This is the story of a person who ventured into the darkness and came back with a light for everyone. Rebecca is a renowned psychotherapist who coined the name, researches, and treats victims of Family Scapegoating Abuse (FSA) and other trauma. - Dr. Aun Ali, author of Elephant in the Mirror
Why This, Why Now
Welcome to the quiet shores of my new Substack publication, The Inviolate Self. This post is an abbreviated version of my first full post on this new Substack. You can access it here if you prefer to read the expanded version: https://theinviolateself.substack.com/p/making-the-invisible-visible-family-abuse
The Inviolate Self is a natural extension of the content I’ve created over the past 20 years emphasizing our innate and perennial Wholeness, including while serving as Core Faculty at the world renowned Institute of Transpersonal Psychology.
It is also a natural extension of my introductory book on the insidious systemic phenomenon I named Family Scapegoating Abuse (FSA), Rejected, Shamed, and Blamed, for in it, I included chapters on The False Self and The True Self, and how these concepts relate to healing from negative family conditioning and abuse. Many people have written me since I published my book in 2020 wanting to know more about Transpersonal Psychology and psycho-spiritual development as related to FSA recovery. This personal (versus my more clinical Substack) offers me a way to share my own recovery journey while also expanding upon ideas related to healing and wholeness included in my book.
Lastly: The Inviolate Self is affirms my own healing and recovery process: Read more about this in my post here:
If you've found your way here, it's likely you understand, on some level, the weight of unspoken wounds, the lingering ache of a past that shadows the present. Perhaps you, too, have navigated the lonely, harsh terrain of childhood neglect, the jagged edges of trauma, or the bewildering isolation of being in the ‘family scapegoat’ role.
For too long, my own story felt like a closely guarded secret, a landscape where I wandered alone in the dead of night. The echoes of "something’s wrong with her," the sting of misplaced blame and shame, the accusations and distortions, the confusion of a world that didn't quite see, positively affirm, or understand me – these were my constant companions. Feeling ‘different’, fractured, confused, and shattered, I spent years trying to find a mirror in others - family, teachers, employers, lovers, friends - so that I could experience the truth of me through them.
But what happens if you are being viewed by others through an impossibly distorted and malignant lens that undermines your core sense of self?
Needless to say, my decades-long quest to find ‘home’ - a place within and without that felt safe, accepting, and welcoming - felt like an impossible summit, a distant, shimmering mirage I was destined to never reach.
But the truth, the quiet, persistent truth that began to whisper its way through the flotsam and noise, is this: the self - the true self nature - is at its core inviolate. Despite the storms we weather, the hurts we carry, there is an inherent wholeness within us that cannot ever be truly broken or compromised. The experience of our wholeness might be buried, obscured, even feel entirely lost at times - but still, it remains. Constant. It is always there. We are always and already whole. Regardless of how broken we may feel at times as we heal from wounds so deep and so raw they can seem impossible to name or explain.
Redemption
There are some things
more dangerous than death:
A sudden loss of criminal lust,
or the blood draining from your vision,
staining your vacant soul.
I took a train to parts unknown
searching instead for a family of vagrants,
and there I found my home.
(From my latest book of poetry, ‘Inviolate’. It is an act of reclamation for me to publish it here. This is because I had originally published this book of poems under a pseudonym. I am now reclaiming my work - my story - without fear.)
What I Hope to Share Within This Space
Some of you already know me from my Healing the Scapegoat Wound: FSA Education Support Community here on Substack - a community driven virtual space where I create content on the insidious systemic phenomenon I named Family Scapegoating Abuse (FSA). Or you may have read my book on FSA, Rejected, Shamed, and Blamed: Help and Hope for Adults in the Family Scapegoat Role.
This new space (publication) allows me to temporarily step back from my clinical offerings so that I can begin to share my journey of finding my way back to the inviolate self, that deep, intrinsic core of who we are that remains untouched, pure, and sovereign, regardless of the wounds and abused endured. For me, the inviolate self is the essence of our being that is inherently whole, resilient, and possesses an innate capacity for healing and growth.
It will be a raw and honest telling, a weaving together of memories and insights gleaned through years and years of consciously focusing on healing and psycho-spiritual growth, and through my work tending to the invisible wounds of others as a trauma-informed therapist specializing in psycho-emotional family abuse - all the while engaging in the slow, steady work of reclaiming my memories and understanding the truth of what happened to me in my family, and in my life in general, from infancy until now.
There will be moments of vulnerability, perhaps even discomfort, but always with the intention of shedding light and offering a hand to those walking a similar path.
Consider this first post a gentle hello, a reaching out across the digital sea. Know that you are not alone. Remember that abuse - family abuse, especially - thrives in silence and secrecy. Telling our stories breaks that silence, bringing what was hidden into the light. There is strength in our shared stories, and a profound power in acknowledging the resilience of the human spirit. We survived. We made it. We’re still standing.
We’re still here.
Let’s begin to explore this landscape of healing together by sharing our stories of abuse, trauma, hope, healing, and recovery.
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With warmth,
Rebecca C. Mandeville, LMFT, CCTP
Founder of Healing the Scapegoat Wound: FSA Education Support Community
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