u/StatisticianFew2149

i dont even know where to start…

i just found out my little sister has been selling my clothes on depop, and for the past few years, i’ve had a growing suspicion that she was selling my clothes behind my back. i couldn't prove it because i didn't know her depop username, but today i finally found her page. she has several of my items listed, and some have already sold.

when she moved back into our parents house, she didn't have a lot of cool things to wear, so i let her borrow some of my clothes. i was incredibly clear that these were only to borrow, not to keep. i explicitly told her not to sell or give them away, and that she needed to return them when she was done, especially since these items are very special to me. last year, we got into an argument and she moved out. she took all of those clothes with her even though i never told her she could, and she has barely brought them up since.

she's been living in her own apartment for a little over 3 months now, just a 10 minute drive from me. not once has she invited me over. every time i ask to come hang out, she finds a bs excuse as to why she can't, but she’s always down to see me at our parents house. meanwhile, our older brother has been totally welcome to hang out at her place. this has been another reason i suspected she was selling my clothes.

i give her nice hand me downs all the time, so i am pretty livid that she’s been doing this behind my back. one of the things i saw on her page i had never even lent to her but she somehow has it and is trying to sell it.

i want to text her and let her know i found the listings and let her know that i am pissed, but i don't want to approach this the wrong way, because i am the family scapegoat / "identified patient", and my family has a habit of using my reactions against me. and out of everyone in my family, my relationship with my sister is actually the least troublesome.

this is something i have a lot of trauma around because our mom did the same thing with my belongings for many years, and my sister KNOWS that. so this is very upsetting to me.

how do i approach her on this matter? does anyone have any advice? i would appreciate it lots. thanks.

i’ve been unsure of where to turn to or who to speak to about this but it’s been eating away at me for a long time now and i need to get this off my chest…

i f21 have been the primary scapegoat in my family since birth, and i have an older half brother m23 who was also scapegoated by our parents for some time (i’ll just call him “leo”). leo went nc with our parents when he was 14 and he has maintained nc with our parents since then (for the most part…).

my dad (leo’s stepdad) is a narcissist, he’s very much the self righteous type and a bit covert/communal. and our mom displayed more bpd related traits. she is now deceased (she passed away last year), but she and leo did not get along at all, and she was the primary reason leo had gone nc. both our parents were both addicted to >!meth!< for the majority of our childhood and were extremely abusive and neglectful, and we were eventually put into foster care bc of that.

since a very young age, leo has become radicalized by someone leading an extremist hate group and he has known this person since he was about 12 years old. i know this because he finally opened up to me about it six years ago. we had gotten so close that i considered him one of my best friends and i think that’s why he felt comfortable telling me about it.

by the time that leo told me this, i had been on the run from the foster care system because i had continually been placed in neglectful and abusive placements, and leo was one of the only people that i kept in contact with. so i didn’t really know how to react when he told me this.

i didn’t want him to feel distrustful of me since it obviously took a lot for him to work up the courage to tell me about this, so i tried to pretend i didn’t care, and that was easy for me to do because i didn’t fully grasp the weight of what he had admitted to me at that time.

over time i began to realize that it was far more serious than what i had initially thought, and i became afraid that if i expressed discomfort with his involvement with this group, that i’d lose his support. and i couldn’t afford to lose his support as he was one of the only people helping me out while i was on the run and while i was basically homeless.

after leo told me about it tho, he invited me to come and hang out with him and his best friend (i’ll call him “tom”), who i had never met before. when i met up with them, he told me that it was tom (the one we were hanging out with) who had influenced his decision to become involved with this group and the ideology that the group subscribes to.

from that point forward, leo and his gf at the time who i had also become close friends with, basically began grooming me into a potential recruit for their group (unbeknownst to me). which eventually led to them inviting me to a group chat where they were basically vetting potential members for their group.

leo and his gf started introducing me to even more friends of theirs that had the same belief system as them. a lot of their friends were fascinated with my story as a runaway foster kid and wanted to hear my story. and for the first time, i felt like people were actually noticing my struggle and that they cared about what i was going through. looking back though, i wish i would’ve had better discernment and avoided having any involvement with these people.

by the time i turned 18 i had left their group chat and i had distanced myself from it all for the most part, but i kept in contact with leo regularly. i was hoping that leo would eventually grow out of the extremist ideology bs but it has only gotten worse. it has only made me increasingly weary and has ultimately driven us apart and i’m starting to question whether i ever truly knew my brother as much as i thought i did.
i recently found a channel of his (i don’t want to name the platform it is on) but i felt nauseated scrolling through it.

the way he and his friends speak about women is so degrading and the nature of what they post is violent and horrifying. it’s gotten to the point he seems completely devoid of any empathy. it has me questioning everything… there was so many instances throughout our childhood where he would say and do things that were extremely concerning that i have swept under the rug all these years and that i have tried not to see as red flags.

(due to the length this has already reached i had to leave a lot of details out, and some of the details are just too extreme and i’m too paranoid to share some of the other details on here)

but i cannot ignore any of this anymore… i am horrified. i am disgusted, i am worried, and my heart just aches…
i don’t know what to do.

TL;DR: i (21f) survived severe childhood abuse alongside my half-brother (23m), who i used to consider one of my best friends. he is now deeply involved in an extremist hate group. discovering the horrifying extent of his violent & misogynistic beliefs online has left me devastated, and i'm questioning everything i thought i knew about him. questions/advice are both welcome.

i feel like i haven’t heard much about what the narcissistic family dynamic is like when the scapegoat becomes an addict, particularly a drug addict.

we talk a lot about narcissistic parents who are addicts, but i haven’t seen many stories shared where the scapegoat is the one who is actively dealing with addiction.

i feel like it adds such a heavy, complicated layer to the family dynamic and i’m really curious if any other scapegoats in this subreddit currently struggle with addiction or have struggled with it in the past.

if you have, what was your experience like? in what specific ways were you treated differently in your family dynamic after you became an addict? did they use the title “drug addict” as ammunition against you? did the abuse get worse? or did the family roles shift in weird ways?

i want to hear your stories and open up a space to talk about this, because i feel like this is a very specific type of narcissistic family dynamic that doesn’t get spoken about enough.

i feel like i haven’t heard much about what the narcissistic family dynamic is like when the scapegoat becomes an addict, particularly a drug addict. we talk a lot about narcissistic parents who are addicts, but i haven’t seen many stories shared where the scapegoat is the one who is actively dealing with addiction. i feel like it adds such a heavy, complicated layer to the family dynamic and i’m really curious if any other scapegoats in this subreddit currently struggle with addiction or have struggled with it in the past.

if you have, what was your experience like? in what specific ways were you treated differently in your family dynamic after you became an addict? did they use the title “drug addict” as ammunition against you? did the abuse get worse? or did the family roles shift in weird ways?
i want to hear your stories and open up a space to talk about this, because i feel like this is a very specific type of narcissistic family dynamic that doesn’t get spoken about enough.

i feel like i haven’t heard much about what the narcissistic family dynamic is like when the scapegoat becomes an addict, particularly a drug addict.

we talk a lot about narcissistic parents who are addicts, but i haven’t seen many stories shared where the scapegoat is the one who is actively dealing with addiction.

i feel like it adds such a heavy, complicated layer to the family dynamic and i’m really curious if any other scapegoats in this subreddit currently struggle with addiction or have struggled with it in the past.

if you have, what was your experience like? in what specific ways were you treated differently in your family dynamic after you became an addict? did they use the title “drug addict” as ammunition against you? did the abuse get worse? or did the family roles shift in weird ways?

i want to hear your stories and open up a space to talk about this, because i feel like this is a very specific type of narcissistic family dynamic that doesn’t get spoken about enough.

i feel like i haven’t heard much about what the narcissistic family dynamic is like when the scapegoat becomes an addict, particularly a drug addict.

we talk a lot about narcissistic parents who are addicts, but i haven’t seen many stories shared where the scapegoat is the one who is actively dealing with addiction.

i feel like it adds such a heavy, complicated layer to the family dynamic and i’m really curious if any other scapegoats in this subreddit currently struggle with addiction or have struggled with it in the past.

if you have, what was your experience like? in what specific ways were you treated differently in your family dynamic after you became an addict? did they use the title “drug addict” as ammunition against you? did the abuse get worse? or did the family roles shift in weird ways?

i want to hear your stories and open up a space to talk about this, because i feel like this is a very specific type of narcissistic family dynamic that doesn’t get spoken about enough.

i feel like i haven’t heard much about what the narcissistic family dynamic is like when the scapegoat becomes an addict, particularly a drug addict.

we talk a lot about narcissistic parents who are addicts, but i haven’t seen many stories shared where the scapegoat is the one who is actively dealing with addiction.

i feel like it adds such a heavy, complicated layer to the family dynamic and i’m really curious if any other scapegoats in this subreddit currently struggle with addiction or have struggled with it in the past.

if you have, what was your experience like? in what specific ways were you treated differently in your family dynamic after you became an addict? did they use the title “drug addict” as ammunition against you? did the abuse get worse? or did the family roles shift in weird ways?

i want to hear your stories and open up a space to talk about this, because i feel like this is a very specific type of narcissistic family dynamic that doesn’t get spoken about enough.