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.

Rather the black sheep than the golden child. What a horrible legacy.

My golden sibling was always 'the best' without learning how to work for it or understanding that love, respect etc has to be deserved. He would be a whole lot happier now if someone had taught him that as a child. He would have been a much happier and better person if he had been loved unconditionally despite his faults - loved enough, dare I say, for someone to care enough to sort him out when he was behaving badly, to prepare him to be an employee and a partner and a father....

I was never going to be able to match my sibling. I have always been second best - because that was the place reserved for me, to make him look good and justify his golden status. So I have struggled all my life with poor boundaries, terribly low self esteem... And yet I am highly valued at work because I work so hard and care so much about getting it 'right'.

And now I am a mother myself I realise that my mother's responses to the needs of her children were not normal. It wasn't me - the damage was done to my grandmother, who damaged her daughter, who damaged my mother...

Funnily enough, I only really understood when my stepfather was dying. My mother is an identical twin and her twin moved in to help when he was in hospital. My aunt's first move was to get rid of me as best she could by telling me not to phone or visit. Now, my aunt is a virtual stranger to me - she looks like my mum but I have never got to know her. She told me that my children didn't care about their grandfather because 'he's just an old man to them' (despite having rarely seen my kids in her life or seen them interact with their grandfather). I suddenly realised that it is all about perceptions - my aunt had never considered my stepfather as anything other than husband to her sister, so she assumed that everyone else felt the same. She had a 'story' in her head about being the only person her sister could rely on in a crisis - and then along comes a pesky daughter to muck it all up by being a bit useful as well. She refused to eat any of the food I brought to the house. She interrupted a toast I made to my stepfather at his wake.. all beacuse it didn't 'fit'.

Fuck 'em, I say.

I realised things would never change when I told my parents I'd got a new job.

'so you couldn't take the pace at ?'

'no, I just accepted a better offer, this is a exactly what I want...'

'would reconsider if you promised to do better?'

'er I handed my notice in to them, due to new job offer...'

I've always excelled at work, but my parents are so convinced that I am the difficult one that it doesn't make any difference.

My golden child brother is more messed up by our dysfunctional family than I am.

They rejected me, so it was easier to walk away, find a new pack.

God so much better in the long run to be black sheep, than golden child.

But it is still hard work sometimes dealing with the legacy.

Do any of you find social situations exhausting sometimes? I find I doubt my interactions, convince myself people don't really like me or take things the wrong way.

So glad I found this thread

Well, I might be self-pitying but I wouldn't mind a bit of someone in my primary family thinking I was wonderful! re the golden child. yy it's horribly dysfunctional and they have a raw deal of it ultimately, for sure. But to have always been treated like a tiresome, troublesome shit who is not allowed to speak re the scapegoat. erm I can't honestly say I'd rather have had that tbh.

Springydaffs I understand that

I suppose I meant that for me anyway, being the black sheep means I am different to them and I see through the bullshit and the dysfunction.

Golden children are not loved unconditionally, anymore than the scapegoat. They still have to say the right lines, know the script.

Usually they are left with very little insight and just repeat the dysfunction

yes that is true - golden children are not loved unconditionally any more than the scapegoat is. But to have all that attention and hear all that praise, even if it's fake and ultimately barbed, the brain doesn't distinguish, even if the heart does.

Golden children are not loved unconditionally, anymore than the scapegoat. They still have to say the right lines, know the script.

My DSis was the golden child. Whereas I have no memories of feeling fully happy in myself as I was already 'getting it wrong' at 3, it took her until she was 38 to realise this, and to find out that in her own way she was as messed up and as unable to set proper boundaries as me. She now calls it a golden cage, and talks of the pressure of having to conform to their stereotype. She had a breakdown too, and therapy, though nothing like as long winded. We are, at last in our forties, finally able to be friends.

I really wish I understood why our parents felt the need to do this to us.

they are sick people, tis all (all! LOL)

I don't mean to be flippant, but how can we take it seriously? they are sick people who don't know how to love, very probably because they have never been loved and don't know what it is.

It is why I wish my brood of vipers well. In one sense they don't know what they are doing. I don't want them even to brush past my life - because they are so sick and poisonous. I just want to drop kick them into space and hope they don't fuck up anybody else. all the best but fuck off.

Yes, I the black sheep too.
It does upset me, individually they are fine but together they are vile.

Happily we don't get together much these days.

"but how can we take it seriously?"

You are right of course- but one thing I can never get my head round is..... This is my family, who are supposed to know me better than anyone in the world and the don't accept me for what I am. So how could anyone else love me?

Mardy "how could anyone else love you" You would be surprised. We are conditioned by this society, and expressions like "blood is thicker than water" to think that family is everything. And for some people it is. But I think a lot of posters on this thread will agree when I say the best love I have received, and the people I can count on most, are not part of my birth family. They may be part of my new family - husband, children - but are also friends.

My family would deny completely that they don't love me, but they don't treat me in a way that loving people should. It took me a long time to realise (and several very screwed up relationships with men) that I deserve to be loved purely and properly, and that my expectations of love, as shown by my family, were just far too low.

For some people family and the conept of family love fits into the social norm. For a lot of us it doesn't, and once we realise it doesn't have to be like that we can make lasting and loving relationships on our own. I don't know if that makes sense?

I'm in my 50s and have battled with this my entire life, so maybe I'm a bit further on timewise? I've had buckets of therapy too - and, as I said, a top-up is in the offing (we have to keep ourselves sane in this 'artificial' way, when we have families like ours..). I suppose my family has just gone so far this time that I've at last got it: that the way they treat/ed me has everything to do with them and nothing to do with me.

How could it have to do with me when, in a fairly recent blow-up with my dad, he accused me of something I had done when I was 6

FFS . He was totally straight-faced about it and considered it a legitimate point. ffs! he was my dad, supposed to love me.

Here's the thing: he didn't. HIs failing, not mine.

I think it was Eva Braun, Hitler's wife, who was described as the 'girl in a golden cage'

It is an apt description, for the parents who do this are dictators of their own family unit.

Control is what they crave through all the dysfunctional tricks in the book, triangulation, divide and conquer, gaslighting, brainwashing, role assignment.

I wish society would wake up a bit. It is odd that people will obsess over abuse stories in the press, they know the depravity humans are capable of against their own.

Yet it is really hard for people to accept in real life that some mothers don't love their children and would actually damage them. Yes the usual responses 'but she is your mum, she loves you really.'

If I ever said to anyone in my family that I didn't believe they loved me they would deny it completely, with perhaps one exception. And when I did say a while ago to my mum that I felt like the black sheep she said "oh well you would think that" and completely dimissed it.

I think she believes she loves me, as do my siblings. That doesn't stop them damaging our relationship. In fact you could argue that it is people who love you who are capable of inflicting the worst psychological damage.

"Do any of you find social situations exhausting sometimes? I find I doubt my interactions, convince myself people don't really like me or take things the wrong way."

Yes definitely agree.

I've always felt like less of a person, somehow. Like there was something wrong with me, and any negative remarks addressed to me are difficult to shake off as I can take them as being affirmation of what my parents said/did.

Agree MinimD It comes back to the sense of self being destroyed for so long. My confidence in myself and my attitude to social situations have improved so much since I realised and accepted I was the black sheep and needed to find my own pack.

Yes that is the thing, they really believe they do love you. But it is their own dysfunctional way of loving. For some that is enough, others can accept the limitations and have some kind of relationship.

However for me, it was not worth it. Acting the script, well it would feel like selling my soul now.

And interestingly I was the golden child until I stood up to them, I was sick of feeling they only loved me for my A grades and successes.

I soon became the scapegoat though, roles can be changed to suit their world view. It is cognitive dissonance.

Me too sarahstratton change Dsis to DB + I could have almost written your reply word for word myself.

All your stories strike such a chord! Slightly different in that I started off being the golden child (18 months btwn me and dsis). All changed when I was 5 and we moved back to the UK and my mother's DM came to live with us.
She undermined everything about my mother in the same way as DM does with Dsis and I. As part of that, DM was wrong about Dsis being the 'evil one', that was now me!
Was only when I had DCs of my own that I realised how very fucked up DMs parenting was. Seeing her do the things to my babies that had so screwed up Dsis and I was a revelation.
Since then, I have realised how very badly DM was parented by my grandmother - who is still an unholy terror at 98.
DGM was orphaned at 1 and had an appalling childhood.

I am not angry any more but I have very firm boundaries with DMs family.
From having an extremely tense and fraught relationship with Dsis, we are now building a wonderful adult friendship based on trust, love and respect.

Since losing my father and regretting the resentment I had towards him for not protecting us better and eventually taking refuge in drink (DM really was appalling when we were small and we kept being moved from schools when teachers etc realised things were not right) I don't want to have regrets when DM dies.

I involve her in our lives but have to constantly police the boundaries. I'm not scared of standing up to her when she pushes them and I don't feel guilty at the raging and martyrish flouncing any more.

It was initially hard to persuade DH to be careful with her but he's seen exactly how impossible she is now. He also loves her very much but is aware that she can't help but be poisonous. Being able to laugh at her antics with DH and Dsis totally draws the sting.
I love my DGM and my DM very much. I am fully aware of how toxic they are (DM has told a fair few members of her family that she doubts our most recent child is my husband's!) but recognise that they are victims themselves.

I used to get very upset at the (constant) nasty rumours DM would spread about me but have decided that people will believe what they want and so I don't engage. Tough at first but now I genuinely don't care.

Have never had counselling but am very keen to end this cycle and make sure I don't repeat the pattern with my DCs.

Reading all your stories and remembering my younger years has made me aware that I am probably a bit scapegoaty with my eldest (DS, 12). There is a big gap and he can often be too rough/impatient/unreasonable with his younger siblings. He is also at that age where he's just starting to be a bit of a sulky teen to boot!
When disagreements occur at home, I think I may be a bit too ready to think the worst of him and give the youngest the benefit of the doubt too often.

Anyone else feel that the pattern may be repeating itself despite our best intentions?

Perhaps we can support each other to make sure this generation is not blighted by the uncertainty and lack of self worth we've fought so hard to overcome?

Have started by making a list of DS1's best qualities and traits and will write down 5 things every night that he has done well that day and make sure to tell him how well he did.

Am also going to try and back up his authority over the littlies and give him some of the rewards of responsibility instead of just the chores.

Does anyone else feel that the roles changed within the family? I had times of being the golden child and times of being the black sheep and it would all depend on how much of my mum's BS I was prepared to listen to at any particular time. I'm firmly back in black sheep land now This inconsistency in her/their behaviour is so unsettling and so maddening and actually quite scary.

I relate to so much of what you all have said. I've been in weekly therapy for 2 years and it's helping more than I can say, although it is agonisingly painful at times. In yesterday's session, I was talking about some of the words my parents would use to describe me - 'stubborn', 'difficult', 'don't listen', 'impossible to advise', 'headstrong'. They just wanted me to do what I was told at all times. The worst thing was, my dad would make a big show of having a 'discussion' with me, pretending that it was a fair and frank exchange of views, whereas it was really just a session to put the thumbscrews on me.

So so so so hurt and angry, like so many of you on here.

Having a crap family means that you have to work hard to have supportive people around you, it doesn't just happen. I'm lucky that I have a wonderful DP and amazing friends and they have become as important as family to me.

'You're just an empty cage girl, if you kill the bird' - Tori Amos

Arseface, well done for noticing that you may be favouring one of your children over the other and taking steps to put it right. Don't underestimate the effect that your own childhood will have on how you parent your children. There is so much of parenting that is unconscious - I work with parents and I see it all the time, parents who would swear that they love and treat their children equally actually treat them incredibly differently based on all sort of things (their gender, their place in the family, their personality etc)

I highly recommend counselling if you think it may be for you. You are obviously amazingly strong to be able to let go of your anger and have your DM in your life, but on your terms

Thanks Lotta 'tis a work in progress with having DM's family in our lives though. Am happy to drop contact the moment it looks like damaging my LOs.

I think most parents do love their children but that can mean so many different things and can even include the most appalling abuse .

Those of us who have been parented badly have to be aware of the likelihood that we will unknowingly do the same. Those early models are such a part of who we are, we have to consciously challenge them.

Another thing I find myself starting to do with DS is make him feel bad about how he makes me look.
Eg. if he's coming somewhere with me I hate him being 'surly', actually he's quite shy, and 'scruffy' wearing baggy clothes he can hide in a bit.

I remember my DM regarding us as just satellites of her with no other identity and viciously stamping out any hint of feeling differently to her. Made me feel tiny and empty.

This thread is fantastic, thank you Hexagonal.

Both DH and I have been feeling disquiet about our relationship with DS recently but this has given me some real clarity on where I might be going wrong.

My OH is the black sheep and it is very hard watching the criticism of him from the sidelines (he would never want me to challenge them directly) He has in the past led what you could call a party lifestyle but at the same time ran a business had a mortgage etc. They talk as if he is an addict living in the gutter.

I spoke with his much younger brother at the weekend and he said "he has had quite a few failed relationships hasn't he" I told him no more than any of his siblings. He has in fact had two 15 year relationships (with no children) and then myself with virtually no-one in between. Hardly a serial philanderer, all of his DB's and/or their wives are on their 2/3/4 relationships with kids and step/kids dotted around. Now I know this is the way of the world nowadays but its OH thats painted as the fuck up.

Its as if OH's family have painted him in the role of family whipping boy and are not happy to relinquish him of this role. He is a wonderful father now to DS and is very hands on with him, and is quite able of looking after him (I get to have coffee in bed while he deals with DS in the morning) but they were shocked I was 'mad' enough to leave DS in OH's care for a couple of days. Another brother admitted that he had missed great chunks of his childrens growing up and one recently was caught out smoking what he shouldn't of, at a camp he was at in an official role..... but OH is the black sheep. I could go on and on