Tag: scapegoating

being a scapegoat

Being a Scapegoat: 5 Insanely Powerful Ways to Put a Stop to It

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Do you want to know the absolute best ways to stop being a scapegoat? Here are the best defenses you must know about.

being a scapegoat

Scapegoating is the most harmful and alienating experience a person can endure. If you’re being scapegoated like I was, chances are that you’re wondering what to do to put a stop to it. As someone who has been there and overcome, I’m giving you the most powerful ways to stop being a scapegoat that worked for me and others I know.

You are going to learn about the 5 best ways to stop being a scapegoat and, ultimately, take back your life.

After learning about all these smart strategies, you are going to finally take back your dignity and peace of mind.

This post is all about the 5 best ways to stop being a scapegoat that every victim should know.

Best Strategies to stop being a scapegoat

1. Learn what scapegoating is and how to recognize it when you see it.

The first step of defense is knowledge. In other words, to stop being a scapegoat, you must know what scapegoating is and be able to spot it when those around you are trying to make you one.

So, what is scapegoating and who are scapegoats?

According to Cambridge Dictionary, scapegoating is the act of blaming a person or group for something bad that has happened or that someone else has done. In other words, the scapegoat is made to bare the burden of someone else’s wrongs and is punished in the guilty person’s place.

Scapegoating also happens when others take all their anger, frustrations, hurts, and other issues out on you. In essence, they’re punishing you for the crappy hand life is dealing them whether or not you caused it.

Projecting or projection is another term for this type of scapegoating.

Here’s an example of scapegoating:

A football team loses the big game. Afterwards, they blame the bench warmer for the loss, even though it was the quarterback who failed to tackle the opposing player before he got to the goal line, or, maybe another teammate fumbled the ball, which cost them the game.

I’m not real football savvy here, but you get the point.

Scapegoats and scapegoating go all the way back to the Bible days. During the Old Testament, people gave burnt offerings of lambs to cleanse themselves of sin.

During the Medieval Period, being a scapegoat would put a target’s life in mortal danger. Kings used scapegoats to cover their own mistakes and wrongdoings. They would do this by forcing the scapegoats to take the blame for the kings’ screw-up and put them to death.

Executing the scapegoats serve two purposes. It kept them quiet and ensured that the kings continue to smell like roses.

People, especially bullies, do the same today, only in different ways. Also, the scapegoat is always the person who is totally innocent and one who has the least power to fight back.

2. Set boundaries.

Being a scapegoat comes with being bullied. If you set boundaries, however, people are least likely to bully you. Therefore, there’s also less chance of you being a scapegoat.

Setting boundaries is a must, though not always easy, especially if you’re a victim of bullying. However, you must continue to have boundaries, otherwise, others will only ride roughshod over you.

“What is setting boundaries?” you might ask.

It’s clearly communicating to others what you will and will not tolerate and what they can expect from you if they violate one of your boundaries.

It takes confidence to set boundaries, which, sadly, is something a few bullying targets have. Moreover, bullies don’t respect boundaries because they don’t acknowledge them. Therefore, you may need to prepare yourself to fight to protect your boundaries.

But, I want you to know this. Having boundaries is not wrong nor is it selfish. Neither is expressing the freedom to be yourself and asserting your right not to be violated

If you have no boundaries, you get no respect.

However, any time you don’t set boundaries, you give up your rights to be treated with dignity and respect. You end up looking like a simp.

People will only take advantage of you and, over time, they will get comfortable with doing so. Even worse, you will come to be known as the poor sucker that everyone can crap on and attract more of the same from total strangers.

In that, you make yourself susceptible to being a scapegoat and target of bullying.

Being overly friendly, overly accommodating, and too available does not win respect. It will only does the opposite because people will take your kindness for weakness. In short, you hand over your personal power.

Whereas, when you do set boundaries, you enact your autonomy and speak from a place of self-care and self-love. In doing this, you take your personal power back.

when you set boundaries, you take back your personal power

Again, setting boundaries won’t be easy. In fact, it will probably make some people angry. However, understand that if people become angry at you for having personal boundaries, it’s because they’re afraid they’ll no longer be getting the benefits they’ve enjoyed… benefits they’ve been getting at your expense!

Moreover, you not only set boundaries but you also need to enforce them!

You must have the courage to keep setting those limits no matter how others feel or how they react. If your boundaries offend people, tough cookies.

Stick to your guns. Keep fighting for your right to be treated with respect. Show them that you will stand up to them no matter what they do, and eventually, they’ll get tired and realize that you aren’t worth the effort. They’ll go find an easier target.

So, always set boundaries and be prepared to fight to protect them.

3. If you want to stop being a scapegoat, you must refuse to engage with the people who scapegoat you.

In other words, if others blame you for things that happen that are beyond your control, it’s time to walk away for good.

If they try to blame you for something they or someone else is guilty of, refuse to accept blame and tell them to take a walk. Then never speak to them again.

Also, if people are constantly projecting their own wrongdoings and shortcomings onto you, don’t associate with them any longer. They’re a waste of your time.

Realize that you are not a dumping ground for all their baggage. So, have nothing more to do with them. Give them the old heave-ho because they do not deserve a place in your life.

This may be difficult to do, especially if the people who scapegoat you happen to be members of your family. However, if you want to stop this abuse, sometimes, it means making a few heartbreaking decisions.

4. If you want to stop being a scapegoat, you’ve got to Rock it!

Grey-rock it, that is!

Grey rocking a bully means showing no emotion toward their behavior and only giving short, one-word answers to them. It also means to keep minimal contact with them. In other words, you wait long periods of time between seeing them and wait a long time before answering their texts.

In short, it means acting like you just don’t care what they say and having a little interacting with them as humanly possible.

Although this can be easier said than done, and the bully may or may not lose interest and go away right then, it’s a good tactic if your goal is to stop being a scapegoat.

You may have to repeat it again and again before your bullies will get the message, but, if nothing else, you’ll feel better about yourself knowing you finally took back your coconuts and stood up to the creeps.

5. Practice Self-Care and Compassion.

How you do this is to practice making affirmations to yourself every day. Say to yourself, “I am not the guilty party,” or “I will not be a victim of their blame game,” “I am a good person regardless of how they treat me,” or “I am perfectly fine without them.

Also, establish a support network. Choose genuine people as friends and keep company only with those who lift you up. Dress however makes you feel good. Treat yourself to a pampering session at a nice spa or a new hairdo or hair cut.

Do the things that you love doing and that make you feel alive. Work on your hobbies and pursue your goals and dreams. The trick here is to work on you and to give yourself the love and care that others aren’t giving you. Self-care is great because it can help counteract the negativity your bullies throw at you.

This post was all about how to stop being a scapegoat, giving you steps to help you assert your right not to be blamed for other peoples’ behavior or mistakes, and take back your personal power.

A related post you will enjoy:

1. Reasons Why People Bully- 7 Most Common Motives

Sometimes, Bullied People Bully People

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bullied victim sad crying

Bullying hurts. It’s not the physical beatings in the locker room. It isn’t the trippings in the hallways nor having your books knocked out of your arms. Neither is it the name-calling nor the threats. It’s not the rumors, the lies, and smear campaigns, nor is it the setups to get you into trouble, the jokes or pranks.

It’s the cumulative sum of all factors:

It leaves the target feeling that he’s lost all control over his life and that he no longer has a say in what happens to him- it’s the feeling of having power over nothing!

Is it any wonder that in an attempt to snatch back control over something, anything, many targets soon begin to bully those who are even more vulnerable than them?
Through their own victimization, targets learn that to keep from feeling so powerless, they must bully too. In bullying them, bullies unwittingly teach their targets how to bully.

We call these people bully-victims– people who are both bullies and are targets of other bullies. They bully to feel better about themselves and to ascend a few rungs up the social ladder.

Nobody wants to be on the bottom. Everybody wants to be better than somebody. It’s a sad part of human nature.

bullying bullied victim physical

Just as people are fighting like crazy to stay on top, others struggle to keep off the bottom. As it is quoted, “Sh¬** rolls downhill and lands at the bottom.”
Person A at the top bullies Person B, who is second from the top.
Person B then bullies Person C, and so on.

And down the pecking order, the nastiness rolls until it lands on Person Z at the bottom. Then, everyone bullies Person Z because Person Z is defenseless! There’s no one for Person Z to bully because he’s the one with the least power of all the others.

Anyone on the bottom is going to catch hell because they’re powerless. And that person will likely be kept on the bottom because no one wants that position. Therefore, everyone keeps Z down to ensure that none of them ever take Z’s place.
That’s how it works, folks!

As long as someone else is on the bottom, it keeps you and everyone else safe from being there. It’s why bully-victims get bullied by pure bullies, then go on to select their own victims to degrade and humiliate.

bullied victim blamed sad depressed

However, must of the time, this doesn’t turn out good. Because sometimes, bully-victims become worse off then pure bullies or pure victims.

Pure bullies are people who don’t get bullied by other people.

Bully-victims are both bullies and victims of bullying by other bullies. And they bully far more than the pure bullies do because they have more to prove.

Bully victims are far more hated and ostracized than pure bullies or pure victims. They’re lonelier and have few friends or none at all.

Bully-victims often resort to trickery and deceit. Many are pathological liars, cheats, fakes, and sneaks. They believe that humans are the lowest forms of life on earth. Bully-victims tend to be Machs.

Understand that bully-victims need help. They need someone to get it through their heads that just because people are bullying them doesn’t make it okay to turn around and bully someone else.

But tell them lovingly and with patience because they’re badly hurting inside themselves and need someone to listen to them and gently guide them in the right direction.

Reasons Why Teachers and School Officials Ignore a Bullied Student’s Cries for Help

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All too often, schools ignore reports of bullying and leave targets to fend for themselves. It was the same when I was being bullied in school. Any reports of the harassment either went completely ignored, were swept under the rug, or I was blamed for it. Here are the reasons:

They’re lazy. Conducting an investigation into the case of bullying is extra work. Most school officials do not want to make any extra effort in resolving a case of bullying. Often, they take the easy way out by either denying that there’s a problem or blaming the target. And when parents of targets get involved, the school staff may often label the parents as “the crazy mom/dad,” which is only a cop-out.

They’re afraid the bullies’ parents will retaliate. Bullying is a learned behavior, and many bullies have parents who are also bullies themselves. Many of these parents are self-entitled. They may also have powerful political connections in the town or on the school board. And the school staff know too well that disciplining “the wrong kids” could mean an end to either their jobs or their entire careers.

They’re afraid that the school’s reputation may be tarnished. Schools often hide cases of bullying to save face. They know good and well when a child is bullied; however, they may consider that child a threat and, in worse cases, ostracize the poor kid and tell him/her to “keep your mouth shut” to cover their own behinds.

They either don’t like or may even hate the bullied target. Believe me. I was hated by many of my teachers and other school staff, and they were supposed to be adults who were supposed to protect me. The thing is that when a person is bullied for a long period of time, so many rumors and lies have been spread about the person that their once good name has been destroyed, and yes! Teachers hear and believe the rumors too!

They even join in on negative gossip about the target. Understand that although, in reality, the targeted person may be one of the sweetest, most awesome people you may ever meet, the rumors and lies supersede the truth and keep the target locked in a prison of scrutiny and suspicion. Because of this, the target cannot be their true, awesome self because of the stress of being marginalized. In the minds of those at school, the target is “trouble.”

Also, because of having been bullied for so long, the target may react out of self-defense and exhaustion. This poor, tired kid has been harassed for so long that he really cannot help but react, and the bullies slyly use the reaction as further proof that the target is either trouble or crazy. Because of this, teachers and staff may think the worst of the poor, innocent kid.

They may also think that just because everyone seems to hate the target, there must be a reason that justifies it. In their minds, the target deserves what is happening to them. And when a teacher does not like a student, they may either refuse to help them or secretly take pleasure in seeing the poor kid suffer. Teachers and school staff are just as capable as the classroom bullies of hating and hurting students they deem undesirable.

This is why parents must stay proactive in protecting and advocating for their child even when it seems that the school isn’t listening. Let them know that you will not go away until the problem is solved. Go to the media if you have to.

Assure your child that his/her reputation does not equal character and that the bullies have the issues. Know there will come a time when your child will escape their tormentors and have true friends who love them for them. Constantly tell them that they are worthy of having friends and being loved. You might just keep your child’s self-esteem from completely tanking and even save his/her life!

Why Bullies Need Targets

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They want you to think that you need them! You don’t. In fact, it’s just the opposite. They need you! Let me explain further:

Bullies need targets as guinea pigs on which, to demonstrate their perceived power and might.

They need victims to feel better about themselves.

Bullies need targets to blame their stupidity and bad behavior on.

Bullies need victims to scapegoat and to be a dumping ground for all their problems and shortcomings.

If you’re a target, Your bullies need you as a shield to cover their own cowardice.

They need you to entertain and get laughs from their audiences.

And they need you to look cool and in control in front of everyone else.

Understand that bullies need you more than you will ever need them!