KNOW THYSELF 🏺

These words were inscribed above the entrance to the temple of Apollo at Delphi, site of the sacred oracle.

I just finished a promised essay about scapegoating and family estrangement and I think you’ll love it. Here’s a teaser:

To know and be known, you must do the hard work of separating unconscious roles and false personas from your true self, and you must want it more than anything else in the world.

You’ll be the first to know once I place the essay, as I’m hoping for a wider readership so I plan to publish it on a literary magazine and then link it here. You are my founding members - 147 of you - 4 of which are paid subscribers - all since July 3, 2024 when my essay “Secrets of the 2x2s” came out on

Memoir Land

and I am so darn grateful you’re here!

What does the famous inscription at Delphi have to do with family roles, scapegoats, and estrangement? When we are locked in the rigid roles that define dysfunctional families, we not only can’t know ourselves, but we can’t know each other. Instead, we interact with a caricature, a projection, a role; we interact with the mask we’re each forced to wear in the family dance.

It’s not easy to deviate from the script. The first step is to recognize it’s a script. The next step is to stop dancing. And sometimes, we are called to exit the stage all together in the name of not just survival, but to be true to ourselves.

And who is that true self beneath the mask, the role, behind the script; how do you find and connect with her/she/him/he/they/it/we? That’s what we’ll explore here on There’s Nothing Wrong With You (And There Never Was) (TNWWY) And you don’t have to identify as a misfit or scapegoat; that’s just one persona we confuse ourselves with. Eldest daughters, the family hero, the golden boy or girl, the clown, mascot, or lost child are all personas we can get stuck in. Maybe you’re the good girl or boy.

How do we align with our true self when we have no idea what that even is?

Hint: start with who you are not. Are you the projections placed on you by others, by your family, by society?

You are not the story they made of you (as my love, Lidia Yuknavitch says.) Imagine forcing grass to grow or to be something other than grass. It’s not possible. Our pain comes from the false self we learned to be before we ever had a chance to know or develop into ourselves. It comes from not being known or seen.

So, as the Oracle of Delphi in its wisdom knew, we start, first with awareness that the roles we have lost ourselves in are not aligned with our true nature. We question our conditioning and beliefs and next, we face ourselves. We go within.

Feels like I've been ready

For you to come home for so long

That I didn't think to ask you

Where you'd gone, so why'd you go? ~ Noah Kahn

If that sounds abstract and hard, it’s as simple as this. Just for today make a decision to pay attention. Are you doing something you are not? Decide to say No to something that is not you but that you normally go along with. Just one thing.

Because until we can truly say “No,” we can’t truly say “Yes.”

And for you misfits, that doesn’t mean rebellion for the sake of rebellion. Let’s get honest. As a scapegoat rebel, sometimes I need to say no to rebellion as a beginning.

IYKYK.

And stay tuned for that essay.

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SHOUT OUTS

Let me count the ways I am psyched to be subscribed to

Rebecca C Mandeville LMFT CCTP

who does tremendous (and overdue) work on behalf of scapegoats and to shine the light on Family Scapegoat Abuse, which she writes about in her book Rejected, Shamed, and Blamed: Help and Hope for Adults in the Family Scapegoat Role

Thanks to

Violet Gray, MA, Social Worker

over at “Married to the Narcissist Mob” for recommending my Substack TNWWY and bringing me subscribers because YES I KNOW ALL TOO WELL - every narcissist needs a scapegoat!

And to

Chris Moore

who gets inside the heads and books of my favorite writers and is also funny as hell.

You will see

Sari Botton

of Oldster Magazine and Memoir Land in my recommendations because she is the GOAT when it comes to editorship, and savvy creation. I admire her experience and know-how, and have followed both her brilliant Substacks since their inception. Read her book while you’re at it And You May Find Yourself: Confessions of a Late-Blooming Gen X Weirdo because come on. She’s one of us.

On Repeat:

Oh, and let’s look for green flags this week, kk? Thanks to

Mesa Fama

for the Meme of the Month: