A quote on a dark, stormy abstract background that reads: When it comes to abusive behavior, if they know to hide it, they know it's wrong. If they don't do it in front of other people, they know how to control it.

Beyond Conflict: Identifying the Patterns of Coercive Control in Family Dynamics

Coercive control is a strategic pattern of behavior used to dominate another person and strip away their sense of autonomy. It is not defined by a single violent event, but by a continuous web of intimidation, isolation, and micro-regulation of the victim’s life.

When applied to the family unit, this control is often maintained through three primary mechanisms:

1. Scapegoating

Scapegoating is the process of blaming one person for the family’s internal problems or the controller’s own failures.

The goal: To create a “common enemy.” By making one person—often a child or the other parent—the source of all conflict, the controller deflects accountability and keeps the rest of the family in a state of hyper-vigilance.

The result: The victim internalizes the shame, believing they are fundamentally “broken.”

2. Triangulation

Triangulation occurs when the controlling person refuses direct communication and instead pulls a third person into the dynamic to create friction or competition.

The goal: To divide and conquer. By telling different versions of a story to different people, the controller ensures loyalty while fostering suspicion between others.

The result: It prevents victims from forming a united front, leaving the controller as the sole source of “truth.”

3. Parental Alienation

In the context of coercive control, parental alienation is the ultimate extension of triangulation. It involves one parent using psychological manipulation to turn a child against the other targeted parent.

The goal: To sever the bond between the child and the other parent, effectively erasing that parent’s influence and presence.

The result: The child becomes a tool of the controller’s campaign, often resulting in long-term psychological trauma for both the child and the alienated parent.

How They Intersect

These are not isolated tactics, but interdependent components of a single power dynamic. Coercive control in a family setting operates through a calculated cycle of isolation and psychological pressure. It begins with scapegoating, reinforced through triangulation that manipulates communication and divides family members. These efforts culminate in parental alienation, where the scapegoated parent’s influence is erased, leaving the controller in command of the family’s reality.

Coercive control thrives in silence and isolation. Identifying scapegoating, triangulation, and alienation for what they are is essential for protecting your mental health.

The confusion you feel is a documented byproduct of the system, not a reflection of your worth as a parent or person.

Thomas Merton quote about abundance and deprivation, reflecting themes of emotional neglect, trauma, and inherited power dynamics

My Trajectory- The Matthew Effect

The Path that Formed Me

I didn’t “pick bad people.” I picked familiar nervous systems—people whose emotional vacancy felt like home, because that’s what I learned from the people I loved and needed most.

I’m tracing a path laid out long before I understood it. Neurodivergent, highly sensing, physically and emotionally reactive to things others barely notice. My discomfort didn’t fit the acceptable range. It wasn’t seen as different, but as wrong. And the fear of consequences for that discomfort made every moment fretful.

My mother couldn’t tolerate the burden of learning how to comfort, nurture, and shelter me. So I was cast as “too sensitive,” “dramatic,” “manipulative,” “too much,” and later, “crazy.” Once she offloaded the responsibility of soothing me by turning it into judgment—impossible, ungrateful—others eagerly joined in: her mother, her brother, then my sister. Any sign of pain, need, or boundary was met with distance, disgust, silence, shunning. Instead of bridging me to support, she ostracized me—building a wall around me.

I see now the water I was swimming in. And my boys were bathed in it too.

“For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.”
—Thomas Merton

Text reads: “Be cautious of connections that feel like home if home wasn’t always a safe place for you.” A reflective image representing emotional awareness and healing from relational trauma.
Familiarity can feel like belonging — even when it’s built on neglect, imbalance, or silence. Recognizing that difference has been part of my healing.

Woman with half her face visibly distressed and tearful, the other half covered by a composed mask of her own face, symbolizing emotional masking and how composure is rewarded while distress is invalidated.

When “What Are You So Angry/Upset About?” Isn’t Actually Concern

I’m finally recognizing how validity gets measured not necessarily by the truth of what’s said, but by the composure of the person saying it.

My sister recognized this dynamic early on. As someone deeply sensitive and reactive, I was easy to push. She could use subtle, almost invisible cues—like dog whistles—to trigger me. When I reacted, my distress was visible. She soared, by contrast, appearing calm, composed. The comparison was stark: her unaffectedness made her look right, while my emotional presentation made me look wrong.

If you’re overwhelmed, overstimulated, or visibly distressed, your words can be dismissed simply because the delivery isn’t “correct.” You’re invalidated—not for what you say, but for failing to mask emotion. Meanwhile, those who appear composed—whether less sensitive, more resilient, or simply checked out—are granted credibility. In conflict, content matters less than presentation.

This dynamic is often weaponized. A question like, “What are you so angry about?” masquerades as concern but functions as control, subtly discrediting the other person.

In closed systems—family, workplace, or community—the sensitive one easily becomes the scapegoat. Sensitivity is reframed as weakness, instability, or unreliability. Any emotional communication that challenges the status quo is disqualified before it’s even heard, dismissed not for its substance but for the unmasked feelings attached.

Composure paraded as proof of virtue; sensitivity condemned as proof of sin.

Closed interior door with a narrow line of light beneath it, representing the experience of being shut out while continuing to endure, witness, and remain present.

Scapegoating and the Cost of Speaking Up

The Truth That Cannot Be Erased

For over a decade, this space has been my witness. For a multitude of reasons, outside of what has been designated as my willfullness and lack of gratitude, I have never been a pleasing or “quiet” victim sufferer. By around age eleven, I understood that my highest goal in life was to become someone else—or to become more palatable while absorbing abuse. I failed equally at both. I sought and gave myself to many similarly toxic situationships, I suppose, in the name of practice and growth in the art of better abuse-getting.

The Reality of the Scapegoat

As a neurodivergent survivor of childhood trauma and sibling molestation, my so-called “hysteria” was the only language available to me in an environment that protected my abuser and pathologized my pain. My sister was endorsed as the golden child. I was left to navigate the wreckage of her actions alone. She was praised for not being like me and pitied for having to deal with my “drama.”

The Refusal to Be Gaslit

This blog documents my experience as the family scapegoat—the person who could not believe or pretend that the “flow” was good. I was encouraged to calm down, be positive, grateful, you know- JUST go with the flow, even when that flow was designed to drown me.

A Legacy of Resistance

My “tantrums” were protests. My “outbursts” were the sound of a person being erased in real time. I write about the dirty and unsurprising alliance between an abusive sister and a similarly narcissistic ex-husband for what it is: a coordinated effort which denied me peace and my children.

The Record for My Sons

I am not begging for a seat at a table where I am not respected. I keep this record so my children may one day understand that their mother was not “unhinged” simply as a defect. She was unsupported, overstimulated, and being crushed by a system she could not fathom.

A Note on My Methods of Survival

In earlier chapters, I used my sister’s full name and shared specific accounts of professional and personal abuse, including details she offered as warning shots about how she handles uncooperative others. I did this frantically, without a playbook on navigating coercive abuse or even any idea that coercive abuse was a thing. I did so without a support system.

I am not proud of the desperation that shaped those posts. But I am not ashamed of how I reacted to being molested, scapegoated, and erased. I was a person without a net, doing the only that I could—telling my truth- raging against those who harmed and silenced and erased me. In the only space I can.

This space is a sanctuary, a place where we cannot be silenced or erased.  If my experiences or sentiments resonate with you and you feel like sharing or connecting, please feel free to reach out.  No pressure, always, I’m down to listen. Message me anytime 🤍🤍🤍 wholesomebadass@gmail.com