One of the most destructive things in life is to develop a negative self-image, so what happens when you are born into a dysfunctional family and bestowed with the title of Scapegoat? Jay Morgan Hyrons writes her story of empowerment.
"The ‘Truth Teller’ is often deemed the most dangerous in the midst of family dysfunction. This child will innocently mention the ‘elephant in the room’ and wonder why no one else appears to see the obvious. The ensuing results, a natural selection as the family Scapegoat. These children are usually empaths and highly sensitive.
Like many traumatised children I blocked out most of the first seven - programming - years of my life. According to the rantings of a relative, I was ‘brought up by a string of inadequate childminders’.
The school bullying started after we moved from Wales to Devon; it was already well developed at home. The smallest in the class, the red hair, a Welsh accent and a patch over one eye all made me a prime candidate.
Bullies mostly pick on those they perceive as weaker. I overcompensated by working hard, reaching top of the class in the final year of primary school. Home was a different matter. Despite the Headmaster informing my parents that I had come third in the county in the eleven plus, I still thought I was stupid, that word constantly drummed into me.
I developed ‘Perfectionism’ as a coping mechanism; it took a long time in therapy to understand that one. There was no unconditional love from my family - unconsciously I surmised that love would come if I could just be perfect.
It led to anorexia as a teenager, self-punishment for all my ‘failures’ coupled with ingrained responsibility. Remember everything is the scapegoat’s fault…
To put the family dysfunction into perspective, when my weight finally hit six stone my mother marched me to the doctor's and told him that I was either anaemic or lazy. Of course, I was neither, but I was in my forties before I saw those doctor's notes, no one informed me of the diagnosis at the time, nor was any help sought.
There was every type of abuse you can imagine bestowed on me by a family member, including incest. I got away finally at seventeen, after one failed attempt, my new flatmate came to help, we packed everything I owned into bin liners leaving a note on the kitchen table. ‘Try stopping me’.
Within two years my ‘Knight in desert boots’ appeared in my life and for the first time I felt unconditional love. Our marriage was far from perfect which should have cured my perfectionism. Oh if life was that simple …
We survived five years of marriage working hard through some very tough times. Before I was 21 years old, I survived septicaemia just weeks before our overseas posting came to an end, another serious illness followed just as terrorism entered our lives.
After a vicious bombing in 1979, my husband survived in body but with a vastly changed mind. By 1981 however we had come full circle, and the beautiful closeness of our honeymoon days returned for a full six months before I got that dreaded ‘Knock on the Door’. There I was just 24-years-old, a ‘War widow’, a displaced person as my home and military life disappeared in a single ring of a doorbell.
I buried that grief with a single sentence when a doctor who should have known better told me kindly, ‘You are very young and very pretty and I think the best thing you can do is get married again’. If only he had said ‘Just grieve’. To this date Gary remains the longest relationship I have had, now I understand ADD it makes sense, he was never boring!
My next relationship involved not only physical violence but gaslighting and all the other things that go with that level of control. He had looked so good on paper…
As the country was in deep recession, I packed a bag and found a bedsit in London. There were no stalking laws at the time, and he was mates with many of the local police anyway. He had informed me he was going to kill me, the move to ‘disappear’ seemingly impossible but ‘try stopping me’. I am still paying the price for the fallout of that relationship.
Studying psychology had begun a journey for me, it enabled me to begin healing whilst helping others. From that bedsit, I found work at a hospital in palliative care, counselling the dying and their families as I continued to work on myself. The terminally ill teach us so much, we just need to listen.
After I left the hospital, I went back into the fitness industry. I taught teenagers at a sports centre from some of East London’s toughest schools.
Bodybuilding served a dual purpose, training gave me a healthy outlet for my emotions, but the sport also fuelled the ‘perfectionist’. The scapegoat is always being judged so a sport where the outcome is based solely on judges' opinions merely fuelled that coping mechanism. By 1995 I had won regional and national competitions, all this while living with undiagnosed fibromyalgia. Try stopping me…
A head-on car crash in 2000 put an end to my competitive days, I was told that I should just give up bodybuilding and forget about it. My response was to go back to studying full time, whilst also working full time. Someone told me I would make a good life coach and after passing my exam with 94%, the teenager who flunked out of secondary school with a few ‘O’ levels was back to being top of the class. Ten years later, I had acquired one of the most varied set of qualifications one could attain. Try stopping me.
At the end of 2013 a medical negligence left me in an induced coma in ITU with more tubes coming out of me than I thought possible. It also left me with a life-changing condition, it felt like my life was over. Law of Attraction was in full swing as the ‘caregivers’ around me mirrored my uncaring family exactly, to add insult to injury, they tried their very best to scapegoat me.
Just 13 months later I had a Stress Cardiomyopathy, otherwise known as ‘Broken Heart Syndrome ’, with a cardiac arrest, it was apparently ‘hard to bring me back’. I spent nine days on a cardiac care unit, I followed the doctors instructions exactly. Four weeks to the day, I went to the gym and did six sets of light biceps curls before going home. Try stopping me.
Two years later I flew 8000 miles to tab my husband’s last footsteps for charity. At sixty with so many ‘Invisible Illnesses’ I trekked over 20 miles across 'unforgiving terrain.'
Finally in 2019 I was diagnosed with CPTSD, no surprise to me but we needed it to be official. As I withdrew from the world, my life as a writer began. Life had dealt some cruel blows along the way which are documented in my first book ‘And She Danced’ published that year as a biographical fiction.
While the world went into lockdown I continued my healing path, about to face the deepest of wounds. My second book ‘The Falklands Widow’ was published in 2021 and as I wrote, the unprocessed grief of old was finally laid to rest, acceptance was within sight. Try stopping me.
Since then, two things have given me an insight I could never have dreamed of. A TED talk finally gave me an understanding of my brain and its diversity, this young woman was talking ADHD and suddenly it all made sense. I ticked every box, why had no one noticed before…
The second was working a ‘Course in Miracles’ which gives one the deepest understanding of the ‘Law of Attraction’ - way beyond that which traditional therapy offers. The final pieces of the jigsaw puzzle slotted into place, and after seven years of research my third book. ‘The Falklands Fallen’ was published in November 2024. I am apparently now not just an author but a military historian which is to me hilarious as I failed History grade 9!
The Scapegoat invariably ends up acting out in some way. Unconsciously it makes sense of the blame game - we need a reason for all that blame. The flipside is that adversity has bestowed massive life lessons which enable me to help others without judgement. All achievement requires effort, and all achievement starts with a vision.
The winter of my life is upon me, I do not face it with dread but with curiosity. Public speaking seemed an unlikely road for this awkward and eccentric being, but I love it. I choose what I do these days, my success has already arrived by way of healing, there is no longer anything to prove.
I am just as happy giving talks to small groups as I am to larger ones. The hyperfocus of ADD means I naturally read audiences, just as I once read the elephant in the room. I probably have the widest range of talks available on the market, whatever is needed for any audience, my PhD in Life brings honesty, information and hope to any group.
There have been speeches at St Paul’s Cathedral and invitations to Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament and Downing Street - turns out what we are is what we attract. Despite being a Broken Bodybuilder I still exercise more than most 25-year-olds.
After the Dark Night of the Soul, beautiful things have appeared by way of better relationships, and like-minded people. Everything is after all a mirror…
Finding purpose in life has not always been easy but it has been there at every twist and turn along the road less travelled. It for me is simple, I am still a truth seeker, that integrity is at my core. With it comes accountability and responsibility. You see to truly heal, we have to forgive ourselves our trespasses as we forgive the trespasses of others.
What’s next? That remains to be seen, but you guessed it ‘Try Stopping Me.’
Thanks for reading."
© Jay Morgan Hyrons
