I told on my stepfather for raping my sister for five years, when she finally told me what was happening, he was in jail within 24 hours. I was 16, she was 15, brother, 14. He was an abusive fuck to all of us, but he groomed my little sister. I saved her she said. We were then put into foster care.
Homeless, many times from 18 through my 20s. My maternal grandmother had a five bedroom house with only her and her husband living there. Retired, wealthy.
I never understood why she wouldnt take me in, or any of us for that matter. I had wanted a good relationship with this grandmother, I thought she was the most sane. But, I didn’t know at the time who she really was.
She saw me as a bad person, because I aired the truth of my stepfather. Her husband, I found out in the early years of my adulthood, raped all his three daughters, and my grandmother, instead of adressing it and leaving him, protected him, and in turn was mean/abusive to these daughters of hers, my aunts and mother.
Ten years pass, my sister is on a visit with them. I don’t speak with my mother or that side anymore. My sister texts me that my granmother misses and loves me while on her trip. I spoke a little shit, reminding her if she loved me she wouldn’t have left me or any of us on the street, how she’s very superficial. My grandmother was always more interested in what the community would think of her, if she lived the same lifestyle as them, keeping up with the jones’ type shit, than with actually protecting and loving her own family.
Cue my sister saying, “you were always trouble for grandma, you’re always so dramatic”. I’ve heard these words from my mother too.
I never took anything from my grandmother, she never helped me in hard times, nor celebrated me in the good.
I was trouble to my grandmother because I spoke the truth about my stepfather, to save my sister, and she’s was afraid, I would tear into her dirty closet. Took some years for me to work it out. That’s why my grandmother didn’t trust me. The irony of my sister taking my grandmothers side blew my mind.
I’ve a loving family now, so much love, and I’m glad to be the new matriarch, though I do hope my son chooses not to have children. Either way, I protect my family. In ways they never did, love, in ways they never did,
I’d rather be the black sheep than deal with lying idiots. When I heard through the grapevine my grandfather died of prostate cancer, I had a good chuckle.
These are the same people who will, “well, I went through ________ and I turned out alright.”
No the fuck you did not.
Exactly
I’m so glad to read you found your family!
My older sister wasn’t the black sheep until she dropped out of high school and got addicted to crack.
Now she’s a MAGA head and her youngest daughter hates her and her oldest has already disowned her mom and has a great life with two awesome kids.
The rest of my family is fine and gets along well.
Sometimes they’re just black sheep
I don’t really think of that phrase that way. I think of it as “the person that did not follow the family dynamic”. This could either be positive or negative by societal standards.
If the “black sheep” person comes from a crazy racist family, and the person rejects that racist garbage, they might be outcasts from the family for not following the dynamic, but they’d certainly be the better person in my opinion. Conversely, if the “black sheep” person is career criminal, and the rest of the family is law abiding, then the person with the “black sheep” title would the more traditional agrarian reference to black sheep in the herd and be an outcast from the family for their criminal behavior.
This.
Someone who’s just too different from the rest of the family.
I know people who got cast out for stupid reasons but also people who kind of did it to themselves. There’s never a systematic way to decide this.
Yeah, we cut off communication with the trumpet in my family. He and his wife died of Covid a couple years ago.
This post gives Reddit vibes where everything is black and white and the contrarian is always right
I’m sure there are families where this exists so cleanly, but the truth for most families is probably in the middle
I’m 100% sure that my black sheep family member was just born an asshole, and talk radio told him for decades that it’s OK to be a racist asshole, so he leveled up to that quickly. His bad decisions as an adult were his alone based on greed and short-sighted “I’ll get away with it!” racist-privileged assumptions.
Everyone else in the family is mostly relatively fine, and no one would have gone out of their way to traumatize child 4 of 5.
Exactly. The black sheep is simply someone that doesn’t fit in, for whatever reason.
Sometimes they are the one nice person in an asshole family, like OP implied, but equally they could be the one asshole in a nice family.
“Black Sheep” says nothing about the individual identified as the sheep. The only constants in the situation are that the large group, the family, will always think they are in the right and there is something wrong with the sheep, while the sheep will always think he or she is in the right and there is something wrong with the family.
Who is really in the right will vary.
This. Black sheep at age 10: yeah, I gues smistakes were made by the family.
Black sheep at age 50: That guy had 30 adult years to go to therapy and get his act together. At a certain point one can’t blame their messed up childhood anymore.
Turns into a generational thing as well: “I only messed up raising you because my dad messed up raising me and his dad messed up raising him”. Nobody takes the responsibility to fix anything and instead just blames everyone before them.
Meh- it simply means a person who’s behaviour or values do not align with the rest of the family. Anything else is speculation.
Or your uncle that stole your car yo sell it for meth.
Yeah. Apologize to your uncle for traumatizing them.
Eh. In my case it was because I didn’t wear the right clothes and colors that fit into what they deemed the perfect Christian son. Like literally going to church multiple times a week, super involved in church fundraisers and such, but because I liked wearing black I got shunned. Stupid shit. Opened my eyes early on to how these religious groups will pick anything to hate someone.
sorry but some people are just assholes. i can’t blame the parents when only one of the bunch of their kids just can’t get along with anyone. I’m not saying it’s their nature; but “nurture” isn’t always just the family.
If you had a parent with Narcissistic personality disorder then this can be totally true and I agree, but if not then you can’t be sure
Ehhh i wouldnt say you could say for sure. I know some black sheep that very much deserve it.
I’ll elaborate on that some black sheep have larger undiagnosed issues due to historical not knowing better. I have a large extended family with a tonne of undiagnosed ADD. the black sheep uncle has said ADD coupled with substance abuse/addiction issues. When you take that with the prevailing society 40 years ago you can guess which way it went. Fast forward his son also has substance abuse/addiction issues and diagnosed bipolar along with undiagnosed ADD. I personally have diagnosed ADD and undiagnosed mania.
Point being, many black sheep are probably just a victim of the times and a lack of understanding.
Yeah but I’ve never seen a scientific study that demonstrates which version is more common, not to mention that you’re ignoring implications of cause and effect.
Not always. My dad was the black sheep of the family because he was fucking crazy. It was a self imposed moniker. “Everyone was out to get him,” despite constant love and support from his family, especially his mom who is a goddamn angel.
Bipolar drug addicts are not fun. Not fun at all.
I knew a family who’s “black sheep” situation happened because of unreported pedophilia. They should’ve reported it, sure, but the victim is an adult now and just wants to move on, and the sheep in question fled the state.
So no.
Being traumatized and ostracized exists but sometimes people get the black sheep treatment because that’s the least they deserve. I wouldn’t assume anything about a situation like that.
Yup. Had a great-uncle who was the ‘black sheep’ for this same reason.
Of course, back in those days you didn’t report it, you just made sure to not let the kids around them and ostracized them from most social events, because reporting it was ‘airing the dirty laundry in public’.
this is assinine. It also proudly displays the “everything is everyone else’s fault” mentality which is deeply, profoundly toxic.
People with good mental health dont kbsess over the past.
The way that you’re treated by your family today is (usually) the same way you were always treated by them. People with good mental health grieve this loss and then move forward. Grief work takes a lot of time.
I concur
How do you agree? Grief work involves as you call it “obsessing over the past”.
Fucking lol
Sometimes. Other times you’ve got a sociopath, psychopath or - worst of all - a flaming narcissist on your hands.
The black sheep is the victim of the narcissist’s family.
