Does anyone get 'pigeon-holed' by their family?

[singingcat]

I don't know if this is just my family, but they have a real habit pigeon-holing members, and not believing anything they say/do if it is not within the 'definition' which has been given to that person.

E.g. it is generally accepted that:

• I am not sensitive or caring (I am caring when people really need care, not when they are being melodramatic)
• I'm not the physical-exercise sort
• For ages it was that I didn't like children, despite the fact that I am really good with pretty much all the children I meet
• I am grumpy and not sociable

They aren't all negative. Positive ones are:

• I am very academic (true, but only very narrowly and not much anymore)
• I am good at dealing with all problems (fine, but sometimes I need looking after!)
• I am solely arts-based, not good or interested in maths/science etc (actually fine at maths, thanks)

I really don't think my friends would recognise me from these descriptions! I think they are each derived from one or two events, which all occurred in my childhood and do not fit me anymore. My mother often offers something I have never eaten in my adult life because 'you loved it as a baby'.

It's not really a big trauma or anything, but it's a bit irritating that when I announce I'm going to try x or would like to do y, I get sceptical looks or scoffing.

Grr!

Anyone else's family like this?

yes, but it is done in a very affectionate way

As a woman, my skills at loading the dishwasher are inferior than my brother's because of my lack of spatial awareness (as a result of being a woman). My brother has to make a point of rearranging it all whilst grumbling every time.

I wasn't a great cook when I was younger so apparently am still not. This is despite managing not to feed myself since leaving home many years ago.

Despite managing to hold down a professional job, do some sometimes scary feminist campaigning, coped with looking after several ill relatives, one right through to her death, and manage staff and earn more than the other 4 members of my family in their careers, I am still a silly little girl with pointless opinions. I can only think that it somehow makes them feel better to label and treat me as such.

This thread comes at the end of 2 weeks spent with my family so this is very relevant to me!

yeah I am the black sheep

Yes quietly it is nasty. And it has taken over a year of counselling for that amongst other things, to realise that he is the one with the problem and I am not actually all the things he says.

No names, I did something similar with my son after a long period of family hell left him with no self esteem. I just kept/keep telling him he was/is brilliant, I believed in him and that I thought he was/is amazing and bit by bit they do live up to your faith in them.

It is like adding feathers to their wings.

Challenging it is also good as you say.

Er.... Freudian slip! I meant to say "not starve myself"!!

Also that my dishwasher loading skills are inferior to my brother's...

I was always the 'chubby' one who liked her food. At 35 I still am[shame]
They also think I am strong emotionally as I have had a lot to deal with but I have been depressed most of that time they just don't see it.

sorry although there should be a shame face

Yes! I'm the silly girl not to be taken seriously - it drives me nuts. Yes I was like that when I was 12 but HELLO I have grown up and I'm now 35. My big brother is the worse for this - always looks really shocked when I come out with something sensible..

Definitely know what you mean.

I have three siblings.

1. Me: brainy but useless at anything remotely practical and flake apart at slightest hint of trouble
2. Brother: dreamy and sensitive
3. Sister: Practical and no-nonsense but a bit thick in academic stuff
4. Brother: utterly mental, bad tempered

They're all true to an extent, but not all the time and I think it's resulted in some strange attitudes.

My brother (2) seems to be lashing at this idea of being over-sensitive by drinking to excess several nights a week and being a 'man's man' who fights and swears.

My other brother earned his reputation in his early teens when he was a real hell raiser. However, he's become really politically aware, personable and funny. I've had to ask my parents to lay off him a bit as they jump on everything he says in a completely negative way which understandably pisses him off, hence the bad temper.

My sister is extremely intelligent as well as practical and assertive and will be going to university to study social work very soon. I think that people's assumptions of her have meant that she's worked really hard to get where she is.

I'm a bit flaky and impractical but I can be really organised and sensible sometimes too. Or at least, I think so! Buut nobody notices that.

Families eh

Oh yeah.

Nearly all families do this I think.

It's part of group dymanics. Absolutely not restricted to large families. Definitely lots to do with projection as another poster said.

IMO a lot of people survive life by engaging in a certain amount of emotional denial, which can be healthy and can be unhealthy depending on the circumstances.

And I think a lot of people are scared of real intimacy. ie if they get to know and have to engage with the "real" person you are, as opposed to the cardboard cutout version they've created of you, their protective layer of denial would take a big hit and that would probably be very uncomfortable. So... they prefer to stick with what they "know", and believe it as gospel truth, regardless of what the reality is.

That's my experience, anyway. Great to hear about those of you trying not to do the same with your own DC.

shark - If you're still there, I completely understand this. I also have a needy sibling with past mental health problems and my parents see his needs more clearly than mine. My parents would be practical but my mother in particular would not be able to offer emotional support. Her line if I ever used to cry was "go and wash your face and you'll feel better". Said kindly with a quick hug, when I needed a 'cry as much as you like' hug.

Maybe your parents will not be able to offer you emotional support, their view of you as 'the one who copes' may be too deeply ingrained for them to make that shift. Can you accept that they give practical support and reduce your expectations of their emotional support and seek that elsewhere? At least that way youwouldnt have to deal with disappointment on top of everything else.

Loving this thread.

My parents, to be fair to them, don't really do this, but my sister.........where do you want me to start?

If she's to be believed, I am an emotionally castrated female version of Gordon Gekko who never set a foot wrong and she loves telling everyone about this, especially the fact that I never dropped a grade all through school (like it's a bad thing). I wasn't exactly a hell raiser but it's not as though I had no friends and never looked up from the Complete Works of Proust until age 18.

The weird thing is that if anything, people who know me now (or at least before I had DS) would probably say I could do with partying a bit less so don't believe her- hah!

My mother does this. She seems to like to think that she can sum us all up in a few words.
I'm desperately trying to avoid doing this with my children.
One character flaw ascribed to me is on the basis of one thing I did when I was 5

Oh God yes WoT, I remember Mum and Dad having friends for a meal and being proffered the plate of cakes, being only about 10 I cheekily tried to take the slice of chocolate roll from the end that had the extra bit of creqm on it.
Dad embarrassed me at the table about being selfish and to this day cites it as an example of women who are NOT actually ladies because they selfishly think of themselves over others.
I was 10 FGS

I'm not the only one then. 24 years on and my mum stil brings this event up.

But how mean of your dad to humiliate you at that age.

Me: academic, no common-sense, short, brunette, tending towards fat, feminist
Step sis: pretty, bubbly, stupid, athletic, very "blond"

My step family have been very confused by my becoming a highly competent mother (as they deem it) as this doesn't fit the profile they have of me. They were also confused when I lost my puppy fat at 17 and have kept it off for 25 years. My Dad still says "you've done well to keep the fat off".

Yes. It is the spice girls effect isn't it.

The real downside is when people live down up to their label.

One of my sisters was given the no nonsense label years ago. Now in her 50s she is fucking unpleasant, a blunt charmless oaf of a human being.

Ha. I wonder shat she would say about me .

Actually, don't need to guess. I have the emails. And facebook is her kingdom of stupid arrogant viciousness.

[bitter] and [done]

Lol at shat....