Anyone else the black sheep of their family?

[HexagonalQueenOfEverything]

I am!

It used to upset me a lot but after having counselling I'm ok with it, and see it as my mum and sister's problem rather than mine. If anything, these days I find the way they speak to me quite amusing, and I do limit the amount of time I spend with them and have very firm boundaries in place.

It's funny though that even though my sister and I are now in our thirties, my sister still keeps to her role as the 'favourite', and seems to almost get pleasure from speaking to me badly and with contempt.

My thread from yesterday. :)

Your not alone. Not quite the same situation but still the odd one.

As I said yesterday, familys are a bitch! :)

Meeeeee and l don't give a shit..

I am happy with DH and DC's and friends.

Friends are the family we chose for ourselves

yes, but I'm not quite as sanguine as you are about it.

who's your counsellor? get me an appt, do

Cut ties with all of my family. They have a very low opinion of me. They didn.t know me.

Yep...and you'd think I was a thiefing, shell suit sporting crack whore if you asked my mum to describe me....not a graduate executive living in a tax haven at the top of her career ladder, loving mum, wife and generous friend.

You can tell I chant that to myself in the mirror at key times, can't you?

Nothing would ever be good enough for her though.

I put it all down to petty hideous jealousy.....and I've cut all contact. And everything I've achieved in life has been down to me.

I am the black sheep. To them.

To the rest of the world I am the only normal one :o

I have a lot of ishoos to deal with over this but just being off their radar is a relief!

Me :(

I'm the scapegoat, even though I lead a good and healthy life, have raised two amazing DDs, who are polite, kind, thoughtful, and hardworking. I have no debts, and have always tried my best to be a good daughter.

My sister is a heavy drinking, drug taking tramp, who has run up tens of thousands of pounds worth of debt, which they pay off every bloody time. They gave her a car, they let her live virtually rent free in their second house. Throughout her life she's been an abusive, aggressive, manipulative bully, who has taken great delight in getting me into trouble.

Yet she's the one who can do no wrong.

My father is a very weak man, who is bullied and manipulated by my mother. My mother is a self obsessed, hypochondriacal, one woman pity party.

This week they cut me off completely. Admittedly, I did whack my sister, but it's been 30 years coming, and the first time I have ever hit anyone in my life.

They won't even acknowledge the DDs.

My ex family are a complete waste of oxygen.

Me.

It has caused serious social anxieties and phobias in me that makes day to day life difficult. I have not long started counselling and already feel like I am getting somewhere.

im the white sheep of our family.....
which is why i have no contact. suits me.
baaaaaa

Baaaaah! Checking in.

I'm the black sheep of 5, and funnily enough last week I decided I'm done with my parents.

Too much backstory, but most recently my mum had a row with another mum at my daughter's birthday party (for which she will not have been solely to blame, tbf) and I took her arm and suggested a cup of tea, to diffuse situation. That's become me frog marching her out of the village hall and humiliating her. Ignored me (staying at mine) rest of weekend. Wrote shitty, accusatory unsigned letter after . Fast forward 6 months, being a NORMAL person, I include her on my annual family party invitation. Ignored by her, as expected. Also ignored by my father - who was present at party, but appears to have rewritten history. There's a sibling too, still close to them but has confirmed that I did nothing wrong. Anyway, father ignoring my invitation too is too much - I'm out.

Part of the back story not given is them ignoring me previously for 10 years. I'm not inclined to be the one to fix it again. So that's me, black sheep again/still.

' My father is a very weak man, who is bullied and manipulated by my mother. My mother is a self obsessed, hypochondriacal, one woman pity party.'

This describes my parents exactly. No matter what I have done it has always been seen in the worst possible light by my parents.

My DB has also been given tens of thousands and new cars (when he wrecks the old ones). The difference is that I still have a good relationship with my sibling.

I think my mother has always hated me. Accepting that I am happy and productive would challenge the narrative she has lived her life by. I will always be the black sheep.

Out of my brother and I, everyone sees me as the black sheep (excluding my mum and now as we heal, possibly my DB.) I was a victim of severe abuse as a child, developed endometriosis/PCOS before I was a teen, was attacked by an internet predator then a bunch of boys at my school. When I was about 13 I started exhibiting severe anger problems. I screamed, I broke things, I would lose it and kick people like a toddler, throw myself on the floor and have toddler like tantrums. Mum dragged me to a shrink and what happened with my dad was revealed. said I had psychological issues (duh) and had stunted emotionally from when the abuse began. Didn't make life easier or help my anger that my mother kowtowed to my brother's bullying of us because in her own words to me once, which she now denies 'I know you'll forgive me if you take the fall.' So DB always got what he wanted. I had serious issues with him because my father used to say things like 'I love DB more because he's a boy,' etc etc. I had resentment towards him because he wasn't abused. (Horrible, I know)

While my brother became school captain, I missed six months of school bedridden due to surgery. He excelled at maths, my worst subject. He tried very hard to support me, raved to the lit teacher how much she was going to love me (which she did lol) but to me it looked like genetics and fate had chosen him. I don't want to say the things he did to me because they paint him in a bad light, and I do love him very much.

I still have my moments of resentment that he has so quickly risen in the world of politics, has a loving partner, his own home and I still have so many demons to face. But for the first time in a long time, we seem to be becoming a family again. :)

To our extended family, I guess mum + us are 'the black sheep,' I have two very snotty aunts who treated my mother appallingly after she left my father. Their bullying and little white collar dramas make me sick TBH, so to me THEY are the black sheep.

Hell yeah!!!

My parents and siblings are perfect together, then you add me to the picture and I look like an odd piece from a different jigsaw :(

It was really hard growing up, but now I have left home and have my own family it is much better and I don't even think about it any more :)

how do you not think about it any more? Admire those who have found the way through- its such a hurtful, devastating thing and has such stigma attached.

I can tell my friends about my nightmare Dh/Dcs/job/sex life etc etc but my evil mother/sister? No way! It's not something people are comfortable with and yet hard to not be frank about with proper friends....

Am now in my 40s, having therapy to confront my demons as definite black sheep. Tbh would love to have been golden child instead and saved all those sleepless nights and ££s in therapy!
Dsis is confident as anything, optimistic and happy despite having rather dysfunctional relationships with those around her. Narcissism and my mother's endorsement have enabled her to cruise through life, relatively speaking. She also feels entitled to the good things in life/others' positive regard in a way I never am.

So yes Op, my sympathies, I get how you feel.

Here endeth my pity party

A Baaaaaaa!! from me too. In fact, I think I have let my family down by NOT being a drug taking lesbian single parents on benefits, for which I can only apologise.
When I was speaking to Very Toxic Family Member- I remember introducing him to a friend of mine and he just didn't believe my friend had a PhD. Not because my friend came across as thick- but because there was just no way that a Friend of Mine could have a degree

I can laugh about sometimes, but it still causes immense hurt and I don't tend to tell people that I haven't spoken to my family for 6 years now. I still feel the stigma.

I privately think I am the only sane one in a truly insane bunch... but they don't look insane to the outside world. I have some ishoos, mind - not surprising.

my family are sliding-under-the-surface snake-like toxic. Butter wouldn't melt

So daffs, how do u deal with them and your issues? Genuinely interested in other people's coping strategies! Thanks

Me too! And I'm pleased about it these days (after extensive therapy).

My sister is the chosen one, who has also had cars, thousands of pounds etc, lives at home rent free (at 31) and can seemingly do no wrong. She was caught stealing from my parents a few years ago, but that has been rewritten in the history books.

Everything I do has a negative slant put on it by my mother, and my weak enabling father goes along with her. It's almost a game as to what they will come up with next to run me down. Once, just after I got married, my mother's lies culminated in hate mail from her brother which was delightful. Obviously by not wanting to see someone who sends me abusive mail I am bearing a grudge and being unreasonable.

It has caused me much difficulty socially over the years as I spent years believing them that I was difficult, and acted up accordingly. What a waste. I'm almost free now, due to my saint of a therapist and lots of hard work. Some decisions to make soon though.

I'd always, always rather be the black sheep than the entitled waste of space the golden child is.

Glad you're in a better place, Foxtrot, sounds like you've worked very hard to get there and as you say, some tough decision to make.

I'm not there yet myself- fighting through v painful early stages of therapy, confronting problem, accepting its validity and grieving for what I never had (god sounds heavy!) I'm often still in denial though- are they right? Is it me really? Was it so bad? Etc etc

Horrible horrible to be filled with such hatred against ones own family and yet fir that to be the only way through to have personal sense of validity. Sorry if hijacking, your thread aroused a lot of hurt in me, OP.

My dad isn't too bad, it is mainly my mum and sister, who is 3 years younger than me. During childhood, my sister was the favourite. She would speak loudly deliberately to get me into trouble, hit me and tell mum I'd hit her, and if my mum was in a bad mood with me (which was often) then she would be too, and would speak to me in a tone as though I was something she'd scraped off her shoe. My mum mollycoddled her, thought she could do no wrong, and would always defend her if we argued. I remember once getting a very hard slap across my face as my sister said I'd done something, which I hadn't done at all.

In adulthood, my sister is fine with me when she is fine with me, but when she's in a bad mood with me then again she speaks to me like shit. When I'm with her and my mum, she speaks to me terribly, often rolling her eyes or shaking her head when she's spoken. My mum favours my sisters kids over mine, although I think she is getting the message now as each time she does it when we are all together I just go home.

I would cut contact altogether but my dad adores the DCs and I don't think it would be fair on him, although on the flip side perhaps he should have spoken up at some point in the past 36 years about how my mum and sister treat me....

What a great thread! I relate to everything in it.

'My father is a very weak man, who is bullied and manipulated by my mother. My mother is a self obsessed, hypochondriacal, one woman pity party.'
This is also my family set-up.

Growing up, I was the "difficult" child (according to my mother), who was willful and always saying "no".

What a shock it was in therapy years later when I realised that my problem was lack of boundaries, being overly accommodating and not saying "no" when I ought: I had up till then believed my mother's bullshit and thought I was really a nasty and ornery person.

When actually that's what she is.

Thankfully, the people I love and respect (and who love and respect me, yay!) all go a bit and when they meet my mother, so these days I get plenty of validation.

I also cut contact with her and my enabling father 5 months ago, and although I still struggle with my legacy of issues sometimes, I can honestly say I have never been happier.

Me but I'm much better off without them, I only speak to my brother.

My mum tried to get social services to take me away at 15 cos she reckoned I made my brothers naughty. I actually looked after them as she didn't buy us food or clothes or anything we needed or take us to the doctors when poorly or anything.

My mums family still think she did no wrong but I don't care anymore, she is disgusting and has turned my other brother into a suicidal mess.

In a way I think I am but it doesn't really affect me negatively. They're not mean to me, we get on well when we see each other but given that we now live at opposite ends of the country, that's not too often.

I am the eldest of 4, the only one to finish school, go to university and not have a criminal record. I also have a different father.

They think I'm a snob and have delusions of grandeur. I think they're largely dysfunctional, have no ambition and never learn from their mistakes. My mum is the world's biggest martyr and we clash because of that.

But I do love them and them me. There is no animosity and for that I count myself lucky. I do feel like the outsider though, always have.

Yes, he should have spoken up for u by the sounds of it, Hex. He sounds like the weak, enabling father many of us had, I know I did
I love him to bits but don't have much respect for him now, more pity. I used to defend him when we were growing up, should have been the other way round!

Salbertina - that minimising will diminish. It was that bad, and they are definitely not right. Undoing 30 odd years of being told you're in the wrong is hard work, and you will have doubts. Just keep at it!

HotDAMN - I could have written about the lack of boundaries. There were (are) none with my immediate family, and it truly sucks, doesn't it! Do you find that you have strict, verging on slightly obsessive, boundaries these days or does that diminish too?