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I wish I could say what happened was all her fault. And while there is reasonable ground to suspect she exploited her position of power and misrepresented herself, the position, and her business…I didn’t protect myself. I grew up in an extremely abusive home. One of the things I survived was being the family scapegoat. To be honest I have had at least one source of scapegoating my whole life, 34 years. Scapegoating is a social construct of transferring the group’s “sin” onto one person/people. This does a few things; 1) the other members do not have to directly deal with their issues, 2) unites the other members of the group even more, 3) and gives those same members the right to abuse or ostracize the scapegoat. The scapegoat is chosen by the dominant person/group and is usually one of the strongest members and has a resemblance to a trait that the dominant person/group has the biggest problem with in themselves real or imagined. There are distinct characteristics of scapegoating. The person being scapegoated didn’t do anything. The person/people doing the scapegoating exaggerate every mistake the scapegoated makes; while every success is downplayed or ignored. The person being scapegoated is often blamed for the mistakes or failures the dominant person/group makes. Even more than that the person who scapegoats is almost unable to admit any mistakes, weaknesses or oversights. And lastly, the person being scapegoated is constantly being defamed. That can be expressed in many ways, from being called names (i.e. lazy, selfish, drama queen, too sensitive) to being…
