Black sheep of the family - does it ever change?

[regretnot]

Long and short of it is I am and always have been the black sheep.. I was a difficult baby/child/teen and I have never been made to forget it!

I am the youngest.. my brother always pokes fun and my sister has always been jealous (literally raced to get engaged on the same day and booked wedding weeks before mine) sounds very childish I know!!

my now DH told my mum before he popped the question, kind of asking her, traditional/old school and he asked her to keep it between them and she told both my siblings..

strange dynamics.. no father around.. single parent family, no guidance growing up at all, left to it mostly.. no money, lots of hardship and volatility..

now I have a child and have tried to create a stable home environment and do my kids well.. my family take issue and are jealous, discussing me and my child.. my brother who was estranged for a few years now poking fun at my son and my sister and mum loving it.. I have told him ‘no way is that happening’ in a round about way..

I know I am now a responsible adult, but I’ve realised how much this has all f*cked me up in many ways and I’m trying to undo/change my thoughts about myself and having kids has been monumental for me.. made me see my upbringing in a new light entirely..

my mum even told me she only had me as a playmate for my sister and that when I came along she didn’t bond with me and didn’t hold/cuddle me for days…? Who says that!!!

I had therapy for a year ago but feel I need to restart it..

my confidence and self esteem is so low.. I am a mother now and struggle.. my DH is great but has emotionally become distant..

I wish to be the strongest for myself and my son..

I don’t have any advice, but, as I live this every day, I totally understand your pain.

Grew up in and out foster care, with a mum who was noted to be ‘completely detached’ from me, by a social worker… and yet, the sun shines out of my younger sister’s behind, as far as my ‘D’M is concerned - purely because she’s the only one out of all my siblings and I, who didn’t walk out on her!

As for my siblings, they have all grown up to be extremely self-centred. They had their own DC, whom I did my best to be a good aunt to, babysitting and everything, and then I had one of my pregnancies and children almost completely ignored - even wishing them a ‘happy birthday’ was asking for too much.

I had to pull away from all of them, once I realised that it was greatly affecting my mental health. I want to love and be loved, as soppy as that sounds. Cutting them off, and focusing on my own little family allows me to do that.

I'd had enough lst year and cut my brother out of my life and it has been positive to my life. I'm in touch with my dad and his side of the family.

You have to do what is best for you.

It can be better to be the Black Sheep than the Golden Child if you process it well. The BS gets to see things clearly, from the outside. The GC is enmeshed, in the weeds, with their self esteem dependent on a parent who clearly loves only transactionally.

The BS can be independent and stoic. The GS is dependent and needy.

But it takes a lot of counselling and luck.

It suits them to have you in the position of scapegoat. It doesn't sound as though you are the black sheep, you were merely reacting to a hostile home environment.

You need to distance yourself and really work with the therapy. Join activity groups that you like, well away from the rest do your family. If you can, physically move well away from them.

You need to surround yourself with positivity and loving people. Find a tribe if you can. The easiest way is through hobbies, activities or through parent groups.

And most of all, be kind to yourself. You are now who they are making you out to be.

We absorb what we hear, even if we don't believe it's true. So stand in front of the mirror and tell yourself, out loud, the positive things about yourself. You'll feel foolish at first, but it really does work.

Just some thoughts. Usually in this kind of dynamic the parent is narcissistic. It suits them to play the children off against each other for several reasons.:

The children are always competing against each other (as the dynamic sets this up) and therefore always look to the parent for love and attention rather than each other so there is no loyalty between siblings. This suits the narcissistic parent who can use this to manipulate the children into constantly trying to please them, thus increasing the validation and attention to them, rather than the healthy way which is that the parent gives a healthy level of validation and attention to the children. In healthy families children are treated relatively equally and parents do not foster competition between siblings.

The golden child has to constantly continue to win over the parent because they have become addicted to the excessive validation and attention. They cannot risk losing that because they see what happens to the black sheep and they daren't risk that happening to them. They tend to blame others for what goes wrong. In healthy relationships parents do not excessively validate one child and also hold them accountable when they do unkind things. This teaches them to learn to validate themselves and to hold themselves accountable.

The BS also has to constantly try to win over the parent for the crumbs of love and attention. This is why they still try hard even when the parent is horrible to them. Occasionally, like all narcissists the parent of the BS will give a bit of warmth to keep the child/adult child seeking it out. BSs tend to lack the ability to validate themselves but hold themselves excessively accountable for anything that goes wrong and have to learn that things are not all their fault. They are also unconsciously seeking out that unconditional love and support they missed out on in childhood.

I'm a bit worried when you say your husband is great but also emotionally distant. It's not great for someone who's been starved of love and support to be around someone who also withdraws love and support.

As for the parent you have to learn to drop the rope. This is much harder to do in practice but learning more about narcissistic parents is a great start. With the siblings you have to learn to set boundaries. It is very unlikely that you will ever have the loving, mutually supportive relationships you crave from any of these people but if you can't bear to go NC with them, you can separate yourself from needing emotional support from them, which makes you less vulnerable to their abusive behaviour.

I think it's highly like that you would benefit from therapy and I would recommend that you choose someone who specialises in working with dysfunctional family systems. 'Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents' by Linsay Gibson and 'Drama of the Gifted Child' by Alice Miller are both easy to read books that might help you.

Good luck. And try and remember this: it's not your fault, even though you've been trained to believe it is.

I would say... cut your family out and focus on your child and your husband. Some people never change but even if they do .. at what cost? ?Your divorce? Plus you are outnumbered. I don't think you are going to win this battle so my advice would be to stop trying

Reduce contact with your old family. You don't have to go NC in one step. But you can't have your dysfunctional brother teasing/bullying your children for larks, attempting to replicate your childhood family life because it's all he knows. No need to tell them you're doing it. Just stop inviting them over. Set ground rules for visits (eg agree in advance in case it's not convenient, so you. can control).