Using "Family Roles" as a means for an exit-strategy.

[Dutch Uncle]

So , I've invested quite some time on the concept of 'The ScapeGoat', and by extension on the other six Family Roles.
I found this tidbit quite interesting: "Let's take a closer look at the six kinds of codependent roles."

So, as far as I understand, all six roles are of a co-dependent nature. Not just the role of "the Caregiver", also referred to as "the Co-dependent".

Since I belief that I assumed another role myself in response to the assigned role by the Dysfunctional Family (if only out of passive-aggressiveness) I decided to have a look at how my bro and sis might have done a similar thing.

This revealed an interesting dynamic, I think.
Starting with sis, the eldest, I'm pretty certain she was at first assigned the role of the Caregiver by mom. I know from admission of my sis that mom used her as an emotional crutch while mom complained about (uAsperger's) Dad. Starting at the moment my mom's own dysfunctional mom died. (suicide threats galore towards all of mom's FOO-members. Confirmed by mom's sis, BTW.) When sis disclosed her homosexuality, she became the Golden Child/The Hero. In an odd way, but she got all attention from mom from then on, as mom struggled a lot with my sis 'not going down the isle'. (since mom is uHPD, this was a Golden Opportunity for ever lasting Drama. Hence the given 'Golden Child' epitaph.)
Since I was twelve when this came about, I have not much recollection of the role my sis adapted herself during the Caregiver-assignment (which started when I was six), but she did adapt (from my point of view) the role of The addict/the dramatic/the problem child when given the Golden Child role. Which she holds to today. (I think she's HPD too)

My brother (more then a year younger than sis) has been assigned the ScapeGoat, and took upon himself the Golden Child/The Hero.
Interestingly, I would have 'expected' this would bring a conflict with the assigned GC, but from the site it said: The Golden Child saw the complications that arose from The Dramatic (Sis herself) and The Truth Teller (ScapeGoat: assigned to bro) and decides to counter their undesirable behavior by being perfect.
LOL. Fits even better.

After sis' assignment of Caregiver was dropped and changed to GC (sis had left home maybe six months before 'coming out'.), I was assigned the Caregiver, at the age of 12 (same age as sis at the time). I don't know what role was assigned to me before that. I have taken upon me the role of the Invisible Child.

Interestingly enough, the Dramatic (sis herself) apparently has a strong tie with the Caregiver (assigned to me) and competes with the ScapeGoat (assigned to bro) and the Good Child/Hero (which bro took upon himself).

I'm totally enmeshed with sis (well, NC now, but struggling with the rattling old chains), and bro and sis can drink each others blood for as long as I can remember.

TLDR:
My dysfunctional family interactions fit pretty good the 'plan' if I take into account the assigned co-dependent roles vs. the self-identified dysfunctional roles. Better actually than if only the assigned roles are taken into account, and self-identification is discarded.


Now, this is all fine and dandy and where is the Journal of Psychiatry to publish all this in, but the actual use of this exercition, hopefully, is to provide me with some exit strategy.
At the moment my self-identified role is that of the Addict (which I feel terrible about) as I try to numb myself regularly with booze. It's a continuing struggle.
I have kept this very carefully hidden from my FOO, but the addiction-therapy as well, as I have told nobody from the FOO about my SCID-II test either. I'm doing all this recovery in utmost secrecy, from the FOO (not from my support-group/friends). The FOO would decent on me like vultures, or so I fear. With good reason, I dare say. They crave Drama. And a drama it is, :crying with/from laughter:.

So actually I think now I should proceed with/revert to my self-identified role as the Invisble/Lost Child, and pursue on the path of NC/LC/MC (depending on the specific FOO-member and future events).
To counter this (still) dysfunctional behavior/role, I should adopt outside my FOO, in the real world so to say, the role of Visible Man. A non-dysfunctional role (I hope ), and a role that I actually did play (with considerable success I should add), before the heavens came crashing down on me, through no fault of my own.

Let me be Lost to the FOO, and let me play that role two more times (the funerals of mom and dad) with the distance that "Don't absorb, observe" may give me. The FOO will remain dysfunctional FOR SURE, so while there I might as well play my routine. Trying to be functional there will only cause me added grief, probably. I can finally bury that role with the last parent to 'go'.
Meanwhile I'll 'act out' Visible Man with a passion, and see what and where that will bring me without the 'residual-poo' messing up my efforts. As best as I can. It'll be a challenge as the last time I 'did' "Visible Man", the tug of the FOO has held me back at significant moments. I'm all to aware of that. If I'm able to rest that tug this time, I'll be sailing into uncharted waters. "Danger, Will Robinson!", will be the call-sign there.
Well, I survived all this. So how bad can it be?

This is my plan for this year. A year ago, when I went to the GP to tell him "I am an alcoholic", I gave myself three years to navigate this mess.
Phase II of III is about to begin.
(Phase I consisted of distancing myself from the Drama, and that project is well under way. That will still continue under phase II and III as well. After that I hope it will have become a 'natural' thing to do/routine. Not effortless, but no effort required for 'wanting' to do so. As nowadays I still have to make an effort to even 'want it so'.)

I'm not even sure if I can wrap my own head around what I just wrote, and any feedback is welcome.
It's not ideal to do this on my own, but I really have a hard time going to/looking for a T, with T-mom having messed up so much trust in them (even though the SCID-II woman & team have been up to par.  )

edit:
I had developed a pretty complicated system to avoid using mom, dad etc. to express the distance I have taken (and should take, IMHO) towards these 'family' figures in my life. Then I stumbled on an excellent phrase I saw MourningDove use: 'female parent'. So thank you, MourningDove, I'll follow your lead.
Adding male parent, female sibling and male sibling to the mix will provide the necessary distance I need to take to these emotional vultures/vampires. The love and affection I have felt for them, and that would flow with ease if it had been a healthy family, should be reserved for people who act and behave like a brother and sister for me, and there are quite a few nice older people in the street where I live, and even parents of friends of mine, who I should direct the love and affection I can have for a mom and dad.
It's not that I don't possess that kind of love and affection, it's that in return I get pelted with poo and bricks and I 'forget' the value of the love, passion, affection and empathy that goes around on this planet.

[arpy1]

blimey, DutchUncle, this is mega!   

just to make sure i am getting this straight let me mirror back to you what i have understood from this very interesting post:

your purpose in studying the 'roles in the FOO' thingy is in order to work out or rationalise a strategy for exiting the extreme toxicity of your FOO.

in understanding more about the roles you played (whether self-elected or assigned) and the roles played  (ditto) by the other members of the FOO, you can understand more clearly the toxic nature of the family dynamic. thus you are providing yourself with a rationale and affirming your reasons (till now informed by painful experience as well as your own emotional intelligence and intuitive awareness) for your decision to distance yourself.

in distancing yourself (NC,MC,LC according to what is most healthy for you re: each relationship) you are giving yourself the emotional independence required to engage constructively and in a healing way with your most fundamental role, that of 'invisible child' (who is key in terms of your cptsd?)
   
this same emotional independence also, following on from and in conjunction with that constructive engagement with the 'invisible child'  enables you to continue to work on your 'visible man' (am i right in taking this to be the 'healthy adult' part of you?)

it is the 'visible man' who is empowered to grow and change, and who has the power to break free from the maladaptive coping strategies like the alcohol dependence, the emotional enmeshment with toxic family members etc.  he has the power to be the healer of the invisible child.

that's what i understand. let me know what you think i.e. am i totally missing the point  ?

[Dutch Uncle]

Spot on!



I'm so glad I wasn't just blabbering about.

[arpy1]

definitely no blabbering about that i could see

in which case, can i share this:

i think i agree with you that the key to this whole process is your 'exit strategy'; achieving emotional independence from the enmeshment with the family.  and it is probably the hardest part to achieve, becos there's a need for  constant vigilance against the toxic manipulative strategies that the family members employ. 

i would take a bet that it's when they are doing their 'behaviours' towards you, that  you get the most triggered and feel the most need to resort to your alcohol strategy for comfort/numbing.

that is proof    that you did exactly the right thing with the recent situation with your sis by refusing to respond to the bait she dangled ("oh, do come and play enmeshment with me, pleeeese..you know you want to........pretty pleeeese...."). 

and proof that this road you have taken is going in exactly the right direction.  so Kudos and big respect, D/U!   

[Dutch Uncle]

Thanks so much. 

It'll be a journey for the next year (which is just a benchmark to check into at that time, I'll see whatever it is when I get there).
And I'm looking forward to share that journey, here, and tell about my experiences along the way.

[stillhere]

Becoming invisible is certainly a good complementary strategy for NC.  And becoming visible elsewhere, outside one's FOO, reminds me of someone I know who used to tell me, "Living well is the best revenge."  He meant to encourage me to do much the same thing and so develop a career and a life.  I've tried.  Some members of my FOO, it seems, are truly vengeful.

Now that I think of it:  interesting, perhaps, that no one I've read on this forum speaks of revenge.  We all speak of exit, survival, recovery but not revenge, even though many people clearly have reason to vengeful.  Is that CPTSD turns the brutality on ourselves? 

With more than 25 years of NC behind me, I can attest that NC certainly possible.  Most important, I think, is lack of internal conflict.  I didn't ever actively make the decision.  I merely acted out of self-defense, and the response I received made clear that I had to exit.  If somehow, magically, my FOO were to become something very different, I'd reconsider.

I'm also fortunate in that I have one brother who gets it.  He took over as scapegoat when I left home.  So it's not entirely NC.

[Dutch Uncle]

"Living well is the best revenge." is a nice phrase to remember. Thanks.

Some members of my FOO, it seems, are truly vengeful.

Now that I think of it:  interesting, perhaps, that no one I've read on this forum speaks of revenge.  We all speak of exit, survival, recovery but not revenge, even though many people clearly have reason to vengeful.

"Revenge is a dish best served cold" is the proverb, no? In that respect is a cold NC an excellent form of revenge, perhaps.
But I think to be truly vengeful will keep sucking up my energy.

Remarkably enough, when I had just started to go LC with sis, a few months in, we had a phone conversation. I was calm and centered. It was an odd call. She was pulling me, but I was not having any of it. I made quite some "No" statements, often with some short explanation. Calm, decisive. After which she would say: "But?..."(phishing for something to argue over) and I would say, "Huh? No but. That's it." At some point she exclaimed, sobbingly "I think you are doing this all out of rancor and revenge!"
I was truly surprised, baffled, as this was absolutely not the case. But I was still calm and centered, so simply said "No". And I felt there was absolutely nothing like it in my emotional state then. But I realized, there and then even, I think, that I had gotten an insight in her psyche, so to say. Inside I went "Ah, so that's what it's all about in sis. She would do what I do now, self-asserting and boundary setting, out of spite, wrath, rancor, resentment and/or revenge..."

And I must say, I felt pretty damned good I could deny her the joy and satisfaction of being 'right' about me being wrathful, simply be really not being it and feeling: "Not even close, sis. You really haven't a clue about who I am and what i do."

[Dutch Uncle]

that is proof    that you did exactly the right thing with the recent situation with your sis by refusing to respond to the bait she dangled ("oh, do come and play enmeshment with me, pleeeese..you know you want to........pretty pleeeese...."). 

I was so  that you were so 'spot on' in your first post (and by that I mean you were spot on in every paragraph you posted) I didn't even give proper attention to your second post, which I basically just scanned.

But you're also so spot on here, and it''s great to see your translation of her mail coming from somebody else's mouth. Because it really is just that what I 'heard', it was that pull, that bait I was lured and gravitated to, that it took a lll my strength to just resist it.
Good grief, the energy we have to spend on just staying where we are.
No wonder we have difficulties connecting to 'the now'.
We are surrounded by 'black holes'.
Well, you are at least. Let's not become pretentious here, Dutch Uncle. Says the Inner Critic.

[arpy1]

i'm glad i didn't screw up.

yep, it took a load of energy, but look at the net gain! one useful skills lesson, (plus one black hole very neatly circumlocuted.) Yay for you!!!

(and you were itching to use the uber-cute puppy, i know!! ! )

i like the thing about the best revenge is living well.  and i agree with you , D/U that revenge is something that takes energy, which we just can't spare. plus which,  i want to be someone who can look at my reflection in the mirror each morning. i don't want to end up like them.

[stillhere]

Dutch Uncle, your sister's response sounds familiar, like a kind of projection on her part.  She's attributing to you her own responses, real or imagined.

I've been accused, over and over, of being vengeful and angry.  I continue to receive letters (snail-mail, handwritten) describing my behavior and emotional state as seen by my uNPD mother.  Never, ever has she asked about my state of mind.  She only tells, or rather dictates.

The paradox here is that I'm trying to access anger, on the theory that the exercise might help me purge some piece of this puzzle.  And I can't imagine what revenge would even look like. 

[Dutch Uncle]

The paradox here is that I'm trying to access anger, on the theory that the exercise might help me purge some piece of this puzzle.  And I can't imagine what revenge would even look like.

I'd say (but this is only a guess/gut feeling) that you have expressed your anger in a more direct way (either at the person itself (through no avail probably) or via proxy (kicking a bucket f.e.) ) that there is no room/need/desire for vengeance.

While I type this (and bold the above) I realize that is perhaps key: the desire for vengeance.
Some people perhaps have that need, others don't?

[stillhere]

Perhaps, but lack of desire for vengeance may stem from the futility of it all.  What good would it do?  What would be the point?  Or maybe we/I have spent so much effort trying to survive, bobbing and weaving and accommodating, that all the fight is gone.

I'm not a "fight type" now (to use Walker's typology).  I might have been once, when still trying to engage with my uNPD mother, but I'm pretty sure I became more passive as I sought strategies for survival and tried "medium chill" and "low contact" before I finally gave up and went NC.  Regaining some fight seems like a useful exercise now.  But it doesn't mean revenge – hence remembering the line about living well.

I'm still struck by the lack of vengeance talk on this site.  So many people have so much reason to seek some sort of revenge.  And yet I don't recall a single post that I would interpret that way. 

[Dutch Uncle]

Perhaps, but lack of desire for vengeance may stem from the futility of it all.  What good would it do?  What would be the point?  Or maybe we/I have spent so much effort trying to survive, bobbing and weaving and accommodating, that all the fight is gone.

It's both, I think.

One of the things I'm learning, small steps and now and than a step back (a relapse one could say) is that all four F's (from Walker) have equal value. It's not that not fighting i a bad thing, per se.
Fleeing is fine, given a specific situation. Freezing is fine. Fawning is fine. The trick, the lesson to be learned is knowing what to do when. And in our dysfunctional upbringing, or only later in life n when ending up in a dysfunctional situation, we have been learned to fight when fleeing was more apt, or vice versa.

Possibly, and at least this is now a position I'm working from (and I will need practice in this), is that in relation to my FOO I've tried fighting, freezing, fawning and neither of them have stopped the abuse. So now I'm fleeing. Or to use a more apt and kind word (fleeing has a negative connotation for me) I'm disengaging. I'm not absorbing anymore, but observing. And I'm perfectly OK with not observing either. I don't have to put myself in the situation so I can tell myself: "My oh my, Dutch Uncle, how proud you must be you can withstand this all by observing and not absorbing. How proud you must be to be recovering so well." It takes a bloody lot of energy to bend absorbing into observing. I might as well do away with it all, if I can. That energy can be spend elsewhere in more productive ways.

Deliberately seeking the 'observing' would probably be seeking some form of vengeance "Look, I'm better then you all!". It's futile as you say.
Perhaps there's so little vengeance here exactly because we are so done with fighting. Fighting against. We want something to fight for. And that's a completely different ballgame.
I hope. 

[arpy1]

I'm not absorbing anymore, but observing.

that just reminded me of what they used to say on tv football - "if you don't want to know the results of this game, look away now". (for those who were recording the game to watch later?)

well, there's a bit of me that, despite being mostly nc with FOO and with JP people past and present, really wants to look and see what the results have been of the stands i have taken over the last few years.  sadly for me, the times i have done this, i have realised the effects have been NIL, nada, no changes in behaviour, no acknowledgment of the hurt done, nothing. *, they're not even bothered to contact me, not even my ex who originally swore he wanted to get reconciled! so i basically don't even want to observe their Games  any more. waste of energy. 

Perhaps there's so little vengeance here exactly because we are so done with fighting. Fighting against. We want something to fight for. And that's a completely different ballgame.

i like that.  looking forward, not looking back, investing energy in something positive.

[Dutch Uncle]

Today I realized...
I actually made one post that maybe does show vengeful feelings...
http://outofthefog.net/C-PTSD/forum/index.php?topic=556.msg15009#msg15009

Thoughts?

I know for sure when I have these thoughts, I'm angry mad as * and I could smack her in the face, granny or not. My whole body gets tense/rigid from sheer control over the anger.
Yes, it may be frozen vengeance there...

I'll explore. Perhaps  . If I get the guts to go there.