but the family member who was the adult that was inappropriate to me and other kids twenty years before relative's and other kids at his place of work... His passing was ruled by the medical examiner to be intentionally inflicted... This will be 25 years ago in August and I can't pretend that app of the time since that event has just been more horror to get through because my mom was very close to that sibling of hers and I definitely need more counseling and more time to unpack the devastation I am in even after her own passing nearly three years ago. Sigh.
“Not taking sides is abandoning.” This little gem hit me like a truck :) How many times have we heard, “Oh, everybody loses so much,” as a response to our family disconnection. No one willing to hear our side and show up for US. Really very dismissive.
Exactly. Covert Narcissistic meddler getting caught withholding important information claiming “it’s not her place to let me know” and she didn’t want “to get in the middle” after decades of doing just that, meddling in my life. People who are so ready to accept an accusation on face value without giving the benefit of the doubt & hearing both sides were already primed to want to believe the accuser & the subject’s perspective is irrelevant. Everyone who forms an opinion without hearing my side considers me irrelevant and handled as such.
Almost 6 years ago my son was killed in a traffic accident that was not his fault. He left behind a beautiful wife and 2 children a 5 year old daughter named Emma and a 2 month old son named Will. Emma began having behavior problems very shortly after the accident. She has been way out of bounds with her behavior .Will is almost 6 and he is having attachment issues in the last year. He resembles his daddy so much. He wants to be with me all of the time. Stressors are abound. Her step father blames everything on her even though his daughter is 2 years older and when they get in trouble he always blames Em because his daughter “would never”. I could go on forever but that's not fair to you.
I’ve never found anyone who was the older sibling bullied by their younger sibling. I’ve always felt extremely alone in that. My little brother was my main childhood bully besides my dad, who was a narcissistic misogynist. My little brother learned from “the best“.
This hurts to read, I am sorry that is your experience in this world. Makes me reflect and wonder if my sister feels that way about me. Thank you for sharing this perspective. I often wonder if my ways of dealing with things, have hurt her more than she shares. She shares, we are not totally disconnected but it feels like we might as well be. I fear that level of responsibility, being the younger one i always felt she never cared or could love me, my mistakes were amplified by her, wanting to be the teacher or wanting to introduce me to learning my lesson the loudness came from a place of hatred always it felt like, it lacked empathy, or love, and we just grew apart from the ways we participated in that relationship. In a way i showed up and took the broken traumatic love that was available from my parents, and cut the availability of that love in half. I always struggle with that. My parents would tell me when i was young "your sister would get so mad at you for being so cute as a baby." "she was jealous." These did nothing in helping me connect with her, or put us on equal fields. I feel shame from her, and that shame prevents a lot of healing on my end. I hope you can grow towards a healthier relationship with your younger brother, if that means disconnecting from him I hope you find comfort and love no matter what. If that means my sister does the same towards me, i do hope she can find all the things in the family she creates that i failed to be for her. She doesn't deserve to feel alone, and she certainly didn't deserve the role of being the teacher / healer when she was a child. Someone had to be the parent, it wasn't me, and it wasn't our parents, it was her a lot of the time. That dichotomy really effected our relationship... Sorry for your experience, seriously. I really thank you for sharing it. I need to work toward healing that wounded connection. Her words ring with more weight then other peoples, i respect her so much but woven in that respect is a lot of fear. :(
Eldest of 3 here. I’m 28 and my abuser is my sister who is 25. She’s been emotionally abusive and manipulative for years and plays her cards so well because she knows that if anyone were to hear about a 28 year old man being emotionally abused by his younger sister… apparently just seems like such a ridiculous concept for people to grasp and it’s made finding support so difficult. Just recently back in June of this year I had finally had enough of it and decided to go into her room while she was at work to search for some belongings that I knew she had stolen but was denying and convinced the rest of the family that I was just crazy and had lost or misplaced my things (which this stealing and lying has been going on for years) and when I went in her room that day sure enough I found my laptop, several cell phones I had to keep replacing, and many more things too much for me to even list here. Anyways she came home and found her room had been entered and I was sitting there with all my stuff waiting to confront her with my mom and finally be validated after months of going crazy almost to the point of convincing myself maybe I actually did misplace these things but she immediately became violently aggressive assaulting me with kicks and scratches and trying to push by me to grab the laptop, idk why tbh probably to smash it or something, but I was blocking her and getting my ass kicked as I just had to stand my ground and endure the vicious kicks to my stomach and legs and groin until I had to stop her by getting ahold of her leg and lifting it up so she fell backwards off balanced but she got up and threw an entire shoe rack across the room at me but missed thankfully so I fled to the back yard and phoned the police. But when they got there she had told them I had broken into her room and vandalized/ransacked (she’s a hoarder so her room looks like it’s been ransacked 24/7) and that i was aggressively pursuing her before GRABBING HER AND LIFTING HER BY HER THROAT AND CHOKE SLAMMING HER TO THE GROUND AND STRANGLING HER TO THE POINT OF LOSING CONSCIOUSNESS…. So long story short my diagnosed narcissistic personality disorder sister had me arrested and I spent 3 months in jail and now have a felony charge on my permanent record and I can no longer have residency at my mothers house because my sister is on the lease and has a restraining order and a court ordered no contact order against me so now I’m homeless with no place to live and everything I own is basically untouchable since I can’t step within 300 yards of the house. Not like it matters since I’m sure my sister has already taken full advantage of the situation and me being away has likely helped herself to whatever remaining belongings I had left to my name. Anyways that was a huge rant sorry about that I guess I needed to vent a bit so thanks to anyone who reads this. I wish this sort of thing got more attention and something could be done because it’s far too common to be dismissed. I hope and pray others don’t have to go through this and to those of us that are unfortunate enough I hope and pray for justice and peace for all. Have a blessed day/night wherever you may be everybody. Stay safe ❤
I’m so sorry. It’s terrible to be bullied but just as bad to be ignored and unseen. My husband is the oldest and while he wasn’t abused by his siblings necessarily, his parents are super dysfunctional. The youngest takes advantage of their parents’ serious issues and milks them for everything he can get. The parents baby him and spend their retirement being full-time babysitters to the grandkids and spending thousands of dollars to assuage the youngest child’s every whim. It’s gross.
Well you have just found someone else I'm the oldest. I'd get hit and hit and hit by the middle child . Punched and punched the sick part is my parent would come up and join in all in laughter but you should never punch a child that hard.
@@Whatever.Forever94 what a nightmare ! To my experience never confront or put a narcissist in her/his own shit because they are devil minded. When you realise you are living in such a dynamic just go away. Run for your life. The only justice you will get is the one you will give to yourself from there. No going back, no contact. Take care of yourself and never forget what you learned in such a hard way.
Sibling issues are definitely not talked about enough. Personally our problem is that we don't communicate that much, we're basically strangers or something and it hurts because it's hard expressing emotions in our household because of it
Thank you. ❤ I am the one person in my family who is the truth seeker, who has done the work to recover. I am also the scapegoated child. I'd rather be healthy and alone than stay in the unhealthy family system. 🙏
same... its lonely tho for me, as I vowed never to marry, never be like my mom, never have kids I might abuse like parents did us. Now I'm old & it's lonely! (Still don't want them in my life tho!) 😌
OMG when he said 'the main perpetrator may be a sibling who exhibits sociopathic or highly manipulative behavior' I had to pause the video. I was blown away. Maybe I've been doing therapy wrong because I've never heard this addressed or expressed so clearly. The focus tends to be on abuse or neglect from parents, which is understandable. However, in my family all the roles shifted around my brother's personality. This included my mom, who seemed more like she was in the trenches with the rest of us rather than the parent. When Patrick said that, I felt like he opened the door of my childhood home and peeked inside, naming the thing that we never talk about.
Agree. My middle brother was the abusive sibling and the one who garnered all the attention with his delinquent behavior. We were all still very close but knew our roles. He never would talk about it. The baby bro and I do. That’s the healthiest.
“In a healthy family system, being loved or seen or valued isn’t at the expense of another child.” 🤯🤯🤯 That’s what my parents did! All the time. And then if I would ask them not to treat me that way, my mom would always say, “I’m not going to choose you over your brothers.”
Same here, but the fact of the neglect was never acknowledged out loud; I was left to figure it out on my own. Mom is now in her 80s, my bullying older brother lives half a continent away, and she depends on me for many things. She asked the other day why I am so nice to her, given how she's ignored, at best, and often participated in my abuse. I told her that the way she treated me is about her and nothing else, and how I treat her is about me and nothing else; I am attentive and kind to her because that's who I choose to be, period. It does not compute, at all, to her, but it no longer matters to me that she understands.
I am the eldest. HSP and an artist. I moved away decades ago. For some reason I am the only child who named the abuse. When I was a teen I told my parents I loved being a big sister. They made sure to destroy that connection. It is so weird to observe abuse and see the rest of the kids make excuses for the abusers. One sister was beaten daily and as an adult when I said "Mom abused you" her response was that she deserved the beatings. My heart breaks for my sisters. I no longer contact any of my family members.
I hear you. I’m the oldest daughter of 7, with an older brother. I “cleaned up the messes” my parents made and nurtured my siblings like a mother. My Dad was either absent or controlling and sometimes violent and unpredictable. Mom was often emotionally absent, sometimes violent, and often unpredictable. They both resented their children and were very stingy with money, strict with their rules, and unwilling to properly provide for our needs consistently, blaming us for growing and needing food and clothing. They kicked my youngest brother out at age 16 and I brought him to live with me and my family for about a year. Later, he moved back into our parents’ home where the abuse continued. I since moved 1200 miles away. This same brother came to visit me and told me during that visit that when he becomes a parent, he wouldn’t parent his kids like I do mine (focusing on healthy boundaries and secure attachment), and he wouldn’t do anything different than our parents did. Unprompted he told me this. Which says what they all talk about without me there, it just trickles out like that. And sad to see my efforts to save my siblings were fruitless in the face of such trauma bonding. I got out, they can learn from it if they choose. I hope they heal so their descendants can benefit from their choices. It’s been devastating to survive and not be able to save anyone else. I wish they all could, or would, choose to be free but they are too trauma bonded and willing to settle for the roles they each have within the family and the codependent dynamics they’ve learned into their adulthood.
@@naturefleur2062 You are such a good person. Evil begets evil. He got stuck in that loop. God bless you and your family. I wish you a happy and fulfilling life!
My older brother was cast as the “problem child” and I was the child who enabled my parents mistreatment of him. I was so mad at him for so long for “disrespecting” my parents. It wasn’t until I had children of my own that I realized that both of us were used by my parents to fulfill a narrative that we simply did not fit into. I wish we could turn back time and form a bond, but so much time has passed and he rightfully shouldn’t have seen me as trustworthy or compassionate. The things I know now….Anyway, I sent him this video and told him that I’m not mad anymore and that I love him. I hope he knows. Thanks for posting this video.
There's no turning back time, but you took step by posting the video and for potential healing so you can both possibly move forward. You still had a way to contact him: that alone seems like a good sign as in not totally cut off.
@@paxsmileTo make a formal apology, his brother has to be on the same page. This brother took the time to send his brother a video and explain the situation. If the contacted brother has any common sense and emotional maturity, he will then reach out to receive his apology. An apology happens not on the answering machine, but in person and should be heartfelt! Saying you're wrong is part of an apology!
I intuit there is a Law in life. A spiritual Law, the Law of Love. What these narcissists have done in their self-indulgent abuse, goes against this Law, and I know in my heart, they will pay eventually, they will be judged and have to feel everything they have inflicted, and it will be a horrific revelation of their lovelessness that will haunt them.
I never wanted to see this in my siblings and it is one of the worst feelings in the world when you realize the hurt they’ve caused and how disappointing to know that nobody loved you in the entire family system and nobody knew how, we just kept each other company in fear, terror, pain and suffering.
Oh, yes. Nobody loved anyone. We pretended when we were in society. I was so confused, but I knew that we weren't the same when we were at home. And I was terrified most of the time.
Thanks for saying this...i am finally realizing this sad reality as one of the outcomes of my sisters recent death...and i have been wondering for years why i feel work , social circles, neighbors..".out to get me" ...used to feel mistrust of my world and it has escalated
7:30 1. The attacking sibling 9:22 2. The sibling who never looked back 11:09 3. The sibling who is enabled or protected 13:10 4. The sibling who runs from the reality of it. 15:25 5. The sibling who needs parenting from you. 17:25 6. The lion's den - mutual hatred and dysfunction 19:25 7. The diplomatic sibling 21:00 8. The oblivious golden child
Great work! Even I am able to recapitulize the most important facts of Patrick's wonderful video now! Thanks a lot, we trauma survivors can do a world of good and help each others. I love the comment section, btw. 🥰
I have recently discovered the root of my mental illness. I never realized I had a traumatic childhood until I discovered the term “Childhood Emotional Neglect.” My life is a mess right now. I’m so behind in college and struggling to get through the day. Your videos have opened up so many doors for me and are slowly helping me begin to process things on this long journey.
I hope your life is getting a little easier now. It was in college that I first started counseling. They didn't call it "Childhood Emotional Neglect" then, but that's surely what I have dealt with all my life too. Ive been in and out of therapy for 40 years. Keep going! It will be worth it.
You are NOT behind in college. You are just dealing with too much at once. Slow down a bit if you need to-there is no race in life-no prize at the end. If a class isn’t FOR you-just drop it-or decide to stick it out but don’t worry about the grade. If you worry about your GPA -take a couple easy A classes to make it up-but honestly most jobs never ask about the transcript and don’t read it if they get it. So Relax a bit. Your life is on YOUR schedule…
I nearly flunked out. Struggled and changed majors. I should have gotten help and I might have dropped or gotten extensions. I recommend finding help with talking to teachers and study groups and grounding. To battle anxiety or other mindful issues meditate by focusing on your body one part at a time. 5 senses 5 seconds, breathe… brush teeth… I’m eager to hear what you have to say. Not literally. In the sense that I’m happy to hear how and what you grow to do in life. And I’m all ears about ways to do that. My issue stems mostly from generational trauma of my father. When people tell you who they are believe them. The book Great Expectations comes to mind. Mostly because the significance arose about 5 years and 3 versions later. If you are not familiar it is a good read. Remembering it feels like the writer explaining my life in analogy. I do find reading in particular helps. Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide and Robert Asprin, Myth Adventures are funny.
What is missing for me is the “responsibile sibling” - I was the oldest of 5 (well my twin brother is my age but intellectually disabled). As the oldest child I was forced to take care of my siblings and the housekeeping/cooking. My parents are both narcs-mom neglectful narc; dad malignant narc. As I aged (50 plus) I rejected the job of the “responsible” person and cut my toxic, needy aging parents off. My siblings finally stepped up to take care of my aging needy toxic parents, but resented my abdication of total responsibility, and decided to cut me off because I refused to do it all. We now never talk.
@@CristinaAcosta yes, you are right. But I’ve bent over backwards to try to contact all of them, and I’m blocked. They’ve even blocked me from contacting our mother in her Alzheimer’s nursing home.
They’ve sided with our father who singled me out for naked beatings (I consider that sexual abuse, considering I felt sexually humiliated even as a 4 year old) and my self absorbed mother who would ignore me for weeks if she came home from work and saw a footprint in the carpet from my siblings.
I know, that sounds cray cray, but that bitch had a problem with footprints in the carpet of her beautiful, expensive home, which we could not afford, so my alcoholic sadistic malignant father was mad and beat me naked and and and. It was a giant shit show and I know everyone here fucking gets it. FUCK. Love you all. XO
@@CristinaAcosta Absolutely true. But you know what? I don’t deserve their abuse. They considered me the parent (age 12). My mother figured out how “competent” I was at age 7. My father did not give a shit but came home periodically to sloppily kiss me on my lips (gross) and tell me how proud he was (only when I’d lost weight after he stopped beating me naked). Such fun
My sister is the “run from reality” and “diplomatic” sibling, and I’m the “problematic truth teller.” It breaks my heart knowing the person I have always felt closest to can’t allow herself to see how toxic our family system can be, and that her intense people pleasing keeps her locked into this role of continuously managing and caring for our parents (especially once they get old enough to need assisted living). For my own sanity, I have to look elsewhere to feel validated and supported 😢
I’m in the exact same situation. My older siblings are also those roles, and I had to put up with years of guilting shaming and crossing my boundaries to restore contact with the abusive parent thru them. Every time I wanted to see them, or talk. It was truly so tiring. I’m heartbroken because being estranged from family is super taboo in my culture/community, and I’m grappling with the fact they’re not salvageable. They constantly gaslight me even going so far to say the abuse didn’t happen and I’m making up a “ narrative”. When I named examples, like our dad hurting me and threatening to kill me, they say “ he’s mentally ill”, forgive him, or you deserved. How would a child EVER warrant that? Being called the selfish one and having it flipped on you as causing the fractured situation is unbearable lies.
I was the youngest. A girl with two brothers 7 and 9 years older. I had emotional, physical and psycological abuse from mum, dad and one older brother. The older brother brought his friends around to molest me when I as 10. Told me i would be murdered if I said anything. In my 40s I told my mum. She has ganged up with my shit brother and now my dad. The emotional and psycological beating continues. So I stepped away. And now I am selfish! To the scapegoats out there. Best wishes to you in your recovery. Xxx
@@musicandpoetry_8 Exactly! I never felt my "home" was a safe place to be. Having this kind of "family" is s living hell. When we're children we can't defend ourselves. They make you feel weak, stupid, and all the horrible things they wanted to label you. I always thought this was normal but seeing other families, behaviors, loving families I understand what I lived and still live is not normal but it's not my fault.
It was a huge relief when I finally stopped trying to get them to get it and focused entirely on my own healing and my own relationship with my younger siblings
As the sensitive scapegoat, lost and neglected child of a narcissistic personality disordered mother, I went no contact with her after 50 years of abuse. All of my siblings won’t go to therapy to realize our childhood trauma. They have their own survival skills but they are definitely deluded. The abuse our mother caused was traumatic and illegal My siblings think I’m crazy, depressed, thanks to my manipulative mother, who has done a smear campaign against me but I’m the only one who is honest, kind and authentic.. Thank you so much for your informative videos. You have helped me and supported me tremendously. You give so much hope to the lost children/scapegoats who just wants to understand why we were targeted as an unwanted child. Narcissistic personality disordered parents will murder your soul.
sensitive scapegoat is the most painful role to be in. I felt everything and was told I was crazy for seeing it, tried to call it out and had to repress my sensitivity and intelligence to survive
I’m the only one who’s worked on things and I finally “divorced” them. I don’t want it anymore and it’s ok to say, “No, I don’t like this and I don’t want this in my life.” Choose self love, healing and growth. 😊❤
I was mentally, emotionally and on some occasions physically abused by my older sister who is 10 years older, especially during early childhood and my teen years, and well into adulthood. Though I may understand the reasons why it occurred, I have not forgiven her. Especially since she is older and always acts like she knows everything. The saddest thing is that my family is such toxic trash with zero emotional intelligence but I’m the youngest and the one with the most emotional intelligence (not that much but way more than them). I was and still am CONSTANTLY silenced when needing to make my point across, yet they’re always looking for my advice when it benefits them. I hate my family. This is the first time I’ve ever expressed it. It took a long time for me to realize the effects of all I’ve been through it’s sad but feels good to get it out.
Literally one week after the death of our narcissistic mother, my 60-year old sister started a warm relationship with me. She undoubtedly had not wanted to risk losing favor with our mother.
If the person has lied to you more than once, then take that shit as a sign of that they have zero respect for you and absolutely will do it again and again if you allow for it.
My sister & I fought constantly growing up. I always thought it was because that is what our parents modeled for us in the home, and then our mom & step-dad again, but I am 110% sure we were also venting anger towards our parents that we weren’t permitted to express appropriately at the time. My mind was just blown!
I have watch this happen with my adult in-laws family and their siblings after the parents died. Wow this video was such an eye opener to realizing that these adults were never permitted to be angry or frustrated at the parents. Hugs relationships are not always easy. ❤
It was eye-opening for me, too, about my sister. I've always been told that 'siblings do that'. Even my good parent would say, when we watched movies and I wondered why siblings were always friends on TV, that it was more realistic for siblings to fight than to be friends. I've realized later that it probably was more severe than "normal" sibling fights, but it never occurred to me that it could actually be a trauma response.
7:01 The attacking sibling 9:20 The sibling who never looked back 11:00 The protected sibling 13:10 The sibling who runs from reality 🐢 15:30 The sibling who needs parenting from you 17:25 The lion's den 🌙🎀 19:25 The diplomatic sibling 🐢 21:00 The oblivious golden child
... one sociopathic manipulative behaviour? hereditary or pathology coming from the family? Yes, to both! It's the dark triad and is coming from my twin brother ! me being a 55 yo woman now makes my biggest nightmare! And btw, there are a sis and a "little " bro also! Love this guy and his videos!
Both of my siblings completely ignored me , for years, when I reached out to them about the narcissistic abuse I was experiencing from my mother and enabled father. The betrayal was absolute.
I am sorry..and I can relate. Both of my Brothers were kind to me…sadly both have passed and I miss them. My Oder sister, however, at 64 yrs old continues to resent me because I lived a more social and outgoing life than she did when we grew up. She was self conscious and isolated herself from participating in activities. Over the years she has enjoyed making hurtful comments about me and hateful insults whenever she had the opportunity . Recently (3 months ago) she lashed out at me and hung up on me when called her and told her I worried about her being so isolated because she STILL fears Covid. She refuses to attend parties, dinner invitations, or travel with her husband and their friends when invited to go. Anyway, she attacked me - told me it was none of my business and hung up the phone on me. I haven’t spoken to her since. I have no intention of ever reaching out to her again. Frankly, I don’t miss her…not one bit. I’ve suffered her vicious attacks for far too long. If I never see her again I’m fine with that. Sad…but true.
I am the sibling that never looked back. My siblings brushed off our mother's narcissistic abuse, so I had no use for them. TO this day my siblings tell me that I should "get over it". I remind them of he past and that I will never forget what happened. I was also the scapegoat. My golden child older sister grew up to be a narcissist and destroyed her daughter's lives by treating them the same way our mother treated us. I warned my older sister for YEARS that she was ruining her kids. She shrugged it off and called me dramatic. Well, her daughter had two kids and she is ruining their lives in the same way her mother ruined hers. Generational curse ACTIVATED!! I was right about them all, and don't gaf about the dumpster fire they have created for themselves.
Left home aged 17 due to being the scapegoated kid of 5. On one occasion I stopped speaking to our father for 2 years while living under same roof after he d badly beaten my mother again. I was then the reason he got angry and lashed out. I finally walked out after it came to final physical standoff between me and him. I told him he d never see me again. And meant it. The trauma of leaving my family behind however had had massive influence on my life. Have since found out couple other sibling don't talk either due to our father. 25 years later....mother still with him also. Ive stayed single for years and chose not to have kids. Battled anxiety depression my whole life. I left because I didn't want my life to be as it was...but that came with a whole other set of unprepared situations. Since found out other siblings don't speak also. So incredibly destructive...but bio father still making the family all about him. I wish other survivors the absolute best in their recoveries.
Did you try therapy? You should or else you left for nothing. You speak as though your life is over...or as though you are still the victim. You can't be the victim and victor. This probably comes across harsh though it isn't meant to but you need to cut ties and focus on yourself and learn to love yourself. To hell with the "family" and siblings. This is your life. Don't waste it.
💔 Somehow we were told about my great grandfather that abandoned my grandpa & his siblings & mom when he was 11 , resulted in grandpas alcoholism which resulted in my dad having a void to which he had no 'Patrick' or help with that childhood neglect... here I am now just became a grandma & want to earnestly help my 19 yr old & 24 yr old boys to unpack their own hurts from me hooking up with their dad who has done no work of HIS own & chose to become villainous. Um didn't mean to leave this with you so many relatable comments ,I get those 'other problems' that come & heart ache over those we leave behind ... watching my mom get bulldozed caused her to take on a new personality just to survive was awful.
I look at it like learning how to parent yourself correctly, because your bio parents didn't. We're delayed in our development because of the abuse, but not a lost cause, especially because we're still here AND we're AWARE of the harm that was done to us. 🌹
I really identify with being the sibling that never looked back. I feel like I should be there for my little sister who is still in the toxic system being abused, but just talking to her reminds me of all the trauma and everything I used to hate about myself when I lived with them. I used to be someone else because of the trauma. It hurts to remember it all.
I saw this comment and relate 110%. Im the older sister who broke away 3 years ago from my family. It caused them pain and they lashed out on my younger sister. I want to be there for her but I feel like I cant because it is painful for both of us.
I feel like that little sister, I am a little sister actually. Maybe that's why my brothers don't talk to me about almost anything substantial. They were not raised to know how to talk introspectively, I had to teach myself and be my own emotional support system, so I can talk to myself and be here with myself through all this. It really hurts to have had to accept that to many siblings, they are just people who we had to compete with for attention and love growing in the same environment. I obviously understand why you don't want to retrigger yourself or compromise your safety, you deserve to be safe. And in ideal world that we deserve, there should have been other systems in place to help your sister, like accessible therapy or shelters or healthcare. I am that little sister still trapped in a toxic abusive system, and I don't know how or when I will get out but I hope it's sooner rather than later. I hope we all get the help we desperately need and deserve.
@@UnicornUniverse333 you sound like an extraordinary individual to have experienced what u have and to achieve the self awareness you have gained. I actually don't believe many on here express even a tiny percentage of the pain and trauma they have and still continue to deal with due to the shame affiliated to it. There is power in being able to remove yourself from a situation like this. But the real power comes from what u do next. Most don't actually do very well. But due to the guilt/shame complex never admit it. I'm admitting it. My life's a mess at 43. I have wonderful attributes, but terrible flaws Resulting from what's happened. It's easy to go through life remaining a victim, believing everyone's out to get you. But strength comes from acknowledging that, and understanding there are good people in the world. The most important thing is the way the world appears...is pointless...unless we deal with looking at ourselves, accepting and loving ourselves regardless. Because we project this.We are worth it. God made us extraordinary. It's just a case of believing it, especially after so much trauma. You are worth it.
I had this experience this past weekend with my brother the day after MY WEDDING!! We both felt the same way but had different reasoning for it.. we never had that type of admission with each other before. I hope we can work out our differences.
This video was extremely timely. The other night right before I went to bed it hit me like a ton of bricks. I've gone low contact with my 4 sisters. 3 of them text me sporadically and always about superficial things. I've had to cut off all contact with one of my sisters who is the "lions den". That one hurts the most. I always thought we were close. Within the past 2 years I have had mental health crisis and called this sister for support. Both times she made it about herself or just get angry. She would send verbally abusive texts. Finally during our last text session I had to say " this conversation isn't serving me well." And just stopped responding. This was almost a year ago.. My therapist reminded me that her words are thoughts and not facts. Her anger is at my parents directed at me. My older and youngest sisters are the "don't want to go there" and let's keep up the facade types. I've been grieving these losses for a long time but especially lately. Sometimes it comes out when I least expect it. I am the only one in therapy and the scapegoat who walked away. Thank you, Patrick for all of your videos. They are so very validating. And thank you to everyone for letting me share this comment. Blessings to all on your journey to healing.
@Miss Morgan Rae Thank you so much for your kind, supportive words ❤. I'm so grateful for Patrick's videos and everyone's comments. I don't feel like I'm living out on an island all alone dealing with all of the mind effing mess I went through. It's like the title I think of either a book or article, " Wait, I'm not crazy! I just grew up in a dysfunctional family." It's sad that so many of us are having to pick up the pieces of our lives that were utterly shattered from of our n't pretty " a quote from my case manager. It sounds so cliche but it's truly " One day at a time" for me. Blessings to all and thanks for letting me share 🙏
@@CoraFrances Dear Gretchen! You are not crazy❣ Reality is built on the responses we receive from the outside. This is the very basic of reality. Denying facts and experiences are abusive and cruel. It is taking away the necessary information to process your life, your pain and suffering. Validation is such an awesome relief. I know what you feel when you wrote: I am not crazy! I know exactly why. Unfortunately I had a therapist that I emailed the exact same sentence to. Some years later she said: they are just human... So goes your relief, self trust, self respect and the feeling of being worthy to be a person out of the window. Will not go to therapy there again... I wanted to write for you to let you know: I was listening and I absolutely understand your unjust abuse. I absolutely understand that you deserve so much more! You are smart, sensitive, strong and WORTHY for every single thing any other human being deserves to feel whole! I wish I can do more for you to know that your feelings are valid and to help you heal. Sending love and deep, deep compassion ❣ I had to come back an hour later to add this: I hope it doesn't seem patronizing. Without any doubt: I have been projecting. I am projecting what I have been feeling after long and devastating narcissistic abuse. Mental, financial and spiritual. Total isolation, triangulation and painful scapegoating. Character assassination and lying, so you are not even able to heal. There is nobody to "mirror" you, the real you, not this villain who is "so mean for setting up boundaries" and refuses to accept her place on the bottom without any human rights. If you feel I was patronizing, I am sorry. I was just validating my own feelings because it seemed you have been denied having relationships on healthy, non pathological bases with mutual respect and healthy boundaries.
@@tahwsisiht hello. I don't feel like you were patronizing at all. This feels like a safe space for people to share. I'm learning very slowly how important it is to validate ourselves, but receiving it from others is so empowering. I truly appreciate you sharing and being vulnerable to offer what you have to say. We didn't get that opportunity growing up ( or I didn't, I don't mean to speak for others). I'm going to retype what got cut out of my original post: my case manager told me when I was having a crisis and big time triggered, "healing isn't pretty. " that was so validating in and of itself- as strange as that may sound. For all of talk of healing, and maybe this sounds naive of me, but yeah realizing it isn't all sunshine and roses and like you just wake up one day and say " okay all better now" like you only just scraped your knee or something. I get angry and frustrated and want to say ," could someone just give me a script here!" But there isn't one, everyone's journey to healing is unique. I will always be grateful not only for Patrick's videos, but all of you beautiful souls out there sharing and supporting. There are no words to describe how much that means to me. Thank you for letting me share.
I grieved the relationships I didn't have with my siblings, I am probably the sibling that never looked back. I am now 30 and trying to recultivate those relationships without the influence of our parents. Two have responded in kind, but my step-siblings are still distant. I look forward to the day we can connect without the toxicity.
I tried this with a group chat. My oldest brother is still the bully I knew as a child. I don't want someone in my life who is going to take their anger out on me because I'm the only girl.
I hope you will succeed. ❤️ But I am afraid it's will be an uphill battle. For myself I am working on accepting that my siblings are unable to free themselves from mother's influence. (My sister came with me to my therapist for a joint session. She started with how hard and unseasonably mother was with me growing up. Then she went on explaining why I had it coming because of my horrible behaviour) So if you are unable to"succeed" remember it's not on you ❤️
@@lilletrille1892 being the only girl can be tough. My twin brother still has a one sided rivalry with me because of how we were treated as children. I get that he wasn't treated fairly but it's not my fault.
You don't know what bull they may have been told about you that might colour their view. Take it slowly, my rebuild has been slow over the last 4 years but when our parent had an accident last year we were forced to communicate directly and have some frank conversations that I don't think we could have had before I did work on myself. Sometimes emergencies strip away the facades and you're forced to confront things. Obviously I don't wish a stressful emergency on you, I just wanted to let you know that it's a gradual process because you're not just building new, you're healing from old too. Best love xx
@@KatieM786 I am both sorry for what happened to your parents and happy it lead to a better relationship with your siblings. My father died in August 20 and the three weeks I spent in my home country was a long list of big sister reminding me, in her subtle ways, that I don't count. Little brother never spoke out against her, nor did he offer me the information sister stated I couldn't have.
I was The Golden Child and it was horrible. I had to please my mother in everyway or face brutal rejection by my mother. I was either the best or the worst. I actually took up for my siblings behind the scenes. I saw their pain and felt guilt and responsible for them. I felt I had to try to please and save everyone. So I inevitably failed. The cost to myself was to this day I struggle with feeling a separate identity and with knowing how to set boundaries to protect myself. Each sibling lived their own special hell. But my siblings treat me as if I am my mother. They can't see me as an individual person. They don't even know me. Nobody does, including myself. I have been hospitalized to prevent suicide. At 55 I had to go on total disability, as I was so depressed that I was no longer able to function on a daily basis. I have not given up. Receiving TMS and beginning trauma treatment. My point is I would not have wanted to be abused the way my siblings were but no more than the way I suffered as The Golden Child. The difference is that no one seems to acknowledge the pain of being so lucky to have been chosen for this rule. The way I and my siblings acknowledge their suffering. God help the lucky Golden Child. I haven't been able to figure out who she is
I’m so damaged from narcissistic abuse and my PTSD is real and debilitating. Now I’m older my kids are grown and our relationships are nonexistent. We are all together yet apart. There is competitiveness contempt and hurt.
My little brother was violent. I'm 9 years older than him, and he started attacking me when he was 3, biting, lunging, scratching, screaming. My parents were neglectful, they didn't want to deal with him so told me to figure it out. Mom suggested he wouldn't attack me so much if I didn't react so hilariously, or if he knew I was stronger than him. I was too scared I'd hurt him, I just wanted him to stop, I'd hold him down crying and begging for him to stop. Eventually he'd run out of energy and stop trying to attack me. It happened at least once a day and was exhausting. He's almost an adult now, and I'm so proud of the person he's becoming. I don't blame him for the violence (he's not violent anymore), my mom hit us and threw things at us and destroyed our things, and she was the worst towards him. He stays with me for weeks at a time whenever I can afford it. It's painful though, he doesn't acknowledge the abuse we went through, and doesn't remember most of his childhood. Should I try to talk about it with him? Would that help or just hurt more?
I am not a professional but I just send information to them and allow them to read/watch it and if they want to discuss it then move forward. But just be there one day they may be ready for help finding a therapist or knowing what steps to take and so on.
I am not a therapist either, but agree with Grace Sweeney (comment above) His body and subconscious will not forget the abuse, it will eventually come through. Sounds like you will be there when it happens and he needs you.
I think you should wait to talk about it when he is out of the family house for good. It can be hard to accept reality when he is still on the toxic environment. But I'm not a professional
@@wyass4722 I agree. In my case, I was unable to let myself use the word "abuse" until I was about to move out. That cloak of ignorance helped me survive.
I sound like your little brother. I have alot of repressed memories but i had the feelings of the abuse and neglect. I left the house and drama, joined the military, went to university and lived my life. I didnt want to talk about healing from my pass because i had other pertinent things that i had to and wanted to deal with. Only until 29 was i interested in remembering and that's when i reached out to my other siblings and we'd talk about the past. They'd help me remember
I want to thank Patrick and everyone who has commented on this video. Though we may be in different places, I appreciate hearing everyone’s input as the oldest sister of five siblings of toxic parents. We all had different but equally shitty experiences, and we all hurt. Xo to all of you.
@@csviolin0516 Right?! We are strong, good people. We may have made grave mistakes, but we pick ourselves up and keep going. We matter, even if our parents and siblings have decided otherwise. None of us asked for this sh#t! We’re doing the best we can, searching online looking for help to feel better, and be better. At least we are trying. Kudos to us! 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰😘😘😘😘
are we all the same? maybe but my golden child sister was so perfect and pretty and popular who would want to hate on her? she never really got abused i was the one that did so my sister will tell me that we didn't live in an abusive household shes not lying that was her experience and im in the twilight zone.
Scapegoating doesn't work. You are never responsible for the actions of those who actually caused the harm. You can't put your sins off onto a goat and send it to die in the desert. You still have the fact that you're the perpetrator if you've done such heinous things (not you, personally...just speaking in general).
This was great to hear. I am in my 70’s and going to start therapy at my doctor’s suggestion. He believes I may have PTSD from childhood trauma. Things I have not thought about for decades have come back to haunt me. I truly thought I had dealt with them and don’t understand why they are affecting me now.
As a child that grew up in foster care, separated from my sibling who is now full of rage, I am so grateful for you and the time you take with us subscribers. Thank you.
Man, where do I start? My oldest & only sister was parentified & "escaped" early. I don't remember much of her in our childhood & she now makes up stories about what it was like. She is now the keeper of the castle as she is the cosigner for our father's finances & he calls her for anything he may need. Even though we all live in the same town, she scapegoats me, or did, for her ongoing issues. Her husband is a grumpy over-drinker, she has dated & now is married to drug addicted or alcoholic men only. But if it looks good from the outside: a Neurosurgeon & now married to an attorney, then it must be good! Her only child, my niece has had two DUI convictions. Her mother enables her as well by bailing her out & never setting limits. I am now estranged from my niece as well due to my sister's bad mouthing of me. My sister & I are now estranged. My oldest brother was the perpetrator of cruelty. Of course he was also scapegoated by our father & he in turn scapegoated me. He is an angry, abusive lost man now. The golden child died in an auto accident when I was 17, he was 19 & home visiting for the holidays when it happened. My youngest brother was the lost child & was often infantalized. Financially suported by our parents & allowed to live at home long after our father had kicked me out. Our mother died 3.5 years ago after a ten year addiction to opiates. Of course they were prescribed by her rheumatologist, so it was okay. I was the only sib to confront her about her drug use. She had been a counselor in a methadone maintenance clinic for 20 years prior to her retirement & addiction. Currently I am the sole sib in recovery from ALL of this.
@@kathymc234 you need to reread what I wrote. BIG difference between being RX'd opioids for pain & being an opioid addict taking way too large of a dose for your size & weight. No where in my comment do I address her pain or lack thereof.
I was/ am the sibling that never looked back. I went away to uni and hardly went home. Definitely did and sometimes still do hold my brother at arms length. This past year was the first time I actually worked with a therapist to acknowledge my own trauma, to name it as such and begin to process. I have found connection with my brother again through doing this work!
I am also the one that never looked back. I grew up in poverty and drug abuse and I ran away because it was the only way I would ever get out. My sister married and keeps having kids despite her and her husband never holding down a job. I have to keep my distance from her because all she wants from a relationship with me is a meal ticket. Thanks for sharing your story.
All 3 of the older siblings I grew up with were the attacking type, the 1st example. Made it so intensely hard to grasp reality, really crazy making because they were all essentially my parents and told me from the start that the abuse was normal and I'm just too sensitive. They all preyed upon me sexually and verbally, emotionally and mentally abused me. I knew that I had to leave to see reality, like literally move out of the city to be able to decipher fact from fiction. I know my actual sanity was on the line and I just thank my 21 y/o self for moving even though I wasn't "ready" - really if I had listened to them and their estimations of my ability I would have literally never left lol..
I’m so sorry. No, abuse isn’t normal, but it’s not surprising they told you that - of course they’d want to normalise/justify their behaviour. They get something out of it. I’m glad you’re out, it will help!
@@ShintogaDeathAngel thank you. That’s been a huge thing, accepting that those lies were in their best interest, they were just taking advantage of my naivety. They had to use lies to build a family culture of narcissism. I just got the blunt force of it because I was the youngest, not because I’m inherently flawed.
Please do a video on how intimacy (sexual AND physical touch amongst non sexual partners) is affected for those who have CPTSD, and how we can work past it?
There is a kind of massage that targets these topics, it called traumatic touch massage. I did some training as one, they can be hard to find but very worthwhile.
"Runs from the reality of it" isn't limited to just siblings. I see a lot of (former) friends do this too (repress emotions). Everything HAS to be okay. It's half safe talking to them. And they're not fully comfortable with you setting boundaries with other people that you mentioned to them. Feels like fake support.
I think it’s very rare for an entire family of siblings to be aware of and agree that they were all abused or neglected. I have had to come to terms with the fact that 2 of my older siblings continue to say harmful things like “We had a great childhood, if you feel like a victim that’s your problem.” I can also acknowledge that these two older siblings were favorites of my Mom. Interesting that the 3 of us who weren’t the favorites are able to acknowledge the fact that our family was very dysfunctional, and it negatively affected us. To me this is the first step toward healing. Pretending it didn’t happen just keeps one in a headspace where one will continue to live in that trauma
I wish I had been the one that never looked back instead of living within driving distance from my parents after leaving home . Despite being the scapegoat my siblings still tried to hold me accountable for caring for the parents and they who were caught up in triangulation by my mother . The parentified behaviour towards me had them asking me for money and being expected to help them buy houses , providing housing for and health care so they wouldn't have to 'bother' the parents for anything . True to what they had learned at home they expected to be able to complain and criticize me for any services rendered and expected my help to still continue , Even going from low contact to no contact made little difference . Dysfunctional families need and use a scapegoat so they still feel good about themselves . I find all family members very triggering and have avoided them for years. I don't have any illusions of us getting along .
Patrick this is so insightful! These sibling issues can often get amplified by marriage or by the sibling’s marriage partner. For instance the shaming sibling and their new spouse can “team up” to shame she sibling that refuses to enable the toxic family system. Another example: the older sibling get married and no longer “parents” the younger siblings so the new spouse gets blamed and targeted for disrupting the toxic system and diverting resources.
Excellent!! Thank You!!What is astonishing to me is how easy it is to mess things up in a family. Some parents don’t realize what they are doing, some parents just didn’t have the skills to be a good parent, and some parents unfortunately had their own serious issues. It’s all sad. After reading books on co-dependency and narcissism, I believe it is better for me to limit communications with my siblings. They are toxic and it affects my mental health when I get pulled into the drama.
The part about the sibling that “never looked back” seeing you as the symbol of all of the trauma makes so much sense to me. All these years later, I’m still not even considered for an invite to when the rest of my family gets together. (We are all in perfect standing with each other, grown and past it all. No strife at all.) I’d bet any amount of money that I’m the reminder of the trauma for the whole family. They all (seemed) to never look back and I struggled for many years. This really helps to understand bc the lack of any invitation for my entire adult life has always been a painful mystery. Maybe I can just mourn the loss and begin to heal on this part of it.
Issues with siblings are so much more prevalent than most people realize. Thank you so much for this excellent video and I hope you will do more. My biggest loss and challenge in life has been the estrangement from my sister and her family. I am the only family member seeking help, but this gives me a much better understanding of why.
I read many on here that are the only sibling seeking help, I recently said that to MY therapist! That I was the "only kid seeking help"! Not just THAT as I raised two step BRATS and lived with their alcoholic NARCISSISTIC Father NOT ONE DAMN ONE of them would seek help! NOT A DAMN ONE! I was seeking HELP with them because THEY were driving me insane! I folded right into one quagmire of crazy after another! It seems to go like that!
This is totally my family. I really need to hear about the scapegoat because that’s been my cross for decades. I have an older sociopathic abusive golden-child sister, and a phony but nice diplomatic younger brother. Our narcissistic father is still living and manipulates everyone to keep the drama fresh.
This video really hits home in so many ways. As someone who cut off contact from my family from age 20 - 32, then tried to rebuild the relationship with them from age 32 - 51… but with a healed heart, healed inner child and hyper awareness of what a chaotic, toxic and dysfunctional dynamic looks and feels like - every encounter was exhausting and poisonous. I felt like I betrayed myself over and over again because our relationship was so inauthentic. I wanted something real and transparent. My family wanted drama and compliance. My sister morphed into a maniacal tyrant who I would not trust because her contrary to her words, her actions displayed her jealousy and resentment towards me. There is freedom and great healing that result from choosing to live a life without chaos and drama.
@@rdg6543 Yes. It was more painful to want an authentic relationship with someone who I loved but who sent clear messages that she resented me and viewed me as her adversary. I have accepted it and released her with love. Are you experiencing something similar?
@@Keepingitreallyreal my initial response to your response was written to wrong person. Sorry if you started reading it and it didn't fit. I deleted it. It was another thread. No, currently I am not experiencing this myself. Unfortunately, this must be a common thing bc I am observing it with a close friend, and the injustice of it feels unbearable at times. What we deserve is often not what we get. Learning about space boundaries is new to me and am dealing with a hurtful mil that I've had to incorporate some space boundaries with. But my particular situation is different than yours. I am really sorry you've been hurt like this.
yikes, well at least you know you tried, and unfortunately it sounds like they may have inherited narcissism from your parents. You can be at peace now.
As youngest sibling I was first to seek counseling as a young adult. My eldest sought counseling when raising teenagers and then continued for marriage and independent counseling. My middle sought counseling late in life. I realize that my siblings and I are miraculously still connecting to one another despite lots of dysfunction (including my own). I was teased about my passion for healing past traumas and was called Queen of Self-Help Books. I did not let this stop me from seeking healing.
This video was so helpful. I was able to disconnect from my abusive/neglectful parents early on in the healing process (with some fits and starts). However, now, decades later, sibling relationships remain painful and unsatisfying. The information in this video so accurately explains the reason for this. There were 5 children in my family, and not one of them will talk about our experiences in our dysfunctional family. This has been maddening. It is like we were all soldiers fighting in the same war, but can never talk about ever being in battle.
Your descriptions of these dynamics is SPOT ON and very triggering. My siblings and I used to be so close to protect our ourselves from our dad who was the narcissist. When my dad died it was 'the lion's den' . The hatred, attacks, rage backstabbing, smear campaign that we did to each other was painfully heartbreaking to witness and soul crushing. I had to cut off the entire family for the sake of my mental health.
- I was the scapegoat who was infantalized but also parentified at the same time (my mom often treated me like another adult, not her child and wanted me to validate her feelings). - My sister was the one who attacks. After our dad left us, it was like she took over his place and continued the abuse while mom enabled it or explained it away. - My mom is absolutely the sibling nr 4. She just cannot handle talking about the dysfunction.
this is the first time i have heard of sibling relationships in a dysfunctional family that actually make sense. very insightful. it adds clarity to a lot of the dynamics.
Wow. My mother recently passed away, and six of us siblings are going through major struggles as we settle the estate. There was much to think about in your video! I hope we can go forward without becoming estranged. We are children of a narcissist.
I wish you luck, my family was also terrorized by a narcissist mother and a enraged absent father. We fit this mold perfectly. The final weeks of her life were absolute chaos. The golden child took control, even though she wasn’t power of attorney or executrix. ( Mother knew the monster she created, but fell for the siren song.) What she (the golden child) did was unforgivable, and unforgettable.
I was labeled the “good kid” because my brother was a troublemaker - the law, drugs, school, early pregnant, etc. Being the good kid didn’t mean more attention in my case, I was expected to walk that line and it has held me back to yield to other people’s irresponsible or bad behavior.
I really love that you put the responsibility where it should be. So many are scapegoating the golden child, but noone had a choice, we all just struggled to survive. Thank you ♥️
@@leahweinberger583 My d*ck of an older brother very much knows and loves that he is the golden child. At least with my mother. My father has a different golden child. No one will ever admit the obvious fact that I'm the scapegoat, though. It has been this way for decades.
@@leahweinberger583 Yeah most of the time the golden child is the "teflon child", the projection of the narcissist parents ideal self. I have broached the subject of abuse with my golden child younger sister and she has been dismissive and vaguely interested, she has her own resentments towards our mother, but in the end she believes the narrative that I am the real problem / loser as the scapegoat. She prefers her position in the hierarchy more than she cares to acknowledge the truth of my treatment as the scapegoat and of our toxic family., the same goes for my older sister, who just pretends to commiserate, but is actually two-faced and betrays me to the rest of the family. I have tested them, and learned the truth this way.
@HeartFeltGesture finally figured out my golden child sister is the biggest covert narcissistic evah. Seriously when you mature and you go back home and you watch it go on and you've been out of it for a while, it is so apparent. Unbelievable I thought she was this super giving woman with terrible bad luck, a victim her whole entire life, and then I just watched her manipulate the whole house full of people, boy that was eye-opening. Nooooo contact. Awful human.
As adults, we all have a responsibilty for our actions. As children not, we were all victims of a dysfunctional family. I can see that my mother was a victim of her childhood too, nevertheless it is her full responsibility how we were treated. My golden child sibling never had a choice, neither the scapegoat nor myself as being the lost/invisible child. How we choose to continue as adults is a whole different story. But it is clear that we are all blinded by our own experience depending of our role in the family of origin.
I see my siblings like those who would carry on my mother's ill will towards me after she dies. I think narcissists live longest. I doubt I would ever will be able to get out of the pit and the pendulum. Thanks, you made coherence into my intuition about what to expect from my siblings. Great video.
Don’t rely on your siblings for your self worth. In a toxic family they are as damaged as you are, just in different ways. I learned this the hard way. I wish you peace and healing.
I fit into all of these roles to some extent. At different times I feel like me and my siblings took on different roles, when one stopped filling that role someone else filled that vacuum but some have remained more consistent. The scape goat role is the only one that definitely applies to me over my other siblings so I look forward to that video. Thank you for this amazing channel 🙏
I got good grades, did well at sports, got tons of certificates from Congress, and did as I was told for a long time until I realized that it didn't matter. I got treated the same when I stopped caring about those things and stopped trying. I learned that I was the scapegoat in my family. Not just immediate family, but my whole family. I was often blamed for things my cousins and brother did all the time by all members of my family
This is such a fantastic video. Thank you, Patrick, for your work. My husband’s family is dysfunctional and it’s been difficult marrying into this dynamic. My sister in law is the diplomat/agent/enabler/hero. Whenever I set boundaries against my mother in law, SIL says “she’s not going to change” , and of course she won’t change if people keep enabling her! SIL actually called me a bully for confronting MIL about her manipulation and selfishness. My husband for years would emotionally (and sometimes physically) leave to avoid dealing with MIL. So this made me the “truth teller/scapegoat.” SIL is also the Smart And Competent One, so this means the rest of us must be helpless idiots, despite us having successful careers, etc. If I do something well, it is either ignored, discouraged, disparaged. Or I’m showing off . My response to being treated this way is to go very low contact. When I have to be around my husband’s family, I will often gray rock but sometimes point out BS and hypocrisy. I have given up on having a normal relationship characterized by mutual care and respect.
I have a similar relationship with my MIL but we can't even be around each other anymore. She totally scapegoats me. My husband is stuck in the middle😢.
Before I met my current therapist, I felt so lost, and I didn’t understand I was a scapegoat. Truly, I am grateful for her insight into my family dysfunction. I have never felt comfortable in my own skin. She taught me that my own insecurities were actually valid, unmet childhood needs! Until my early twenties, I ran around being a self proclaimed *lovable dirtbag* because this is the image I chose to be, when I finally freed myself from an awfully abusive, traumatic, dramatic, neglected, no good, real bad childhood. However, I had not freed myself from self sabotaging inner dialogue, broken red flag detectors, commitment and trust issues...the list goes on. This identity was both shaped by my experiences as a traumatized child, and my unwillingness (inability) to conform to proper society. I put myself in similar, unsafe situations, unknowingly or not. I paid a heavy price for trusting slimy people, even though that is all I ever had known and wanted to run from. Deep down, anyway. So, when things had deteriorated into a living nightmare, I ran home to my *lovable family*, for support. Get this, though! I wanted to reciprocate this magical support, and in turn, try to fix my broken family dynamic! Turns out, the system was not broken. I was a scapegoated, unappreciated, loose cannon with my loose lips. How dare I bring up *the dreaded unmentionables* that were really just unresolved, serious issues that no one was willing to ever admit or address..? I wasn’t worth advocating for. And yes, I have an older sister, who I adore, and have had to make peace with in my own head. I am still trying to wrap my head around how I honestly feel about her. I love her, and I have very limited expectations of her ability to advocate for me. Had I not done an entire years worth of hard mental work, combing through my tangled mind, to reach some form of inner peace and true identity, and love; I would have a very different response to this video. And I really appreciate this channel, and your support for us survivors.
I was definitely the sibling that needed parenting from my older sister. I never really bonded with my mom, but I'd do just about anything for my sister, because I owe her so much. Now that we're both adults, we're friends, but my sister is never emotionally vulnerable with me the way I am with her, and refuses any help I offer her in hard times. My sister can reassure me with a single text or joke, but I can only acknowledge and validate her feelings. Are there things I can do to bring more to our relationship? I don't want my sister to feel like she has to be my parent anymore.
You describe my brother and mine's relationship, when i was still home. I realize now it was him desperately overcompensating, trying to continue the "role of the older sibling" thst maybe my narc mother dumped on him. For me anyway, that was not real because i would still get toxic behavior/comments from him, proving he never changed. Like your sibling, i reject anything and am not at alll vulnerable with him (i am no longer in contact with him). For us, we (or at least myself) are exhausted and drained ("caught up") after having to be the parent all those years. Talk to her. There is that gap in your relationship that you can't just lump over. Maybe you need to shift the kind of relationship you both have..Ask her what she wants.
Whoa. I related heavily to 6 of these and a little to the other 2. Could give examples of all of them and how all the roles kind of shifted back and forth. Your accuracy and understanding and ability to put it all into words is stunning.
Thank you so much Patrick. I can 100% relate as the isolated Scapegoat middle child, who has always been triangulated against (by covert narc mother) a grandiose narc older sister and younger co-dependent 40 something 'year old baby' brother. I have been following you this past year and you'll never know just how much your insightful videos have helped me gain huge clarity of my toxic family dynamic. It has helped me understand why i have always felt like i just don't belong and questioned my right to exist in this world.
This video made me think about Prince Harry's memoir, 'Spare'. The relationship between Prince Harry, his brother Prince William, his father King Charles, and "The Firm/Palace" is brought to light in this video and explains so much. Wow! Now that I've seen this, I'm going to read it again with the new insight.
I feel like the most important reason for me to find compassion by understanding that my siblings also went through that trauma, and also with others in my life, was that by understanding that the behavior that they may be directing at me are actually their own survival responses to their trauma. In no way does that excuse their behavior or mean that I'm supposed to sit there and take it, but being able to see it almost from an observer viewpoint instead of being caught up in the midst of someone's projected insecurity due to trauma has allowed me to accept that their behavior, while directed at me, is not actually ABOUT me, so it's easier for me to forgive them instead of carrying resentment around forever. I no longer take their behavior/accusations as personal and instead can see where they're coming from while also continuing to set boundaries to protect myself from the abuse, and I think both of those things have been major, major aspects of my healing. Reminding myself it's not about me has really kept me from falling back into a shame mindset!
THIS! My sister is so mad at my brothers. Where as I understand we all had our own ways of dealing with the generational trauma in our family and so I understood the idiosyncrasies of their personalities and try to move forward. My sister is SO pissed that I am choosing to forgive and forget. She sees me as a traitor for it and now doesn't talk to anyone. It's like she NEEDS to be perpetually mad with her, and I just can't. I have to put it to rest, and she is so mad that I am doing that.
My older sister was the scapegoat. I believed my parents' lies about it being her fault. Now that I've moved out and I've gone no-contact with our dad, she is saying that her relationship with our parents has really improved. She demonstrated this improvement by participating in our dad's abuse of my girlfriend. She sees herself as a victim and a survivor, but she doesn't want to admit that any abuse happened in the family. When something happens that inconveniences her, she assumes that it was done with malicious intent and lashes out at the source. Some months ago, I was having pain and asked her if we could meet up somewhere a little closer to me than usual so I wouldn't have to drive as far. She switched moods instantly and started yelling that I was trying to manipulate her and that I didn't understand all that she sacrificed so she could meet with me for brunch. I am so tired of walking on eggshells every time we talk. I can't build a healthy relationship with someone who unapologetically hurts me when I ask for help.
my sister also takes it personally when I have any kind of need. The only time she would cave is if someone else backs me up, but she also tries to walk it back as soon as it's no longer convenient. So, i think she's just trying to look good for others. And she, really seems to think for some moronic reason, to think that she has NO CLUE why I wouldn't want to be around her (I'm NC). Wow, why would a functioning human being want to constantly have their needs and boundaries questioned and denied. Huh, w e i r d
Please delve more into this please. This was really difficult to listen to and all of the feelings and experiences that I had/have with my sister is too close- can’t articulate what I need to say. It’s like I felt all of the feelings and language crawl back underneath the duvet of denial, dismissing and disbelief. As a black woman this adds another layer of discomfort...🤦🏽♀️🙏🏽 Thank you for this channel.
BINGO ! I am # 10 in family of 13 children. … with one bathroom. True! Lol. I am an adult survivor of sibling sexual abuse. Listening to you is like listening to a “ text book” on dis functional families and dynamics of relationships. We all have had issues with primary relationships. ( duh, no surprise with 15 people in a household). Please keep educating and helping!
This does not get talked about enough. At this point in my life I’m more furious with the siblings who knew and gaslit me for 6 decades and the chief enabler and gaslighter told me they all ALWAYS KNEW when she was furious at me for going low contact and wanted to hurt me. Annnnd proceeded to tell me how my serial abuse and gang rape traumatized her- In the same moment she admitted to gaslighting me for my whole life. Uhm, I’m not going to apologize for your decisions to lie and prolong my torment for a lifetime. She has spent the last 5 years using that to now paint herself the martyr, while never actually telling anyone what she did.
My sister and I come from a large family and we're working together on the trauma we experienced as kids. The other siblings have no clue and think we're just "disloyal" or "resentful for the wrong reasons" so we keep these conversations and the work we're doing to ourselves ♥️ Thank you for the work you do Patrick, we absolutely love your calm and super informative videos!!!
I was looking forward to this theme. My brother won’t stop belittling me ever since childhood and he is younger than me. We have fallen out several times. He is controlling and possessive towards me and at the same time tells me to shut up whenever I talk about any of my interests. He’s got serious jealousy issues towards me and my mother.
I understand this. I have 3 problems and all of them are toxic, self-centered and have issues/disdain for women. I choose not to have a relationship or contact with them for my own safety.
@@l.chambers1944 I have recently “snapped out” due to stress and the constant abuse so I started therapy again and will pay the psychiatrist a visit to check if I have to do anything medication wise. My goal with therapy will be cutting ties with my family. It’s the only way. I am not free.
I recognize myself in one of these. I didn’t realize. Thank you. I’ll go show this to my siblings so we can have a discussion. Appreciate your hard work and thanks to those commenting the video to bump it up.
I was the eldest, golden child, I knew it and felt tremendous guilt about it and the way my younger siblings were treated, the youngest who was the scapegoat and the middle who walked away. I was enmeshed/parentified with my mother and only now in middle age and in therapy am realizing how disfunctional it all was. Many of these overlap. Now I give money I don’t have to my scapegoat sibling (who can’t keep a job in their 50’s) because of my guilt feelings even though I know they need to do for themselves.
Me too. Being the GC isn't easy or good when you know what's happening. I tried to protect my SG brother, although I know that I also occasionally aped my Dad's behaviour and verbally abused my bro. I wish I hadn't, but I was so young. I didn't understand. I have apologised. Eventually we switched roles, despite both being NC. Mum's death really f*cked things up. Heading for NC now. It's tragic, but I can't take anymore of his nastiness.
I can not get enough of your videos. I feel like when I stumbled upon them I found the key that I'd been searching for for years and years to unlock my healing pathway. Thank you!!!!!
Wow this is a great list. Oblivious Golden Child! Yes that description is perfect and I’ve never heard that before. My sister just can’t understand how any of us have any problems and why. She’s so above any of us and our issues with our dysfunctional family. And she’s so busy with her new mansion and her business she’s running, don’t you know!? Why can’t we all just get over it and be as amazing as her?
Let me guess - the parents financially supported her new business while not being supportive of any of your ideas. My mother pays my sister's bills so she can call her successful - It's insane.
Holy moly. This was incredibly helpful to me. The part where you talked about a parental death felt personal lmao. When we were packing up my father's stuff, my sister and I had a huge blowout. I truly feel that somewhere inside me, I finally was able to release all of those feelings once my father died. My father already survived cancer so a lot of the time I felt I had to show him and display to him my siblings and I had a good relationship because he could pass anytime and he wanted his kids to get along. When he died, I finally felt free of that facade
There's def more issues than just these eight. Would love to hear from you!
What about a family where all siblings and parents compartmentalize? Any tips? They don't discuss anything controversial, all avoid conflict to the point of no closeness or true caring no matter how much one tries.
Also, I'm curious as to how much experience anyone has had with abusive family systems in which two or more siblings seemingly miraculously develop a close, healthy, intimate relationship in the midst of all of that toxicity.
One example would be Gilbert and his oldest sister Amy, and also Gilbert and his younger brother Arnie, in the novel What's Eating Gilbert Grape. The novel is what focuses on the relationship between Gilbert and Amy--the movie skims over that. Also, Gilbert and Arnie's relationship is definitely not perfect because it's quite tainted by ableism (Arnie is intellectually disabled and chronically ill).
An even better example would be Celie and her younger sister Nettie in the novel The Color Purple. The girls's stepfather--whom they believe is their biological father until they learn differently as adults--got Celie pregnant twice when she was in her teens. There is a scene where Celie catches him looking at Nettie and so she seduces her stepfather to protect Nettie. That scene was used to establish just how close the sisters were.
@@bonnie_wood6782 I think every toxic family that isn’t called out compartmentalizes and hides away their abusive, toxic sh@t and gets away with it when no one is there (beyond the one person) to speak up.
@@messinalyle4030 What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is one of my favorite movies because of how much I could see my family in it. However, I don’t think it’s a close sibling relationship, it is parentification in the worst way. Gilber has no choice, it’s his family role to keep shit together.
In The Color Purple, also a favorite, I felt like either girl could have turned on her sister over a guy at any point of tension because of their desperation to be loved and accepted, but that could totally be my sibling dynamics talking.
I don't see mine at all. Oh well.
the saddest thing about having siblings affected by this is seeing them continue the same abusive pattern that our parents had on their own children.
Yes. My nephew was born perfectly unscathed. Now he’s affected. They put him a through this wringer. He’s gone. 😢
You are unfortunately so right. It is a vicious circle. And if you try to give them advice and say to them, seek for help and professional advice, they hate you more and more and do not believe that you just want to help the family to get a better life.
They can not imagine that they really are loved from the sibling, that they attack. It is always on a competition level and no together. If you are successful they are in rage and try everything to destroy your good life and your success.
It is endless suffering and has the potential to kill very lovely adorable persons, that try everything to do the best for others. When an empath meets an narcisst, the empath is the looser. And nobody prepares children for this stuff. Nobody warns you about this! You understand everything, when it is to late and your life ist completely down and broken. Some siblings live in the end alone, poor and really sick and isolated. It is really very important, to look at this point and help the siblings that get "friendly fire" and toxic shot day by day and nobody believes them. Nobody understands, that this are potentionally can kill you, because you find a exit, expect commiting sucide.
Take care for yourself and for others, that do not know about this issues and stand alone and do not know, how they can become happy. In the end it is sometimes the only solution, to go and let them do, what ever they want. You tried everything, everything failed and there is nothing more you can do, just leaving the scene. And this is heartbreaking to loose the family members, one by one and you can not stop this program.
Agree. I worry about the kids, whose parents think they're not affecting them with their own toxic behavior. Not so. 😢
@@cc1k435They actually do. My mother was a teacher, but she would compare me to my older sister, even though we both respected her... As adults sadly we didn't leave the house entirely, but at least we didn't let her harsh words get entirely the best of us.
Absolutely. 2 out if 5 of us kids moved very far away. 2 have continued the cycle feeling entitled and very arrogant in their belief that committing disgusting abuse on their targeted sibling/s is not only acceptable but it is ‘normal’. And certainly justified to do it to the siblings own kids, even before that sibling calls out the toxic dysfunction of the narcissists in the family. Yeah, when my CN sister, who had been wearing a mask as soon as she got engaged at 22, and at 55 years old went straight for my own family members as soon as our mother died, I realized she is truly sick in the head. She was violent and abusive and unsafe to be around unless fully supervised until she was 22, and at 55 she is the same. My husband heard her ‘true ugly’ in our last phone call 2 years ago. My bff saw her ‘true ugly’ growing up and did not like her. Always encouraged me to not go near her. My bff is very smart.👍🏼. It’s unfortunate my older brothers are still being deceived by this pos. At least my kids know she is a pos and will have nothing to do with her as she is once again unhinged and unsafe to be around.
i feel like sibling abuse is almost always left out of the conversation so its really nice to see a video about this kind of stuff
Gosh yes! My biggest bully was one of my sisters. I didn’t come to that epiphany until seeing these videos. It’s changed my approach to her.
Absolutely!!! My oldest sister and brother were mine..my much older brother even being physically abusive without consequence. How often I wonder ppl ignore sibling abuse..
Yup! I agree with what Patrick said about the dynamic between siblings being more devastating than the relationship with the parents because you feel like you're supposed to be on the same team. And your sibling is usually your first friend in life. Your first peer. And you're part of the same generation.
Yes! My brother was the WORST! And my mother never believed me. He was always the favorite. Now as an adult he's always in trouble for domestic violence
@@carris2scents57 It's terrible! My mom still caters to my brother and he's mentally abusing her. Excuses. Always excuses. He's put his hands on my throat so many times as a teenager and she yelled at him and grabbed him but there was NEVER repercussion. Didn't get kicked out, no cops, nothing. "Let it go, he's your brother and loves you." 😵 NOT LOVE!!! He's not allowed in my life anymore.
I am the youngest, and while I was the "good girl" and "golden child", I also identify as the scapegoat when I started to call out the toxicity in the family, and therefore become the "problem".
Me too!
I was the opposite... Despite being the youngest, I was the scapegoat and got told how lazy, selfish or irresponsible I was. My older sister was viewed as the golden child in the family. Had the good qualities I never had.
Same here!!!! Younger me was the “golden child” but now that I’m older I’m the “bossy , know it all , controlling, cold hearted, self centered bitch”
None of which is accurate even when I was young. I literally supported each brother and attempted to be a positive female tole model since our mother wasn’t interested in doing so.
I can relate 💯! My little brother has been off of the chain when my dad died. Narcissistic mom lets him do anything. He's a recovering heroin addict and my mom took him and my sister to Las Vegas when my little brother turned 30. I didn't do anything for my 40th. My little brother did tell me though that I'm a waste of money. He traumatize my child so much on Christmas that he pooped his pants. He told my son "running from me is not an option" so I stood between he and my son so that my son would know that I will be there to protect him and I won't let him ever put his hands on him or talk that way. I don't want my child to be traumatized like I was with nobody sticking up for me.
Me too!
Trauma is so complex it’s exhausting…
I find it hard to have compassion for a sister who betrays me very badly every time I give her a chance.
she was conditioned to by the dysfunction and letting mom away with it
My sister was the same. Trashy.
My sister gets a good high after finding out she’s hurt me. She will bring up a toy having been thrown at her 40 years ago after trying to ruin any relationship i have.
Same, she sides with my parents, it’s really painful when you feel them all against you..I’m trying to move far away, to another country, so they don’t have me to attack anymore..wish I could watch from afar what’s going to happen
I have issues right now in my life but they’re the only issues in the family, that’s scapegoating right? Heaven forbid someone else has problems and we focus on there’s. The best thing I can do is leave, my brother and sister can take care of my mom when she gets older, I’m not doing any of it
Please keep these conversations about family dynamics and Trauma going, we really appreciate them and need them badly
Couldn't agree more!
I triplicate this. Many of us single folks need more advice on siblings,and less on "ex lovers" i tire of from so many other youtubers !
True
Yes 🙌🏻
I have 3 siblings and you nailed ALL of it … 😢
I struggle with being the eldest and therefore the one that remembers my parents' abuse the most. I'm also the only one currently trying to heal from it, and it hurts to see my sister still having a completely normal relationship with my parents as though they didn't destroy literal years of my life. It's hard not to feel betrayed by her behavior as well at times. Thank you again for an incredibly timely video ♥️
I can so relate. I realize now that my sisters protect the abuser and hold me in the same contempt as our Narc father. I was the target of his anger so he could put on a happy face for the rest of the world. I am the only one who has sought therapy for the craziness we grew up with.
@@dnk4559 exactly. I was the scapegoat of both my neglectful narc mother and malignant narcissist father, and my siblings view me as the evil bad older sister for cutting off my parents, so they have all circled the wagon and cut me off.
@@oliveoil4380 I’m so sorry. The projection onto the scapegoat of their own traits that they are not willing to acknowledge is epic and painful.
🎯
As a younger sibling that's dealing with an older sister that feels like you do, I can tell you it's heartbreaking from this side too. I'm unable to speak of what happened to my sister and I, but that doesn't mean I don't remember, or that I don't care, or that I'm dismissing what the oldest went through. It doesn't mean that I don't see it, we're just doing what we can to survive.
I hope you can heal. I hope all of us viewers can heal, we deserve it.
My siblings have broken my heart.
Hallelujah
Same. My brother quit speaking to me 4 years ago. Out of the blue he contacted me via text telling me he once abused my son and liked it. He was apologising and I told him that I have let go of everything in the past and loved him deeply but that he has to find his own healing because I'm doing good to care for me and my kids. I had tried to coach him many times. Well, I blocked him after he reached out this last time and 2 weeks later I heard he'd hung himself on a nature trail near where he worked as a river tour guide. He could not overcome our father's abuse. One of the other last things he told me is that he cannot let go that of the fact that our father never apologized. My heart is broken. I still see him as a little boy. He was so talented.
@@noshame5791oh God. I'm sorry for all of your losses... I also lost my brother to self departure (don't want to be deleted) but the family member who was the adult that was inappropriate to me and other kids twenty years before relative's and other kids at his place of work... His passing was ruled by the medical examiner to be intentionally inflicted... This will be 25 years ago in August and I can't pretend that app of the time since that event has just been more horror to get through because my mom was very close to that sibling of hers and I definitely need more counseling and more time to unpack the devastation I am in even after her own passing nearly three years ago. Sigh.
Me too. Disowned mine. 😢
Mine too sweetie. I'm so sorry to hear that
“Not taking sides is abandoning.” This little gem hit me like a truck :) How many times have we heard, “Oh, everybody loses so much,” as a response to our family disconnection. No one willing to hear our side and show up for US. Really very dismissive.
Switzerland siblings - they’re not really on anyone’s side, but their own.
Exactly. Covert Narcissistic meddler getting caught withholding important information claiming “it’s not her place to let me know” and she didn’t want “to get in the middle” after decades of doing just that, meddling in my life. People who are so ready to accept an accusation on face value without giving the benefit of the doubt & hearing both sides were already primed to want to believe the accuser & the subject’s perspective is irrelevant. Everyone who forms an opinion without hearing my side considers me irrelevant and handled as such.
i guess people use whatever survival strategies they have.
Almost 6 years ago my son was killed in a traffic accident that was not his fault. He left behind a beautiful wife and 2 children a 5 year old daughter named Emma and a 2 month old son named Will. Emma began having behavior problems very shortly after the accident. She has been way out of bounds with her behavior .Will is almost 6 and he is having attachment issues in the last year. He resembles his daddy so much. He wants to be with me all of the time. Stressors are abound. Her step father blames everything on her even though his daughter is 2 years older and when they get in trouble he always blames Em because his daughter “would never”. I could go on forever but that's not fair to you.
@@HislittlelambEven if they do hear both sides, Covert narcs and their flying monkeys are not often discovered/found out by others.
I LOVE that you do not take sponsors. Thank you for not choosing to greedily resell our attention!
I’ve never found anyone who was the older sibling bullied by their younger sibling. I’ve always felt extremely alone in that. My little brother was my main childhood bully besides my dad, who was a narcissistic misogynist. My little brother learned from “the best“.
This hurts to read, I am sorry that is your experience in this world. Makes me reflect and wonder if my sister feels that way about me. Thank you for sharing this perspective. I often wonder if my ways of dealing with things, have hurt her more than she shares. She shares, we are not totally disconnected but it feels like we might as well be. I fear that level of responsibility, being the younger one i always felt she never cared or could love me, my mistakes were amplified by her, wanting to be the teacher or wanting to introduce me to learning my lesson the loudness came from a place of hatred always it felt like, it lacked empathy, or love, and we just grew apart from the ways we participated in that relationship. In a way i showed up and took the broken traumatic love that was available from my parents, and cut the availability of that love in half. I always struggle with that. My parents would tell me when i was young "your sister would get so mad at you for being so cute as a baby." "she was jealous." These did nothing in helping me connect with her, or put us on equal fields. I feel shame from her, and that shame prevents a lot of healing on my end. I hope you can grow towards a healthier relationship with your younger brother, if that means disconnecting from him I hope you find comfort and love no matter what. If that means my sister does the same towards me, i do hope she can find all the things in the family she creates that i failed to be for her. She doesn't deserve to feel alone, and she certainly didn't deserve the role of being the teacher / healer when she was a child. Someone had to be the parent, it wasn't me, and it wasn't our parents, it was her a lot of the time. That dichotomy really effected our relationship... Sorry for your experience, seriously. I really thank you for sharing it. I need to work toward healing that wounded connection. Her words ring with more weight then other peoples, i respect her so much but woven in that respect is a lot of fear. :(
Eldest of 3 here. I’m 28 and my abuser is my sister who is 25. She’s been emotionally abusive and manipulative for years and plays her cards so well because she knows that if anyone were to hear about a 28 year old man being emotionally abused by his younger sister… apparently just seems like such a ridiculous concept for people to grasp and it’s made finding support so difficult. Just recently back in June of this year I had finally had enough of it and decided to go into her room while she was at work to search for some belongings that I knew she had stolen but was denying and convinced the rest of the family that I was just crazy and had lost or misplaced my things (which this stealing and lying has been going on for years) and when I went in her room that day sure enough I found my laptop, several cell phones I had to keep replacing, and many more things too much for me to even list here. Anyways she came home and found her room had been entered and I was sitting there with all my stuff waiting to confront her with my mom and finally be validated after months of going crazy almost to the point of convincing myself maybe I actually did misplace these things but she immediately became violently aggressive assaulting me with kicks and scratches and trying to push by me to grab the laptop, idk why tbh probably to smash it or something, but I was blocking her and getting my ass kicked as I just had to stand my ground and endure the vicious kicks to my stomach and legs and groin until I had to stop her by getting ahold of her leg and lifting it up so she fell backwards off balanced but she got up and threw an entire shoe rack across the room at me but missed thankfully so I fled to the back yard and phoned the police. But when they got there she had told them I had broken into her room and vandalized/ransacked (she’s a hoarder so her room looks like it’s been ransacked 24/7) and that i was aggressively pursuing her before GRABBING HER AND LIFTING HER BY HER THROAT AND CHOKE SLAMMING HER TO THE GROUND AND STRANGLING HER TO THE POINT OF LOSING CONSCIOUSNESS…. So long story short my diagnosed narcissistic personality disorder sister had me arrested and I spent 3 months in jail and now have a felony charge on my permanent record and I can no longer have residency at my mothers house because my sister is on the lease and has a restraining order and a court ordered no contact order against me so now I’m homeless with no place to live and everything I own is basically untouchable since I can’t step within 300 yards of the house. Not like it matters since I’m sure my sister has already taken full advantage of the situation and me being away has likely helped herself to whatever remaining belongings I had left to my name.
Anyways that was a huge rant sorry about that I guess I needed to vent a bit so thanks to anyone who reads this. I wish this sort of thing got more attention and something could be done because it’s far too common to be dismissed. I hope and pray others don’t have to go through this and to those of us that are unfortunate enough I hope and pray for justice and peace for all. Have a blessed day/night wherever you may be everybody. Stay safe ❤
I’m so sorry. It’s terrible to be bullied but just as bad to be ignored and unseen.
My husband is the oldest and while he wasn’t abused by his siblings necessarily, his parents are super dysfunctional. The youngest takes advantage of their parents’ serious issues and milks them for everything he can get. The parents baby him and spend their retirement being full-time babysitters to the grandkids and spending thousands of dollars to assuage the youngest child’s every whim. It’s gross.
Well you have just found someone else
I'm the oldest. I'd get hit and hit and hit by the middle child . Punched and punched the sick part is my parent would come up and join in all in laughter but you should never punch a child that hard.
@@Whatever.Forever94 what a nightmare ! To my experience never confront or put a narcissist in her/his own shit because they are devil minded. When you realise you are living in such a dynamic just go away. Run for your life. The only justice you will get is the one you will give to yourself from there.
No going back, no contact.
Take care of yourself and never forget what you learned in such a hard way.
Sibling issues are definitely not talked about enough. Personally our problem is that we don't communicate that much, we're basically strangers or something and it hurts because it's hard expressing emotions in our household because of it
I agree. They don't mentally understand what we been through
Shout out to all of us who came here trying to break the cycle!! Love this for all of you 💖
Nice And you have quite the user name!
@@CatFish107😂😂😂
❤
Thank you. ❤ I am the one person in my family who is the truth seeker, who has done the work to recover. I am also the scapegoated child. I'd rather be healthy and alone than stay in the unhealthy family system. 🙏
Sending you love. I hope you have a wonderful future and heal from the trauma. You deserve that ❤
Agreed, and Ditto
@@CarmenSandiego649 Thank you!!! ❤
same... its lonely tho for me, as I vowed never to marry, never be like my mom, never have kids I might abuse like parents did us. Now I'm old & it's lonely! (Still don't want them in my life tho!) 😌
same! we are soul sisters!
OMG when he said 'the main perpetrator may be a sibling who exhibits sociopathic or highly manipulative behavior' I had to pause the video. I was blown away. Maybe I've been doing therapy wrong because I've never heard this addressed or expressed so clearly. The focus tends to be on abuse or neglect from parents, which is understandable. However, in my family all the roles shifted around my brother's personality. This included my mom, who seemed more like she was in the trenches with the rest of us rather than the parent. When Patrick said that, I felt like he opened the door of my childhood home and peeked inside, naming the thing that we never talk about.
Agree. My middle brother was the abusive sibling and the one who garnered all the attention with his delinquent behavior. We were all still very close but knew our roles. He never would talk about it. The baby bro and I do. That’s the healthiest.
My brother is the main perpetrator and he’s the golden child but now I see him getting his karma with his wife
“In a healthy family system, being loved or seen or valued isn’t at the expense of another child.” 🤯🤯🤯
That’s what my parents did! All the time. And then if I would ask them not to treat me that way, my mom would always say, “I’m not going to choose you over your brothers.”
😢
I feel for you
Same here, but the fact of the neglect was never acknowledged out loud; I was left to figure it out on my own.
Mom is now in her 80s, my bullying older brother lives half a continent away, and she depends on me for many things. She asked the other day why I am so nice to her, given how she's ignored, at best, and often participated in my abuse. I told her that the way she treated me is about her and nothing else, and how I treat her is about me and nothing else; I am attentive and kind to her because that's who I choose to be, period. It does not compute, at all, to her, but it no longer matters to me that she understands.
I never even had the courage to ask that until I went no contact.
Overstood 😢
I am the eldest. HSP and an artist. I moved away decades ago. For some reason I am the only child who named the abuse. When I was a teen I told my parents I loved being a big sister. They made sure to destroy that connection. It is so weird to observe abuse and see the rest of the kids make excuses for the abusers. One sister was beaten daily and as an adult when I said "Mom abused you" her response was that she deserved the beatings. My heart breaks for my sisters. I no longer contact any of my family members.
Oh, Honey! I know exactly what that pain feels like. I'm glad you got out, and I'm so sorry you had to lose your relationships with your sisters. 💓
Oh, that is so sad. 😥
I hear you. I’m the oldest daughter of 7, with an older brother. I “cleaned up the messes” my parents made and nurtured my siblings like a mother. My Dad was either absent or controlling and sometimes violent and unpredictable. Mom was often emotionally absent, sometimes violent, and often unpredictable. They both resented their children and were very stingy with money, strict with their rules, and unwilling to properly provide for our needs consistently, blaming us for growing and needing food and clothing. They kicked my youngest brother out at age 16 and I brought him to live with me and my family for about a year. Later, he moved back into our parents’ home where the abuse continued. I since moved 1200 miles away. This same brother came to visit me and told me during that visit that when he becomes a parent, he wouldn’t parent his kids like I do mine (focusing on healthy boundaries and secure attachment), and he wouldn’t do anything different than our parents did. Unprompted he told me this. Which says what they all talk about without me there, it just trickles out like that. And sad to see my efforts to save my siblings were fruitless in the face of such trauma bonding. I got out, they can learn from it if they choose. I hope they heal so their descendants can benefit from their choices. It’s been devastating to survive and not be able to save anyone else. I wish they all could, or would, choose to be free but they are too trauma bonded and willing to settle for the roles they each have within the family and the codependent dynamics they’ve learned into their adulthood.
@@naturefleur2062 You are such a good person. Evil begets evil. He got stuck in that loop. God bless you and your family. I wish you a happy and fulfilling life!
Thank you. I don't feel so alone
My older brother was cast as the “problem child” and I was the child who enabled my parents mistreatment of him. I was so mad at him for so long for “disrespecting” my parents. It wasn’t until I had children of my own that I realized that both of us were used by my parents to fulfill a narrative that we simply did not fit into. I wish we could turn back time and form a bond, but so much time has passed and he rightfully shouldn’t have seen me as trustworthy or compassionate. The things I know now….Anyway, I sent him this video and told him that I’m not mad anymore and that I love him. I hope he knows. Thanks for posting this video.
There's no turning back time, but you took step by posting the video and for potential healing so you can both possibly move forward. You still had a way to contact him: that alone seems like a good sign as in not totally cut off.
❤
Did he reply?
I’m not mad? How about apologizing?
@@paxsmileTo make a formal apology, his brother has to be on the same page. This brother took the time to send his brother a video and explain the situation. If the contacted brother has any common sense and emotional maturity, he will then reach out to receive his apology. An apology happens not on the answering machine, but in person and should be heartfelt! Saying you're wrong is part of an apology!
Nothing will ever take away what has been done to our souls.
77 yrs old and i agree.
I intuit there is a Law in life. A spiritual Law, the Law of Love. What these narcissists have done in their self-indulgent abuse, goes against this Law, and I know in my heart, they will pay eventually, they will be judged and have to feel everything they have inflicted, and it will be a horrific revelation of their lovelessness that will haunt them.
agreed, you can talk healing till the cows come home and STILL the damage blooms relentlessly as it was planted back before we could protect ourselves
I am here to tell you that with willingness and a technique, we can heal to a great degree. Check out my story
I never wanted to see this in my siblings and it is one of the worst feelings in the world when you realize the hurt they’ve caused and how disappointing to know that nobody loved you in the entire family system and nobody knew how, we just kept each other company in fear, terror, pain and suffering.
Well said
And how ALONE I feel even in a room full of
people
❤ me too
Oh, yes. Nobody loved anyone. We pretended when we were in society. I was so confused, but I knew that we weren't the same when we were at home. And I was terrified most of the time.
Thanks for saying this...i am finally realizing this sad reality as one of the outcomes of my sisters recent death...and i have been wondering for years why i feel work , social circles, neighbors..".out to get me" ...used to feel mistrust of my world and it has escalated
7:30 1. The attacking sibling
9:22 2. The sibling who never looked back
11:09 3. The sibling who is enabled or protected
13:10 4. The sibling who runs from the reality of it.
15:25 5. The sibling who needs parenting from you.
17:25 6. The lion's den - mutual hatred and dysfunction
19:25 7. The diplomatic sibling
21:00 8. The oblivious golden child
Thanks!!
Thank you 💜
Great work! Even I am able to recapitulize the most important facts of Patrick's wonderful video now! Thanks a lot, we trauma survivors can do a world of good and help each others. I love the comment section, btw. 🥰
Oblivious
My sibling is a combination of the attacking sibling, the enabled and protected sibling and the golden child….
I have recently discovered the root of my mental illness. I never realized I had a traumatic childhood until I discovered the term “Childhood Emotional Neglect.” My life is a mess right now. I’m so behind in college and struggling to get through the day. Your videos have opened up so many doors for me and are slowly helping me begin to process things on this long journey.
I hope your life is getting a little easier now. It was in college that I first started counseling. They didn't call it "Childhood Emotional Neglect" then, but that's surely what I have dealt with all my life too. Ive been in and out of therapy for 40 years. Keep going! It will be worth it.
Struggling with the same! It is very painful to realize!
Good luck! When you have been able to work through these problems, it will be much easier to pass your studies! ❤️
You are NOT behind in college. You are just dealing with too much at once. Slow down a bit if you need to-there is no race in life-no prize at the end. If a class isn’t FOR you-just drop it-or decide to stick it out but don’t worry about the grade. If you worry about your GPA -take a couple easy A classes to make it up-but honestly most jobs never ask about the transcript and don’t read it if they get it. So Relax a bit. Your life is on YOUR schedule…
I nearly flunked out. Struggled and changed majors. I should have gotten help and I might have dropped or gotten extensions. I recommend finding help with talking to teachers and study groups and grounding.
To battle anxiety or other mindful issues meditate by focusing on your body one part at a time. 5 senses 5 seconds, breathe… brush teeth…
I’m eager to hear what you have to say. Not literally. In the sense that I’m happy to hear how and what you grow to do in life. And I’m all ears about ways to do that.
My issue stems mostly from generational trauma of my father.
When people tell you who they are believe them.
The book Great Expectations comes to mind. Mostly because the significance arose about 5 years and 3 versions later.
If you are not familiar it is a good read. Remembering it feels like the writer explaining my life in analogy.
I do find reading in particular helps. Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide and Robert Asprin, Myth Adventures are funny.
What is missing for me is the “responsibile sibling” - I was the oldest of 5 (well my twin brother is my age but intellectually disabled). As the oldest child I was forced to take care of my siblings and the housekeeping/cooking. My parents are both narcs-mom neglectful narc; dad malignant narc. As I aged (50 plus) I rejected the job of the “responsible” person and cut my toxic, needy aging parents off. My siblings finally stepped up to take care of my aging needy toxic parents, but resented my abdication of total responsibility, and decided to cut me off because I refused to do it all. We now never talk.
They may consider your boundaries a form of abandonment towards them. A sad side effect of your healthy choices.
@@CristinaAcosta yes, you are right. But I’ve bent over backwards to try to contact all of them, and I’m blocked. They’ve even blocked me from contacting our mother in her Alzheimer’s nursing home.
They’ve sided with our father who singled me out for naked beatings (I consider that sexual abuse, considering I felt sexually humiliated even as a 4 year old) and my self absorbed mother who would ignore me for weeks if she came home from work and saw a footprint in the carpet from my siblings.
I know, that sounds cray cray, but that bitch had a problem with footprints in the carpet of her beautiful, expensive home, which we could not afford, so my alcoholic sadistic malignant father was mad and beat me naked and and and. It was a giant shit show and I know everyone here fucking gets it. FUCK. Love you all. XO
@@CristinaAcosta Absolutely true. But you know what? I don’t deserve their abuse. They considered me the parent (age 12). My mother figured out how “competent” I was at age 7. My father did not give a shit but came home periodically to sloppily kiss me on my lips (gross) and tell me how proud he was (only when I’d lost weight after he stopped beating me naked). Such fun
My sister is the “run from reality” and “diplomatic” sibling, and I’m the “problematic truth teller.” It breaks my heart knowing the person I have always felt closest to can’t allow herself to see how toxic our family system can be, and that her intense people pleasing keeps her locked into this role of continuously managing and caring for our parents (especially once they get old enough to need assisted living). For my own sanity, I have to look elsewhere to feel validated and supported 😢
I’m in the exact same situation. My older siblings are also those roles, and I had to put up with years of guilting shaming and crossing my boundaries to restore contact with the abusive parent thru them. Every time I wanted to see them, or talk. It was truly so tiring. I’m heartbroken because being estranged from family is super taboo in my culture/community, and I’m grappling with the fact they’re not salvageable. They constantly gaslight me even going so far to say the abuse didn’t happen and I’m making up a “ narrative”. When I named examples, like our dad hurting me and threatening to kill me, they say “ he’s mentally ill”, forgive him, or you deserved. How would a child EVER warrant that? Being called the selfish one and having it flipped on you as causing the fractured situation is unbearable lies.
I was the youngest. A girl with two brothers 7 and 9 years older. I had emotional, physical and psycological abuse from mum, dad and one older brother.
The older brother brought his friends around to molest me when I as 10. Told me i would be murdered if I said anything.
In my 40s I told my mum. She has ganged up with my shit brother and now my dad.
The emotional and psycological beating continues. So I stepped away. And now I am selfish!
To the scapegoats out there. Best wishes to you in your recovery. Xxx
Sorry that’s horrible, I really just don’t understand people who are supposed to love you can treat you so awfully 🫠
❤ 🙏🏼☀️💗
@@musicandpoetry_8 Exactly! I never felt my "home" was a safe place to be. Having this kind of "family" is s living hell. When we're children we can't defend ourselves. They make you feel weak, stupid, and all the horrible things they wanted to label you.
I always thought this was normal but seeing other families, behaviors, loving families I understand what I lived and still live is not normal but it's not my fault.
Hey...me too! That's exactly what they say me. I am really not alone. I have found my people. BlackSheeps of the "Family"....We Rock.
@@magnoliamagrag4071 💚 We're the truth tellers.
It was a huge relief when I finally stopped trying to get them to get it and focused entirely on my own healing and my own relationship with my younger siblings
YES!
Thats where I am also. they are in denial and avoidance. I see alot of their traumas but they are oblivious.
"Being loved, seen, or valued isn't at the expense of another child." Well put. "...wreckage to that sibling relationship." Yes! Thank you!
As the sensitive scapegoat, lost and neglected child of a narcissistic personality disordered mother, I went no contact with her after 50 years of abuse. All of my siblings won’t go to therapy to realize our childhood trauma. They have their own survival skills but they are definitely deluded. The abuse our mother caused was traumatic and illegal My siblings think I’m crazy, depressed, thanks to my manipulative mother, who has done a smear campaign against me but I’m the only one who is honest, kind and authentic.. Thank you so much for your informative videos. You have helped me and supported me tremendously. You give so much hope to the lost children/scapegoats who just wants to understand why we were targeted as an unwanted child. Narcissistic personality disordered parents will murder your soul.
I relate to this a lot.
ما أجمل ترتيب أفكارك لشرح معاناتك .. الكتابة عن أحزاننا جزء من علاج ما تحطًم داخلنا .. الكتابة ترميم لإعادة جمال روحنا السًابق .
Take care of your soul / self now, you couldn't when you were a child! ❤ Nobody can touch you now unless you are allowing!
sensitive scapegoat is the most painful role to be in. I felt everything and was told I was crazy for seeing it, tried to call it out and had to repress my sensitivity and intelligence to survive
I’m the only one who’s worked on things and I finally “divorced” them. I don’t want it anymore and it’s ok to say, “No, I don’t like this and I don’t want this in my life.” Choose self love, healing and growth. 😊❤
I was mentally, emotionally and on some occasions physically abused by my older sister who is 10 years older, especially during early childhood and my teen years, and well into adulthood. Though I may understand the reasons why it occurred, I have not forgiven her. Especially since she is older and always acts like she knows everything. The saddest thing is that my family is such toxic trash with zero emotional intelligence but I’m the youngest and the one with the most emotional intelligence (not that much but way more than them). I was and still am CONSTANTLY silenced when needing to make my point across, yet they’re always looking for my advice when it benefits them. I hate my family. This is the first time I’ve ever expressed it. It took a long time for me to realize the effects of all I’ve been through it’s sad but feels good to get it out.
Literally one week after the death of our narcissistic mother, my 60-year old sister started a warm relationship with me. She undoubtedly had not wanted to risk losing favor with our mother.
Yeah, not sure I'd go for that.
Typical stuff, as they angle to try to get the most out of the will.
Don't trust her. She will not be the person you think she is.
@James Rutter or she will ne EXACTLY as you suspect her to be. These ppl are invested into hating you. Nothing will change. Nothing.
If the person has lied to you more than once, then take that shit as a sign of that they have zero respect for you and absolutely will do it again and again if you allow for it.
My sister & I fought constantly growing up. I always thought it was because that is what our parents modeled for us in the home, and then our mom & step-dad again, but I am 110% sure we were also venting anger towards our parents that we weren’t permitted to express appropriately at the time. My mind was just blown!
I have watch this happen with my adult in-laws family and their siblings after the parents died. Wow this video was such an eye opener to realizing that these adults were never permitted to be angry or frustrated at the parents. Hugs relationships are not always easy. ❤
It was eye-opening for me, too, about my sister. I've always been told that 'siblings do that'. Even my good parent would say, when we watched movies and I wondered why siblings were always friends on TV, that it was more realistic for siblings to fight than to be friends. I've realized later that it probably was more severe than "normal" sibling fights, but it never occurred to me that it could actually be a trauma response.
Same!! We couldn’t talk back or respond in any way or punishment.
7:01 The attacking sibling
9:20 The sibling who never looked back
11:00 The protected sibling
13:10 The sibling who runs from reality 🐢
15:30 The sibling who needs parenting from you
17:25 The lion's den 🌙🎀
19:25 The diplomatic sibling 🐢
21:00 The oblivious golden child
... one sociopathic manipulative behaviour? hereditary or pathology coming from the family? Yes, to both! It's the dark triad and is coming from my twin brother ! me being a 55 yo woman now makes my biggest nightmare! And btw, there are a sis and a "little " bro also! Love this guy and his videos!
i run from the family!!!!
Both of my siblings completely ignored me , for years, when I reached out to them about the narcissistic abuse I was experiencing from my mother and enabled father. The betrayal was absolute.
I am so sorry. 💖
How did you get through the ignoring? That’s awful.
I’m so sorry ❤ I wish you healing
My heart hurts for you. I am so sorry.
I am sorry..and I can relate. Both of my Brothers were kind to me…sadly both have passed and I miss them. My Oder sister, however, at 64 yrs old continues to resent me because I lived a more social and outgoing life than she did when we grew up. She was self conscious and isolated herself from participating in activities. Over the years she has enjoyed making hurtful comments about me and hateful insults whenever she had the opportunity . Recently (3 months ago) she lashed out at me and hung up on me when called her and told her I worried about her being so isolated because she STILL fears Covid. She refuses to attend parties, dinner invitations, or travel with her husband and their friends when invited to go. Anyway, she attacked me - told me it was none of my business and hung up the phone on me. I haven’t spoken to her since. I have no intention of ever reaching out to her again. Frankly, I don’t miss her…not one bit. I’ve suffered her vicious attacks for far too long. If I never see her again I’m fine with that. Sad…but true.
I am the sibling that never looked back. My siblings brushed off our mother's narcissistic abuse, so I had no use for them. TO this day my siblings tell me that I should "get over it". I remind them of he past and that I will never forget what happened. I was also the scapegoat.
My golden child older sister grew up to be a narcissist and destroyed her daughter's lives by treating them the same way our mother treated us. I warned my older sister for YEARS that she was ruining her kids. She shrugged it off and called me dramatic. Well, her daughter had two kids and she is ruining their lives in the same way her mother ruined hers. Generational curse ACTIVATED!! I was right about them all, and don't gaf about the dumpster fire they have created for themselves.
I hear you, and not gaf will save your life so bring it
Left home aged 17 due to being the scapegoated kid of 5. On one occasion I stopped speaking to our father for 2 years while living under same roof after he d badly beaten my mother again. I was then the reason he got angry and lashed out. I finally walked out after it came to final physical standoff between me and him. I told him he d never see me again. And meant it. The trauma of leaving my family behind however had had massive influence on my life. Have since found out couple other sibling don't talk either due to our father. 25 years later....mother still with him also. Ive stayed single for years and chose not to have kids. Battled anxiety depression my whole life. I left because I didn't want my life to be as it was...but that came with a whole other set of unprepared situations. Since found out other siblings don't speak also. So incredibly destructive...but bio father still making the family all about him. I wish other survivors the absolute best in their recoveries.
Did you try therapy? You should or else you left for nothing. You speak as though your life is over...or as though you are still the victim. You can't be the victim and victor. This probably comes across harsh though it isn't meant to but you need to cut ties and focus on yourself and learn to love yourself. To hell with the "family" and siblings. This is your life. Don't waste it.
💔 Somehow we were told about my great grandfather that abandoned my grandpa & his siblings & mom when he was 11 , resulted in grandpas alcoholism which resulted in my dad having a void to which he had no 'Patrick' or help with that childhood neglect... here I am now just became a grandma & want to earnestly help my 19 yr old & 24 yr old boys to unpack their own hurts from me hooking up with their dad who has done no work of HIS own & chose to become villainous.
Um didn't mean to leave this with you so many relatable comments ,I get those 'other problems' that come & heart ache over those we leave behind ... watching my mom get bulldozed caused her to take on a new personality just to survive was awful.
I look at it like learning how to parent yourself correctly, because your bio parents didn't.
We're delayed in our development because of the abuse, but not a lost cause, especially because we're still here AND we're AWARE of the harm that was done to us. 🌹
Thanks
Therapy does help. It actually was so satisfying to understand it wasn't;t my fault- I was the scapegoat
I used to stand up for my scapegoated brother and cousins. When I became the target of the family monster, they all turned against me.
Transferred scapegoat title off themself onto u.
I really identify with being the sibling that never looked back. I feel like I should be there for my little sister who is still in the toxic system being abused, but just talking to her reminds me of all the trauma and everything I used to hate about myself when I lived with them. I used to be someone else because of the trauma. It hurts to remember it all.
I saw this comment and relate 110%. Im the older sister who broke away 3 years ago from my family. It caused them pain and they lashed out on my younger sister. I want to be there for her but I feel like I cant because it is painful for both of us.
Moved 1000 miles away. Felt guilty for so long about being choosy about visiting on my own terms, but I’m getting the hang of it after 30 years.
@@crystaledwards9878 me too, after 25 years. You re not alone in what you ve been through. Always remember that. I wish you the best.🤗
I feel like that little sister, I am a little sister actually. Maybe that's why my brothers don't talk to me about almost anything substantial. They were not raised to know how to talk introspectively, I had to teach myself and be my own emotional support system, so I can talk to myself and be here with myself through all this. It really hurts to have had to accept that to many siblings, they are just people who we had to compete with for attention and love growing in the same environment. I obviously understand why you don't want to retrigger yourself or compromise your safety, you deserve to be safe. And in ideal world that we deserve, there should have been other systems in place to help your sister, like accessible therapy or shelters or healthcare. I am that little sister still trapped in a toxic abusive system, and I don't know how or when I will get out but I hope it's sooner rather than later. I hope we all get the help we desperately need and deserve.
@@UnicornUniverse333 you sound like an extraordinary individual to have experienced what u have and to achieve the self awareness you have gained. I actually don't believe many on here express even a tiny percentage of the pain and trauma they have and still continue to deal with due to the shame affiliated to it. There is power in being able to remove yourself from a situation like this. But the real power comes from what u do next. Most don't actually do very well. But due to the guilt/shame complex never admit it. I'm admitting it. My life's a mess at 43. I have wonderful attributes, but terrible flaws Resulting from what's happened. It's easy to go through life remaining a victim, believing everyone's out to get you. But strength comes from acknowledging that, and understanding there are good people in the world. The most important thing is the way the world appears...is pointless...unless we deal with looking at ourselves, accepting and loving ourselves regardless. Because we project this.We are worth it. God made us extraordinary. It's just a case of believing it, especially after so much trauma. You are worth it.
Oh this this close to home. I am the one who walked away and I don’t like to be in touch with any family members because it reminds me of the trauma.
My brother and I recently started sharing our trauma and it was startling to me how familiar we both felt but for different reasons.
I had this experience this past weekend with my brother the day after MY WEDDING!! We both felt the same way but had different reasoning for it.. we never had that type of admission with each other before. I hope we can work out our differences.
This video was extremely timely. The other night right before I went to bed it hit me like a ton of bricks. I've gone low contact with my 4 sisters. 3 of them text me sporadically and always about superficial things. I've had to cut off all contact with one of my sisters who is the "lions den". That one hurts the most. I always thought we were close. Within the past 2 years I have had mental health crisis and called this sister for support. Both times she made it about herself or just get angry. She would send verbally abusive texts. Finally during our last text session I had to say " this conversation isn't serving me well." And just stopped responding. This was almost a year ago.. My therapist reminded me that her words are thoughts and not facts. Her anger is at my parents directed at me. My older and youngest sisters are the "don't want to go there" and let's keep up the facade types. I've been grieving these losses for a long time but especially lately. Sometimes it comes out when I least expect it. I am the only one in therapy and the scapegoat who walked away. Thank you, Patrick for all of your videos. They are so very validating. And thank you to everyone for letting me share this comment. Blessings to all on your journey to healing.
@Miss Morgan Rae Thank you so much for your kind, supportive words ❤. I'm so grateful for Patrick's videos and everyone's comments. I don't feel like I'm living out on an island all alone dealing with all of the mind effing mess I went through. It's like the title I think of either a book or article, " Wait,
I'm not crazy! I just grew up in a dysfunctional family." It's sad that so many of us are having to pick up the pieces of our lives that were utterly shattered from of our
n't pretty " a quote from my case manager. It sounds so cliche but it's truly " One day at a time" for me. Blessings to all and thanks for letting me share 🙏
@@CoraFrances Dear Gretchen! You are not crazy❣ Reality is built on the responses we receive from the outside. This is the very basic of reality. Denying facts and experiences are abusive and cruel. It is taking away the necessary information to process your life, your pain and suffering. Validation is such an awesome relief. I know what you feel when you wrote: I am not crazy! I know exactly why. Unfortunately I had a therapist that I emailed the exact same sentence to. Some years later she said: they are just human...
So goes your relief, self trust, self respect and the feeling of being worthy to be a person out of the window.
Will not go to therapy there again...
I wanted to write for you to let you know:
I was listening and I absolutely understand your unjust abuse. I absolutely understand that you deserve so much more! You are smart, sensitive, strong and WORTHY for every single thing any other human being deserves to feel whole! I wish I can do more for you to know that your feelings are valid and to help you heal.
Sending love and deep, deep compassion ❣
I had to come back an hour later to add this:
I hope it doesn't seem patronizing. Without any doubt: I have been projecting. I am projecting what I have been feeling after long and devastating narcissistic abuse. Mental, financial and spiritual. Total isolation, triangulation and painful scapegoating. Character assassination and lying, so you are not even able to heal. There is nobody to "mirror" you, the real you, not this villain who is "so mean for setting up boundaries" and refuses to accept her place on the bottom without any human rights.
If you feel I was patronizing, I am sorry. I was just validating my own feelings because it seemed you have been denied having relationships on healthy, non pathological bases with mutual respect and healthy boundaries.
Strength to you. Keep looking after your wellveing.
@@tahwsisiht hello. I don't feel like you were patronizing at all. This feels like a safe space for people to share. I'm learning very slowly how important it is to validate ourselves, but receiving it from others is so empowering. I truly appreciate you sharing and being vulnerable to offer what you have to say. We didn't get that opportunity growing up ( or I didn't, I don't mean to speak for others). I'm going to retype what got cut out of my original post: my case manager told me when I was having a crisis and big time triggered, "healing isn't pretty. " that was so validating in and of itself- as strange as that may sound. For all of talk of healing, and maybe this sounds naive of me, but yeah realizing it isn't all sunshine and roses and like you just wake up one day and say " okay all better now" like you only just scraped your knee or something. I get angry and frustrated and want to say ," could someone just give me a script here!" But there isn't one, everyone's journey to healing is unique. I will always be grateful not only for Patrick's videos, but all of you beautiful souls out there sharing and supporting. There are no words to describe how much that means to me. Thank you for letting me share.
@@katum9391 thank you so much for your kind words. Blessings 🙌 to you.
I grieved the relationships I didn't have with my siblings, I am probably the sibling that never looked back. I am now 30 and trying to recultivate those relationships without the influence of our parents. Two have responded in kind, but my step-siblings are still distant. I look forward to the day we can connect without the toxicity.
I tried this with a group chat. My oldest brother is still the bully I knew as a child. I don't want someone in my life who is going to take their anger out on me because I'm the only girl.
I hope you will succeed. ❤️
But I am afraid it's will be an uphill battle.
For myself I am working on accepting that my siblings are unable to free themselves from mother's influence. (My sister came with me to my therapist for a joint session. She started with how hard and unseasonably mother was with me growing up. Then she went on explaining why I had it coming because of my horrible behaviour)
So if you are unable to"succeed" remember it's not on you
❤️
@@lilletrille1892 being the only girl can be tough. My twin brother still has a one sided rivalry with me because of how we were treated as children. I get that he wasn't treated fairly but it's not my fault.
You don't know what bull they may have been told about you that might colour their view. Take it slowly, my rebuild has been slow over the last 4 years but when our parent had an accident last year we were forced to communicate directly and have some frank conversations that I don't think we could have had before I did work on myself. Sometimes emergencies strip away the facades and you're forced to confront things. Obviously I don't wish a stressful emergency on you, I just wanted to let you know that it's a gradual process because you're not just building new, you're healing from old too. Best love xx
@@KatieM786 I am both sorry for what happened to your parents and happy it lead to a better relationship with your siblings.
My father died in August 20 and the three weeks I spent in my home country was a long list of big sister reminding me, in her subtle ways, that I don't count.
Little brother never spoke out against her, nor did he offer me the information sister stated I couldn't have.
Thank you for this video because sibling trauma is not talked about enough
I was The Golden Child and it was horrible. I had to please my mother in everyway or face brutal rejection by my mother. I was either the best or the worst. I actually took up for my siblings behind the scenes. I saw their pain and felt guilt and responsible for them. I felt I had to try to please and save everyone. So I inevitably failed. The cost to myself was to this day I struggle with feeling a separate identity and with knowing how to set boundaries to protect myself. Each sibling lived their own special hell. But my siblings treat me as if I am my mother. They can't see me as an individual person. They don't even know me. Nobody does, including myself. I have been hospitalized to prevent suicide. At 55 I had to go on total disability, as I was so depressed that I was no longer able to function on a daily basis. I have not given up. Receiving TMS and beginning trauma treatment. My point is I would not have wanted to be abused the way my siblings were but no more than the way I suffered as The Golden Child. The difference is that no one seems to acknowledge the pain of being so lucky to have been chosen for this rule. The way I and my siblings acknowledge their suffering. God help the lucky Golden Child. I haven't been able to figure out who she is
Agreed. GC sucks as much as any other role. We're just better at hiding it, because we have to.
I’m so damaged from narcissistic abuse and my PTSD is real and debilitating. Now I’m older my kids are grown and our relationships are nonexistent. We are all together yet apart. There is competitiveness contempt and hurt.
My little brother was violent. I'm 9 years older than him, and he started attacking me when he was 3, biting, lunging, scratching, screaming. My parents were neglectful, they didn't want to deal with him so told me to figure it out. Mom suggested he wouldn't attack me so much if I didn't react so hilariously, or if he knew I was stronger than him. I was too scared I'd hurt him, I just wanted him to stop, I'd hold him down crying and begging for him to stop. Eventually he'd run out of energy and stop trying to attack me. It happened at least once a day and was exhausting. He's almost an adult now, and I'm so proud of the person he's becoming. I don't blame him for the violence (he's not violent anymore), my mom hit us and threw things at us and destroyed our things, and she was the worst towards him. He stays with me for weeks at a time whenever I can afford it. It's painful though, he doesn't acknowledge the abuse we went through, and doesn't remember most of his childhood. Should I try to talk about it with him? Would that help or just hurt more?
I am not a professional but I just send information to them and allow them to read/watch it and if they want to discuss it then move forward. But just be there one day they may be ready for help finding a therapist or knowing what steps to take and so on.
I am not a therapist either, but agree with Grace Sweeney (comment above) His body and subconscious will not forget the abuse, it will eventually come through. Sounds like you will be there when it happens and he needs you.
I think you should wait to talk about it when he is out of the family house for good. It can be hard to accept reality when he is still on the toxic environment. But I'm not a professional
@@wyass4722 I agree. In my case, I was unable to let myself use the word "abuse" until I was about to move out. That cloak of ignorance helped me survive.
I sound like your little brother. I have alot of repressed memories but i had the feelings of the abuse and neglect. I left the house and drama, joined the military, went to university and lived my life. I didnt want to talk about healing from my pass because i had other pertinent things that i had to and wanted to deal with. Only until 29 was i interested in remembering and that's when i reached out to my other siblings and we'd talk about the past. They'd help me remember
I want to thank Patrick and everyone who has commented on this video. Though we may be in different places, I appreciate hearing everyone’s input as the oldest sister of five siblings of toxic parents. We all had different but equally shitty experiences, and we all hurt. Xo to all of you.
Amen!
@@csviolin0516 Right?! We are strong, good people. We may have made grave mistakes, but we pick ourselves up and keep going. We matter, even if our parents and siblings have decided otherwise. None of us asked for this sh#t! We’re doing the best we can, searching online looking for help to feel better, and be better. At least we are trying. Kudos to us! 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰😘😘😘😘
@@oliveoil4380 Yes, exactly!👍🏻☺️❤️
are we all the same? maybe but my golden child sister was so perfect and pretty and popular who would want to hate on her? she never really got abused i was the one that did so my sister will tell me that we didn't live in an abusive household shes not lying that was her experience and im in the twilight zone.
It looks like you're still taking care of us
Waiting for the scapegoat video. I've been the scapegoat of my sick family. Thank you for your invaluable content!
Scapegoating doesn't work. You are never responsible for the actions of those who actually caused the harm.
You can't put your sins off onto a goat and send it to die in the desert. You still have the fact that you're the perpetrator if you've done such heinous things (not you, personally...just speaking in general).
Sometimes the sibling who never looked back , probably was the scapegoat....
Watch his 6 archetypes of toxic parenting its 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Being loved or seen or valued isn't at the expense of another child. That hit home! 4:13
This was great to hear. I am in my 70’s and going to start therapy at my doctor’s suggestion. He believes I may have PTSD from childhood trauma. Things I have not thought about for decades have come back to haunt me. I truly thought I had dealt with them and don’t understand why they are affecting me now.
You’re literally describing my “family”
Thank you for what you do
As a child that grew up in foster care, separated from my sibling who is now full of rage, I am so grateful for you and the time you take with us subscribers. Thank you.
Man, where do I start?
My oldest & only sister was parentified & "escaped" early. I don't remember much of her in our childhood & she now makes up stories about what it was like.
She is now the keeper of the castle as she is the cosigner for our father's finances & he calls her for anything he may need.
Even though we all live in the same town, she scapegoats me, or did, for her ongoing issues. Her husband is a grumpy over-drinker, she has dated & now is married to drug addicted or alcoholic men only. But if it looks good from the outside: a Neurosurgeon & now married to an attorney, then it must be good!
Her only child, my niece has had two DUI convictions. Her mother enables her as well by bailing her out & never setting limits. I am now estranged from my niece as well due to my sister's bad mouthing of me.
My sister & I are now estranged.
My oldest brother was the perpetrator of cruelty. Of course he was also scapegoated by our father & he in turn scapegoated me. He is an angry, abusive lost man now.
The golden child died in an auto accident when I was 17, he was 19 & home visiting for the holidays when it happened.
My youngest brother was the lost child & was often infantalized. Financially suported by our parents & allowed to live at home long after our father had kicked me out.
Our mother died 3.5 years ago after a ten year addiction to opiates. Of course they were prescribed by her rheumatologist, so it was okay.
I was the only sib to confront her about her drug use. She had been a counselor in a methadone maintenance clinic for 20 years prior to her retirement & addiction.
Currently I am the sole sib in recovery from ALL of this.
I take codeine prescribed by my Rheumatologist. Are you saying your mother didn't have pain? That sounds pretty cold.
@@kathymc234 you need to reread what I wrote. BIG difference between being RX'd opioids for pain & being an opioid addict taking way too large of a dose for your size & weight. No where in my comment do I address her pain or lack thereof.
Every word golden. May nobody ever go through any of this. I will not have kids. Seen enough. 🙏
So much trauma I can’t even organize my ideas to talk about it. So sad and unfair
I was/ am the sibling that never looked back. I went away to uni and hardly went home. Definitely did and sometimes still do hold my brother at arms length.
This past year was the first time I actually worked with a therapist to acknowledge my own trauma, to name it as such and begin to process. I have found connection with my brother again through doing this work!
I am also the one that never looked back. I grew up in poverty and drug abuse and I ran away because it was the only way I would ever get out. My sister married and keeps having kids despite her and her husband never holding down a job. I have to keep my distance from her because all she wants from a relationship with me is a meal ticket. Thanks for sharing your story.
Sometimes the sibling who never looked back , probably was the scapegoat....or was abused by the entire family
All 3 of the older siblings I grew up with were the attacking type, the 1st example. Made it so intensely hard to grasp reality, really crazy making because they were all essentially my parents and told me from the start that the abuse was normal and I'm just too sensitive. They all preyed upon me sexually and verbally, emotionally and mentally abused me. I knew that I had to leave to see reality, like literally move out of the city to be able to decipher fact from fiction. I know my actual sanity was on the line and I just thank my 21 y/o self for moving even though I wasn't "ready" - really if I had listened to them and their estimations of my ability I would have literally never left lol..
I’m so sorry. No, abuse isn’t normal, but it’s not surprising they told you that - of course they’d want to normalise/justify their behaviour. They get something out of it. I’m glad you’re out, it will help!
@@ShintogaDeathAngel thank you. That’s been a huge thing, accepting that those lies were in their best interest, they were just taking advantage of my naivety. They had to use lies to build a family culture of narcissism. I just got the blunt force of it because I was the youngest, not because I’m inherently flawed.
Glad you made it out. It takes decades to process it all but it can be done!
ELEVEN are older than me and 1 younger. I feel you.
Please do a video on how intimacy (sexual AND physical touch amongst non sexual partners) is affected for those who have CPTSD, and how we can work past it?
Yes that would be amazing Intimacy has such a huge impact on trauma survivors 🙏🏼
Wow i definitely need this
There is a kind of massage that targets these topics, it called traumatic touch massage. I did some training as one, they can be hard to find but very worthwhile.
@@mitcharendt2253 if you have any links that would be great!
That would be great. I don't like being touched (hugged) especially by my parent. I automatically pull away. Very few people can hug me.
"Runs from the reality of it" isn't limited to just siblings. I see a lot of (former) friends do this too (repress emotions). Everything HAS to be okay. It's half safe talking to them. And they're not fully comfortable with you setting boundaries with other people that you mentioned to them.
Feels like fake support.
I think it’s very rare for an entire family of siblings to be aware of and agree that they were all abused or neglected. I have had to come to terms with the fact that 2 of my older siblings continue to say harmful things like “We had a great childhood, if you feel like a victim that’s your problem.” I can also acknowledge that these two older siblings were favorites of my Mom. Interesting that the 3 of us who weren’t the favorites are able to acknowledge the fact that our family was very dysfunctional, and it negatively affected us. To me this is the first step toward healing. Pretending it didn’t happen just keeps one in a headspace where one will continue to live in that trauma
I wish I had been the one that never looked back instead of living within driving distance from my parents after leaving home . Despite being the scapegoat my siblings still tried to hold me accountable for caring for the parents and they who were caught up in triangulation by my mother . The parentified behaviour towards me had them asking me for money and being expected to help them buy houses , providing housing for and health care so they wouldn't have to 'bother' the parents for anything . True to what they had learned at home they expected to be able to complain and criticize me for any services rendered and expected my help to still continue , Even going from low contact to no contact made little difference . Dysfunctional families need and use a scapegoat so they still feel good about themselves . I find all family members very triggering and have avoided them for years. I don't have any illusions of us getting along .
Patrick this is so insightful! These sibling issues can often get amplified by marriage or by the sibling’s marriage partner. For instance the shaming sibling and their new spouse can “team up” to shame she sibling that refuses to enable the toxic family system. Another example: the older sibling get married and no longer “parents” the younger siblings so the new spouse gets blamed and targeted for disrupting the toxic system and diverting resources.
@@jt5792 Hang in there. I’m so sorry that happened to you. No contact is painful at first, but the peace and self-respect you gain is worth it.
"Drinks the parental KoolAid" I can't get over that, that's so perfect 😂🤣😭
Absolutely! And absolutely true!
Excellent!! Thank You!!What is astonishing to me is how easy it is to mess things up in a family. Some parents don’t realize what they are doing, some parents just didn’t have the skills to be a good parent, and some parents unfortunately had their own serious issues. It’s all sad. After reading books on co-dependency and narcissism, I believe it is better for me to limit communications with my siblings. They are toxic and it affects my mental health when I get pulled into the drama.
The part about the sibling that “never looked back” seeing you as the symbol of all of the trauma makes so much sense to me. All these years later, I’m still not even considered for an invite to when the rest of my family gets together. (We are all in perfect standing with each other, grown and past it all. No strife at all.) I’d bet any amount of money that I’m the reminder of the trauma for the whole family. They all (seemed) to never look back and I struggled for many years. This really helps to understand bc the lack of any invitation for my entire adult life has always been a painful mystery. Maybe I can just mourn the loss and begin to heal on this part of it.
Issues with siblings are so much more prevalent than most people realize. Thank you so much for this excellent video and I hope you will do more. My biggest loss and challenge in life has been the estrangement from my sister and her family. I am the only family member seeking help, but this gives me a much better understanding of why.
I read many on here that are the only sibling seeking help, I recently said that to MY therapist! That I was the "only kid seeking help"! Not just THAT as I raised two step BRATS and lived with their alcoholic NARCISSISTIC Father NOT ONE DAMN ONE of them would seek help! NOT A DAMN ONE! I was seeking HELP with them because THEY were driving me insane! I folded right into one quagmire of crazy after another! It seems to go like that!
This is totally my family. I really need to hear about the scapegoat because that’s been my cross for decades. I have an older sociopathic abusive golden-child sister, and a phony but nice diplomatic younger brother. Our narcissistic father is still living and manipulates everyone to keep the drama fresh.
This video really hits home in so many ways. As someone who cut off contact from my family from age 20 - 32, then tried to rebuild the relationship with them from age 32 - 51… but with a healed heart, healed inner child and hyper awareness of what a chaotic, toxic and dysfunctional dynamic looks and feels like - every encounter was exhausting and poisonous. I felt like I betrayed myself over and over again because our relationship was so inauthentic. I wanted something real and transparent. My family wanted drama and compliance.
My sister morphed into a maniacal tyrant who I would not trust because her contrary to her words, her actions displayed her jealousy and resentment towards me.
There is freedom and great healing that result from choosing to live a life without chaos and drama.
Oh wow. Painful. So then in the end you realized space was the healthiest place?
@@rdg6543 Yes. It was more painful to want an authentic relationship with someone who I loved but who sent clear messages that she resented me and viewed me as her adversary. I have accepted it and released her with love. Are you experiencing something similar?
@@Keepingitreallyreal my initial response to your response was written to wrong person. Sorry if you started reading it and it didn't fit. I deleted it. It was another thread. No, currently I am not experiencing this myself. Unfortunately, this must be a common thing bc I am observing it with a close friend, and the injustice of it feels unbearable at times. What we deserve is often not what we get. Learning about space boundaries is new to me and am dealing with a hurtful mil that I've had to incorporate some space boundaries with. But my particular situation is different than yours. I am really sorry you've been hurt like this.
yikes, well at least you know you tried, and unfortunately it sounds like they may have inherited narcissism from your parents. You can be at peace now.
As youngest sibling I was first to seek counseling as a young adult. My eldest sought counseling when raising teenagers and then continued for marriage and independent counseling. My middle sought counseling late in life. I realize that my siblings and I are miraculously still connecting to one another despite lots of dysfunction (including my own). I was teased about my passion for healing past traumas and was called Queen of Self-Help Books. I did not let this stop me from seeking healing.
This video was so helpful. I was able to disconnect from my abusive/neglectful parents early on in the healing process (with some fits and starts). However, now, decades later, sibling relationships remain painful and unsatisfying. The information in this video so accurately explains the reason for this. There were 5 children in my family, and not one of them will talk about our experiences in our dysfunctional family. This has been maddening. It is like we were all soldiers fighting in the same war, but can never talk about ever being in battle.
Your descriptions of these dynamics is SPOT ON and very triggering. My siblings and I used to be so close to protect our ourselves from our dad who was the narcissist. When my dad died it was 'the lion's den' . The hatred, attacks, rage backstabbing, smear campaign that we did to each other was painfully heartbreaking to witness and soul crushing. I had to cut off the entire family for the sake of my mental health.
- I was the scapegoat who was infantalized but also parentified at the same time (my mom often treated me like another adult, not her child and wanted me to validate her feelings).
- My sister was the one who attacks. After our dad left us, it was like she took over his place and continued the abuse while mom enabled it or explained it away.
- My mom is absolutely the sibling nr 4. She just cannot handle talking about the dysfunction.
I’m blamed
For everything. That’s how my mom deals when speaking about it
this is the first time i have heard of sibling relationships in a dysfunctional family that actually make sense. very insightful. it adds clarity to a lot of the dynamics.
Wow. My mother recently passed away, and six of us siblings are going through major struggles as we settle the estate. There was much to think about in your video! I hope we can go forward without becoming estranged. We are children of a narcissist.
I wish you luck, my family was also terrorized by a narcissist mother and a enraged absent father. We fit this mold perfectly. The final weeks of her life were absolute chaos. The golden child took control, even though she wasn’t power of attorney or executrix. ( Mother knew the monster she created, but fell for the siren song.) What she (the golden child) did was unforgivable, and unforgettable.
I was labeled the “good kid” because my brother was a troublemaker - the law, drugs, school, early pregnant, etc. Being the good kid didn’t mean more attention in my case, I was expected to walk that line and it has held me back to yield to other people’s irresponsible or bad behavior.
I really love that you put the responsibility where it should be. So many are scapegoating the golden child, but noone had a choice, we all just struggled to survive. Thank you ♥️
In some systems, yes. In others the golden child was a "willing smirking helper" sooo...yeah.
@@leahweinberger583 My d*ck of an older brother very much knows and loves that he is the golden child. At least with my mother. My father has a different golden child. No one will ever admit the obvious fact that I'm the scapegoat, though. It has been this way for decades.
@@leahweinberger583 Yeah most of the time the golden child is the "teflon child", the projection of the narcissist parents ideal self. I have broached the subject of abuse with my golden child younger sister and she has been dismissive and vaguely interested, she has her own resentments towards our mother, but in the end she believes the narrative that I am the real problem / loser as the scapegoat. She prefers her position in the hierarchy more than she cares to acknowledge the truth of my treatment as the scapegoat and of our toxic family., the same goes for my older sister, who just pretends to commiserate, but is actually two-faced and betrays me to the rest of the family. I have tested them, and learned the truth this way.
@HeartFeltGesture finally figured out my golden child sister is the biggest covert narcissistic evah. Seriously when you mature and you go back home and you watch it go on and you've been out of it for a while, it is so apparent. Unbelievable I thought she was this super giving woman with terrible bad luck, a victim her whole entire life, and then I just watched her manipulate the whole house full of people, boy that was eye-opening. Nooooo contact. Awful human.
As adults, we all have a responsibilty for our actions. As children not, we were all victims of a dysfunctional family. I can see that my mother was a victim of her childhood too, nevertheless it is her full responsibility how we were treated. My golden child sibling never had a choice, neither the scapegoat nor myself as being the lost/invisible child. How we choose to continue as adults is a whole different story. But it is clear that we are all blinded by our own experience depending of our role in the family of origin.
I see my siblings like those who would carry on my mother's ill will towards me after she dies.
I think narcissists live longest. I doubt I would ever will be able to get out of the pit and the pendulum.
Thanks, you made coherence into my intuition about what to expect from my siblings. Great video.
My Narc bro died first of my siblings.
Don’t rely on your siblings for your self worth. In a toxic family they are as damaged as you are, just in different ways. I learned this the hard way. I wish you peace and healing.
Ditto. Well said
I fit into all of these roles to some extent. At different times I feel like me and my siblings took on different roles, when one stopped filling that role someone else filled that vacuum but some have remained more consistent. The scape goat role is the only one that definitely applies to me over my other siblings so I look forward to that video. Thank you for this amazing channel 🙏
I got good grades, did well at sports, got tons of certificates from Congress, and did as I was told for a long time until I realized that it didn't matter. I got treated the same when I stopped caring about those things and stopped trying. I learned that I was the scapegoat in my family. Not just immediate family, but my whole family. I was often blamed for things my cousins and brother did all the time by all members of my family
This is such a fantastic video. Thank you, Patrick, for your work.
My husband’s family is dysfunctional and it’s been difficult marrying into this dynamic. My sister in law is the diplomat/agent/enabler/hero. Whenever I set boundaries against my mother in law, SIL says “she’s not going to change” , and of course she won’t change if people keep enabling her! SIL actually called me a bully for confronting MIL about her manipulation and selfishness. My husband for years would emotionally (and sometimes physically) leave to avoid dealing with MIL. So this made me the “truth teller/scapegoat.” SIL is also the Smart And Competent One, so this means the rest of us must be helpless idiots, despite us having successful careers, etc. If I do something well, it is either ignored, discouraged, disparaged. Or I’m showing off .
My response to being treated this way is to go very low contact. When I have to be around my husband’s family, I will often gray rock but sometimes point out BS and hypocrisy. I have given up on having a normal relationship characterized by mutual care and respect.
I have a similar relationship with my MIL but we can't even be around each other anymore. She totally scapegoats me. My husband is stuck in the middle😢.
Before I met my current therapist, I felt so lost, and I didn’t understand I was a scapegoat. Truly, I am grateful for her insight into my family dysfunction. I have never felt comfortable in my own skin. She taught me that my own insecurities were actually valid, unmet childhood needs! Until my early twenties, I ran around being a self proclaimed *lovable dirtbag* because this is the image I chose to be, when I finally freed myself from an awfully abusive, traumatic, dramatic, neglected, no good, real bad childhood. However, I had not freed myself from self sabotaging inner dialogue, broken red flag detectors, commitment and trust issues...the list goes on. This identity was both shaped by my experiences as a traumatized child, and my unwillingness (inability) to conform to proper society. I put myself in similar, unsafe situations, unknowingly or not. I paid a heavy price for trusting slimy people, even though that is all I ever had known and wanted to run from. Deep down, anyway. So, when things had deteriorated into a living nightmare, I ran home to my *lovable family*, for support. Get this, though! I wanted to reciprocate this magical support, and in turn, try to fix my broken family dynamic! Turns out, the system was not broken. I was a scapegoated, unappreciated, loose cannon with my loose lips. How dare I bring up *the dreaded unmentionables* that were really just unresolved, serious issues that no one was willing to ever admit or address..? I wasn’t worth advocating for. And yes, I have an older sister, who I adore, and have had to make peace with in my own head. I am still trying to wrap my head around how I honestly feel about her. I love her, and I have very limited expectations of her ability to advocate for me. Had I not done an entire years worth of hard mental work, combing through my tangled mind, to reach some form of inner peace and true identity, and love; I would have a very different response to this video. And I really appreciate this channel, and your support for us survivors.
I was definitely the sibling that needed parenting from my older sister. I never really bonded with my mom, but I'd do just about anything for my sister, because I owe her so much.
Now that we're both adults, we're friends, but my sister is never emotionally vulnerable with me the way I am with her, and refuses any help I offer her in hard times. My sister can reassure me with a single text or joke, but I can only acknowledge and validate her feelings. Are there things I can do to bring more to our relationship? I don't want my sister to feel like she has to be my parent anymore.
Maybe just say that to her? ❤️
You describe my brother and mine's relationship, when i was still home. I realize now it was him desperately overcompensating, trying to continue the "role of the older sibling" thst maybe my narc mother dumped on him. For me anyway, that was not real because i would still get toxic behavior/comments from him, proving he never changed. Like your sibling, i reject anything and am not at alll vulnerable with him (i am no longer in contact with him). For us, we (or at least myself) are exhausted and drained ("caught up") after having to be the parent all those years. Talk to her. There is that gap in your relationship that you can't just lump over. Maybe you need to shift the kind of relationship you both have..Ask her what she wants.
Your sister might not be capable of being emotionally vulnerable due to her childhood. Keep being there for her.
Whoa. I related heavily to 6 of these and a little to the other 2. Could give examples of all of them and how all the roles kind of shifted back and forth. Your accuracy and understanding and ability to put it all into words is stunning.
Thank you so much Patrick. I can 100% relate as the isolated Scapegoat middle child, who has always been triangulated against (by covert narc mother) a grandiose narc older sister and younger co-dependent 40 something 'year old baby' brother.
I have been following you this past year and you'll never know just how much your insightful videos have helped me gain huge clarity of my toxic family dynamic. It has helped me understand why i have always felt like i just don't belong and questioned my right to exist in this world.
This video made me think about Prince Harry's memoir, 'Spare'. The relationship between Prince Harry, his brother Prince William, his father King Charles, and "The Firm/Palace" is brought to light in this video and explains so much. Wow! Now that I've seen this, I'm going to read it again with the new insight.
I feel like the most important reason for me to find compassion by understanding that my siblings also went through that trauma, and also with others in my life, was that by understanding that the behavior that they may be directing at me are actually their own survival responses to their trauma. In no way does that excuse their behavior or mean that I'm supposed to sit there and take it, but being able to see it almost from an observer viewpoint instead of being caught up in the midst of someone's projected insecurity due to trauma has allowed me to accept that their behavior, while directed at me, is not actually ABOUT me, so it's easier for me to forgive them instead of carrying resentment around forever. I no longer take their behavior/accusations as personal and instead can see where they're coming from while also continuing to set boundaries to protect myself from the abuse, and I think both of those things have been major, major aspects of my healing. Reminding myself it's not about me has really kept me from falling back into a shame mindset!
THIS! My sister is so mad at my brothers. Where as I understand we all had our own ways of dealing with the generational trauma in our family and so I understood the idiosyncrasies of their personalities and try to move forward. My sister is SO pissed that I am choosing to forgive and forget. She sees me as a traitor for it and now doesn't talk to anyone. It's like she NEEDS to be perpetually mad with her, and I just can't. I have to put it to rest, and she is so mad that I am doing that.
My older sister was the scapegoat. I believed my parents' lies about it being her fault. Now that I've moved out and I've gone no-contact with our dad, she is saying that her relationship with our parents has really improved. She demonstrated this improvement by participating in our dad's abuse of my girlfriend. She sees herself as a victim and a survivor, but she doesn't want to admit that any abuse happened in the family. When something happens that inconveniences her, she assumes that it was done with malicious intent and lashes out at the source. Some months ago, I was having pain and asked her if we could meet up somewhere a little closer to me than usual so I wouldn't have to drive as far. She switched moods instantly and started yelling that I was trying to manipulate her and that I didn't understand all that she sacrificed so she could meet with me for brunch. I am so tired of walking on eggshells every time we talk. I can't build a healthy relationship with someone who unapologetically hurts me when I ask for help.
Oh my dear, its time to care and protect yourself. Your sister is of no help. Seek support elsewhere. I wish you strength and healing.
my sister also takes it personally when I have any kind of need.
The only time she would cave is if someone else backs me up, but she also tries to walk it back as soon as it's no longer convenient. So, i think she's just trying to look good for others.
And she, really seems to think for some moronic reason, to think that she has NO CLUE why I wouldn't want to be around her (I'm NC). Wow, why would a functioning human being want to constantly have their needs and boundaries questioned and denied.
Huh, w e i r d
Please delve more into this please. This was really difficult to listen to and all of the feelings and experiences that I had/have with my sister is too close- can’t articulate what I need to say. It’s like I felt all of the feelings and language crawl back underneath the duvet of denial, dismissing and disbelief.
As a black woman this adds another layer of discomfort...🤦🏽♀️🙏🏽
Thank you for this channel.
BINGO ! I am # 10 in family of 13 children. … with one bathroom. True! Lol. I am an adult survivor of sibling sexual abuse. Listening to you is like listening to a “ text book” on dis functional families and dynamics of relationships. We all have had issues with primary relationships. ( duh, no surprise with 15 people in a household). Please keep educating and helping!
This does not get talked about enough. At this point in my life I’m more furious with the siblings who knew and gaslit me for 6 decades and the chief enabler and gaslighter told me they all ALWAYS KNEW when she was furious at me for going low contact and wanted to hurt me. Annnnd proceeded to tell me how my serial abuse and gang rape traumatized her- In the same moment she admitted to gaslighting me for my whole life. Uhm, I’m not going to apologize for your decisions to lie and prolong my torment for a lifetime. She has spent the last 5 years using that to now paint herself the martyr, while never actually telling anyone what she did.
Sooo correct about “The Golden Child” So hard to live with the youngest who could do “no wrong” - Thank you
This is so helpful not only as a child of neglect, but also as a parent trying to end the cycle. Thank you so much for taking the time to make these 💜
My sister and I come from a large family and we're working together on the trauma we experienced as kids. The other siblings have no clue and think we're just "disloyal" or "resentful for the wrong reasons" so we keep these conversations and the work we're doing to ourselves ♥️ Thank you for the work you do Patrick, we absolutely love your calm and super informative videos!!!
I was looking forward to this theme.
My brother won’t stop belittling me ever since childhood and he is younger than me. We have fallen out several times. He is controlling and possessive towards me and at the same time tells me to shut up whenever I talk about any of my interests. He’s got serious jealousy issues towards me and my mother.
I understand this. I have 3 problems and all of them are toxic, self-centered and have issues/disdain for women. I choose not to have a relationship or contact with them for my own safety.
@@l.chambers1944 I have recently “snapped out” due to stress and the constant abuse so I started therapy again and will pay the psychiatrist a visit to check if I have to do anything medication wise. My goal with therapy will be cutting ties with my family. It’s the only way. I am not free.
I’m finally ready to watch these after having them sit in my “watch later” playlist. I’m so grateful for the work you’re doing here 💜
I recognize myself in one of these. I didn’t realize. Thank you. I’ll go show this to my siblings so we can have a discussion. Appreciate your hard work and thanks to those commenting the video to bump it up.
I was the eldest, golden child, I knew it and felt tremendous guilt about it and the way my younger siblings were treated, the youngest who was the scapegoat and the middle who walked away. I was enmeshed/parentified with my mother and only now in middle age and in therapy am realizing how disfunctional it all was. Many of these overlap. Now I give money I don’t have to my scapegoat sibling (who can’t keep a job in their 50’s) because of my guilt feelings even though I know they need to do for themselves.
Me too. Being the GC isn't easy or good when you know what's happening. I tried to protect my SG brother, although I know that I also occasionally aped my Dad's behaviour and verbally abused my bro. I wish I hadn't, but I was so young. I didn't understand. I have apologised.
Eventually we switched roles, despite both being NC. Mum's death really f*cked things up. Heading for NC now. It's tragic, but I can't take anymore of his nastiness.
I can not get enough of your videos. I feel like when I stumbled upon them I found the key that I'd been searching for for years and years to unlock my healing pathway. Thank you!!!!!
Wow this is a great list. Oblivious Golden Child! Yes that description is perfect and I’ve never heard that before. My sister just can’t understand how any of us have any problems and why. She’s so above any of us and our issues with our dysfunctional family. And she’s so busy with her new mansion and her business she’s running, don’t you know!? Why can’t we all just get over it and be as amazing as her?
I understand
Let me guess - the parents financially supported her new business while not being supportive of any of your ideas. My mother pays my sister's bills so she can call her successful - It's insane.
Holy moly. This was incredibly helpful to me.
The part where you talked about a parental death felt personal lmao. When we were packing up my father's stuff, my sister and I had a huge blowout. I truly feel that somewhere inside me, I finally was able to release all of those feelings once my father died. My father already survived cancer so a lot of the time I felt I had to show him and display to him my siblings and I had a good relationship because he could pass anytime and he wanted his kids to get along. When he died, I finally felt free of that facade