Book learning came easy but the "doing of things" always wiped me out with the endless details, with the body that can barely move. How much of my poverty came from the environment I was born in? How much did the abuse cause? Some of us ACONs know we have been set up. Whether this is a prison planet or not, it's like someone took a giant rubber stamp and stamped POOR on our foreheads. "No Soup for you! No money for you! Get in the back of the line!" The worse part of scapegoating can be how your abusers burn down your life. Some of us can struggle with poverty our entire lives. If you are a scapegoat, you are more likely to be poor.
One weird memory came floating back to me, my parents are driving through this wealthy university town in my state. I'm in the 9th grade, and they start saying as we drive by these luxurious ivy-covered mansions to me, "You'll never have that!". It was so strange, like what kind of people say that to a teen? I remember crying a few times that day, and they yelled at me once telling me my grades [my GPA was about a 3.4/3.5] weren't good enough to get into that university. I often got yelled at for failure that hadn't even happened yet. I liked to read already. Indoctrinating your kid into being a post capitalism slave with no free thought about the system sucks! There was never any encouragement only discouragement. Wouldn't it be better to tell your bookworm kid, study hard and maybe one day you can be in these hallowed halls?
Today, I got a box of things for us to sell on ebay from a friend, I'm reheating leftovers for dinner, and three new medical bills came in the mail. The hospital wants 70 more dollars. Fortunately they incorporated that amount into my 25.00 a month payment plan. I owe some other doctor 27 dollars, another one 34 dollars. I'm drowning in bills. I need new underwear and a new windshield on our van, and don't have money for either.
Elon Musk who believes all the homeless are "violent addicts", wants to cut every government benefit. He also wants to flood America with cheap H-B1 labor from India. He probably can't wait to impose a new caste system here. I like Indian immigrants, they are nice people, but why isn't our government trying to get Americans jobs? I don't think the poor and working class are going to get a break in America anytime soon. The only politician who even mentioned our existence, Bernie, got side-lined for good. The woke don't care about the broke as my one poem said and the Republican party just wants to push us all into the gutter with a giant shovel.
Will I end up homeless one day? I worry about it. The way things are going far more Americans will end up in tent cities. Many are already there. The city I lived in during college and a few years after now has endless tent cities along the rail line. That place was already overwhelmed by the homeless in the 1990s. There's no stopping the billionaire oligarchs who seem to want to turn us all into slaves. DOGE may shut down some government waste, but they aren't going to cut the endless wars, they are going after the disabled and poor like usual. America is in severe financial trouble. There are a lot of people suffering out there. We are ruled by narcissists and psychopaths, who have no empathy for the growing despair. It's like living in a narcissist family on the macro level now.
Mommy Doesn't Want You Making Any Money
When I was around 14 years old, I wanted to join a young person's entrepreneur club. It was the Jaycees and they were going to teach us how to save and invest money. We were going sell these big plastic buckets, made into small stools and storage containers. The club was in the downtown of my medium town. The bus went there but I talked my mother into a ride down there. I had a paper-route as a kid but we had moved from a big city to a fly-over medium sized town. I was dependent on sporadic spending money and needed more steady income. This group was great! After just two meetings, my mother told me, she wasn't going to take me anymore. I said, "Fine, I will take the bus!" but she refused to let me to take the bus. I should have disobeyed!
Goodbye entrepreneur club and learning to make money! This was a long held regret. She had no problem taking my brother for years to his downtown freemasonry for boys club [Demolay], but when it came to my needs, the answer was always "No". Lack of rides really impacted my life young especially after we moved to the medium sized town and lived on the outskirts of everything. Unless it was within 5 miles and biking distance, I didn't get to go. If only those money lessons had happened! Years later, I would read books on how to "make" money and how to invest, but I never had money to carry any of that stuff out. The expendable income wasn't there. Two years later, I would be in my dead-end restaurant jobs, and on the way to the financial failures of my adulthood.
I'm not sure what is wrong when it comes to money and me. I just don't know how to make it. There's never enough of it. We sell things probably more than the average person, my husband runs the ebay but its really only pin money. Some seem to have it rain down on them. I worked hard, my 60 hour work weeks just led to illness. My husband worked 10-14 hour newspaper days to end up on the edge. My exhaustion was intense. The same energy was never there. Social Security is now so little money after inflation. It scares me. Some disabled people can go work part time. I'm not one of them. Just two hours sitting up wears me out. I write in bed, this article took weeks. I'm getting older and slowing down so the time to figure this all out has run out.
When you are disabled so many things cost money. I'm worried about $300 I owe the hospital. Three other doctors, I owe around 30 bucks too for a total of $90 and there's a $100 bill for my CPAP and nebulizer company. I need $30-40 for some needed supplements soon. You have to eat special foods, like falafel, lettuce, fresh vegetables and lean meats that cost more money. The functional doctor says I have Celiac Disease, more on that later but that means more money for special foods. I paid off the electric company from last year on a payment plan but trying to keep the heat low in an attempt to keep from ending up in the same hole. I wanted to maintain our heat at only 62/63 degrees but after freezing too much and husband saying it made him feel ill, even with us in blankets, we compromised at 64-66 degrees. The evening is always the coldest, it gets dark, and I'm chilly for a few hours, even with the blankets. It still hit $250 for this month. It was $60 dollars for the month of October when I needed no heating and no cooling.
My subsidized housing hasn't come up. Its worrying. People are holding on to whatever housing they can get, and the numbers of the homeless and more are skyrocketing. If a place is nice, and this one is, they don't want to leave. We will keep waiting for it. I still consider moving to a cheaper apartment but I was going to move to the subsidized housing town for the sake of the great housing to start with. Otherwise why start over just to move into a dumpy place? I like my present apartment, so staying here is not punishment for me as long as we can afford it but we definitely need subsidized housing long term. One social worker, he meant well, told me to go to a bigger city but bigger cities have far more competition and longer waiting lists. The housing isn't nice little apartments in a park but big towers. I've looked around everywhere. I still think it is crazy even if we both are just on Social Security, we will cross the cut-off line for HUD. So I am limited to a minority of places with more specialized programs.
I told husband maybe we should move into a cheaper private apartment, I looked in one poorer town, everything at the $800-900 mark, was only 400-500 square feet, I need air conditioning to stay alive, there's no laundry of course, stairs and disability access are a major problem too. Some have the doorways that hit the toilet, better be under 200lbs to even fit on the toilet. Many of these apartments are in old houses and are privately owned. He says he doesn't want to move, and wants to wait for our good subsidized housing. Asking friends to help us move twice is too much. One can't break a lease legally to go into subsidized housing unless you have been there for over 13 months. I worried too much the good place would come up while I was moving into a cheap place. It got very confusing. We probably will just wait things out for now.
I didn't make it out to my art club for awhile due to money. Traveling 25 miles can be a big deal for the poor. We made it recently, I was relieved and happy to see my friends there. Most of the time there is very little money to do anything. I'm someone who can easily avoid boredom, but the piles of needs build up when you are broke. I need a new keyboard, this one goes in and out, some decent watercolor paper, will the cheaper stuff pass muster for an art show? Since we cut off the cable, we are living in a time warp from the firestick, all the TV shows we watch are from the 80s and 90s and before. That's the free stuff.
We never were rich before Covid, and you can see my old posts on poverty from then, but things just got squeezed tighter. We are always crushed by bills. The feelings of fear never abate. While this has been going on, I did have some good art stuff happening with my show last year and art in other shows, I have three paintings hanging in art shows now and with two good friends, I was visiting an art show opening just a month and a half ago. So those things are bright spots in my life recently.
This week was a bit better, he got some additional freelance work but there's been very bad periods of struggle too. I had fears of ending up homeless during some worse months and the "family" finding out and laughing at me. There was one recurring dream, where I was dressed in rags, and heating up beans over a trashcan fire living in the streets in some kind of make shift shack made out of pallets. A big car with relatives pulled up and they were laughing at me. I dreaded this for years, in my awake life, I don't care anymore, I'm gone but in dreamland it still haunts me. She would celebrate it if it ever became known.
We have turned everything off we can, we got rid of one beater car, I am telling him to turn off one phone line's long distance but he says he needs it still for work. I'm looking into cheaper phones, they will be shutting off land lines supposedly in 2029. I waited until December 3 to turn the heat on, and the only reason I allowed him to turn it on, was to keep the pipes from freezing.
My mother wanted me to fail. That was the truth of the matter. She gloried in it. It took me some years to see this truth but she was happier when I suffered or failed. This is the reality, narcissists want you to fail, and this can impact an entire life. They desire your suffering. Many will use you as a comparison point to focus on their own superiority. I've been gone for years now but during my earlier no contact year I had to face these facts. ACONS once they come out of the fog realize how they were set up to "lose" in the greater wide world. Our parents wanted us to fail. They did not want us to succeed.
My husband hears my woes about "failure" and money and just says to me, "You got sick, that's not your fault!"
Many of us wonder about the potential we could have reached without the abuse. When I was young I was tested as "gifted". I was deemed to have art talent young too. Potential was lost with the lack of sleep, no time to do homework--constantly having to clean like Cinderella, and having all my interests mocked or looked down on.
It is hard to get old and look back on a life of economic struggle. I am responsible for some choices, I never should have majored in art education. I was 17 when I made that decision and clueless about the world. Over the years I've faced and been honest about some of my limitations. Some people who read this blog mocked me for being fat and being a "woe-is me" person who failed to get their life together. I got tired of just being beaten down, beating myself down wasn't going to fix any of it. Take responsibility for what you can and do what you can but beyond that it serves no purpose.
More recovery came from depression in ending the mea culpas, and being honest about serious limitations. I have this weird fantasy about watching some normal functional adults, and how they make and spend money. How do they pull it off? I'd love to know. Whatever the secret is, I never figured it out. Blame me or not, it is what it is. All I know is when I needed a good stable job especially after I lost the art teacher one and entered the low paid hell of being a residential counselor, I never was able to turn things around.
I was more a "thinker" than a doer, and even now hate being pulled away from books or learning new things to get things done. Maybe the internet was a bad invention for someone of my personality. I watched these fascinating fossil videos of this guy cutting open rocks for an hour. Distraction can abound. Severe obesity problems even though mine have medical causes also are a sure way to end up in poverty. You are rejected. Your too big body impacts your whole life. It is hard for me to get things done, I'm not sure what it is. The clock is always spinning for me even though I have no job. Chronic fatigue? ADHD off the charts? A brain that doesn't work right? Being fat of course means you move more slow. Mobility issues really slow things down and I'm someone who can still walk--well sort of.
The tragic thing is I was good at art education and enjoyed it. It's even hard to explain how I felt so driven in it, and how my early 20s were spent being so dedicated to pursuits related to it. Recently someone told me, you had to be elitist like a rich kid to choose that major. This wasn't true. I just wanted to do something I enjoyed and was good at. Sometimes when a life is more bleak, you grab on to the good things you desire. I can go back in my memory, and relive fun times in art rooms as a student or a teacher.
I spent too much on phone bills and had to eat healthier food instead of cans of Chef Boyardee. Coming from a family as well-off as mine, I was utterly clueless about money, saving or investing or how hard it was to make a living. Multiple shocks awaited me. My husband and I disagree on money, I always wanted to live more austerely where there would be extra money. He finds my ideas extreme. We don't live high on the hog, but I wish I lived in a very cheap apartment of around 600 dollars instead of one that is 1200. He doesn't like my ideas of moving to a very small place and "country" town. America is designed to punish the poor so I investigated moving to a cheaper state and then learned for most of those, I would never qualify for any medical help ever again. This place is set up like a rat trap, see a piece of cheese? There's a trapdoor below it.
Some of his reasons make sense like access to medical care, so it's life as a maze. Even now he doesn't want to move [except to our good subsidized place] citing that he would lose some money he makes at this one newspaper which is around 500 a month. I know he's afraid of repeating our earlier experiences, living in harsh places especially in Chicago. Poor cheap apartments bring more crime, and less safety and troubles [like the mice we had] and why do you want to let go of a safe place you've lived in for a long time? Other friends have shared their troubles, of meddling neighbors, ignored repairs, and broken into cars. We have had it pretty good at the place we are in now.
I should have never moved to Chicago, maybe we stayed in this affluent town too long. Maybe not, the other day I wanted to paint an old building in my old town for a series of watercolors related to poems. Anyhow moving along the Google Maps "street view" of my old town, I am horrified. The last time I was there in person was 2011. Most downtown store fronts are empty, the ratio is around 60 percent vacant to 40 percent filled. I almost burst out in tears it was that bad. The town worsened economically after we left. Yesterday I was talking to husband about life here. I know I won't fit in places very easily, but living in a wealthy town as a poor person took a toll.
There were positives, I definitely advanced more in art and cultural things, and had art shows. Beautiful scenery, art, galleries, art centers, nice libraries, good restaurants [before Covid], stamp club, book clubs, and activities at UU church were all enjoyable things. I went to some interesting bible conferences, had my self-help group which is now defunct for many years and participated in many things. The medical care here was far better, I had specialists and home care that kept me alive longer. There were things to enjoy especially before Covid. I am trying to focus on the positive parts of my experiences here too and have recently enjoyed the Senior Center and a second art center. It's kind of hard to grapple with the fact we will have to leave yet another place for good affordable housing eventually.
Autism and abuse also played their parts in my career and financial failures. I realized being on video often at one church I participated in, how autistic I appear even in my speech patterns. I do appear "different" even if you take all weight problems and other issues out of it. It troubles me, how no one was honest to me in college and how I slid through the cracks so badly.
ADHD to the extreme affected things as well. My focus is spotty. Life is overwhelming often. Even today, while I made some medical phone calls and a housing call yesterday, my apartment is messy, I made some eggs, onion and peppers, for breakfast and ate a spoonful of sauerkraut and did my insulin. I have to clean the kitchen, hang some pictures and made some cabbage soup. Later I did get more stuff cleaned up after having friends visit, so don't feel as panicked about the cleaning. I got rid of a lot of stuff. I plan to get rid of more.
I had Occupational Therapy around 10 years ago and they said it was severe, and related to sensory disorders. I'm one of those type people who has a very hard time being clean, and what some would call "disciplined". To function as an adult, I have to make "to do lists" to remember to do things and live rigidly to stay alive. This means I have to eat meals, go to sleep and take medicine on a schedule. To-do lists are required to keep the bills paid and to manage appointments. The therapist helped with life management back then, and breaking down tasks.
It is not a good thing I was raised around those who never wanted for a dollar. I just was utterly clueless, they had amounts of money that are awe inspiring to me today and how they wasted it too! I grew up watching my parents fight about money as they basically got out matches and lit it up on stupid stuff like Queen Spider's notorious thousands of ceramic snow man collection. My values became very different.
Her shallowness came to sicken me. One day we got into a fight on Facebook, and I wrote "you are so shallow", it made her really mad, she threw it in my face, using some help for a car repair, "I helped you even though you think I am shallow". She was. She only cared about appearances. I felt uneasy around the whole family because all they cared about was hedonism, materialism, things and status. Many of us ACONs who come to have different financial lives as a result of this will come to very different world views from our families. My family loves this system, after all it works for them. They think homeless people are all losers who are on drugs. They are programmed into the Truman show. They never questioned anything. They never practiced any altruism. My mother volunteered once at a soup kitchen to hook her second husband and I was shocked hearing about that one, but it didn't last.
I'm not perfect or an icon of austerity, though I've had some weird thoughts maybe I would have been a happier person free of constraints of this system. Maybe if Catholicism had worked out for young me, I would have been happier in a convent able to share economic responsibilities with others. It's funny as a young child, I had some real spiritual aspirations but those were stomped out by my parents. I am glad to be with my husband so those are just some vague musings. I live in a system that didn't work for me. The NPCS of the world are better at being worker bees who conform.
It always bothered me that the family came to represent everything wrong in society and I can't even describe my disappointment that there wasn't one other freethinker in the group. My mother only cared about appearances and things and that is what she lived for. This outlook on life spread to the entire family. There are no ideas about economic justice or fairness or caring about the plight of others in my family. You are either a "winner" or a "loser". Sadly these sick attitudes have set up Americans in general for more oppression by the ruling class. Let's not forget this is how billionaires get themselves in positions of power.
My own personal reasons for why I am poor, are complicated. My family's evildoings were part of the picture but not the only reasons. I am disabled, fat, autistic, have poor focus, and barely function as an adult and find life incredibly overwhelming. I have no assets to increase wealth. I live in a country where the billionaires are on a tear to pick everyone's pockets. I am married to someone who has health and other challenges and could be a fellow autistic. Newspapers failed wiping out the foundation of his career, 20 years ago, and while my husband remains connected to the field, and still writes good articles for money, it doesn't provide the same amount of money. He is very talented and that was proven via many things he did achieve in life such as with the books he wrote and had published. We haven't given up, I still do many art related things, and he still writes, now has zines and has future projects he is planning out..
Here's the thing we could be poorer. I could be far poorer. If I was single, I would have to live on my SSDI check. Its not much money. We did get to enjoy some working class years of stability, I remember our shared income in the early 2000s was in the low 30s, so there's lots of people who are poorer. There's many people living far worse. I didn't consider myself "poor" during those times, we even had some years like that here. There's lots of Americans living worse than me in the streets, shelters or lower quality housing. Many cannot afford food. There's levels of poverty far worse. I've been poorer than I am today. We have food to eat, and we will pay some bills today. We have kept our rent always paid on time. I don't take that for granted. It is scary how wealth divides are growing in America.
However in my family unless someone made 6 figures they were "poor". I grew up watching my parents mock poor people and condemn them. They usually followed the most right wing politics, not the libertarian free speech branch but the kind who wanted to throw everyone in the gutter. My mother was gung-ho for the Tea Party for example. She and other relatives would refer to cheating welfare people and even openly condemn those who "lived off the government" in front of disabled people's faces. They complained about those "bums" and openly made fun of the family members who were poorer. My father condemned one uncle for going on strike at his factory with the other workers. There was no support of the working man there.
The Homeless are Often Lonely Scapegoats
How many homeless people are scapegoats from their families? I have known several people who have been homeless in the past. You think about it, they have nowhere to go. There's no parent, sibling, cousin, aunt or uncle to take them in. Homelessness is far more of a risk for a family scapegoat where you don't have the same social networks or family ties. Many mentally ill people and others who are abandoned by their families end up in the streets. Schizophrenia is one problem that leads to a lot of homelessness. There's no one to look out for them or advocate for them. Some people end up homeless from the abuse of the narcissists directly, thrown out once they hit 18 or thrown out of another family home. I've known some homeless people over the years usually online but some were local. Some ended up homeless breaking up with a partner, others fled abusive parents who even hit them as adults and tried to control them. It can happen easier if you are in a scapegoat role. Cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews see you as the "bad one". That's the worse thing about being the scapegoat in a family, people cheer for you to fail and to come to a bad end.
I saw it with Aunt Scapegoat, they seemed to derive joy listing off her horrific medical problems while clucking their tongues. Her poverty too often was the stuff of legends..."she hoarded food you know!", "Grandma had to buy all her clothes!" "Her trailer was full of trash!" As a child, I lived in terror of ending up as poor as her, as she was put down constantly in front of me. It would only occur to me later, that my mother had the means to make her life a lot better instead of letting her sink into such extreme poverty. I would end up as poor, though unlike her, we got some better working class years and her level of poverty was definitely worse.
Sometimes the stories about her did get extreme, I saw some of her poverty so some they told me about her was true. At that point I didn't know what to believe. Imagine the stories that can be told, as you are hunched over a walker or a shopping cart with your life packed up in plastic garbage bags. The narcissists can and do have a field day!
There is the reality too that if you fail in life whether it be your fault or not [disabilities and other bad luck] or a combination, that many families today that are wealthier or middle class especially among white people, will reject you. You are seen as the "family failure". I am realistic enough to know, that my inability to travel for visits affected things negatively. You can't give the same gifts. You don't have a nice house for people to come to dinner at or to sleep in a guest bedroom. There's far less to talk about. What does a wife of a high level executive making high 6 figures have in common with me? She never wanted for a new outfit or car or trip she desired. Those old pictures when I run across them still trouble me as she sneers in my face and looks around my decent but humble apartment with disdain.
The years chip away, and the distance grows bigger especially if you end up in a different socioeconomic class. It's weird to me how this is never talked about. How many people in Gen X, millennials and Gen Z ended up far poorer than their parents, and saw their own families break up? We sadly live in a society where if someone becomes poor in a rich family, you become the "embarrassment" and needing help for a family visit at age 29 is a little bit different than 49. They give up on you, and don't want you around. They don't relate or have any empathy either for your poverty problems. If you get old enough and "don't make it", expect to be cast out of many families in America today.
If you are no contact or seen in a negative way by a family you are in contact with, who is going to take you in? Being disabled I have more of a safety net for homelessness, I would go to a small town with instant openings for disabled housing. My aim is to always have us live as an independent married couple with our own household. I may have to live more remote than I want for a time, but it would be better than the streets. A working person though is one paycheck away from the streets if they are working class. If time without a job goes on too long or they are newly disabled and waiting out the time to apply for disability, they can easily end up in the streets or the shelter.
I got into a discussion, talking about this issue. Family wealth for the scapegoat is not protection from poverty. One guy told me online on reddit that they should study what happens to the financial security of the disabled who come from better off families? He wrote:
Do children of wealthy families with disabilities or visible abnormalities have a measurable difference in financial security relative to siblings, similarly-aged people from middle/upper class families, and comparable peers from poor families?
He said that someone should do a graduate thesis on this, it would be an interesting sociology topic. I was in a disabled group, and a group for autistic adults [on Zoom] and a group for those with serious pain disorders and chronic disabilities [on Zoom]. Family support for the people I met, was far far higher. Many of the autistic adults lived at home with parents including 2 men at my level of autism, who were well into their 50s. There was a few married women like me, they encountered career problems and some were physically disabled, but they had supportive families. No one related to my level of poverty. It surprised me.
One woman did live in subsidized housing but had a loving family which probably bolstered her feelings of independence. In the pain disorder group, one lady who had lupus related problems but was still employed, lived with her mother and it seemed to be a positive situation. In the disability group, I met a man who lived with his brother, and another man who lived with his mother, who were locals and had about the same level of autism as me [what was referred to as Aspergers for decades] The latter man was very overweight at my size but he didn't have the same health problems and could still walk, function, drive and work.
Many of these people had challenges, and in the case of the autistics, career troubles, were common, some did work very hard, and one man did volunteer work during his unemployed periods. Their families seemed to help them. The fellow fat man admitted to me he did face some judgment from his family but others seemed cared about and looked after. Their challenges were not used to reject them as people, like what happens with someone with narcissistic parents. All of my disabilities were seen as "my fault". The weight issues complicated that but they had no mercy for anything else including deafness and breathing problems.
Disability can be a pathway to homelessness especially if one is on the lower paid SSI, which is around 900 a month now. Maybe some can get rental rooms, but there are many mentally ill people who don't have the social skills to manage, I would be too ill and impaired to live with most people in a house-share situation. Yesterday I had a severe IBS attack and was crying it was so bad. My husband even asked me if I needed to go to the hospital fearing it was another kidney infection. I was dry heaving too and lugging around a plastic trash can to puke into. With roommates, I would hide the emotional of turmoil of illness but they would hear the puking and wonder why I was living in the bathroom for hours. I am okay now, but not many people especially if you are not that close to them are going to want to live with someone so challenged.
My weight alone often caused instant discrimination when it came to housing. This is one reason I am more apt to rent in an established building rather than privately. My present apartment people have treated me well. This is a huge barrier, I've been lied to and turned away based on my weight before, and this goes way beyond the places that have stairs.
Some of the disabled people in my groups got really sick, and their families looked out for them. Sometimes it was hard for me to hear about because my situation was so opposite. I have a husband who has looked out for me so am not saying my glass is empty because he's definitely stepped up for decades. There's a lot of disabled people with serious health problems on their own. I get scared for them. There's no one there for them. Some describe having out-patient surgery and then having the problem of no one to drive then home when they are finished. It was just interesting to see the different attitudes of more loving families towards disabled members. It's pretty sick that narcissistic families will get out the hammer on people with serious health problems.
But outside of illness, how many scapegoats find themselves in the streets? No home to go to? I dare say there's probably a lot of abuse victims who end up homeless who end up as "orphans" out in a harsh world. Social workers, churches and the world assume everyone has a family. This simply isn't true. For those of us without one, there's no one to turn to. Some of us lucky ones have friends, but not everyone does. I learned the hard way, going no contact many years ago, no one in the family cared that I was gone. During my most extreme poverty in my 20s, no one cared about me. I missed meals [yeah I know that's ironic as fat as I am] and went without needed possessions, there were times I had literally nothing but ripped up clothes to wear.
We all want dignity and sadly poverty can strip that from people. Add in an abusive family who looks down on you, and it can be a nightmare. I have many bad hang-ups when it comes to money. My husband has told me, "we don't live that different from a lot of working class and poor people out there and there's a lot of people like us". However I always feel alone in it. I have a few friends as poor as I am or who are worse off but most of those are online friendships. Money is the great taboo, no one tells you if they are struggling though with a few you can see the clues. In media, I only saw my own experiences represented on the show Good Times although I did not have to struggle with racial discrimination like they did. That's one thing that's happened in America, the poor and working class have grown invisible, no one talks bout their lives and they are not represented in media. During the 1970s, we got to see some working class people in TV shows like Alice.
I went no contact from my family and have been for over 12 years but there's no one to catch me if I fall without my friends and husband. Many friends have stepped up which is wonderful, but life in this scary world without a family is not easy. There were some who told me I should not go no contact I was too poor but I couldn't take the put-downs anymore or being in the role they wanted me to serve, it would have cost me my physical life and soul. When I see homeless people I wonder how many of them were the scapegoats in their families? It's probably a sizeable number. If you our own kinfolk send you out to the desert, where is there to go?
Many people move in with a relative and younger people with parents when they hit hard times. This is not so much an option for the black sheep, who may face mental health problems and not have the confidence to have many friends or to do well socially. They end up with nowhere to turn. Social workers can be impersonal and if well-intentioned overwhelmed with the sheer numbers of the impoverished. A few have been helpful but I've hit brick walls with others. You end up alone and with nowhere to go. Disability kept me from the streets but then that has the price of the pain and suffering of disability. Some disabled people are abandoned by their families as "embarrassments". My Lipedema definitely served a role in what went wrong with my family as, my own mother refused to be seen in public with me for 20 years, and because she had so many office friends and others there, disinvited me from her own wedding.
It is far easier for a scapegoat to end up poor, because we face soul murder and financial destruction of our lives. Here are those reasons.
My Crazy Mean Family Literally Made Me Sick!
First and foremost due to ACE scores, stress, scapegoats can have health problems. You are on high alert, never can relax, your parents never let you sleep or even physically toss you on the floor from your bed. This wrecks children's health adding hormonal and obesity problems especially. As a child I never could relax or sleep. I was always on my parents schedule, for years I had severe insomnia, I never felt safe enough to fall asleep I always had to be on my guard.
As your physical health is decimated, your mental health is at risk. Severe stress, and trauma all take their toll. Some people will get DID, disassociation, PTSD/CPTSD, anxiety disorders, depression and more. I have talked about this very much just here and there, but my anxiety disorders were very severe. They included almost daily panic attacks, and a feeling of "unease" and fear at all times. I have been diagnosed with PTSD/CPTSD by three different therapists, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder and OCD issues during my life. My anxiety disorders were not career enhancers. I had to learn to hide my worries and anxiety because I realized my "neuroticism" made people angry. There were years checking things for hours almost took over and this had to be hidden from others. My anxiety is in a far better place now, I still struggle but it's nowhere as severe as it was.
Sometimes at work, I could barely keep it together. No one during my student teaching when I had to move back home knew I was going from working with kids all day to having people scream at and threaten me. I saw some old pictures from myself from the 1980s, and I'm always cringing, I always look like I'm ready to dodge an incoming hit. Well, I had to be ready to duck at any time.
Mean Parents Don't Teach Their Children Anything
One thing many ACONs attest to is the lack of life skills! One does not acquire much knowledge from narcissists, they chase their kids out of the kitchen or garage and slap at kids who don't become instant experts. Dad's good at the stock-market? He'll never tell you it's secrets. Dad's good at fixing cars? While he's screaming at you about being lazy and to hand the tools over quicker, he'll never give you the chance to try and fix it yourself. Mom's good at cooking? She certain doesn't want anyone to outshine her, so you don't learn one cooking trick. You are given low knowledge tasks like whipping the mashed potatoes or wiping the counter. The only way I found out what my mother actually put in recipes was by finding her old handwritten cookbook in a notebook.
Paying bills? That remains a mystery. Narcissistic parents won't tell you things like what the monthly budget is. You won't learn how to write checks, buy a car or rent an apartment unless you are one of those lucky kids who gets a life skills class. At the same time, you remain hopelessly ignorant, they get angry at you for not knowing things but then still don't tell you anything!
They want you to keep you helpless so you are dependent on them and don't want you able to stand on your own two feet. They desire your failure so you are easily controlled. They don't want you financially independent. Some narcissistic parents will even sometimes give a scapegoat a little money or help, it's random, and for control to keep you in the game but you'll never see them give help, like with a job even if they have the means to do so. You aren't taught how to function and often your attempts to gain more independent and financial independence are thwarted. They tell you to pay high rent as you desperately try and save money to get out on your own. They ignore your health problems while telling you to work long hours, they would never dream of doing, such as when I had a 7am-11pm schedule every day during student teaching.
This is a common way scapegoats are sabotaged. Many of us grow up and then realize with horror the depth of life lessons and practical know-how that were denied us. We don't know how to do anything. My struggle with life skills continues, some of this can be autism, but right now I am doing calculus in my head, to even figure out how to pay 5-6 different medical bills, the electric bill and how we are going to afford food next week. I keep a notebook dedicated to survival. It has housing lists in there, everything turned out be HUD programs we don't qualify for except for the one we are waiting for, or they were in very bad areas or ones off the bus lines. There are lists of all the food pantries, the number and address of the car repair charity place, and where one can get free furniture and clothing. When I was young, I didn't even know where to go to get charity or how to utilize a food pantry.
Yes. My parents were upper middle class. We lived in a neighborhood of million dollar homes where people hired live in nanny's housekeepers and or at least a cleaning lady on the regular. Our house was more humble but at 5-6 bedrooms it was very large and there were other large homes around us and the million-dollar homes were just down the street. The country club was right around the corner from the house I went to in high school. Many ACONS are people who descended the ladder. The life I grew up in was not the life I got later. I was unprepared for what awaited me. I was prepared for a culture I never would live in as an adult.
All quotes in this article are from a reddit post, that I posted. I told the folks there about this article and that I would be writing it.
My parents were very well off financially. I am living well below the poverty line after going no contact. They prevented me from learning to drive or manage my money or have a job while I lived at home. My life didn't really start until after I went no contact well into my thirties. Finally learnt how to write a resume and got and held for many years my first Job at McDonalds. Learnt how to drive. Manage my own finances etc.
This person's experience is very common. Rich parents with a poor kid set up to fail. Some with hard work can rise up later and escape but if there is illness or mental health problems that can be far more difficult.
I would realize at a very young age, I was kept in hopeless ignorance, given endless stupid platitudes about life. Mine hid reality from me especially when it came to medical problems, weakness or failure. I was not prepared for the real world whatsoever. Outside my low-level jobs in high school, what did I know? Not much. I was kept in a bubble until age 18/21 if you count the day the university was not there to guide me, and that bubble was popped. This is the surest way to poverty too. You are dumb, you are naive, you don't realize how the world really works, and how many "get over" via social skills and conniving. You are taught via your abusive parents to be "nice", especially if a girl, and to be "compliant' and "obedient", and here comes the giant road roller of life, to squash you flat.
Young people who test well in school or get "good grades" and are quiet and obedient [mostly] to teachers can easily slide through the cracks. At home I was hit, forced to clean and never allowed to have an opinion or a real conversation, so there's all these things that come with development I did not obtain. I would observe people as I got older and ask myself what draws other people to them? Why are they successful? I noticed extroverts did far better and those who had confidence in their own opinions and abilities.
During my many years of no contact, I did change, I learned to "harden" up. This included becoming more practical. Stoicism was of interest to me. Radical acceptance was a helpful concept. While I have returned to some religious faith, my deconstruction did teach me not to be so much of a "sucker" to religious gurus and did free me from being "corrected" and "directed" by other adults. I still don't want some rich man pastor lecturing me about life. It brought some needed changes to my life that way. Fairy tales I was given about the system disappeared in big puffs of smoke. The me of today given a decent body probably would "do" a bit better if out in the world. Some lessons came late, but it's better they came than not at all.
As time passed, while you see me write and complain about money, I did get to a better place after no contact. There were no more jeering voices and pointing fingers. I felt more free. At least if I see a homeless shelter one day, I won't have to deal with assholes putting me down while it happens. There was relief. I taught myself to some contentment in life, realizing a lot of people were homeless or poorer. My pleasure in small things grew and blossomed. It was easier to do while no longer being in a circle of braggarts or those who constantly condemned me. I got better at solving some practical problems over the years.
My view of the world is different. I explored my real values, and knew they were different from my family. My family were materialists who desired status above all else. I have been poor and/or working class long enough, not to care anymore. I had to accept that I never was going to be rich, or even at the level most people would call "normal" .and then ask myself what was I going to do about it.
This was part of my religious pursuits, for many years but even now, I've decided if I re-enter a religious group of any kind, it's got to be around people who are of my same socioeconomic class, or those who do some reach out to the poor. My early Catholic churches and the nuns had a heart for the poor, I really missed in some evangelical circles. However, my old church in my old town, had community and helped one another. That pastor dropped out of society for a time, but he ended up leaving ministry and entered a trade. I reconnected with him on Facebook, he is still a Christian but seems much happier. He was always a sincere person.
The UUs here were nice people but I knew going in the class differences would be hard, after all I had faced that before when I was extremely poor in Chicago and even more alone in that poverty. I do question leftist politics because of their now neo-liberal rejection and silencing of the poor and working class. Some people say the left is no longer really left. I can grant that. I have my eye on a ministry that does poverty outreach in the town I will be in when my subsidized housing comes up, Anyhow, I knew years ago, there was more to life than just being a consumer and greedy materialist, my family had adopted all those values and forced them on me.
One question occurred to me later, why did poor people have to be put down at all? Why didn't they get my Aunt Scapegoat a decent job? They had the means and connections to get her something simple before she was disabled that would not have taxed her too much. Why was it always competition and grinding everyone into the dirt? Why was it so damn hard to get a job? I think of the missed opportunities because a job always went to someone else. If family is failing in America now, it's because cooperation is gone, it's all competition. What's the use of that? There's no love and care then. No one loved me in my family, they just wanted to crush me, so they weren't a family at all from the start.
Narcissistic parents do not teach resiliency, know-how, confidence, or the practicalities of daily life, they smack you around and expect you to serve their needs. They teach you to separate from yourself and your own instincts. Fortunately, I could form my own identity. Many ACONS struggle with this because narcissists want "Mini-Mes" and obedient ciphers. They like being smarter, bigger and badder so they are not going to impart the things they know, they want to keep you ignorant.
In my 30s, I had to learn multiple things. This included tax law to cooking. I could cook a pot of noodles and hotdogs--I could cook every soup and salad known to man from my restaurant jobs, but my knowledge ended there. Some ignorance in matters still exist pertaining to home repairs, car repairs, and I am well into my 50s. I caulked my bathtub the other month but squeezed too much into one corner. Every other adult always seemed so much more competent. I have to balance this though and realize one reason I feel incompetent is because I was surrounded by people who thought they were experts at everything and didn't admit one weakness.
One can learn somethings from books, the internet helped this more later, but real learning comes from doing. Narcissistic parents don't provide those opportunities to their kids. My parents had vegetable gardens for instance, but I was just the grunt who got pointed to which row to hoe the weeds out of. I didn't really learn to garden until a few years ago when I had my off-site gardening place. I learned about seeds, fertilizers, what to do during bad weather and more from a friendly UU church gardening lady, and books.
Narcissists Destroy Your Roots, Ties with Others and Relationships.
One thing that can lead to poverty is troubled relationships with others. It's not hard work or good grades that brings in the money today though they can be needed assets, its often personality. Social connections are what gets you the job. This includes the impression and communication you have with others. When ACONS spend their 20s beaten down, and lacking social skills, and AFRAID of people there are learning opportunities and opportunities that are missed with others. The narcissists often chase away the people who may open new doors to us. One is not building foundations but trying to plug the dam so it doesn't get washed away and these impacts affect an entire life.
One revelatory thing was reconnecting with people from high school on Facebook. I realized that their lives were far more advanced than my own. I could see the pictorial proof of their active lives with their families and being an honored part of a group of people. Many had children and advanced in their life. I never caught up with my peer group, this may be mostly from the price of autism, but I know abuse served a role in this too.
Narcissists don't allow you to build community as a young person. I wasn't allowed to socialize in high school or go to parties or hang out with friends. I sometimes would "borrow" friends from my sister, she reacted to this only with resentment and derision. The only high school clubs I got rides to were two my brother and sister were in which included the Spanish club and one service club. I enjoyed these clubs but why couldn't I have my own pursuits too?
On Facebook, I could see the memories and photos of my old classmates, where they had so much time to communicate and "be with others". Narcissists will isolate you from neighbors. Even their constant bids for attention and making you into a slave, will take up all your time and destroy the time and energy for connections with other people especially as a teen.
If you are in a family that blackballs you to those around you, this isn't going to help your future opportunities in life. We had family friends who hated me. Did I get in a fight with them? No. Was I bratty and crying and ruining visits? No. My mother complained about me, and told them what a horrible person I was and they believed her. They also followed the subtle cues of her sneers, and obvious distaste in my presence.
ACONs in small towns, really bear the brunt of narcissistic parents smear campaigning them. I lived in some small towns later where some people had bad reputations, and you could tell this came from their parents. We would hear about these people. Some girls were labeled "sluts", others "hoarders" and others "troublemakers". Town gossips would latch on to the complaining narcissistic mother about her "horrible" child. I would see other fat [obesity is often a condition caused by stress] despondent people who told me, "the whole town hates me!" Maybe they weren't paranoid. They were caught in a small bubble, as the family scapegoat. Their name had been smeared to kingdom com. If you live in a small town, and everyone berates a certain young person, be mindful that they could have narcissistic parents.
This happened to Aunt Scapegoat, she grew up out in the country next to a super small town, there was a lot of relatives there, but she never escaped her labels her family role. She stayed the "pot smoking teen rebel who hung out with the biker gang" for the rest of her life. I had the blessings of being in places where I had no family, there was no one to smear me, which means I got some time to be in churches like my first church in my old small town and find other places with community. This allowed me the freedom to mold my identity in every new place. When I was young, we lived in bigger places or moved so often, I didn't share that problem with the small town scapegoats. Living so far away from my family helped my life a lot.
Nepotism is Only for the Golden Children.
My mother knew people who could have helped me get a very good teaching job right out of college, her best friend the ex-nun, I've written about in the past, had a very high level administration job in a state department of education. I had teaching experience and taught art at camps and other places. My grade point was decent too. Writing this lady for help in finding a job was a waste of time! There probably was some sort of smear campaign there. She ignored me. My mother got her own good job from my father, he got her a job in his government agency, she didn't even have an associates or bachelors degree and was a business school flunk-out, and she made middle class income at that job.
Sometimes I do look back at my career failures, I did get a few jobs. I was good at the art teacher job at the juvenile home, enthusiasm floated that job boat and then some. Some have said to me in the past, maybe if you hadn't gotten sick, you may have been okay. I know autism, extreme anxiety, obesity and my personality that had been formed around narcissists were all career killers. I cringe thinking of some conversations at work. Young me was a very stressed out person. During 1993 I had school or work for 90 hours a week scheduled. This was insane. I was driven to succeed and needed money which was in short supply. I was fighting to fill so many shortfalls and it's like I sunk into quicksand.
Bosses scared me, I was always afraid of making a mistake. Substitute Teaching had a lot of personal demands. As I descended into illness, especially after I didn't have the stability of my juvenile home art teacher job to fill the financial gaps, things got harder and harder. By then I was trying to transition to a paralegal career, knowing teaching wasn't working out for me because the regular school districts weren't too keen on signing a teaching contract with a fat autistic with very bad lungs. A backroom office job doing legal paperwork was my dream. My Postbaccalaureate paralegal program director loved me and considered me gifted, however my body and mind had reached a breaking point. This breaking point, came about from years of abuse. There was no resiliency or a caring family to stem the tide,
Imagine that your uncle and brother in law have very high level positions, one is a vice president at a company, another uncle is high up enough in his corporation to go to Switzerland for meetings. They haul in high six-figures but you are the scapegoat begging for a job not to be homeless and you aren't deemed worthy of a low paying mail-room job. It's off to the streets for you.
My mother's second husband once bragged at a dinner we were at with them, that his brother owned a factory and huge business. There were a few times, I sucked up my pride and begged my sister's husband for a job for my husband and asked my stepfather to ask his relative who owned a huge corporation, for that help too. This happened after my husband's newspaper lay-offs. I also had my husband apply to my parent's government agency years earlier as we were trying to leave Chicago--he had college and administration skills to make the work more than possible--they hired people who were only high school graduates there all the time to train them back then. He was turned down. My mother only had a high school diploma and some part time work at Sears when my father got her a middle class job there. My mother would work there for over 26 years. I know her own income hit the 40,000s by the late 1990s. The missed opportunities piled up. The answer was always "NO".
One stable middle class job for my husband would have changed our life. It would have steered the direction another way. Remember I watch him struggle with health problems, he has no health insurance for. He got worn out. We missed out on a lot. THEY DID IT ON PURPOSE.
I often think of what direction my own life could have taken with stable employment, and not going through the extreme stress and trauma of the poverty I faced in Chicago. I've talked about this in other blog posts. I was in the fog and denial for years, later I would know what it truly meant for a so-called family to almost let a relative die of extreme health problems and live in that level of extreme poverty with no help.
In a narcissistic family they'll never give you a fishing pole, they'll throw a few fish, and once those are eaten, throw you into a river. Some may judge me here for my wanting to use nepotism, but be real, I watched my family get jobs for others in the family and family friends all the time. As the new generation came up, I saw the same thing happening. I don't know who the new scapegoats are yet, but I suppose it will be whoever ends up poor and unemployed. I'm not around to know anymore.
I saw people leave high school and college and rise up like rockets. One uncle got an internship at his company for my cousin--she got a high level marketing job in a metro city from this internship. Others got jobs, my mother kept the address secret of that one cousin. One uncle got hired in by his best friend's father at a corporation he remained at for 30 years. That spoiled narcissist never has gone without a job or in need of a job his entire life. He's never wanted for a dollar. He's the star of the family after my mother and both are peas in the same pod. He was hired in at the age of 18.
We figure out after we have gone no contact, that our families and abusers were drilling holes in our boat. We look back in shock. I suspected things but didn't figure it out until later. I almost had to drop out of student teaching because the college wouldn't let me live in the dorm near it, a 150 dollar a month room I rented fell apart because because the selfish woman there kept me up until 3am with the TV blaring. My space was a sun room, with no door to close the living room out. I was forced to move home, and they were bitter about it and I had a 20 mile commute on top of things.
My parents set things up where I had to work until 11pm and get up at 6am to get to my unpaid student teaching internship that matched school hours. I was still in the fog, but later realized they wanted me to flunk out and not graduate from college.
When I graduated both parents seemed pissed off, I sacrificed my health on that altar, but I remember how I lived back then, there were no normal meals, not enough sleep AT ALL, and would be woken up at 7am on weekends, being screamed at and being told I would have my stuff thrown out on the lawn. That was the "make or break" time for my future career. Both parents refused to attend my college graduation even though I graduated with a 3.45 and got my teaching certificate. Nepotism is not shared with scapegoats but they will also try to destroy and undermine the success you personally work for too.
I looked into my family years ago. A lot of things didn't make sense. My mother's list of friends on Facebook was extremely revealing. I did this stuff before going no contact. I wanted to see how far the nepotism went. By then I was wondering why my family seemed so connected, and why were some so wealthy and why were there so many secrets? As folks here know I found out family secrets on Ancestry, but I took my research to the "commerce" and "money" world.
The internet made it possible. My mother hid where one cousin lived from me for three years because she got her a six-figure job via connections with her best friend the nun, [the same one who refused to help me] at a major Catholic university. This woman married a wealthy multimillionaire who worked in media. He has famous friends in national media listed on his Facebook. This was Aunt Confused's granddaughter. This was another wedding years ago I was not invited to. I was not invited to her sister's wedding either.
Some of my relatives are millionaires. One thing I noticed is many young people who were not especially talented [no straight As, or extreme passions etc.] got very good jobs right out of college. I'm not talking 40-70 thousand a year jobs but six figures. There were no struggles with job applications or anything like that. No one struggled to get jobs like I did. My nephew got a high paid engineering job right out of college. He bought a house by the age of 23. They didn't even have to be star students, they came out and got these incredibly great jobs. Their employment also remained perfectly secure which is very rare nowadays.
As I got older and saw nephews, cousins, nieces and others getting internships via family connections and in several cases, six figure jobs right out of high school and college, I knew my family was high up enough and connected to have nepotism be a theme.
This is how I discovered the awful fact that my two best friends in college may have been chosen for me. I was kept in the dark about so much, that it was extremely revelatory, the things I found out. My family kept so many secrets from me. When I did Ancestry, and found out my grandfather was not my real grandfather, and the real grandfather was the brother of a very high level union official--he was the top guy of one of the largest unions in America back in the 1950s and 1960s, it occurred to me Aunt Confused had to know, her son after all had moved way up the ranks in the union world. He has held a high-level union position for decades. She had to know!
His daughter was the one who married the multimillionaire in media. The groom's father was a NYC stockbroker. The other daughter married another very wealthy man who dabbled in the music world and took them on a honeymoon to Greece. The cousin who married the multimillionaire, was the cousin, where my mother kept it secret where she lived for three years to hide that she had gotten a job at a place both my mother and her best friend [the nun] had connections to. The other cousin got a teaching job at the district her mother taught in. My mother's nun friend worked with high level Cardinals and bishops at a nationally known catholic university. She was in the newspaper all the time for her successes in the Catholic church.
I also realized that as a scapegoat all those helps were denied to me. It was extreme how much was kept secret from me. Facebook brought forth some facts. Both siblings were friends with work friends of my parents, that I never even met. That was weird. I was the fat embarrassing secret my mother kept hidden. I still remember that one party she disinvited me too where the whole family was there and many of her government worker friends. One can argue nepotism is wrong, I can go with that but remember those who grew up more well off, were invested in considering me the family "loser" so that got old.
Coming out of a rich family as a scapegoat can be a mind screw. Everyone rose to the top, while my fortunes sunk. I don't think scapegoats are paranoid to suspect that machinations behind the scenes may have happened to them. There was no one to relate to me. I think one reason I was thankful for my no contact, was there was no more stress in being surrounded by all these wealthy people who looked down on me. For years, they told me I was a loser and constantly bragged to me. With my disabilities, I never was going to be their financial equal and we had nothing in common. I had thoughts years later, it was only natural with no affection or common interests in these relationships, that even if I hadn't gone no contact, they would have definitely faded away. We had nothing in common.
The nieces and nephews all become obedient STEM bots, there wasn't one rebellious or free-thinking soul in the lot. They never had curiosity and most of them barely talked. So they were impossible to get to know. I had some happy moments with my sister's two older children in the early 2000s during a week I went to go visit, but after they arrived in their pre-teens the phones came out and there was no opportunities for true conversation at my mother's house. We all stayed strangers.
Even the autistic nephew majored in computer security and surveillance. I'm not sure if he will be scapegoated or helped to get a job by the family. He is very overweight so that alone could be a strike against him. I'm simply not around to know. There weren't going to be any "rebels" in that lot to relate to. I know when my husband was in newspapers and getting his books published, we were still young and had hope of some future middle class "respectability" I was disabled but he was/is extremely gifted in writing and we had hopes of moving up via his efforts. Now that we are older, I just want contentment and being left alone. When you are poor you are never left alone. It's good I was no contact during these last few years. I'm gone, I don't have to try and win respect or compete with these people anymore and that will always be a relief.
As I got older I was able to accept being of more meager means, and deal with it. I was fine, but sadly in America, they sure seem invested in putting the screws to the poor and working class. Maybe I was spared becoming a sell-out by not allowed into the family circles. There was punishment for non-conformity. I saw those who "sold out", maybe they knew I'd never be one of them, anyway, money or no money. Some of them sold their souls long ago for their wealth. It's given me a lot to think about.
The Special Turmoil of Those in Poor Narcissistic Families
Scapegoats have their own burdens to bear coming out of poor families, they seem to get abused for their money more, with demands to take care of the parents or donate to the family coffers keeping them trapped at home, kind of like Gilbert Grape. Some may even say well at least you got to go to college and that's true. Poor scapegoats are often in danger too of being used as perpetual free babysitters or caretakers if they are at home long enough for an older parent to need one. I remember some young scapegoats in my old small rural town, where they escaped caretaking and impoverishment by joining the military. Who can blame them? For some of them, it was their only means of escape.
Most narcissists who don't have money or fail to earn it usually are the parasitic sorts that live off other people or family members. Some engage in substance abuse and some had earlier careers but lost them due to malfeasance, legal troubles or substance problems. These kids won't be in the situation where the parents are the pillars of society. Their neglect will be even more acute, the parents will demand that they pay their bills and they will grab on to them like leeches. You will see situations where the scapegoat in this case is not sent to the desert to die of poverty like in a rich family but used and abused to pay the family bills and support their parents. Enmeshment is more possible. The parents will often waste money or gamble or refuse to work or apply for disability or subsidized housing and then demand the scapegoat literally stay home forever instead of building their own life and family to pay their bills. They will drain them utterly dry and a young person who gives in to their demands will miss out on a chance to build their own life.
These scapegoats also will have their education neglected. Some will be home schooled, and miss out on education. Lazy parents will subscribe to homeschooling and not bother to educate their child at all. The "unschooling" movement with abusive parents, means they just want to sleep in and keep how they are treating their kids from the prying eyes of the public. Some do homeschooling right but for abusers, it's a way to keep a kid isolated, abused and away from connection to a community. Some toxic parents will be in cults, that add more abusers to a kid's life.
Sometimes the poor family will pour resources into the golden childen and having little there will nothing left for the other children. So Johnny the golden child gets the hamburger and the scapegoats get left over rice.
The Four Fs [Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn[ Will Make You Poor
The Four Fs are the trauma responses of many scapegoats. All of these trauma responses make you poor. They all applied to me at various times.
Fawning is a given. Sometimes people brown-nose bosses but it only takes you so far. It makes you look weak and like a push-over. People treated me badly until I got on the clue bus in my 40s about not sharing so many problems or showing weakness to others. Those behaviors don't bring in the jobs, and if you do get jobs, you get the grunt low paid or dangerous work no one else wants, or they can't fill the positions for. It almost entitles that you remain at the bottom of the pyramid.
Freezing also limits one's life. You freeze like a scared rabbit, and actions aren't taken, you get frozen into space and time. Your life does not advance like other peoples. For many ACONs, we struggle with the voices in our head inherited from our abusers where nothing is never good enough and being told we are worthless or our lives had nothing to show for them. Freezing can make one put off responsibilities and put things off to avoid fear and stress. It is not a career or money enhancer.
Fleeing/Flight also has dangers. Geographical cures don't always fix a life if there are internal health problems or mental health challenges. Some of my moves worked for me but many forget that they take themselves with them when they go to a new place. Many ACONs lack the roots or feeling of "home" of other people. I know I was psychologically damaged from losing one town. There is this endless yearning to have a "home" and a place to belong. This too can interfere with wise decision-making.
Fighting if you do it literally can cause court and cop problems and give you a record. If you verbally fight and lash out, it can bring problems too and put you at odds with neutral or helpful people. Even misdemeanors can make it hard to get jobs. Those who served prison time, know how much of a struggle it can be to regain economic viability. For those who go the verbal only route, many narcissists can do DARVO and then make you look like the aggressor or the bully when they instigated things. I fought back many times verbally and just ended up losing, while my abusers came out smelling like roses. Money problems will put you in a weaker place. I have a lot of regrets about life, that I would have put money making first instead of growing up to be a financially struggling person, but then I forgive myself knowing what road all the abuse put me on.
Narcissists will seek to destroy and undermine your successes.
Remember when I wrote about the book contest I won in elementary school and my mother embarrassed me in front of my teachers condemning their book award and making me look bad? Well she tried the same again! This happened during a hoovering event of a couple years ago. It concerned something successful I was involved with and she contacted the people and made strange requests that troubled and scared people. They were good people who were not fooled by my mother. I was able to hold to my no contact. All my successes growing up were minimized, there's a reason both parents refused to go to both my high school and college graduation ceremonies. There's a reason, she ignored art shows, mocked my stamp collection and both never gave me one ounce of encouragement.
So if you are a scapegoat that somehow rises above the abuse and manages to get a career, and money, this doesn't stop the narcissists toxicity. I've read stories where scapegoats did well for a time, and then when the bottom fell out from a spouse dying, or they got disabled or they lost their jobs or careers, the narcissists in their lives gloried in it, and were another boot stomping on their head. I had hope of doing well up to my early 20s and things switched especially after I lost my juvenile home art teaching job, it upped the abuse a few notches. When my husband had his health and career difficulties from his newspaper lay offs and then losing the job as a copy ad writer. She reveled in it. My family became far more abusive after my husband's job lay-offs. If his newspaper jobs had continued our path would have been a lot better.
I do believe given my family's connections, that there could have been sabotage in the background, there definitely was enough in our faces. So even success will not make you immune from their abuses, the rule that they don't want a scapegoat to succeed remains intact, so even if you have money and do well for years, realize they could be waiting to pounce at the first sign of weakness. This can happen even for aging ex-scapegoats if their abusers are still living.
If you do succeed, they will do everything to undermine you. This will range from mocking your career choices to parasitical attempts to grab your money. Some will try and get you fired. Some ACONs have written online how their parents got them fired from jobs, doing things like showing up at the work place ranting and raving or calling bosses and co-workers and making up lies about them. I've read stories of kids winning full-ride scholarships to universities where narcissistic parents ruined things by refusing a few small fees or travel money so they could get to the university or making up more lies or demanding the adult child stay home to "take care of them" putting their education on hold.
Most narcissists have money and are lords of the manor but some people do have what I personally call parasitical narcissists, these are the types who learned to live off others and suck them dry to support themselves. I once had a wealthier commenter on this blog tell me, even if I made it big and had money, my family still would have treated me like trash. She was wealthy and they still treated her bad. It also didn't escape my attention later, my money-worshipping mother, didn't like my millionaire ex-friend either just because she was my friend at the time. For the scapegoats who do succeed or are wealthy, their abuses are just as abusive and a force to reckon with.
So lets say you ducked through the maze and came out financially secure via hard work, luck, talent or a combination of all. Narcissists will still focus on your failures [made up or real] and will still call you a loser. They still will criticize you no matter what. Steam will come out of their ears if they see you in the newspaper for an art show, or they think you have even one dime, they think you don't deserve.
Years into no contact I faced facts about what it meant, that with an upper middle class family, I was extremely ill and forced to live with the mice and rats and had no car, medical care and other things I needed to live. I almost died at that time, and it didn't occur to me until years later and the fog had cleared how much I had been betrayed. I never had a family in the sense of the word whatsoever. Many ACONs will go under betrayals like this. One can hear the horror stories all over.
Many of us face severe neglect as children. Some ACONs don't get the medical care they need. This happened to me. Many don't have the right clothing, or material goods even with families that have enough money to provide properly for them. There is emotional neglect but also physical neglect where narcissistic parents don't take children to doctors or make sure they are happy or healthy. They will have new clothing while their children wear rags.
Even those with rich parents, feel a constant strain of neglect. I used to love those Scholastic book sales that came to our school but my parents would never give me money for books, fortunately I could get some with newspaper delivery money but my parents were like this person's parents, I owned only two pairs of pants often while in high school, I couldn't go on trips or buy books or do activities like the other kids because my parents were so cheap when it came to my needs. I wasn't allowed to buy lunch at school, and had to eat a gross bologna sandwich every single day and sometimes I would ask for a little money to buy a salad or hot meal at school and the answer was no. It was ironic seeing the poor kids eat better than me at school because they got free meals and mine were too stingy.
So I related to this person on reddit.
My parents are both software engineers that make about 100k salary each. They have multiple rental properties, and are worth over 1 million.
However, as a kid, they never gave me any money for anything ever. Even something like needing $10 for a field trip, they wouldn't give it to me. Always saying shit like "what have you done to EARN $10?"
There was an allowance system in place, but if I missed one chore at all in a week, then it all went away. The time the chores needed to be done by seemed ever changing, and I literally never actually got any of that allowance.
Any time I needed to see a doctor or needed them to come to some school event, they would make me feel terrible for making them miss work or for the price of healthcare.
This sort of thing almost assures that a kid won't reach the same financial level of the parents. It teaches the kid you do not deserve anything and you must scrape, bow and beg for everything which puts a later adult child in a subservient mode where success is far less possible. I always was treated like a burden and that I was in the way. It made me subservient. The message given here is you are trained to believe you don't deserve anything and that can play out in a negative way in a life. She'd grab me and literally pull me across aisles for strangers. They meant a lot more to her than I ever did. If you don't feel worthy, then it's hard to get others to see your worth.
Later this person admits they ended up in the streets and had to scramble to survive and still live in poverty as an adult. They were set up to be poor by a family of means.
Disinheriting the Scapegoats!
One way poverty will come to scapegoats is via being disinherited. As long time readers know I have gone through extreme poverty in my life that even makes today's diminished means look like candy-days in comparison. Why did my father leave every penny to my mother, when he knew before he died, that I was severely ill and disabled? He didn't care about me. My mother got him to "blame" me and throw me away like yesterday's trash. She became wealthier, it was at least $500-750,000 and could have been as much as a million dollars if not more via life insurance. He had told us kids he was leaving everything to her when we were growing up, as he wrote weird letters to "cut us out of the will" every time he got pissed. I've already written about my mother telling two relatives that I was cut out of her will years before I went no contact and how everything will be left to my golden child sister.
Scapegoats can end up poor even coming out of a millionaire family. Some will have their millionaire parents leave them a small stipend or even 1 dollar for legal reasons while giving millions to other siblings and family members. These experiences are very common. The scapegoat can be very poor living in SROs, boarding houses or even in the streets. My sister never knew want or poverty. It only occurred to me later, as I nearly died in Chicago, she had the means to help too and simply refused. One odd thing to think about during high school is my family was considered one of the "rich" families in town because of my father's position at a government agency and the fact we lived in one of the "better neighborhoods" in town. Some kids would make fun of us for this. That's a bit of irony I know.
Here is one experience shared to me on a message board.
"That’s me. My sisters got everything. I was on my own at 15 after my father died. I didn’t get the insurance money left in trust for me. I went to a homeless shelter. My mother is worth millions. I’ve done ok for myself but struggle hard. I never had any family help at all let alone financial or favors or even emotional support. I’ll be 47 in a couple weeks. She felt guilty recently and offered me $50k for a house. I have three kids in a 250 sq ft trailer that she’s embarrassed about. I said help me increase my income instead by paying for a $4k certification for me. I’ll double my income after that and can help myself. Well, she paid the first $900 then changed her mind. Now I can’t finish and am embarrassed in front of my professional colleagues. Nothing even happened. No conflict. It’s just how she is. When I said maybe you can apologize for setting me up like this, she went off on how I made my choices in life and made it out to be all my fault.
That poor person is having the usual sabotage. Notice the refusal of help where the ACON could provide better for herself in the future. Multimillions in the family and she's left to clamor. I'm glad she's employed but sad she was put in this position to begin with. Sadly many narcissists rise in ranks in our society and are the ones with the money. This poor person is in one of those proverbial "Don't give me a fish, give me a fishing pole" situations.
I know of another case, where a scapegoat was left money and property by a narcissistic father, the mother was a narcissist too, but the parents were divorced. Their golden-child sister cleaned the accounts out and got the father to sign papers 5 days before he died, transferring all the properties over to the golden child sister. This scapegoat tried to fight in court but lost, the sister had deep pockets to fight legal battles with from taking all the money. The court and banking system in their area seemed to be very corrupt and there were many professionals who backed up the golden child sister. The lawyers took their share, leaving the scapegoat empty-handed.
I was blamed too. My parents were against my marriage, "he's too poor", my husband was a newspaper reporter by the time we began dating with a journalism degree from a major state school. I was told I was "lazy and fat" and this is why I couldn't get a "good enough job". I was always working before I was disabled so they focused on the fact my jobs were low paid, my juvenile home art teaching grant job wasn't the SAME as a full time permanent teaching contract. It occurred to me later, that for someone who was only 21-22 years old, that was a decent job for my field. Nothing ever was good enough. I was told over and over the opportunities provided to others were denied to me, because I was not good enough. Added to that was a thick layer of guilt and gaslighting such as when my mother told me, "I did everything I could for you and here you come wanting more!" What an absolute joke!
If a scapegoat is disabled or autistic, that's a danger zone too as far as inheritances, I've heard stories where the disabled person [especially on SSI] is told you will lose your Social Security if you get any inheritance, so we are going to write you out of the will. They will be made afraid and intimidated. I know several disabled people this happened to. There are special trusts families can set up for disabled members but don't expect a narcissistic family to investigate those things. Many disabled older adults who lived with one elderly relative who may be decent and not a narcissist will be thrown out of the house so the narcissists can come in and clean the place out. There are a lot of abuses with probate out there. I don't know why probate law seems written to protect narcissists but often it is. Sometimes in less toxic families, they may be left money in a trust but then that ACON enters the hell of having a narcissist or golden child narcissistic sibling in charge of their financial life as a payee representative. I'm not sure why the disability advocates are failing to protect so many people but I've seen too much funny business with guardianships, and well-intended relatives being outgunned by money-hungry narcissists.
I had spiritual troubles watching the wicked prosper. There's times I wake up and wonder why have such mean and cruel people done so well, and never faced economic or other troubles? A giant divide would have come over our class differences anyhow. Even if I didn't go no contact, I was the red-headed bastard step-child they were hiding out of "embarrassment", I didn't live the same life styles, didn't look the same. I didn't have the new clothing, the new cars, they lived lives I could only dream of, as they flew overseas and owned vacation homes. What use is a family in those circumstances? I have rich friends who live different lives from me, but in the case of my family they made it clear I was not one of them. Many of us are told we do not belong in many ways before we walk for good.
I came to the conclusion mid adulthood, I never really wanted their life. I was happiest living a more simple life. The suburban go-go life was never for me. I've always desired the safety of money but always have known if I ever came into money, I would not spend it on the same things. It was too mentally exhausting, taxing and fake too. Let's be real, I am someone who questions society and is of an artistic bent, redecorating a suburban house and putting on dinner parties was not the way I wanted to go. Artists and writers have a drive to be artists and writers that is hard to explain to others. It's like you are born to be that way.
I've heard of this same disenfranchisement coming to many. As I wrote 10 years ago, the boomer generation and above was far more wealthy than later generations. Yes, there are some poor and some decent boomers. There are all these clueless articles going on about estranged families but no one has examined one main point, that as younger generations fall down the ladder and can't afford to build the same lives or own houses take trips, or hit all the expected milestones in a family, they aren't the same social class as their family anymore. They don't fit in. The class chasm alone is a yawning cataclysmic effect on family relationships. The sociologists have ignored these effects on our society as the economy collapses. These issues are never addressed. Younger people are entering their 40s and 50s knowing their lives will never be like their parents and in the case of those with narcissistic parents the blame and shame never end. The worse of it is, is that you really don't have a family just "competitors" who smashed your face into the ground as they walked over you.
Narcissists Waste Money and Practice No Frugality. They are Bad Examples
My family were snobs, and probably still remain so. There were financial cracks in the family. Both my parents would mock anyone who had financial set-backs. This included laid off relatives who were otherwise middle class. There was absolutely no mercy. Materialism ran the show. One major problem with my family is they were extremely materialistic, and while they always got the money they wanted, they wasted it. There were years when my parents were making six figures during the 1980s, that they went deep into debt. They were both shopaholics, and even though there was a lot of money coming in, my mother got her government job around 1983 from my father, they spent it like crazy.
I grew up watching constant fights about money. My mother did the bills, but there was always screaming and shouting. This wasn't a good example in learning how to handle money. My father wasted thousands of dollars wanting to rebuild a muscle car from the 1960s, he never finished it and our second garage was filled with a hunk of junk with no wheels and endless boxes of car parts, that later was sold off in the 1990s. My mother bought every fad and followed every decorating trend which meant stripping rooms down to "remodel" them. She would show off to family constantly so when relatives came to visit she would go all out. She bought $400-500 of groceries once for one family visit, this was back in the 80s too and that was two large filled grocery carts. Every new gadget that came out they'd buy from lawn tractors to fuzz busters to new phones.
After my father died, my mother did not change her spending habits, she spent thousands to put this old 1880s wagon in her yard and bought the legions of snowmen to fill the house. Both of them ate out several times a week at fancy restaurants with glass goblets of wine and waitresses, My mother having no fear even though she was allergic to shellfish, would go to these expensive "all you can eat" snow crab leg buffets and eat for hours. That was one very strange attribute about her showing her lack of fear, she would pig out on a food she was allergic to. She ended up in the hospital twice, and would take allergy pills before eating the crab. Most people know this is a very bad idea when it comes to food allergies. These crab buffets even in the 80s and 90s were above 30 dollars a person. My father was the same, still eating potatoes even though he was badly allergic to them because my mother wanted to serve them. My mother would remain a weekly customer of Red Lobster for years.
Shopping was a hobby for my mother. Every week there were extensive shopping trips to the gardening miniatures/dollhouse, clothing, Hallmark stores--our house was plastered in those expensive Christmas ornaments, Ethan Allen, and out of town trips to "go shopping". She would lay out at least $5,000 dollars on Christmas. My father wasn't any better. He would buy the car parts, go to endless auctions, the hardware store, the bookstore and he shopped quite a bit. Both collected "collectibles". My mother collected these expensive "country houses", and ceramic/glass owls and filled the shelves with them. Later she collected decorative plates. My father collected ceramic/glass whales. They would go to gift stores all the time looking to add to their collections. My mother would follow trends, she spent hundreds if not thousands of dollars on
My parents were very proud of their possessions. Things mattered more than I did. Most of their identity came from what they owned rather than what they did. The only "positive" conversations I had as an adult with my mother was her showing off to me what she had purchased. When I was still in the mode of trying to connect, that's the only time she had conversations with me that were not about criticizing, or putting me down. Get her to talk about her shopping trips. It may be a nearly pleasant conversation then. My poverty put a giant chasm in any possible relationship. What could I afford to buy? Not much.
Credit card debt was an issue for my parents. I heard whispered discussions of bankruptcy in the 80s and early 90s. I'm not sure if they ended up declaring it, but since they kept their houses and cars probably not. She probably ran out of credit for my sister's wedding, which is why she took my credit card out of the mail without telling me and stole it. She had to have her money. Frugality was not a path for her.
The sad thing is why my parents shopped until they dropped even as a minor I went without. I befriended the "project" kids in high school because I dressed like them. There were only 2 pairs of pants to wear at one time. I only owned two pair of shoes usually ugly sneakers I could not stand, and some boots for the winter. While I got Lee jeans and a couple sweaters, I did not get to dress anywhere near how my classmates did. My mother would blame my weight, "you are too fat for clothing" but I was still midsized enough there was some clothing available. There was no money for prom, I had a job by then but that cost hundreds of dollars I felt was beyond me. There was no money to go to go on trips or the Senior Class trip. I went to a rich high school, where the kids there with the exception of the "project kids" who lived with their often single mothers in an apartment complex, hung out the country club and went to Florida for every spring break. I did not relate to them and they maintained lifestyles like this into adulthood, seen on Facebook with golfing trips, cruises and dinners out.
I had one foot in poor land from pure neglect but one foot in rich land. My family lived in one of the best neighborhoods in town and even in the town before that we were considered a "rich" family because of all the material possessions. My brother's newer Trans Am with a giant bird on the hood was the envy of the males in my high school. He got this car after he owned a cherry red Firebird.
My mother brought lavish food to neighborhood parties. My father had a high up enough position to be in the newspaper on a regular basis. I would go visit these high school acquaintances that lived on the edges of the golf course and country club just down the street from my house on very rare occasion as I was not well liked and a couple times I saw their bedrooms. My eyes bugged out at their full closets, shoes, make-up, and lovingly decorated rooms. I definitely wasn't living like them. One girl was even nearly as fat as me, and that gave me weird feelings, her closets were busting and when her mother hugged her hello, it almost made me cry.
I cried when I outgrew one prairie skirt, after my earlier weight gain, it was made out of red corduroy, and I knew she'd never buy me another skirt. I watched my sister and mother wearing new clothes all the time. Narcissists will often dress their scapegoated kids very poorly so others will look down on them and treat them badly. I told her I was being made fun of at high school for wearing the same clothes too often, she didn't care and would just yell, "It's because you are fat!" I would have to rewash my too few clothes almost every other night to have something to wear the next day. She bought me unflattering clothing all the time on purpose, especially these especially very ugly navy themed sweatshirt and sweatpants and shorts that had horizontal lines. I wanted slimming black clothes and she refused.
This is extremely ironic but as a child, I hoarded money. It's funny to think that as a child I had more money than I would as an adult. Because of my constant part time jobs to babysitting and then restaurant jobs, I always had a few hundred dollars stashed away as a child. Maybe I knew there was safety in money. I hid money from my parents. She would steal some of my newspaper money but to do the job, I had to get some money and I would keep it.
Sometimes I did a few fun things like play Putt-Putt when we still lived in the big metro city or go to the arcade, but overall I kept my money. The family mocked me for my attitudes about money and called me a "miser". All the time they would lecture and harangue me about being tight with money. It's weird now, they probably didn't want me saving. They didn't really know how much I had which is good.
During my last year at home, I lied about how much I was making to hide and save some money. She was demanding rent and refusing to let me eat much at home, fortunately the juvenile home let me eat meals there. I told them I made just above minimum wage around 5 an hour at the job [minimum wage being a mere $3.35 at the time] instead of the actual 14 an hour. The job was 30 hours a week so I was able to save some from it and other jobs. I was stashing money to get out. At one time I had 5,000 dollars, sadly car repairs and medical would vaporize that money but it got me out during my first no contact. It would be the most money I ever had at one time in my adult life.
There was no sanity around money. No example of frugality or the practicalities of daily living. Watching people spend money until they dropped did not prepare me for life or even how hard it would be to make a living. There was no preparation or saving for the future. There were no family assets to depend on. Today as a poor adult, the way they burned through money is horrifying to me. This is one area where scapegoats can be cheated out of a future decent financial life.
Hide Your Piggy Bank from Mom and Dad!
Another thing that can happen to scapegoats beyond being directly disinherited, many will have money stolen from them. I wrote about this years ago but my mother committed identity theft against me using a credit card in my name and putting almost $2,000 on it. Some scapegoats will have their paychecks grabbed as they live at home: "you need to help us with expenses" or will have inheritances from others stolen from them. If there's a narcissist about and someone dies in the family, they go running to clean the newly deceased's house out. Some will have their stuff sold off, and even cash will disappear from their piggy banks. My mother used to "get into" my newspaper money when I was 10 years old. What could I do? I was just a kid. I learned to hide some money. I wonder if people who used to buy savings bonds for grandkids and others realize much of that money disappears into the coffers of the narcissistic parent.
from Reddit:
My mom stole my college funds that my grandpa gave to me after he passed. When I asked her about the funds she promised, she said "what funds?"
My Advice for Young Scapegoats to Escape the Poverty and Abuse Trap:
If you are a young scapegoat, and want to have a better financial life. Here's my advice...
1. Be practical and focus on what you can to be financially stable and independent. Scapegoats more than anyone have to focus on making sure they can provide for themselves. Read books on money-making investments and more.
2. Find and foster community where you can. It's not easy and some communities may fade away but some succeed in finding close friends or churches like my first church in my old town and communities like my art club and later self help group that can be places of support. This is very important to those without a family
3. Be very practical in your career choices, balance out things if you desire to be in the arts and really face reality. I've written of my regret in these areas. For abused ACONS, making a living and seeking financial independence is very important. It is very hard on me that I never achieved financial independence or a stable money life. I don't want others to suffer what I have.
4. Protect your health as much as you can. Get needed rest. Avoid processed food, join the gym if you can afford one. If you lose your health, the money goes away. Disabled people are very poor.
5. Protect your interests. Financial suffering and shortages can really hinder your healing or even in the cases of some people be threats to full no contact or independence from the narcissists. My financial need kept me in the game far longer than I wanted to be.
6. if you are poor or unable to escape poverty, learn extreme frugality as much as you can. I'd already be in the streets if not for some habits. Always pay rent first no matter what. Do not gamble or take up expensive habits. Also look into stoicism. I had some depression that lifted when I started practicing stoic acceptance but even that must be balanced with protecting your interests and looking out for them.
7. Realize the reality of this world. There are people who will help you out there, I've encountered many but also realize this world is a greedy place, it is a "king of the mountain, dog eat dog world". Narcissists leave us naive to the reality of the world. It's better to face how things really are then to look at them as how we wished they would be.
8. No contact is not easy but life for any socioeconomic class is far easier being no contact.
Five Hundred Pound Peep: The Expensive Trip of A Lifetime--1996
Five Hundred Pound Peep: Are you the Family "Loser"?
Are Your Bills Crushing You?
Classism Stinks
