Celebrating Being a Truth Teller

Last week, I broke loose and celebrated the qualities that contributed to being cast as the scapegoat.  Today, I met up with my sister.  The meet-up lasted only about ten minutes, and during that time we were simply walking around a small grocery store.  But by the end, I was almost in tears.  Nothing was said, nothing was done . . . it is just that I feel about an inch tall in her presence. 

So a few days ago, I felt strong . . . and now, I feel very weak.  Last week, I could celebrate . . . and today, I want to hide in a closet . . . forever.   I know this is the nature of healing . . . it is slow and gradual and some days are better than others. 

But in an effort to find my strength again, I am returning to my list of things “to celebrate” about being a scapegoat (see The Good News About Being a Scapegoat).  As I look at the list—being a truth teller, being sensitive, being strong--, I think “can all of this be true of me?”  Is there so much to celebrate about me?  It seems too good to be true.  It will take a while to own these qualities and the beauty that they hold because being the family scapegoat is just hard to get over. 

As part of my healing work, I am going to make a list celebrating all of my moments of truth-telling, sensitivity, and strength.  I am starting with my moments of truth telling that were brave and important to me or to others; including those times that truth telling was in defense of someone who was vulnerable or in defense of my own vulnerable self, those times it was for the sake of a group or out of genuine concern for person (even when I was mistaken about how helpful it would be), and all of those times that despite my genuinely good intentions, truth telling just got me in a load of trouble.

So here is my start to the list:

-My boldly telling my much-more-popular classmates in 6th grade that it was wrong to make fun of the appearance of the boy in our class who had lost his hair and hand in a fire and “So what if he is annoying!”

-My honest answer to the question posed by a literature professor in college, “What do you think of this class?”  I answered that I wished we were “getting into the literature more.” For that very simple, yet honest answer, bullets started flying at me, yet I courageously held my ground, and when pushed, pointed out that the professor hadn’t even read the literature recently enough to remember it, and that his showing up fifteen minutes late for each class was a frustrating.  Afterwards, although totally shaken, I still felt incensed that the rest of the class subsequently, when he questioned them, lied saying, “The class is great!” (bluh . . .)  That is dedication to truth deep in my being. 

-Being the only person, from the oncologists to family, who let my dad know that he might not have much time left (he was gone three weeks later).  This truth telling was a misjudgment based on my certainty that he would want to know so that he could use his final days well; he didn’t want to know.  It was only out of love.  Sorry, Dad. 

-For the many, many times I have confessed to my children, “What I did was so wrong and I am so sorry.”

-For the deep commitment to honesty and truth within me that makes schmoozing and excessive underserved flattering for the sake of social gain, or any other gain, totally repulsive and impossible for me to engage in. (This is something I have watched others around me do and benefit from greatly over the years, and refusing to do it myself has certainly brought suffering in my life.  It seems to me you have to schmooze and flatter the narcissists among us to stay under their radar.)

I am going to keep building this list in my journal.  As I have been writing, I keep thinking of other times of truth telling, specifically times of truth telling within my family that earned me my scapegoat role, but I am not writing these here because these times are all filled with so much sensitivity and strength that I am saving them for those lists.

If you are a scapegoat trying to find your sense of self-worth after years of believing you are a failure, I hope you can make your own list and see the value in these very powerful and amazing qualities that are yours!

Go forth and celebrate who you are!

Blessings,

One Escaping Goat