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.

I'm the black sheep of my family. I know that whenever something happens in my life it is purely fodder for their gossip, and if it's something frightening or dramatic they kind of get a vicarious thrill, and make it all about them - my ill health was a feeding frenzy. I am a great scapegoat, and can be blamed for most things, despite living in a different country.

I've made my peace with it all, as far as one can.

Petite, with you on living in a different country, definitely helps! Can be even more isolating though, don't you think?

I found it was more isolating at the beginning - and I think the black sheep status happened because I am too far away to stand up for myself - but I kind of like being isolated from them now. If they want to amuse themselves dissecting the parts of my life I choose to share, and blaming me for pretty much everything then it's their fun / problem. I'm too far away to stand up for myself, of course, but I'm also too far away to care that much anymore.

I have my own family now - DH and the DC are just far more important and, thankfully, also too far away to be poisoned.

has moving to another country helped Petite? out of sight/mind type of thing.

x-post

Dh is the black sheep in his family, and boy it is obvious. The shame is he lies to himself in hope they one day 'accept' him, he also doesn't have the word 'no' in his vocabulary and does everything they ask including giving them money, being emotionally bullied with nasty words and he also sits there whilst mil slags off one of our dcs.
Im hoping he wakes up soon and smells the coffee soon as i hope not to have to see them again especially after mils latest comment about my pfb dd having chinese eyes lil chinese boy she saw on the tv!!
Dhs sisters get preferencial treatment, lavish gifts for bdays/christmas, dh gets socks & £10 !

I so totally belong in this herd. I too grew up to the soundtrack of 'you're so difficult, awkward, over-emotional, selfish'. 'Things would be fine if you'd just shut up about it, put up with it, deal with it, grow up' etc. all within a family that looks fine on the outside. I cared so much and kept trying to fix things, be better, gooder, more self-controlled, perfect. Couldn't ever win that one!

It was a revelation when my psychiatrist (long history, severe clinical depression, suicidal, parents not interested!) told me I had to be MORE selfish and act to save myself instead. And 14 years of therapy later and I STILL go into new situations to meet new people with a little voice telling me 'be careful, you know you are not very nice, don't be difficult or people will see the horrible real you'. It's poisonous stuff. I find myself totally incapable of judging any situation, 'was that right', 'did he mean that?', 'she says she likes me, is she just being charitable?' etc. I have no ability to trust my perceptions. I run a thousand ways of interpreting what just happened through my mind, but cannot identify which one is true. And anything which seems to imply I am nice and liked simply gets rewritten.

But I'm working on it. And it's getting better. So Baaaaaaa!

Permanently- ikwym, uncertain sense of self, find it hard to make decisions etc. meant to be due to not bring validated as a person, I think. Therapy's helping me too but long/expensive process!
Petite- are u in France? Just wondered from name.

long/expensive process

worth its weight though.

long/expensive process

worth its weight though.

^^I totally agree with this! I don't think getting my life back could ever be considered not worth the money.

I am saddened by all the stories on this thread, and concerned at how many of us have the same scenarios played out and the same issues. Thanks Hex for starting this!

You reckon? Hope so though scarpered from my session this week, cdnt face it after "motherly" email...

Me too because I dared not to put up with their rubbish and moved away and set up my own life.

All the others got money for birthdays till their own children were born. I got it till I was 15. Grandparent says its because I wasn't around but I only moved when I was 23

PermanentlyOnEdge I still get told I am over-sensitive, every time I react in any way to the goading. Since I've spent a fair amount of the last couple of years pregnant / ill / recovering from an accident / all three at once pretty much anything I say is put down to pain / hormones. And there's no point in denying it, as that just seems to validate their opinion. For me, being the black sheep is having the sense of self squashed, and any opinions being held to be invalid.

Phone conversations with most of them are exhausting, and I would actually lose sleep over them and the crap they came out with until I reached the "I have a new pack now" mindset. Now I just try and switch it off.

Salbertina yes, I am in France

as a single parent on sun hols with my kids, to make sure I had some peace from the kids, I learnt to keep completely still, like a plank of wood on the sunbed. I kept an eye on them from behind sunglasses but if I moved, or made any indication that I was alive and awake, it was 'muuum' etc. That's what it's like with my family: plank of wood and they're happy. don't talk, no opinion, no humour - definitely don't address, however mildly, intense and vicious bullying. Truly, all hell breaks loose if I make any indication that I'm human, alive and awake. Hence, NC. They became fairly placid when they clubbed together and discussed various MH dx (downloaded) about me - it was quite a project for them for a while. I've had years of them looking at me askance/alarmed if I speak - regardless what I say, no matter how run of the mill. When they presented me with their findings, I was chided to grasp the nettle and face the fact that I'm mad. They reasoned that the last person to know they're mad are the mad.

ironic really

yeah I def am (we've talked about this before springy)
parents are both dead now but keep arms' length from siblings
It took a fair swipe at my self esteem tbh

liking your plank tip btw might try that one out this hols

There is a real pattern here with the hypochondria and inflexible thinking.

Obviously, we are not representative, but the black sheep seem to have done relatively well compared to the golden ones.

Salbertina, springydaffs, foxtrot!! Yes! V long and horribly expensive. The worst bit was 3xweek for 6 years! And then there was 6 years with my psychiatrist once a week before that. And 3 months on an acute psychiatric ward. It has been a thousand hours or more now, but I have a life to live in place of a mere excruciating minute by minute wish for it to end. I wake up each day and I'm so glad I met my DP, have my DC and know what it means to be happy. Therapy saved my life and gave me myself. I'm only grateful I was lucky enough to be able to have it.

Petite-the new pack (herd!) mentality is important for me too. It helps me stand up to them and demand that they see ME, if they want to see the DC.

Yes I definitely agree with the hypochondria and inflexible thinking. This thread is so interesting to me because I'd never seen myself as a black sheep before. It's not that my younger sister was seen as better than me, but that I got a lot of the emotional crap, where she wasn't used in that way.

I liked this, by PetiteRaleuse "For me, being the black sheep is having the sense of self squashed, and any opinions being held to be invalid."

It got to the point that I wouldn't even consider trying to get my voice heard, would hide any problems I had, as the attack from above would be so vicious. I still feel helpless and like a horrible selfish person even after a short phone call with DM.

I still feel this, that Salbertina said, "I'm often still in denial though- are they right? Is it me really? Was it so bad?"

I need to get to the point where I believe that it wasn't me that was bad, and where her opinion of me isn't so important.

Those of you who have spoken to therapists about your family issues, have you found its been worth it?

Do you think you would have eventually got there without their help?

No I don't (think I would have got there without therapy). You come on leaps and bounds in therapy, even though it can be painful. Just having someone validate you, say 'what they do is horrible and abusive' is priceless. If you read it in a book it doesn't go home quite so well - there's that voice that says 'ah yes but I really am awful - this applies to other people but not to me'.

books are great but therapy has been priceless. actually, vital imo.

So true. I would tiptoe round the house and not speak if I could avoid it ( which was also wrong) so I could disappear and be left alone. And I still wonder whether my friends really do like me or not. I just don't get why anyone would sometimes. Same goes for DH and he kids sometimes as well. But finding my own herd has made me challenge the status quo and finally say/ do things and I think my dad is finally seeing me a bit more clearly.

I just lost a really long post! That's so annoying!

Bonkey the truth is I wouldn't be here without it. My therapists undid years of toxic parenting, and then essentially did the job themselves. (My psychiatrist was a man and my therapist a woman, luckily). The first held me together long enough for all the bits to start forming a healthy person for the first time, and the second challenged every negative thought for over ten years. It's been exhausting, but amazing, and I certainly couldn't have done it alone, it was all too ingrained.

^No I don't (think I would have got there without therapy). You come on leaps and bounds in therapy, even though it can be painful. Just having someone validate you, say 'what they do is horrible and abusive' is priceless. If you read it in a book it doesn't go home quite so well - there's that voice that says 'ah yes but I really am awful - this applies to other people but not to me'.

books are great but therapy has been priceless. actually, vital imo.^

Yes, yes, yes!
What was odd was how often I went round in circles, covering stuff I'd done before, with a sense of, 'oh god are we back here again', and then on some random visit, 13th, 20th, there'd be a lightbulb moment and a MASSIVE shift in thinking.

Yep another black sheep here. My mums a narc. Ive only realised this in the last couple of years. But it is so much better once you have full awareness of your situation.