Psychotherapist. Counsellor. Science writer & Fellow of ISTC. Author. Pushing for mental health reform. Ally to family survivors. https://xitter.cf/t.co/Haj0hpuoZs
Bristol
Joined January 2020
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The model in mental health is changing. The era of "faulty brain chemistry" is over, the hypotheses debunked, the drugs needlessly dangerous. We're moving to a more compassionate understanding that bad things happen to people and they suffer emotionally and physically as a result
Never spoken to, only talked about
Richard Lewis retweeted
Dysfunctional groups protect the least safe person. You know the wrong person is being protected when the group focus shifts from the cause of harm to the reaction.
Richard Lewis retweeted
Safe relationships don't require you to shrink. If you're making yourself smaller to keep someone comfortable, you're not in a partnership. You're in captivity.
Richard Lewis retweeted
The hardest part of healing isn't feeling your pain. It's accepting that the people who caused it aren't ever going to acknowledge it.
The funny thing about my life is that everything was always already what it eventually turned out to be.
Scapegoating in unhealthy families is a way of maintaining the family image, the brand, the myth of perfection. It's a cult-like sacrifice of the individual for the (fake) identity of the group.
Richard Lewis retweeted
Shout out to every trauma survivor who has had to swallow their rage today because they have to play nice w/ somebody.
Remember that it doesn't mean your anger is invalid or inappropriate-- or that you'll always be gagged like this.
Richard Lewis retweeted
Everything is urgent in corporate, except recognition, salary increases and creating a healthy environment.
The family scapegoat is often the one who becomes the healer, or the helper, or the one who dedicates their life to making a difference. They are the one who turns wounds into wisdom, and pain into power.
Scapegoating is actually a way of avoiding true intimacy and vulnerability inside the family. Easy blame keeps relationships superficial and transactional, denying true connection.
In a dysfunctional family, the one who is most empathetic, most compassionate & most attuned to the needs of others is not cherished and protected, but rather they are forced to take on the emotional labour of the whole family and punished for mentioning how much it hurts.
Richard Lewis retweeted
Have you noticed that the people who are jealous of your blessings were never jealous of your struggles?
If you were the family scapegoat, you may struggle today with chronic guilt, shame, and self-blame. It's not your personality, its injury. You can break free from these patterns and find peace.
Enmeshed family systems are dominance hierarchies. Scapegoating is a way of enforcing the family hierarchy. It keeps the power structure in place by making the strongest person the target of all blame and criticism. More biddable members witness the abuse and stay in line.
Richard Lewis retweeted
Enmeshed families are halls of mirrors. The truth is you were abandoned at birth, then forced to play a game where everyone cosplays family while never being genuinely known. The first person to call bullshit is turned into the scapegoat.
I've observed a pattern. The family scapegoat is often the one who is the most creative, artistic, or unconventional. It follows: they are the one most likely to think outside the box and challenge the status quo. Power structures perceive creative intelligence as threat.