Why You Shrink Yourself After Family Scapegoating

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:01]visibility for the family scapegoat survivor.

[00:00:05]So, I was talking about this yesterday with my clients. It can be such a tricky area because of the environment growing up where when the family scapegoat is visible, is talking, is expressing themselves that they're being criticized and bullied and shut down.

[00:00:29]So over those years of childhood, teenage years into adulthood, when you're constantly exposed to the ridicule and the bullying, you're not going to have a great relationship with visibility in your adult life. This is really going to impact you. It's going to cost you a lot uh in your personal life, in your professional life.

[00:00:56]And some of the things um my clients struggle with is feeling like if they in their professional life, if they need to record a video, if they need to speak at a meeting, um they have a real cringe factor with the sound of their own voice. that can be something that comes up or you know seeing themselves on camera having something being played back can be very very excruciating um and therefore then they're stopping themselves with opportunities. actually keeps life very very small. And of course as a child there was so many circumstances where the safe option was to cower, to protect yourself, to hide, to be invisible.

[00:01:55]And that's kind of hardwired into survival mechanism. And then in adulthood, it um has the opposite effect. it doesn't help us survive at all.

[00:02:08]So, just inviting you to consider what is it costing you at the moment where you might be hiding and where some areas of your life that you could benefit and need to be more visible and have more eyes on you. Um but you're potentially shying away from that and um it feels just a bit insurmountable and that you're not able to do it and you kind of have excuses for why it wouldn't be possible.

[00:02:48]So, um, some some people think, okay, you know, I need to get more comfortable with my voice, um, when it's been recorded and for my professional life.

[00:03:01]And they consider doing things like hiring a vo voice coach.

[00:03:09]And what they may not understand from that is that's not actually the real issue.

[00:03:18]That's kind of surface level. That's the icing on the cake. And how amazing to work with a voice coach. Um, so they probably think it's like a skills deficit. Like, oh, maybe I need to project my voice. Maybe I need to stand more confidently.

[00:03:34]But for a family scapegoat survivor, it's much deeper than that. It's what the family scapegoat survivor tends to do is repeat those really nasty, cruel phrases um that we were exposed to in childhood in developmental years. Um, and of course for family scapegoat, they really target, how you look, your physical appearance, your voice itself, and how you speak and what you say. Um, and the way you say it. Um, and I grew up as the family scapegoat. So, I was I know this firsthand what it's like to be targeted repeatedly by parents uh for how you look and for what you say and it makes you want to just hide in a box.

[00:04:35]Um so yeah so what is it costing you in your life and understanding the deeper layers at play which is the self-t talk which is this internal um critic is kind of in psychology you'll have heard of the term in inner critic I refer to it as an inner bully because it's like the inner critic on steroids um and it just really really nasty So there's a correlation there between visibility, wanting to get on in life, wanting to get past the inner torment, inner turmoil um of the traumatic experience of being the scapegoat and moving on, getting across the bridge to the other side.

[00:05:26]It's to do with how you speak to yourself and that repetitive very familiar voice in your head which repeats the phrases that you heard in childhood.

[00:05:40]Um so yeah so the visibility is very much linked to how you talk to yourself. how you talk to yourself can be very very negative and there's a lot to this. There's a lot to this and um I will be sharing more about this uh in an upcoming class which you can find a link to in or around this video uh if you're interested to learn more and to really unpack what is happening with this residue of family scapegoating abuse where we're Now um experiencing a really really harsh critical inner voice that is keeping life extremely small.